Movement as Leadership is an evidence-based, dance-based, leadership development and team-building modality that increases authentic social connection at work. MAL aims to fight the loneliness epidemic and reduce employee attrition, starting with pilot workshops at Pixar and UC Berkeley Haas.
Black Girls Dreaming is a multimodal sensory art installation that epitomizes the value of art for social change. The installation brings to life the multiple and often contradictory experiences of Black girls. It is a place for Black girls to hear, see, smell, taste, and witness their own lived experiences. As suicide rates among Black girls continue to rise we are compelled to create this space as a communal healing space for Black girls and allies to join us in our efforts to make the world a more livable and safe place for all Black girls. Further, this silent art exhibit features interactive art rooms exploring topics related to the multiple experiences of Black girlhood. Each room in the exhibit is a carefully created space that features the art work of Black girls across the African Diaspora.
Dharavi slum in Mumbai, India, which boasts a unique economy and culture, is currently threatened with destruction due to the government’s plan for redevelopment. This project seeks to use theater as a means of uplifting community voices to preserve the neighborhood. Through a series of workshops, young participants will develop creative means of telling their personal stories about the positive aspects of their community, as well as the challenges they face. This will culminate in the creation of an original show, which will be performed for both slum residents and the greater Mumbai area, celebrating community voices and combating negative perceptions about the slum. The project also serves as a means of qualitative data collection in a severely under-researched area. This project seeks to promote a humanizing perspective of a particularly marginalized group of people with the hopes that the government and wider Mumbai society will learn about the wealth of culture Dharavi holds.
While the battle for gender equity continues, girls have to be prepared to succeed in society as it stands. That requires the confidence to fight for a seat at existing tables and the confidence to create new ones. Plainly stated, girls need educational and engaging spaces. Mindset & Milestones seeks to address the problem of self-efficacy, confidence, and opportunity deficits for girls by introducing them to entrepreneurial learning curriculum. The primary delivery of the curriculum will be via the workbook “Mindset & Milestones: A Girl’s Guide to Thinking Like An Entrepreneur” and in-person workshops. Entrepreneurship is not only a powerful way to exercise problem-solving skills, but it also allows girls to find the value in their ideas and find a way to succeed in the face of adversity. In the end, the vision is for girls to leave programs feeling like they have the ability to create something from nothing and contribute to any environment.
Over one billion hours of video are uploaded to the internet daily. Deepfakes, videos manipulated using deep learning techniques, represent a tiny fraction of those videos but are growing rapidly, doubling in the past nine months. Deepfake quality is improving to the point where the best are unidentifiable by human reviewers–and already have been used for nefarious purposes, including inserting a person into pornography or manipulating politics. As a result of the growing quality and ability to insert Deepfakes into a sea of uploaded content, the risk of their spreading and causing damage for content hosting companies is increasing. It is critical to be able to identify and react to Deepfakes by flagging or removing them. FakeNetAI’s Deepfake detection technology enables content hosting platforms to detect Deepfake content to counteract this growing threat. FakeNetAI’s technologies allow companies to respond to the threat even as Deepfakes continue to grow exponentially.
The majority of American adults think global warming is happening, but almost half of American adults do not think it will affect their personal life. This is because of political bias and psychological distance to the consequences of climate change. Many projects, such as video-blogs, summer camps, and public outreach activities have been tackling these challenges to increase public engagement and desirable attitudes towards environmental problems. Earth Voices is an interactive podcast that guides listeners through an immersive experience, while walking a predetermined route in a city. Listeners would learn more about the different spheres of the Earth system and their relation with society through an embodied experience that will bring them closer to understanding the climate and the modern environmental problems society faces, as well as visualize themselves as part of the solution. Earth Voices will be available for free online and through main podcast platforms.
60% of Americans are suffering from chronic diseases, of which 80% are preventable by a healthy lifestyle. With all of the current options available for health and wellness, we still aren’t preventing disease. Why? The current options are prescriptive, focused on one or two areas of health, and lack a sense of camaraderie and accountability. Enter Viva: a solution to shape the future of preventative health. Viva community centers empower urban women to reduce chronic stress and gain self-awareness through holistic health lifestyle management. Viva’s tech-enabled wellness clubs offer holistic health & wellness education, online and offline resources and community-building to help shift mindsets and create sustainable behavior change. Viva is providing a personalized, accessible and social way to find the lifestyle that makes you the healthiest and happiest version of yourself.
Despite our best intentions, everyday discrimination bubbles up from unconscious biases we don’t realize we have. “Common Objects, Uncommon Purpose” will address this by raising awareness, concern, and knowledge of unconscious bias. In particular, it will target skeptics who may not think bias is a problem. The campaign will use a mixed-media approach that employs humor, cartoons, interactive art installations, and artfully designed practical objects. This project will use public spaces, social media, and our daily lives to start an open dialogue about unconscious bias and its effects. It will empower community members to propel the campaign forward with art, fact, & tact.
Sophisticated technologies, such as virtual reality’s (VR) immersive experiences, allow one to build effective tools to challenge implicit discriminatory bias. This project includes: 1) An art installation: two participants experience stories of racial and gender discrimination in VR. Personal and bio-medical data from the participant’s reactions are collected and visualized. Participants are encouraged to record their own story of injustice and discrimination. 2) A data visualization design project organizes and analyzes the personal, biomedical data and audio recordings, draws objective conclusions and elaborates strategies for corrective measures. The virtual forest is a source of narratives, collaborations and interactions, a data visualization space, and artistic experience in VR. In order to create a culture of inclusion and tolerance, the main goal is to make an impact by allowing participants to “see” their discriminatory bias and feel compassion toward minorities.
