Today there are 65 million people that have been forcibly displaced, including 22.5 million refugees. As this humanitarian crisis continues to escalate, the international system is struggling to adapt. Only 2% of refugees have access to durable solutions, and the remaining options are long-term encampment, urban destitution, or a perilous informal journey. In each context, refugees lack access to relevant information and services. MarHub is building a migration management platform to transform how refugees and migrants access information and services, and how organizations and governments provide them. Short-term, MarHub’s chatbot will help refugees navigate the asylum process by providing tailored legal information and connections to NGOs. Long-term, MarHub’s integrated case management platform will help migrants and humanitarian actors work together to provide and evaluate information and services. MarHub ultimately seeks to improve access to protection and durable solutions that respect the dignity of people on the move.
Using basic behavioral finance principles and leveraging the Donor Advised Fund structure, GivingFund makes it easier for young professionals to give, give more, and give more intentionally, all through a single, online interface. Users can automatically donate a percentage of their paycheck to their personal “givingfund”. GivingFund pools the capital across funds to invest in the impact investing market, tax-free – giving users access to more deals than the average retail investor. Users can donate the returns and their original principal, to any NGO of their choice – when they want, how they want. By providing space between the monthly payment and the donation experience, and by providing a central spot to track and measure all of a user’s impact throughout the year, GivingFund believes it can turn the pain and obligation of giving that Millennials feel into joy and even excitement, and double the amount of impact capital Millennials deploy.
Better Journey provides a platform for organizations to more effectively engage with refugee communities at scale and track key milestones along a refugee’s path. Through a web based messaging application on the refugee’s phone, caseworkers define milestones for their refugee clients and customize various forms of engagement around those milestones. Caseworkers can send the right message at the right time along a refugee’s journey based on defined triggers to provide reminders, motivation and information regarding milestone targets. Caseworkers can also follow up and solicit information from refugees asynchronously and have responses automatically upload to their current case management system. Finally, Caseworkers can effectively track the progress of their cases and intervene if necessary. Engagement and relationship building are at the core of the platform and the team believes that better engagement leads to a better journey and ultimately better outcomes.
The rise of smartphone usage has changed communication patterns and paralleled an increase in individuals reporting feeling lonely and disconnected, especially amongst young adults. As a result, crisis helplines are expanding their text services to keep pace with new communication trends during a time of growing need. However, tools for training counselors remain time consuming or provide insufficient practice. TextTrainer is leveraging recent advances in natural language processing and partnerships with crisis helplines to build a dialog system to train crisis counselors on how to intervene and de-escalate crises. With this system, counselors can easily practice formulating text responses, get feedback on their responses, and gain expertise in a low pressure setting without putting any individuals in danger, thus helping crisis centers meet the rising demand for their services.
Loom is a platform rooted in life review therapy that guides families to collect, curate, and share digital heirlooms (recipes, videos, voice memos, etc.) for generations. Loom provides a place to organize lasting memories and connect with users’ closest loved ones. Loom is designed to help people easily collect mementos from relatives, the internet, and shoe boxes filled with artifacts to bring together users’ favorite memories enhanced with the stories behind them. Loom guides users with crafted personalized prompts, created by content experts, designed to guide families to tell these stories and attach an annotation (voice or text) to them to store forever. Loom connects people, adding hands-on support to help families explore their heritage, record memories and artifacts, and share legacies.
The Museum of Tomorrow is an immersive, interactive, fun and educational pop-up museum on climate change targeting Millennials to promote behavioral change. Through six interactive exhibits and a behavior change challenge, it translates an abstract and distant challenge into a tangible and immediate experience for the public. Furthermore, the Museum provides easy, accessible, everyday solutions to battle climate change. It attracts audiences by bridging the gap between popular mainstream culture and sustainability with highly engaging and Instagrammable exhibitions. The exhibits are designed to travel after opening for 6 months to reach a wider audience. The Museum will be launched at UC Berkeley and then travel to other UC campuses and cities around the world.
50% of Cambodian American refugees meet criteria for depression, yet only 9% who receive any form of treatment receive therapeutic care. Cambodian American refugees have faced social isolation and mental health issues for over twenty years since resettling. Project គូរ (Kour) connects elderly Cambodian American refugees with culturally related art activities as a means of combating trauma. Sessions take place over the course of twelve weeks, where participants will receive social support, community bonding, and a platform to tell their stories. Each session culminates with an art showcase, inviting the Khmer American community to relate to a shared history via personal narratives. This showcase acts as a fundraiser to promote and finance other mental health interventions for the refugee community.
Last Night is a workshop and fully developed card game that opens up a space for conversations among college-aged players about how to discern when a sexual situation may not be clearly consensual. The emotional and educational impact of Last Night hinges on shifting the perspective in a story that players help write. Competitive gameplay traditions encourage players to collect cards that construct a narrative about a date they hope was successful, but players learn in a post-play epilogue that their date may have seen their actions differently–sometimes as disrespectful or even hurtful. Last Night and its accompanying workshop form a creative tool to inspire conversations about consent and respectful dating behavior.
Based out of The Suitcase Clinic, Artists in Residents provides a meaningful and enriching artistic outlet to Berkeley’s homeless residents, allowing participants the opportunity to grow through their art and gain compensation for their work. Through public events that showcase the artistic side of this underrepresented community, Artists in Residents will facilitate a more complex understanding of homelessness throughout the Berkeley community.
