Vilas Dhar

The Biden administration’s recent announcement of a new U.S. Digital Corps is a welcome workforce innovation built on a long American tradition of public service. The ambition for the program as it launches is to meet today’s critical needs, and we hope the program will expand to match the full potential that technology offers for the greater good.

As COVID-19 has shown us, a more robust multilateral and multisectoral approach to preparing for future global challenges is direly needed. By combining state funding and organizational capacity, tech sector creativity and speed, and civil society expertise, we can vastly improve our health systems and build mechanisms capable of better responding - or possibly even preventing - future threats.

The Trinity Challenge (TTC) brought together a broad coalition of global, multisectoral leaders who rarely sit at the same table. The announced winners of the challenge have surfaced innovations that will leave us better able to predict, respond, and recover from the next crisis - and TTC has built the table for collaboration when innovation is needed.

The SDGs are still achievable if we embrace AI and data science as part of a modern development toolbox — these tools will allow us to catalyze aid and resources, to address economic resilience, climate change, and more.

Philanthropy has the opportunity and responsibility to use its position as a platform for collaboration to build an AI-enabled future to address humanity's greatest challenges. Established to convene leaders to engage in the development and governance of ethical A.I. practices and tools, the World Economic Forum Global AI Action Alliance (GAIA) suggest four key ways to advance progress.

The Biden administration announces the raising of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program’s annual cap to 125,000 people — but in order to build a more enduring (and necessary) resettlement program, there must be approval and engagement by the American people.

The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed inequities, deep divides and longstanding systemic challenges. To “build back better,” federal leadership must realize the possibilities of AI and data science, as they set their policy agenda in the first hundred days.

In a world where data has become a driver of both opportunity and vulnerability, nonprofits across the spectrum of social change need to equip themselves to serve as champions for data used in just and equitable ways. To build it back better, they must become data guardians for the constituencies they serve.

COVID-19 has presented our workforce with significant challenges, but also a drive to build back better with a workforce prepared for the digital age. The United States is a global technology powerhouse — for now. Developing critical new skillsets throughout our country — across ages, jobs, career stages, and economic levels – is entirely possible with enough foresight and political will.

To transform how early medical data is shared, reviewed, and published, MIT and UC-Berkeley are developing a new model of academic publishing.

Economic performance, cooperation and productivity are undergoing cataclysmic disruptions. Alongside these changes, data and AI are poised to transform economies and improve societies. To leverage these positive outcomes, governments must move well beyond their current activities and recognize themselves as stewards of their nation’s – and the world’s – AI competitiveness.

Scientific publishing is ripe for innovation. To that end, an open-access overlay journal known as Rapid Reviews: COVID-19 uses the speed of technology to democratize the review process and strengthen the quality of research.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to improve billions of people’s lives – but only if it creates and delivers value directly to those most in need, rather than fattening corporate profits. By harnessing these technologies for social good, today’s new breed of entrepreneurs can bring about lasting, transformational change.

As impact investing tries to make the move from philanthropic thought experiment to powerful instrument for global change, a vital demographic and financial reality is emerging — it’s going to be millennial investors who make or break it.