Happy Holidays! This is our last newsletter before the holidays — we’re really looking forward to taking a couple of weeks off to hang with our families, ski a little bit, and, as always, eat a ton of food. Of course, if you have anything you’d like to share over the next couple of weeks, please just reply to any one of our newsletters — we’d love to hear from you!

Here’s another quote to just carry with you as you cross into new year:

I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it. Make your mistakes, next year and forever.

- Neil Gaiman

As always, if you missed yesterday’s newsletter, you can find it here. Let’s dive into what the community is up to.

Lauren Singer, Founder of Package Free

"My goal in life is to create large-scale positive environmental impact. I was inspired by being involved in activism around the oil and gas industry, reading Rachel Carson’s book, Silent Spring, and realizing that I was so passionate about the environment and sustainability, but that my day-to-day actions weren’t in alignment with that. I would talk about how much I hated the oil and gas industry, but I was subsidizing them every single day, multiple times a day, through consuming single-use plastic products. I felt like such a hypocrite and so I decided to do something about it. I decided to stop using plastic and then trash altogether to live zero-waste in order to align with my daily actions with my values for environmental sustainability."

Check out her journey and more guidance here.

After studying Environmental Science and Politics at NYU, Lauren Singer started a blog called Trash Is For Tossers to make a zero-waste lifestyle more accessible and comprehensible to everyone.

In 2017, she decided to launch Package Free, a little pop-up shop for sustainable CPG brands to show off their wares in a brick-and-mortar environment in Brooklyn. Last year, she raised $4.5 million in seed funding to scale this retail concept.

Learn more about Package Free’s history and vision here.

Free Money for Social Enterprises. Techcrunch released a long list of institutions that are supporting for-profit social enterprises with cash and community support, and in many cases without dilution.

Action Network. An organizing platform for activists.

Social Impact Venture Capital. You can find a list of funds here and here.

CAA. If anybody is looking to get involved with the CAA protests, check these out:

• Protest Posters — printable posters, designed by Anjali Chandrashekar

• Creatives Against CAA — images for social media

• Additional Resources & Information

Tech Jobs for Good helps mission-driven companies hire the best tech talent in the United States. Every Friday, we’ll highlight a few amazing recent opportunities.

• Methods for Inclusion Research Fellow – Partnership on AI · San Francisco, CA

• Civic Digital Fellowship – Coding it Forward · Washington, DC

• Data Analyst (National Justice Database) – Center for Policing Equity · Remote

• IT Specialist – Center for Policing Equity · Los Angeles, CA/New York, NY/Remote

For more, check out their site here. If your company’s looking to post a job and reach purpose-driven and passionate people, please reach out.

Monday: India passed the highly controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) last week, sparking protests across the country – the police have reacted violently and internet access has been shut down in key areas. Also, very little was accomplished at COP25, the global climate summit, primarily because of the US’s refusal to participate.

Tuesday: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is launching the Bluesky project to create an open standard for decentralized social media to address today’s systemic issues. The UN Security Council decided to discuss India’s occupation in Kashmir, driven by a request from Pakistan and China (since the announcement, it’s been postponed).

Wednesday: Mitt Romney and Michael Bennet announced a bipartisan plan to give children basic income to drastically reduce child poverty, and they are hoping to repeal the “stepped-up basis tax” to pay for it. Also, many people criticize technology for the distance it is drawing between people – Alex Pentland from the Human Dynamics Group at MIT Media Lab is hoping to use wearable tech to understand how humans connect with each other to change the way we think about and engage with one another. Finally, India’s Supreme Court declined to block the CAA.

Thursday: The first UN Global Refugee Forum took place in Geneva earlier this week – check out our key takeaways and some resources on how you can help address the refugee crisis. Similarly, as protests continue to surge in India over the CAA, we’ve provided some resources to help you get involved. Finally, impact investing in the emerging markets is a tremendous growth opportunity in 2020, provided that capital moves the right way.

Tomorrow Today

🎟️ We’re thinking February 6th! We’ll have a sign-up link and more details soon.

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are hosting community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food, learn from some seasoned, unconventional activists, and meet others aspiring to change the world!

Why are we hosting this?

For us, community is the center of everything. In an age of prolific digitization, there's a great need for greater human connection. It's almost necessary to carve out time and space to purposefully engage in person. While it's amazing to be able to discuss and interact with multiple people online and exchange stories and insights, we don't think anything beats the experience of sharing a meal.

Igniting Tomorrow

💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding

UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.

Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you every day. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!

If you like what you read, please click on the heart below & continue sharing this newsletter!

Also, please continue to support us by following us on Instagram.

If you ever want to share any feedback or have anything you’d like us to include in the newsletter, please just reply to this email.

Good morning everybody! Hope you’re all getting excited for the upcoming holidays.

As always, if you missed yesterday’s newsletter, you can find it here.

If you enjoy reading Tomorrow, please hit the ❤️ button above and ask your friends to subscribe. If you’ve been forwarded this email and are looking to subscribe yourself, you can do so here.

Here are a few things that have been on our mind:

UN Global Refugee Forum

Over the last few days, I haven’t been writing (major props to Jonathan for covering) — instead, I was at the UN Global Refugee Forum in Geneva to share some of the work that Deloitte has done across the refugee resettlement journey. We met with both private-sector and public-sector players to discuss two of our solutions: 

• Migrant Housing Solution — a data-driven platform supporting resettlement agencies in more efficiently and effectively placing refugees around the country

• A new home at work — a guide supporting employers in building a more inclusive workplace for refugee employees

Aya Mohammed Abdullah, a former Iraqi refugee now living in Switzerland, addresses delegates at the Global Refugee Forum. © UNHCR (Andrew McConnell)

It was an absolutely incredible experience and gave us tremendous insight into the space, both into what’s working and what isn’t. Here are some of my key takeaways:

• Leverage Public-Private Partnerships: This theme was the central focus of the general assembly session, every panel, and one-on-one discussions. Public-sector players, both governments and international organizations, are looking for the private-sector to get far more involved, even more so than they already have — because of both their advocacy power and hiring capability. 

• Involve Refugees in the Design Process: There were a number of refugees present, advocating for their needs and their value to host societies. Their central message was clear — “include us in the process and as you design solutions.” Many have even formed the G-100 Initiative to continue bringing the refugee voice into the spotlight through a series of conferences.   

• Value Localized Actions: International and national solutions have a tremendous amount of potential, but the real impact can only happen at the local level. Mayors of some of the world’s most powerful cities were present to discuss localized solutions and share best practices across. The Mayors Migration Council is an international body looking to share these best practices widely.

All of this should sound familiar to our regular readers — these are the same themes that we try to touch on regularly across the stories we cover. Understanding and applying these themes is going to be very important for every activist.

It was exciting to see the significant pledges made by players around the world to support this population. However, a lot more work needs to be done — there are 25.9 million refugees around the world today, and the numbers are only going up.

If anybody else is passionate about this work and would like to get involved, please reach out! There is a lot you can do, no matter what space you work in. Also, check out these incredible organizations below:

• Upwardly Global: a non-profit supporting refugees and migrants in navigating the job search process; you can either donate or volunteer as a mentor to support refugees through resume review and interview prep

• Tent Partnership for Refugees: an ecosystem player focused on developing private-sector solutions to address the refugee crisis; check them out for inspiration on what your company can do (or may already be doing!)

• International Rescue Committee: an organization providing wide-ranging support to refugees around the world, from education to job support; you can donate or partner with them on corporate volunteering work

Cheers,

Tej

Impact Investing in Emerging Markets

Around the world, more and more private equity funds have been trying to identify and invest in companies that can drive profit and impact at scale.

In emerging markets, the story is slightly different — there isn’t enough money for promising ventures, and the money that does exist is primarily flowing to a handful of later-stage companies (in the form of large checks).

In 2020, ImpactAlpha is predicting that impact investing funds in the emerging markets will start playing a bigger role in supporting “early-stage companies, women and other underrepresented founders, and second- and third-tier cities and towns,” especially as the private equity giants pull-out.

Let’s dive into how the investment landscape may change over the coming year:

• Focus on global fintech and e-commerce. Entrepreneurs are building cheaper and better services for the emerging middle class in emerging markets. Impact fund managers are seeing great returns, and these kinds of investments are safe bets with the upcoming market volatility.

• Female fund managers. Female-led and gender-balanced funds will be critical in driving more capital to “women across the economic value chain,” including female entrepreneurs, suppliers, and customers.”

• Global financial innovation. Emerging markets have become a fantastic testing environment for new investment structures. Latin America is experimenting with outcome-based bonus payments for its agribusinesses, and countries around the world are developing social impact exchanges.

• Development finance. Multilateral Development Banks (MBDs) and other development finance institutions will be continuing to drive more capital towards emerging market impact funds. Some say that these institutions need to take bigger risks to generate higher returns.

• Fund II, III, and IV. Emerging market impact fund managers will be raising follow-on funds, and a lot of the money will come from local investors. This may also open up interesting co-investment agreements to give larger global players access to more dealflow.

