Designing Shelters for Dignity has recognized a huge problem for emergency housing: homeless shelters are harmful to health, perpetuate trauma, and are stigmatizing. They have taken up the task of renovating and revamping existing homeless shelters to foster a clean, safe, and inclusive environment. Given the proven impact of design on wellbeing and behavior, Designing Shelters for Dignity’s innovation will improve long-term outcomes for individuals battling homelessness.
Year: 2021
Unicado
Plagues of purple sea urchins have eradicated 90% percent of Northern California’s kelp habitat, which is a key combatant of climate change. Ranching urchins for their prized roe is an effective removal solution. Unicado will convert this marine pest into a gourmet delicacy as a packaged food product, ranching sea urchins with an upcycled food waste feedstock. This venture can restore balance to California’s kelp forests through sustainable aquaculture production of a delicious and guilt-free uni product that’s carbon neutral. Consuming purple urchin creates a win-win scenario-good for both people and the environment.
Send Help (Not The Police)
Data from Californian police departments reveal that up to 2 in 3 police dispatches stem from non-violent and non-criminal incidents. 9-1-1 calls for non-violent incidents in the U.S. have led to the brutal police killings of African Americans and at-risk citizens, most notably George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, and Tanisha Anderson. Send Help’s mission is to make calling an alternative first responder as easy as calling 9-1-1. They have built an AI chatbot that connects residents to suitable non-police services for their non-emergency — all within three taps of a button. They aim to reduce exposure to police for at-risk individuals, which can decrease occurrences of police violence and save lives.
KovaDx
Sickle Cell Disease is said to affect 30 million people worldwide, including 100,000 people in the United States. For most of the world, it is too expensive to diagnose, leading to unnecessary childhood deaths. Even in high-income countries, SCD is hard to monitor and even harder to treat. KovaDx provides an AI-based diagnostic and monitoring device for sickle cell and other hemolytic anemias combining 3D phase imaging with deep learning. The point-of-care device can be influential in low-resource areas by affordable and quick tests. Monitoring also aids in the process of treating and minimizing health care costs.
Green Steel Printing
Steel forms the backbone of our modern world, with over 1.5 billion tons of steel produced globally every year. However, the production of iron and steel contributes over 7% of global greenhouse gas emissions, and it will be paramount to reduce those emissions to combat climate change. Green Steel Printing is a proprietary metal 3D printing technology that uses laser heating to directly manufacture steel objects without emitting any carbon dioxide. By fully converting iron-oxide ore to iron with green hydrogen, and then 3D printing steel parts in a continuous laser-powered process, Green Steel Printing has the potential to revolutionize the manufacturing of iron and steel parts into a clean, zero-emissions process.
Catena Biosciences
Catena has developed a novel platform to create cures for diseases previously thought incurable. Catena’s groundbreaking technology enables the attachment of proteins using only native amino acids, allowing for the rapid production of exciting new protein and cell-based therapies. We plan to utilize this technology to bring massive breakthroughs in autoimmune disorders, oncology, and vaccine development.