• Bigger deals. Deals are going to get bigger, but there is a major risk of companies drifting away from their core mission to maximize profitability. For example, Andela, an African tech-training and job placement venture that recently raised $100 million in venture financing, just cut back entry-level training and employment.

CAA: Latest Updates & Resources

Over the last week, we’ve put a significant spotlight on India’s Citizenship Amendment Act — here are some of the latest updates:

• India has imposed a ban in parts of Delhi and throughout Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka — police have detained thousands who have continued to protest

• Mobile data services have been suspended in parts of Delhi

• Tens of thousands are continuing to protest peacefully around the country, including civil society groups, political parties, student-activists

• Some protests have turned violent, like in Lucknow (UP’s capital)

We are glad to see that people are continuing to protest, and we hope that they can continue to remain peaceful. However, the Indian government’s protest ban and revocation of mobile data services is incredibly worrisome — for a nation that prides itself on being the world’s largest democracy, things are looking very autocratic.

For anybody looking to get involved or more informed, please check out the below:

• Protest Posters — printable posters, designed by Anjali Chandrashekar

• Creatives Against CAA — images for social media

• Additional Resources & Information

Short Takes

• Trump has been impeached by the House on abuse of power and obstruction of justice charges. He will now face trial in the Republican-controlled Senate sometime in 2020, but it is highly likely that he’ll be acquitted.

• The World Economic Forum released the Global Gender Gap report, looking at 153 countries and the progress made towards parity. The Nordic countries have made the most progress — but at the current global pace of change, it will take 257 years for women to have the same economic opportunities as men.

• UN peacekeepers in Haiti sexually abused and impregnated girls as young as 11, leaving behind hundreds of children (this is absolutely disgusting).

Tomorrow Today

🎟️ We’re thinking February 6th! We’ll have a sign up link and more details soon.

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are hosting community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food, learn from some seasoned, unconventional activists, and meet others aspiring to change the world!

Why are we hosting this?

For us, community is the center of everything. In an age of prolific digitization, there's a great need for greater human connection. It's almost necessary to carve out time and space to purposefully engage in person. While it's amazing to be able to discuss and interact with multiple people online and exchange stories and insights, we don't think anything beats the experience of sharing a meal.

Igniting Tomorrow

💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding

UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.

Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you every day. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!

If you like what you read, please click on the heart below & continue sharing this newsletter!

Also, please continue to support us by following us on Instagram.

If you ever want to share any feedback or have anything you’d like us to include in the newsletter, please just reply to this email.

Good Morning! If you missed yesterday’s, you can find it here.

Year-end is usually a great time to consider what’s going to come next. Whether that’s the same hopeless resolutions we make every year about going to the gym more often or reading more books, the future is on everyone’s mind more during this time.

One of the most important things we hope to accomplish with this newsletter is to become a hub for long-term thinking or what Simon Sinek would call an “infinite mindset.” We first discussed this topic in the summer and have been thinking about better ways to help our community connect some related and/or sequential events to a particular long-term view of the world.

In the upcoming year, we’ll have a stronger web presence, that connects these ideas in an easier and clearer way. We’ll also have a few topics/ideas that we’ll be “tracking” towards a long-term objective. The aspiration is that everyone will be able to better digest these goals and create ways to overcome them.

If you want to get involved in exploring the world’s biggest problems and solutions (ie. writing, ideation, design, etc.), please reach out!

- Jon

If you enjoy reading Tomorrow, please hit the ❤️ button above and ask your friends to subscribe. If you’ve been forwarded this email and are looking to subscribe yourself, you can do so here.

Here’s a few things that have been on our mind:

Allowance: Basic Income for Kids

Mitt Romney and Michael Bennet announced a bipartisan plan to give children basic income.

Alex Wong/Getty Images (Vox)

The quick take: Parent’s get a guaranteed $1,500 in cash every year per child (regardless of income) under the age of 6, and $1,000 per child aged 6 to 17.

Doesn’t that exist? Currently, there are $1,000 in benefits per child, regardless of age, that would be given to parents via the Child Tax Credit that is already in the US tax code. However, it’s only refundable for people earning at least $2,500 per year and not only do benefits come through gradually, but there are also limits. Often times, the people who need it the most are the ones who don’t receive it. The poorest Americans don’t receive the benefit due to disability or unemployment and some don’t get the full benefit due to how low their wages are. This new plan would change that.

The impact. This proposal hasn’t been assessed fully, but the research done on previous proposals by Bennet for basic income for kids suggests that this plan would reduce child poverty by millions and make it less severe for millions more.

How are they going to pay for it? Romney and Bennet want to repeal “stepped-up basis.”

What’s that? Imagine you buy a house for $100,000. You, unfortunately, die a few years later but the property has grown to $1 million. Your will passes it on to your kid who then sells it for $1.5 million. Under “stepped-up basis,” your kid would only pay capital gains tax on $500,000, the increased value between inheriting it and selling it. If Romney and Bennet repeal this rule, your kid would have to pay tax on nearly the full value it grew since you bought it.

Tax the wealthy. They’re proposing to increase tax on the very wealthy to fund a benefit directed at poor and working class families.

It’s looking good. Romney was the first Republican senator to officially endorse the idea and his involvement increases the odds that some kind of refundable benefit makes it into the eventual bill.

India’s Supreme Court Declined Block

Update on India’s controversial citizenship bill.

First hearing results. Supreme Court declined to block the new law despite the petitions challenging it.

What they’re requiring. The court told the government to respond to these petitions that claim the Citizenship Act violates the Constitution. The court will listen to the next case in January.

The current fears. The government recently announced that it plans to carry out a “widespread exercise” to find “infiltrators” from other countries. Some Muslim citizens believe this means they need to provide extensive documentation that proves their ancestors lived in India. If they can’t, they fear they could be made stateless.

Modi’s response. The law “will have no effect on citizens of India, including Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Christians and Buddhists.”

Technology that connects

Is this our present and future? People are more and more alarmed on how technology has disrupted human connection. It seems like many of us are viewing our most precious moments through a screen. Instead of watching it live, we’re obsessed with recording it. But, there’s always hope. A pioneer of wearable technology explores how technology could act as a way to better connect us than separate us.

Being aware. Alex “Sandy” Pentland, head of the Human Dynamics group at MIT Media Lab asks the question:

“Are you embedded in your social surroundings?”

What he’s asking is how aware are you of your place and contribution to the community around you.

His thesis. Pentland believes that:

“if technology made it possible for people to know how much, or how little, they invested in each other and their communities, they might give more priority to what’s important (other people) and less to what they think is important in the moment (work, bingeing Netflix).” (QZ)

If we had this information, this data would help us make better decisions. We’d plan our weekends differently and the overall community would design cities and businesses to maximize belonging and safety.

Enter wearable tech. People are obsessed with tracking. Whether that’s looking at how many steps you’ve taken in a particular day or your heart rate or even likes on social media, we want to measure it all. Pentland believes wearable tech could not only make tracking easier, but allow us to track something completely different.

What he wants to study. Pentland, instead of looking at the individual, wants to analyze the community and ultimately measure “human connection.”

“We find that 50-90% of behavior is habitual and predicted by your network of social relationships… Most of human behavior fits into the local community—your community—what you value and choose, so studying groups is important because that accounts for the majority of what you do.”

All of this requires new metrics and ways of understand human connection. We need to be able to measure how we invest in our direct communities and how we can explore new communities.

More tomorrow. We’ll continue on the idea of measuring human connection and what this could mean.

Short takes:

• Early newborns. Climate change is impacting pregnancies.

• Nightmare. Mitch McConnell believes Democrat’s push for new impeachment testimony will allow future Houses to paralyze future Senates.

• Boris Johnson banned MPs from attending WEF in Davos. He wants them to work for the people instead of drinking with the rich.

• The oldest chewing gum with DNA. Scientists pulled DNA of a Danish girl from a 5,700 year old lump of tar.

Tomorrow Today

🎟️ We’re thinking February 6th! We’ll have a sign up link and more details soon.

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are hosting community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food, learn from some seasoned, unconventional activists, and meet others aspiring to change the world!

Why are we hosting this?

For us, community is the center of everything. In an age of prolific digitization, there's a great need for greater human connection. It's almost necessary to carve out time and space to purposefully engage in person. While it's amazing to be able to discuss and interact with multiple people online and exchange stories and insights, we don't think anything beats the experience of sharing a meal.

Igniting Tomorrow

💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding

UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.

Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you every day. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!

If you like what you read, please click on the heart below & continue sharing this newsletter!

Also, please continue to support us by following us on Instagram.

If you ever want to share any feedback or have anything you’d like us to include in the newsletter, please just reply to this email.

Good Morning! If you missed yesterday’s, you can find it here.

Feeling sentimental about the human condition this morning. I thought the quote above did a good job at referring to the near infinitude of an individual’s experience. What people carry with them. What they’ve left behind. What they’re moving towards.

Anyways, I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting as the year is coming to an end and like anyone, I’ve been dosing myself with holiday jams. Supposedly, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want For Christmas” was streamed 45 million times last week. Pushed it up to No 1 on Billboard Hot 100 for the first time. It’s a humorous reminder that we can always reach new heights. 🤓

We’re going to be taking off starting the 23rd and will be back on the 6th. We’re hoping to do some revamping on the type of content and the format we deliver it in. We’re looking forward to sharing it all with you soon!

- Jon

If you enjoy reading Tomorrow, please hit the ❤️ button above and ask your friends to subscribe. If you’ve been forwarded this email and are looking to subscribe yourself, you can do so here.

Here’s a few things that have been on our mind:

Jack’s going to decentralize Twitter

This is a continuation on our conversation on social media and access.

Refresher. A few months ago, we were doing a lot of coverage on FB and Democracy. We touched on The Access Act, a new proposal fighting to open up the data and information markets in web platforms.

Summary.

This gives users more control and is a public solution to the problems of social media.

Here’s a private solution:

A recent update in the social media world. CEO Jack Dorsey wants to create an open standard for decentralized social media. Afterwards, he wants Twitter to conform to that new standard.

"Twitter is funding a small independent team of up to five open source architects, engineers, and designers to develop an open and decentralized standard for social media. The goal is for Twitter to ultimately be a client of this standard.”

Jack Dorsey

Bluesky. Fancy projects should come with fancy (& aspirational) project names. Twitter’s CTO Parag Agrawal will be leading the new team called Bluesky.

Why. The web is broken and the problems are systemic. Dorsey believes that centralized social media sites face inherit problems, especially ones that can address misleading information. He believes many of these sites promote controversy rather than healthy conversation.

Solution. He believes decentralization could be a way to rewire the web, but that it’s going to be a challenge.

"There are MANY challenges to make this work that Twitter would feel right becoming a client of this standard. Which is why the work must be done transparently in the open, not owned by any single private corporation, furthering the open & decentralized principles of the internet.

Rewiring social. But actually, how would this make our experiences better?

1. No echo chamber. Centralized platforms have all the control over what data is seen. In decentralized social media, the algorithms to sort content would be publicly available and adjustable. This could give all news equal opportunity to go viral.

2. Personal data is yours. The hope is that people will not only control their data but own it.

But show me the money. The largest and best dispute against decentralized social networks is monetization. How will it keep itself afloat? The few models that are already out there have struggled to gain the critical mass to be sustainable.

This will be really interesting. We don’t know if this is another way Dorsey is taking a jab at Zuck, but how Bluesky builds the new standards will be fascinating. It would set precedent to move other private and massive social networks over to a decentralized model, giving users greater agency. We’ve said this before, but social media as it is now is broken because of its incentive structures. When the users are the product, eventually you’ll reach a point where you’re not building an experience that optimizes the user’s wellbeing. And we’re rooting for all the ways that this can change.

“Betrayed the Nation”

The House Judiciary Committee released a very long report (169 pages) about impeachment.

Their position. Trump poses “a threat to the Constitution” if he remains in office.

Moderates backing impeachment. So far the remaining uncommitted moderate Democrats are starting to announce how they will vote. The two most interesting positions:

• Elissa Slotkin (Michigan) said she will vote to impeach even though many told her the vote “will mark the end of [her] short political career.”

• Jeff Van Drew (New Jersey) said no. Five members of his staff resigned over the weekend amid reports that he’ll switch his party registration to Republican.

We haven’t written much about impeachment here, even though we think it’s important to keep updated. We assumed you’re probably getting hit with this news everywhere else. Recently, some members of COP25 stated that they believe the next election will be important to how the global community acts to curb the climate crisis. The impeachment in that sense, has a new level of importance to our community, so we’ll start to cover this a little more closely from the lens of how the US needs to champion carbon emission reduction and global standards.

UN Council and Kashmir

At China’s request, the UN Security Council will begin discussing the situation in Indian-administered Kashmir.

Looking a few months back. Since August, Kashmir has been under lockdown and denied internet access. India’s Hindu nationalist government scrapped Article 370, which granted Kashmir limited autonomy.

A letter to the council. On Dec 12, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi expressed his concerns that this would lead to an escalation of tensions.

History. This area has been a point of tension between the two nuclear-armed neighbors, India and Pakistan. They both claim rights to Kashmir. Since 1946, UN peacekeepers have been deployed to observe a ceasefire in the territory. For decades, India has been battling an armed rebellion within the portion it controls, blaming Pakistan for supporting them, but Pakistan claims they only give moral support to non-violent separatists.

We’re looking to build something that helps keep track of global conflicts. There’s so much news, we think it’s important to produce more and more curated and simplified versions that help showcase the bigger picture. It’ll help inspire more changemakers as people will be able to see where they can create impact as complexity is reduced.

Let us know if you know of anyone who’d like to partner or get involved.

Short takes

• A perspective: Should ethical companies be forced to keep their promises or get sued?

• A perspective. Michael Bloomberg wants to be the climate change candidate, but a new generation of climate activists have other ideas.

• Egg cartons the next to be replaced? A new packaging concept to make these reusable.

• Mitt Romney and Michael Bennet just released a basic income plan for kids.

Tomorrow Today

🎟️ We’re thinking February 6th! We’ll have a sign up link and more details soon.

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are hosting community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food, learn from some seasoned, unconventional activists, and meet others aspiring to change the world!

Why are we hosting this?

For us, community is the center of everything. In an age of prolific digitization, there's a great need for greater human connection. It's almost necessary to carve out time and space to purposefully engage in person. While it's amazing to be able to discuss and interact with multiple people online and exchange stories and insights, we don't think anything beats the experience of sharing a meal.

Igniting Tomorrow

💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding

UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.

Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you every day. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!

If you like what you read, please click on the heart below & continue sharing this newsletter!

Also, please continue to support us by following us on Instagram.

If you ever want to share any feedback or have anything you’d like us to include in the newsletter, please just reply to this email.

Good morning! Hope you had a restful weekend.

If you missed our Friday community update, you can find it here.

Maybe you haven’t noticed, but Bloomberg has been flooding the internet with climate change ads. If you search “climate change” on Google you’ll probably see this:

He’s been a big spender since his late entry into the Presidential race. One of his biggest platform issues is Climate Change and he recently released a plan to cut emissions by 50% in 10 years. Sounds great, right? Some people are definitely excited about him as a candidate. Many of our friends have jumped ship and swam to his boat, but some aren’t particularly happy. Here’s an interesting take on Michael Bloomberg vs other climate activists:

A perspective. Michael Bloomberg wants to be the climate change candidate, but a new generation of climate activists have other ideas.

If you enjoy reading Tomorrow, please hit the ❤️ button above and ask your friends to subscribe. If you’ve been forwarded this email and are looking to subscribe yourself, you can do so here.

Let’s get into it!

India’s Protests

This is a continuation on our coverage of India’s Muslim ban.

A quick summary. India passed a new citizenship law, Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB), based on religion. The new legislation aims to fast-track citizenship for persecuted Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, and Christians who arrived in India from Bangladesh, Pakistan, or Afghanistan before Dec 31. 2014. However, Muslims have been excluded from that list.

Mumbai, India December 16, 2019. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas

Protests spread. Protests have spread to student campuses as critics claim the Hindu nationalist government is pushing an agenda that opposed the country’s founding ideals as a secular republic. On Dec 11, right before the bill was cleared, over 700 activists, academics, and filmmakers wrote a letter to the government expressing grave concerns:

“For the first time there is a statutory attempt to not just privilege peoples from some faiths but at the same time relegate another, Muslims, to second-rate status… The CAB is at odds with Constitutional secular principles and a violation of Articles 13, 14, 15, 16 and 21 which guarantee the right to equality, equality before the law and non discriminatory treatment by the Indian state.”

Police. At Jamia Millia Islamia university, officers entered the campus and fired tear gas to break up a protest. At least 100 people were wounded and it has sparked allegations of police brutality. The head of Jamia Millia demanded an investigation:

“It is not expected of the police to enter the university and beat up students.”

Najma Akhtar

Modi responds. The Prime Minister called for calm:

“Debate, discussion and dissent are essential parts of democracy but, never has damage to public property and disturbance of normal life been a part of our ethos.”

Peaceful is the way. Rahul Gandhi, leader of the main opposition Congress party, claimed that the Modi government was dividing Indian society through the new amended law, however asked for peaceful demonstrations:

“The best defense against these dirty weapons is peaceful, non-violent Satyagraha.”

Satyagraha is a policy of passive political resistance, especially that advocated by Mahatma Gandhi against British rule in India.

It seems there’s more and more protests occurring around the world. What does this mean and are there any commonalities? We hope to explore those questions more in the upcoming weeks, but a brief scan of what’s been happening and why it’s occurring, shows that there’s a large focus on corruption and inequality.

Climate Summit reaches dead end

This is a continuation of our coverage on COP25

Disappointed. Two things were impressive about the UN’s conference in Madrid:

1. They went into over-time and extended the conversations for two more days.

2. Very little was accomplished.

The disagreement. Though the conference declared a strong slogan “Time for Action,” nothing really was finalized, which means countries won’t implement changes until the next talks in 2020. Everyone seemed to agree that more needed to be done to cut emissions, but they couldn’t agree on who needed to be doing it.

“Never have I seen such a disconnect between what the science requires and what the climate negotiations are delivering in terms of meaningful action.”

Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists

Who was missing. The United States was not present at these talks after Trump announced that the US was pulling out of the Paris climate agreement. Under Obama, the US bridged many divides between industrialized nations, poor countries, and rising powers such as India and China. The absence was a terrible set up for negotiations. Many developing countries (China and India included) demanded billions of dollars to finance the new climate goals. One French official said, many countries were now “waiting for the US election” to decide their next move.

We’re surprised, but also not surprised. Not surprised because when it comes to “action,” change that requires global coordination by global leaders often doesn’t come easy (if at all). But surprised still that something so globally pressing like climate change isn’t producing action. We also don’t understand why they need to stall conversations until next year. Let’s ditch the grandiose events and “summits” and bunker down somewhere until something get's done. Imagine if you had to wait a year to make a decision at a private company. You probably wouldn’t make it.

Short takes

• Self driving car tech could help drones monitor power lines to prevent wildfires.

• Remember where you came from. Reflecting on who helped you succeed can transform your idea of the meritocracy.

• What if you could turn your garage into an apartment for free? This company will do that and then help you rent it out.

• The species we’ve lost this decade.

Tomorrow Today

🎟️ We’re thinking February 6th! We’ll have a sign up link and more details soon.

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are hosting community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food, learn from some seasoned, unconventional activists, and meet others aspiring to change the world!

Why are we hosting this?

For us, community is the center of everything. In an age of prolific digitization, there's a great need for greater human connection. It's almost necessary to carve out time and space to purposefully engage in person. While it's amazing to be able to discuss and interact with multiple people online and exchange stories and insights, we don't think anything beats the experience of sharing a meal.

Igniting Tomorrow

💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding

UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.

Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you every day. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!

If you like what you read, please click on the heart below & continue sharing this newsletter!

Also, please continue to support us by following us on Instagram.

If you ever want to share any feedback or have anything you’d like us to include in the newsletter, please just reply to this email.

Good morning! If you missed yesterday’s, you can find it here.

If you enjoy reading Tomorrow, please hit the ❤️ button above and ask your friends to subscribe. If you’ve been forwarded this email and are looking to subscribe yourself, you can do so here.

Let’s get into it!

Yeshimabeit Milner, Co-founder of Data 4 Black Lives

[We were seeing] That technology was influencing our lives in ways we had no control over, no accountability. This is a process that we now call datafication - whether it's Equifax and FICO credit scores that determine whether or not you qualify for housing, or risk assessments and facial recognition, or Facebook newsfeeds that continue to threaten our democracy. I was seeing the threats and also the opportunity to use technology to understand deep structural issues like systemic racism. The issues already existed of course - but technology was making them more obvious, scary, and urgent. I knew that before we change the algorithms, before we change where the data is coming from, we have to change the people who are in charge of all this. That's where the idea for Data 4 Black Lives came from. We launched the organization with a conference that sold out within a few days. That’s when I knew that we were tapping into something powerful and we should keep going. 

Read the full interview here.

Data for Black Lives is a group of activists, organizers, and mathematicians committed to the mission of using data science to create concrete and measurable change in the lives of Black people.

They seek to mobilize scientists around racial justice issues. At our conference in November, we will convene over two hundred data scientists, computer programmers, racial justice activists, and elected officials to discuss the role that data can and should play in Black communities.

The Unknown Fund. “Anonymous” (yes, that group) is going to invest and donate $75 million of bitcoin in startups that help create anonymity ideas. Applications are up!

Free Money for Social Enterprises. Techcrunch released a long list of institutions that are supporting for-profit social enterprises with cash and community support, and in many cases without dilution.

Tech Jobs for Good helps mission-driven companies hire the best tech talent in the United States. Every Friday, we’ll highlight a few amazing recent opportunities.

• Senior Technology Officer - Schusterman Family Foundation · Washington, DC

• Policy Manager - Partnership on AI · San Francisco, CA

• Data Scientist - Medic Mobile · Remote

• Director of Product Management - Pro Bono Net · New York, NY

• Product Manager - Pro Bono Net · New York, NY

• Director of Data Analytics - Gleaners Community Food Bank · Detroit, MI

• Data Scientist - MobilizeAmerica · New York, NY

For more, check out their site here. If your company’s looking to post a job and reach purpose-driven and passionate people, please reach out.

Monday: The Nobel Prize winning duo, Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee, published an essay on How Poverty Ends, arguing the importance of economies shifting away from a unilateral focus on GDP and towards a broader consideration of quality of life. Plus, the real meat industry has been waging war against the fake meat industry by wrongfully calling the products “ultra-processed imitations.”

Tuesday: Check out the key takeaways from the first week at COP25, the UN Climate Change Conference, and the resulting protests; we’ll provide coverage on the outcomes from week two next week. Also, India is on the verge of passing the Citizenship Amendment Bill, providing a path to naturalization for immigrants of all religions except Muslims.

Wednesday: There are many startups driving a positive social impact in the world — this week, we covered of Velocia, a rewards system for commuters who ditch their car for alternate forms of transportation, and Mona, a chatbot providing refugees with free legal aid. Also, public opinion is having a major impact on the development of AI regulation — we covered facial recognition & law enforcement, social media, and autonomous weapons.

Thursday: Do you need good governance frameworks to allow for innovation, or can innovation drive good governance? This chicken-or-egg question is at the heart of the entrepreneurship scene in Africa. Also, big money is going after big tech — check out the billionaires trying to break up the largest tech companies. Finally, how does photography impact our understanding and perception of climate change? Josh Haner has a perspective.

Tomorrow Today

🎟️ We’re thinking February 6th! We’ll have a sign up link and more details soon.

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are hosting community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food, learn from some seasoned, unconventional activists, and meet others aspiring to change the world!

Why are we hosting this?

For us, community is the center of everything. In an age of prolific digitization, there's a great need for greater human connection. It's almost necessary to carve out time and space to purposefully engage in person. While it's amazing to be able to discuss and interact with multiple people online and exchange stories and insights, we don't think anything beats the experience of sharing a meal.

Igniting Tomorrow

💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding

UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.

Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you every day. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!

If you like what you read, please click on the heart below & continue sharing this newsletter!

Also, please continue to support us by following us on Instagram.

If you ever want to share any feedback or have anything you’d like us to include in the newsletter, please just reply to this email.

Good morning! If you missed yesterday’s, you can find it here.

Last night, we attended an awesome event on Climate Change Photography. We had a chance to hear from Josh Haner, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer with the New York Times, about his incredible series documenting climate change around the world — from Bolivia to Greenland to China. The discussion began with a picture of a polar bear standing alone on a single piece of ice, surrounded by water — this picture has now become synonymous with climate change, so much so that people have become desensitized to it. 

Haner therefore has been trying to capture different kinds of stories, those that show the devastation to people, their homes, and their heritage, with the hope that it resonates with people in a different way. It definitely did with us — the photography is honestly shocking. For example, the picture below showcases Lake Poopó, Bolivia’s second-largest lake. In just 10 years, it completely dried up.

Now, Haner is embarking on a journey to try to photograph solutions. He mentions that this is far trickier — the devastation of climate change resonates with people far more than the solutions. We don’t like to hear this, but it’s true. That being said, Haner did mention that across his travels, he saw some remarkable solutions around the world — for example, instead of building sea walls, Rotterdam is letting the water into the city and using it in its parks (e.g., creating water basins where crew teams can row). For the New Yorkers here, Brooklyn is designing a new park that’s intended to do the same!

If you enjoy reading Tomorrow, please hit the ❤️ button above and ask your friends to subscribe. If you’ve been forwarded this email and are looking to subscribe yourself, you can do so here.

Let’s get into it!

Africa: Is it possible to “entrepreneur” your way out of bad leadership?

A motorcycle taxi driver known as boda-boda, from SafeBoda in Uganda. Innovation has been built on the back of the mobile industry (Reuters / Francis Musaka)

Ory Okolloh, one of Kenya’s best known tech investors and activists, spoke at the 2015 Quartz Africa Innovators Summit in Nairobi about how entrepreneurship was promoted to the point of being fetishized in Africa. She believed:

“You can’t entrepreneur around bad leadership, we can’t entrepreneur around bad policy.”

This perspective has become quite popular, but is it possible that this way of viewing Africa’s circumstances limits progress?

The cup is half empty. Rankings such as World Governance Indicators, Corruption Perception Index, and the Global Competitiveness Report expose the failings of African governments when compared to the achievements of rich-country governments. But they only tell half the story. African governments have very limited funds to spend on their citizens.

DR Congo, Central African Republic, and Burundi spent $39, $57, and $65 per citizen respectively. Contrast that with Norway, Denmark, and Sweden that spent $36,871, $30,415, and $27,000 per citizen respectively. 

With less resources, African governments can spend less on every level of support in a government, which almost automatically puts them on the bottom of the above mentioned rankings. But there’s hope!

The cup is half full. The common assumption is that only after systems and structures are in place in a society can innovation and entrepreneurship thrive. However, Efosa Ojomo argues in The Prosperity Paradox that innovation is the process by which societies develop, especially if those innovations create markets. Why? Because markets provide access to goods that were often too hard to come across before or too expensive.

An example. Let’s take a look at Africa’s mobile telecommunications industry. In the late 1990s, most countries didn’t have any infrastructure. Today, on the other hand, virtually every African country has a thriving mobile telecommunications sector, which made telecommunications so simple and affordable that the average African can now access mobile phones.

Innovation leads to value. But also taxes. This industry not only made hundreds of billions, but also provided tens of billions in taxes and created millions of jobs. With this new infrastructure, other startups have been built from the payments to insurance industries.

Innovation can drive good governance. When these new market-creating innovations thrive, citizens become empowered to demand more from their governments and change social contract in those areas. This is what happened in the United States, Europe, and fast growing East Asian nations.

United States, an example. As more people created wealth for themselves during the Industrial Revolution, their desire for less corrupt government with better management was taken more seriously.

“Politically, the rage of victims counted for very little in 1840, not much in 1860; by 1890, it was a roaring force”

Stanford Law Professor Lawrence Friedman 

During that period, the US saw greater public outcry against corruption and reform. As innovation accelerates, so does governance. 

The cup could be overflowing. Is it possible that Africa needs to start with innovation? Of course, governments need to get their house in order, but in the meantime, could the people be doing something that produces better and faster change? By pushing for market-creating innovation, more people will be empowered to not only be heard but also be enabled to change how the governments work.

We find this take to be fascinating because we often talk about the importance of the public sector when it comes to certain change. However, this perspective is a refreshing one. It’s a sentiment that allows us as people to be the actors in the story of change instead of relying on bureaucratic forces.

Big Money vs. Big Tech

Chris Hughes, a Facebook co-founder, now leads the Economic Security Project (Jeenah Moon for The New York Times)

Building or investing in tech companies has helped generate an insane amount of wealth over the last few decades. One would expect that these billionaires would want to keep tech companies going as-is to continue generating returns. While this may be true for most, some are going down an opposite road — they are trying to use their money to break down big tech.

How are they doing so? The support is indirect, but powerful: 

• The Ford Foundation supports organizations that study and fight inequality — for example, they’ve given $200,000 to the Knight Foundation to study how tech monopolies directly impact workers

• The Hewlett Foundation is supporting organizations trying to reshape the free market economic policies in DC

• The Economic Security Project, founded by Chris Hughes (a Facebook co-founder), is pooling money to support projects focused on antitrust and corporate concentration concerns — for example, they are supporting Color of Change to study how corporate concentration is affecting communities of color

• Other billionaires doing the same include George Soros and Pierre Omidyar

Will this work? It’s going to be tough — big tech spends tens of millions on lobbying every year. That being said, this big money flowing in the opposite direction may be the only way to actually shift the needle.

What else can billionaires do? In addition to breaking up big tech, billionaires can (and should) use their capital to improve society. It is the only form of capital out there that can make moonshots without worrying about risk. Here are some options:

• Fund scholarships, young investigator awards, and research fellowships

• Establish thematic research centers focused on specific causes

• Create incentive prizes to push people to innovate

• Build advisory organizations to support other philanthropists

• Engage in direct advocacy with governments and corporations

Billionaires have increasingly been coming under fire in this country. Their wealth represents decades of exploitation that has resulted in the deep inequalities that see in society today. Anand Giridharadas, the author of Winners Take All, really stresses this point — when we prop up philanthropic billionaires, we often ignore the methods they and their corporations have used. This, of course, doesn’t apply to everybody (Hamdi, we still love you), but the point definitely strikes a chord.

In many ways, we agree with Anand. But we also believe that we cannot ignore the power that their capital can have. Their vast amount of philanthropic capital can do a tremendous amount to change the world. We should not prop them up as heroes and should hold them accountable for their actions — but we should use what they give to drive change.

We know that this is a contentious topic (even among our readers), so we’d really love to hear your thoughts! Can we, in good conscience, use what they are giving?

Short takes

• The UK votes today, with Brexit as the key issue dividing the electorate. Follow live updates from the NY Times here!

• Women hold just 7 percent of board seats in the 200 most heavily funded US startups and 60 percent don’t have a single woman on the board

• Violence continues to grow in India over India’s citizenship bill. Check out our earlier coverage on the issue here. 

• 160 plant-based companies agree to consistent labeling standards to help consumers understand the products easily. 

• Australia vs Big Tech. Government warns FB and Google that they’ll have to agree to new rules on competition by November 2020. Even if they don’t, the rules will be imposed anyway.

Tomorrow Today

🎟️ Date and time for the next one to be announced soon!

We’re thinking February.

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are hosting community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food, learn from some seasoned, unconventional activists, and meet others aspiring to change the world!

Why are we hosting this?

For us, community is the center of everything. In an age of prolific digitization, there's a great need for greater human connection. It's almost necessary to carve out time and space to purposefully engage in person. While it's amazing to be able to discuss and interact with multiple people online and exchange stories and insights, we don't think anything beats the experience of sharing a meal.

Igniting Tomorrow

💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding

UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.

Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you every day. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!

If you like what you read, please click on the heart below & continue sharing this newsletter!

Also, please continue to support us by following us on Instagram.

If you ever want to share any feedback or have anything you’d like us to include in the newsletter, please just reply to this email.

Good morning! If you missed yesterday’s, you can find it here.

If you enjoy reading Tomorrow, please hit the ❤️ button above and ask your friends to subscribe. If you’ve been forwarded this email and are looking to subscribe yourself, you can do so here.

Let’s get into it!

Startups Changing the Game

We want to get better at showcasing new startups and how they are helping society move our collective needle to the Good Place. Here’s two that we liked recently:

Velocia

The 30-sec pitch. This new app has officially debuted in Miami and works as a public-private partnership with different mobility services. This app gives you free rides when you use any transportation option that isn’t a private car. It rewards commuters for choosing public transit, biking, car sharing, or walking over driving. Your rewards can be redeemed for discounts on any of the connected transit systems—as well as for Lyft and Uber credits.

“You can’t get a Starbucks coffee, you can’t get an Amazon gift card. We’re really focused on creating this circular kind of environment that encourages people to use different services in their city and to get out of their cars.” says Velocia CEO David Winterstein.

Why did they start this? The CEOs noticed there’s a lot of innovation on how to get people from point A to point B, but not enough impact on people’s transportation behaviors. Traffic congestion is at an all-time high, so they wanted to look at how to better incentivize people to start behaving differently.

What’s different? They built their platform on an open ecosystem. This means users can combine methods of transportation with their points. If they want to, they can start off with public transit and then grab a scooter for their last mile. 

“We think with that type of approach, we’re going to start to actually move the needle when it comes to how people move in cities.”

Mona by Marhub

The 30-sec pitch. Mona is a new chatbot to give refugees instant legal aid. Using already built tools like Facebook Messenger and Telegram, refugees can collect key information much faster than exchanging emails with an aid organization.

Why did they start this? If you’re a Syrian refugee in Lebanon trying to navigate the legal path to resettlement, you’re probably going to have a hard time finding answers. The organizations that are there to help you are overstretched and it can take you as long as three months to get an email response. Mona is pretty instant.

“For us, it was about how could we get reliable information and services on the same platforms that refugees are already using, and reach them on their own terms with information and services that they could use when they actually need it most,” says Sarrah Nomanbhoy, one of the cofounders.

What’s different? They started a pilot earlier this year with International Refugee Assistance Project and in its first iteration, helped prescreen refugees. The goal was to produce a chatbot that felt empathetic and conversational, but also gathered the right information. The chatbot helped refugees get immediate information and also helped the nonprofit close cases faster.

If you look at both, neither technology is new, but they both have amazing potential to make a difference. We believe a lot of change can happen like this. We don’t need to wait for some crazy new innovation, but only need to reapply what we’ve already made and what we already know. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: if we only focused on changing the incentive structures and systems around us, we’d make heroic leaps in society. It’s a crazy thing to say, but we do have enough—enough to make a difference if we want and then choose to.

How Public Opinion is Shaping AI

We love to think about futuristic artificial intelligence as either clearly good (e.g., Jarvis from Iron Man) or evil (e.g., SkyNet from The Terminator). Today’s reality is not as clear — the public is split on the extent to which AI should enter our lives and what the implications are. 

Understanding and shaping public opinion will be critical to the future development and application of this technology. In fact, a recent essay by the Brookings Institution argues that public opinion is going to be a key driver for how AI regulation is shaped in the United States. Let’s take a closer look at three use cases.

Facial Recognition & Law Enforcement

Law enforcement has been using facial recognition to scan driver’s license photos, mug shots, and international passengers at airports.

Public opinion. Most US adults support the use of facial recognition in law enforcement, but support is lower among certain groups: those aged 18-29, Black Americans, and those who identify as or lean Democrat. Plus, civil rights groups are worried about racial and gender bias as well as an increase in state surveillance capabilities.

Impact on regulation. A few cities around California and Massachusetts have banned the use of this technology by the police. Nationally, a number of bills have been introduced in Congress to regulate facial recognition, but none have progressed. 

Social Media Platforms

The use of algorithms to recommend content (and do other shady things) by social media platforms has become increasingly problematic.

Public opinion. The public is concerned about the lack of accountability but are split on how to proceed — only half of the US public thinks that they should be regulated. In fact, most Americans trust tech companies more than the government to manage the development and use of artificial intelligence. On the flip side, civil society groups are (understandably) concerned about algorithms helping “spread misinformation, proliferate digital propaganda, create partisan echo chambers, and promote violent extremism.”

Impact on regulation. Regulation has stalled because of partisan splits. Congress held those super valuable hearings (...ugh) and then did nothing. Democratic senators have introduced legislation about increased transparency in online campaign ads and improved security protocols to safeguard data, whereas Republican lawmakers are accusing social media platforms for censoring conservative viewpoints. As a result, nothing is happening. 

Lethal Autonomous Weapons

These weapons can “identify and engage targets without human intervention.” This technology has not yet been deployed, but it is very much under development.

Public opinion. Only a little over half of Americans oppose fully autonomous weapons systems, but the trend is (thankfully) improving. Political messaging has a major impact on this — public opinion goes up if they hear that other states are developing them. On the flip side, the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots (best name ever) has advocated for a full international ban on these weapons because they argue that these are unethical and unsafe, especially when in the hands of failed states or non-state actors. Elon Musk and the co-founders of Google DeepMind are in support of this ban.

Impact on regulation. Twenty-six countries have expressed support for this ban, but major powers like the US, Russia, UK, and Israel oppose it. Frankly, no real regulation will likely progress on this front in the near-term because the technology is so far away.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to do incredible things for our society, but if left unregulated, it can be very dangerous. Of course, you don’t want to overregulate to the point where innovation is stifled. Therefore, we believe that companies should be allowed to experiment with new AI technologies, but as soon as they begin to touch the public, regulators need to weigh in. Let us know your thoughts!

Short Takes

• Some unfortunate big wins for big oil: Exxon won the New York climate change case, and Saudi Aramco, the world’s most valuable public company, saw its shares jump 10 percent in its trading debut.

• Listen to a recording by a JPMorgan employee and Jimmy Kennedy, a former NFL player, exposing racism in one of the bank branches.

• Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s leader and the world’s most ironic Nobel Peace Prize laureate, spoke at the International Court of Justice about the country’s genocide of the Rohingya Muslim minority. 

• China is leading in the number of journalists jailed, putting it ahead of Turkey.

Tomorrow Today

🎟️ Date and time for the next one to be announced soon!

We’re thinking February.

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are hosting community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food, learn from some seasoned, unconventional activists, and meet others aspiring to change the world!

Why are we hosting this?

For us, community is the center of everything. In an age of prolific digitization, there's a great need for greater human connection. It's almost necessary to carve out time and space to purposefully engage in person. While it's amazing to be able to discuss and interact with multiple people online and exchange stories and insights, we don't think anything beats the experience of sharing a meal.

Igniting Tomorrow

💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding

UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.

Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you every day. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!

If you like what you read, please click on the heart below & continue sharing this newsletter!

Also, please continue to support us by following us on Instagram.

If you ever want to share any feedback or have anything you’d like us to include in the newsletter, please just reply to this email.

Good morning! If you missed yesterday’s, you can find it here.

Today is Human Rights Day and was chosen to honor the UN’s adoption and proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.

“Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small places, close to home — so close and so small that they cannot be seen on any maps of the world… Unless these rights have meaning there, they have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen action to uphold them close to home, we shall look in vain for progress in the larger world.” Eleanor Roosevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt holding poster of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (in English), Lake Success, New York. November 1949.

If you enjoy reading Tomorrow, please hit the ❤️ button above and ask your friends to subscribe. If you’ve been forwarded this email and are looking to subscribe yourself, you can do so here.

Let’s get into it!

COP25 Climate Summit: Week 1 Updates

A continuation of our coverage on COP25.

Though the talks began on the Monday of Dec 2, they picked up pace when Greta Thunberg arrived on Friday to join a 500,000 people march through the center of Madrid.

The people are upset. “We’ve achieved nothing.” Emissions have continued to rise in the last two years since Greta entered the activist stage and many believe it’s because the urgency felt by scientists is not present in the international, political negotiation rooms.

Carbon Market. Negotiators finally managed to put out a text on the future of carbon markets over the weekend, but there’s plenty of disagreements. If there is no resolution—and there is no guarantee of one—this will be a large topic of next year’s talks too, which will get in the way of progress. By next year, countries are supposed to realign their emission-cutting targets with scientific advice.

Bloomberg steps up. Though only 3 weeks into his campaign, the billionaire will appear today at COP25 where he’ll share the results of his private push to organize US cities and businesses to follow the global climate treaty Trump has walked away from. It’s pretty unusual for a candidate to step into the international stage after less than a month of campaigning, but he’s vowed that rejoining the Paris climate agreement will be his first official act as president. 

America’s Pledge. A movement, founded in 2017 to counteract Trump’s abandonment of the Paris climate agreement, released a report in Madrid yesterday to keep it’s momentum. This coalition’s supporters represent 68% of US economic output, 65% of the population, and 51% of the country’s emissions. They hope to fulfill the purpose to “build a prosperous, low carbon economy.”

"Decarbonization is already happening, and it's accelerating," said Carl Pope, the vice-chair of America's Pledge and the former executive director of the Sierra Club. "Cleaner is now cheaper… For both coal and gas, in electricity, the clock is ticking… They are no longer competitive.”

Africa’s hopes. While Africa only accounts for less than 4% of carbon emissions, the continent is extremely vulnerable to the climate crisis.  While everyone’s trying to find ways to reduce their carbon footprint, the leaders and organizations in Africa are trying to find ways to prevent more climate-related disasters and build a better economy that is low carbon. This means various countries are going to need funds they don’t currently have. It’s estimated that $50bn of finance is going to been needed annually by 2050 in sub-Saharan Africa alone for climate adaptation. Currently, funding is extremely low even though climate-related issues have risen in various regions and countries.

There’s a lot of work that needs to be done! The work of America’s Pledge is extremely exciting because it shows how we as people can coordinate and hope to produce impact when the heads of our government won’t listen. We find it also alarming how the carbon market talks have stalled progress in many ways and that there’s fear that little will be accomplished at this global conference. 

The Next Muslim Ban

The world’s largest “democracy” is on the verge of passing a very dangerous bill. Yesterday, India’s lower house of Parliament passed a bill establishing a religious test for migrants who want to become citizens. If the bill passes through the upper house, which it most likely will, migrants that represent all of South Asia’s major religions will be eligible to become Indian citizens – except Islam.

Muslims praying at a mosque in Tonk, India. Muslim Indians see a new citizenship bill as a step by the government to make them second-class citizens. Credit: Smita Sharma for The New York Times

The background. The Citizenship Amendment Bill is the national extension of a program that began in Assam, a state in northeast India. All 33 million residents of the state had to prove that they, or their ancestors, were Indian citizens. At the end of the exercise, 2 million people were left off the state’s citizenship rolls – most were Muslims who had been lifelong residents of India. PM Narendra Modi and the governing BJP party is now looking to expand this test to other states.

BJP’s rationale. They are claiming that this bill is intended to “protect persecuted Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians who are migrants from predominantly Muslim countries such as Pakistan or Afghanistan.” One member of Parliament, Ravi Kishan, took it a step further:

“There are Muslim countries, there are Jew countries, everybody has their own identity. And we are a billion-plus right? We must have one identity.”

An alarming trend. Kishan’s comments and this bill highlight an alarming trend in Indian politics – a shift away from secularism. India has historically prided itself on being a secular nation, but it has aggressively pulled in the opposite direction over the last few years. Intimidation and attacks against Muslim communities have increased in recent years, and this legislation will only make it easier to incarcerate and deport Muslim residents if they cannot produce proof of citizenship.

How this may play out. The Indian government is now building an enormous network of prisons to house thousands of these migrants. After each immigration raid, any Hindu migrant who is swept up may be “released and allowed to apply for citizenship, while Muslim migrants could instead be sent to detention camps or simply deported.”

What’s happening on the ground. Unsurprisingly, protests have broken out. In Assam, thousands of people have been marching on the streets. Nationally, schools and markets have been boycotted.

This is horrific, but we aren’t surprised at all. India has been heading down this road for a number of years, and it’s scary to see official legislation getting past codifying the shift towards a Hindu nation. We’ll be continuing to keep a close watch on this – the same way we’ve been keeping an eye on Hong Kong and the other major democratic protests around the world – and will keep you posted as things develop.

Power & Change

This month in Finland, the government is now set to have a new left-wing government, led by five women and the world’s youngest prime minister. 👏 Four of these women are younger than 35.

Enter Sanna Marin. A 34 year old Social Democrat is widely expected to be confirmed as prime minister. Her rise would preserve the left-wing coalition, but will be inheriting pressure from the increasingly popular conservative opposition as the economy has weakened.

“There’s a lot of work to be done to rebuild trust,” Marin acknowledged Sunday.

Congrats. Even political opponents, such as former conservative Finnish prime minister Alexander Stuff, acknowledged the new government composition and tweeted: 

Marin’s response. Less focused on symbolism, she says:

“I have never thought about my age or gender; I think of the reasons I got into politics and those things for which we have won the trust of the electorate,” said Marin, according to the AFP news agency.

We love it 🇫🇮 and we need to celebrate these moments as they happen. We do hope that one day these things are less news worthy though. It’d mean we’ve reached a better state of the world. Until then, let’s keep celebrating!

Short takes

• Gambia’s case against Myanmar for the Rohingya genocide begins in The Hague.

• Ukraine and Russia reach a ceasefire after 5 long years.

• Sydney is choking. The city remains blanketed in smoke from bushfires and air pollution has reached a threshold that is 11 times higher than what is deemed hazardous.

• Calcutta was once an anti-pollution pioneer. It was “cleaner than any major European industrial city.”

Tomorrow Today

🎟️ Date and time for the next one to be announced soon!

We’re thinking February.

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are hosting community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food, learn from some seasoned, unconventional activists, and meet others aspiring to change the world!

Why are we hosting this?

For us, community is the center of everything. In an age of prolific digitization, there's a great need for greater human connection. It's almost necessary to carve out time and space to purposefully engage in person. While it's amazing to be able to discuss and interact with multiple people online and exchange stories and insights, we don't think anything beats the experience of sharing a meal.

Igniting Tomorrow

💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding

UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.

Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you every day. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!

If you like what you read, please click on the heart below & continue sharing this newsletter!

Also, please continue to support us by following us on Instagram.

If you ever want to share any feedback or have anything you’d like us to include in the newsletter, please just reply to this email.

Hope everyone had a great weekend! If you missed last Friday’s, you can find it here.

It’s International Anti-Corruption Day. Every year, $1 trillion is paid in bribes while an estimated $2.6 trillion are stolen annually through corruption — this is 5 percent of the global GDP. Check out the United Against Corruption campaign to learn about what you can do.

If you enjoy reading Tomorrow, please hit the ❤️ button above and ask your friends to subscribe. If you’ve been forwarded this email and are looking to subscribe yourself, you can do so here.

Let’s get into it!

How Poverty Ends

Esther Duflo, Abhijit Banerjee, and Michael Kremer were recently awarded the Nobel Prize for their groundbreaking research on using randomized-controlled trials to address poverty, as we covered recently. Duflo and Banerjee released another essay last week — How Poverty Ends ­ — to address the evolving role of economic growth in reducing poverty. This is going to start with a little bit of economic theory, but we highly recommend driving through to the end to understand their point!

Understanding today’s poverty rates. People have been climbing out of poverty at the fastest rate in human history. We still have a significant inequality problem today in rich countries, but overall, the last few decades have been pretty good for the world’s poorest: the average income of the bottom 50 percent of earners nearly doubled since 1980, and the number of those living under the World Bank’s threshold for “extreme poverty” has halved since 1990

Why? Duflo and Banerjee chalk it up to economic growth. Expanding GDPs have allowed governments, like India and China, to spend more on schools, hospitals, medicines, and more. While there still isn’t a clear idea of what drives economic growth, Duflo and Banerjee believe that the “the fastest growth appears to come from reallocating poorly allocated resources — that is, putting capital and labor toward their most productive use.”

This reallocation of resources is critical. In traditional growth theory, many believe that resources flow to their best use automatically — “the best workers should end up at the most profitable companies” or “investors should entrust their capital to the most promising entrepreneurs.” Duflo and Banerjee find this assumption to be false. This is especially true in developing countries, where sufficient resources are available but the markets that allocate them function poorly. Correcting this misallocation of resources is critical and has been the biggest factor driving China and India’s explosive growth.

This cannot work forever. Growth for both India and China has been slowing, and India is in fact at risk for getting stuck in the “middle-income trap” — this is where an economy gets stuck in the middle because it is neither competitive with developing economies or developing economies (e.g., Mexico). Growth simply cannot be sustained forever.

What can an economy do? In the US and UK, both Reagan and Thatcher implemented “anti-poor, pro-rich policies” to try to jumpstart growth. This included tax cuts for the rich and bailouts for corporation. This has (obviously) not worked — growth hardly picked up, but inequality skyrocketed. We mentioned earlier than the poorest 50 percent has done pretty well, but the top one percent has done even better.

We must shift the focus to quality of life. Duflo and Banerjee argue that countries need to understand that GDP growth is a “means to an end, not an end in itself.” The ultimate goal should be improved quality of life — better health, access to education, dignity, and more. Yes, it can be one way for the world’s poorest to be better off — but it’s not the only way and it often isn’t the best way. Governments need to focus on raising living standards and need to start measuring their success against a broader quality of life index, rather than just GDP.

We love this piece. We have seen a number of articles over the past few months about how policymakers are calling for a shift away from GDP as the sole metric against which an economy’s success is measured, and we are hopeful that this data-driven and empirically-backed essay can drive some action here. Driving this fundamental transformation in the way we think about growth will take some time, but we firmly believe that this is the best path forward.

War: Fake vs Real Meat

The meat industry has expressed a warning: Beware of plant-based meat.

New ads. In the recent weeks, full-page ads have appeared raising health concerns around plant-based meat substitutes. The ads call them out for being “ultra-processed imitations” and the campaigns ask “What’s hiding in your plant-based meat?” These ads have been pushed by the Center for Consumer freedom, a PR firm whose financial supporters have included meat producers.

The response. Impossible Foods said the campaign was misleading and fear-mongering. But, they actually celebrated (a little):

“It’s a point of pride to have that organization come after us,” said Pat Brown, the company’s chief executive. “It’s hard to imagine a stronger endorsement.”

They believe the new “disinformation” campaign is a sign that their mission to disrupt the meat industry is working.

Meat-eaters are loving it. NPD Group, a market research firm, says that 90% of the customers purchasing plant-based burgers are meat-eaters who believe the products are more healthful and better for the environment.

“The two big brands, Beyond and Impossible, have replicated the burger experience without having to sacrifice the taste of the burger… So now a lot of consumers feel like they have a healthier option, they are reducing the amount of meat they consume, and they just feel better about that.” Darren Seifer, an analyst at NPD.

Is it better for you though? Dr. Frank Hu, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, believes it depends on how you eat them. It’s supposed to be a burger after all. Dr. Hu said studies comparing the metabolic effects of eating beef vs plant burgers are currently being running.

It’s just plants. In response to the haters, Beyond Burger and Impossible Foods claim the building blocks of their food are plants. Beyond Burger has about 18 ingredients and the company says it uses no genetically modified or artificially produced ingredients.

People want it. Burger King said it had its most successful quarter in four years this fall because of its plant-based Impossible Whopper. Dunkin’ Donuts announced it was rolling out a breakfast sandwich with Beyond Meat sausages in 9,000 stores after it’s success in NYC. Many grocers and restaurants are beginning to carry these products as well. 

Other battles. Meat producers are challenging plant-based.

1. A group of scientists challenged the warnings that linked red meat to heart disease and cancer. However, this study’s lead author had past research ties to an industry group whose members include fast food companies and a beef processor.

2. At least 25 states have introduced bills making it illegal to use the words “beef” or “meat’ on products made from plant ingredients or cultured meat that is grown in a lab. Missouri even passed it last year.

3. Representative Roger Marshall, a Republican from Kansas and the top recipient of livestock industry donations in the House, introduced a bill that would require companies to use the word imitation” on their plant-based meat products. 

The fact that the meat industry is challenging plant-based meat is a positive sign for the plant-based industry. It shows that traditional meat sees the new players to be an actual threat.

Short takes

• Throw away your portable battery packs (sustainably!) — you’ll soon be able to charge your phone using your t-shirt.

• Investing in green buildings delivers better financial returns alongside environmental and well-being benefits.

• Apple just bought the first-ever batch of carbon-free aluminum.

• The Kakatiya Sandbox program in Nizamabad, India supports microentrepreneurship and skill development for community members.

• Climate change is starving the oceans of oxygen.

Tomorrow Today

🎟️ Date and time for the next one to be announced soon!

We’re thinking February.

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are hosting community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food, learn from some seasoned, unconventional activists, and meet others aspiring to change the world!

Why are we hosting this?

For us, community is the center of everything. In an age of prolific digitization, there's a great need for greater human connection. It's almost necessary to carve out time and space to purposefully engage in person. While it's amazing to be able to discuss and interact with multiple people online and exchange stories and insights, we don't think anything beats the experience of sharing a meal.

Igniting Tomorrow

💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding

UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.

Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you every day. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!

If you like what you read, please click on the heart below & continue sharing this newsletter!

Also, please continue to support us by following us on Instagram.

If you ever want to share any feedback or have anything you’d like us to include in the newsletter, please just reply to this email.

Good morning everybody! It’s only been a few days since the Thanksgiving break, but I’m sure you’re already itching for the weekend — we definitely are.

If you missed yesterday’s, you can find it here.

If you enjoy reading Tomorrow, please hit the ❤️ button above and ask your friends to subscribe. If you’ve been forwarded this email and are looking to subscribe yourself, you can do so here.

Let’s get into it!

Yesterday, we hosted our first community event — Tomorrow Today: An Intro to Unconventional Activism. We were joined by Anjali Chandrashekar and Karen Mac, along with 20 members of the Tomorrow family, at our space in New York City. We engaged in some incredible discussions over some delicious home-made tacos about everybody’s own journey as an unconventional activist. In fact, we were so caught up in the discussion that neither of us ended up taking any digital pictures — we’ll be asking yesterday’s event attendees to send them along, and we’ll share them next week!

Also, we’ll be hosting our next event very soon, and we’d love to have you join us. Stay tuned for the details!

Abhi Ramesh, Founder of Misfits Market

The original inspiration came from a funny apple picking experience with some friends at a farm in Pennsylvania that Misfits actually works with now. When I was apple picking, I got really bored and saw that a bunch of the apples that had fallen from the tree, were a little misshapen, or had some spots on them. That’s when I noticed someone actually coming along, grabbing those apples, and putting them in this separate giant bin, to be stored in a cooler. 

A little later on, I asked the farmer about what happens to the apples that he stored in the cooler—there were thousands of them! He said that they didn’t really know what to do with them. They stored some of them for a little bit, tried to sell what they could to famers markets, and then the rest got composted, tossed, or fed to the pigs. 

Read his interview here.

Misfits Market is a subscription service for "ugly" organic produce and is designed to break the cycle of food waste. The organization has helped rescue more than 10 million pounds of food since its 2018 inception.

The Impact Fellowship. The Impact Fellowship is a 2-week program in NYC for tech students who want to build a better world! Applications for 2020 are now live!

The Unknown Fund. “Anonymous” (yes, that group) is going to invest and donate $75 million of bitcoin in startups that help create anonymity ideas. Applications are up!

Free Money for Social Enterprises. Techcrunch released a long list of institutions that are supporting for-profit social enterprises with cash and community support, and in many cases without dilution.

Tech Jobs for Good helps mission-driven companies hire the best tech talent in the United States. Every Friday, we’ll highlight a few amazing recent opportunities.

• DevOps Engineer - RapidSOS · New York, NY

• IT Administrator - Democracy Fund · Washington, DC

• Lead Data Engineer - Casebook · New York, NY

• Site Reliability Engineer - Syndio · Seattle, WA

• Web Developer - Echo&Co · Washington, DC/Somerville, MA

• Design Director - The Marshall Project · New York, NY

For more, check out their site here. If your company’s looking to post a job and reach purpose-driven and passionate people, please reach out.

Monday: Representatives from around the world have been gathering in Madrid all week to discuss the climate crisis — we’ll be covering the key outcomes next week. Plus, despite what people may think, we are inching in the right direction — extreme poverty is down, life expectancy is up, solar energy is getting cheaper, and more.

Tuesday: Communities need to start building sustainable food systems to address global hunger and nutrition challenges — check out guidelines from the World Economic Forum on how to do so. Also, when trying to build smart cities, it’s important to involve the local community in the design from the get-go. Finally, it was Giving Tuesday — around the world, nearly $2 billion were raised online and offline!

Wednesday: Algorithms are increasingly becoming an integral part of the criminal justice system, but they simply do not work. Also, carbon capture and utilization (CCU) is a trillion-dollar approach to pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere by using it for industrial purposes. Finally, China is getting even scarier — researchers are using blood from Uighurs in their internment camps to figure out how DNA samples can be used to recreate an image of a person’s face.

Thursday: Public-private partnerships are an awesome approach to improve education in society — check out how a city in South Carolina is innovating in an incredible way. Also, carbon credits have long been considered one of the better ways to reduce emissions — unfortunately, they may not work.

Tomorrow Today

🎟️ Date and time for the next one to be announced soon!

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are hosting community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food, learn from some seasoned, unconventional activists, and meet others aspiring to change the world!

Why are we hosting this?

For us, community is the center of everything. In an age of prolific digitization, there's a great need for greater human connection. It's almost necessary to carve out time and space to purposefully engage in person. While it's amazing to be able to discuss and interact with multiple people online and exchange stories and insights, we don't think anything beats the experience of sharing a meal.

Igniting Tomorrow

💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding

UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.

Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you every day. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!

If you like what you read, please click on the heart below & continue sharing this newsletter!

Also, please continue to support us by following us on Instagram.

If you ever want to share any feedback or have anything you’d like us to include in the newsletter, please just reply to this email.

Good morning! If you missed yesterday’s newsletter, you can find it here.

We’re really excited about Tomorrow’s first sold-out community event later this evening! We’ll be joined by Anjali Chandrashekar and Karen Mac, two of our favorite unconventional activists, to share their stories with the Tomorrow family over some delicious food. Check out their bios below, and stay tuned for a recap and pictures on Friday’s Community Newsletter. We’re excited to see you at the next one!

If you enjoy reading Tomorrow, please hit the ❤️ button above and ask your friends to subscribe. If you’ve been forwarded this email and are looking to subscribe yourself, you can do so here.

Let’s get into it!

Public-Private Path to Better Education

Let’s take a little trip down to Spartanburg, South Carolina. You may not have heard of it before — frankly, we hadn’t — but it’s time we all start paying attention. Why? Because Spartanburg is one of the most innovative cities in the US.

The background. A quarter-century ago, Spartanburg launched a public-private partnership with BMW to create 11,000 new jobs at its new facility. This move has since transformed the region from textiles, tobacco, and tourism into “a magnet for the automotive and aerospace industries.”

Focus on education. Spartanburg is now looking to connect public and private sector actors to provide quality education and community support to all its students through the Spartanburg Academic Movement (SAM).

What is SAM? It is a non-profit organization that connects Spartanburg’s government, business, community, and education leaders to pursue academic success for all its students. Their goal is to serve as a “guardian angel for each student” by paying attention the student is performing — if any student falls short of expectations, SAM will be aware and jump in to support.

It’s very comprehensive. This might be one of the best mentorship programs we’ve seen. SAM sticks with students from “cradle to career, and it looks at the student’s life in full — the support extends beyond just academic performance to look at the student’s diet, home life, and more.

The ecosystem is critical. Delivering on SAM’s promises would not be possible with just community support and financing. The role of the private sector is critical because of both the unique expertise that mentors can offer and access to additional financing. Plus, the private sector can benefit tremendously — a better-educated city will jumpstart any economy and drive more innovation.

It’s not just Spartanburg. Cincinnati is experimenting with another interesting model here too. The city noticed that children from private pre-schools were outperforming those from public pre-schools. So, the city’s public schools allocated money to create more private schools to offer universal, quality pre-schooling.

Carbon Credits May Not Work

This is a continuation of our conversation about COP25

Delegates from around the world are meeting in Madrid for the UN’s COP25 climate change conference to figure out how to address the climate crisis. A major focus of the conversation will be on ramping up carbon offsets — the practice of governments and companies buying “carbon credits” to offset their own emissions.

These should work, right? It sounds pretty great. Industrialized countries and emission-heavy industries can buy carbon credits, and the money from these can help reduce deforestation around the world.

They’re actually pretty controversial. Some experts think that carbon offsets simply “tempt high-emitting countries and companies to keep burning fossil fuels” because they know they can just buy more credits. There’s also an issue with double-counting — “if, say, Germany bought five units of carbon credits for tree-planting in Brazil, both Germany and Brazil would be able to count those saved emissions in their carbon budgets.

What about the trees? Proponents of the offset markets still believe that the capital can be beneficial by funding anti-deforestation and tree-planting projects in the places around the world that need it most. Forests have the ability to store a lot of carbon and these credits allow a polluting country far from a tropical forest (like Norway) to reach their climate goals by paying to protect forests in the Amazon basin.

There are still problems here. There is uncertainty about whether or not these newly planted trees are harvested later. For example, planting eucalyptus or oil palm trees can be counted as “reforestation, but these trees are either cut down in 10 years or have a terrible impact on the environment. Plus, even if trees are saved in one town, nobody is watching if they are getting cut down in another! This simply doesn’t work.

Plus, there’s always politics. The election of Brazillian president Jair Bolsonaro has destroyed its carbon offset program. Prior to his presidency, Brazil was doing an amazing job in figuring out how to halt deforestation and was actually successful in reducing tree loss. Unfortunately, as we’ve covered before, 2019 has been a year of massive destruction for the Brazillian Amazon and Gran Chaco.

Short Takes

• 168 million people worldwide will need assistance in 2020, the highest figure in decades, requiring $28.8 billion to respond

• Nationwide strikes and protests have kicked off in France against President Macron’s plans to overhaul the retirement system

• The Trump administration is eliminating food stamps for nearly 700,000 adults by tightening work requirements

• Interest rates and bank regulations have a significant role to play with issues like inequality and the climate crisis

Tomorrow Today: Intro to Unconventional Activism

🎟️ Thursday, December 5

SOLD OUT

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are kicking off community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food, learn from some seasoned, unconventional activists, and meet others aspiring to change the world!

Our speakers:

• Anjali Chandrashekar: Anjali is the founder of Picture It, a global social project that uses artivism to raise funds and awareness for various health, humanitarian, and environmental causes. Her projects have been featured by the UN, and she had the opportunity to present her work at the World Economic Forum at Davos in 2011. Anjali also works as an innovation strategy consultant at Doblin.

• Karen Mac: Karen is a Business Development Associate at Acumen, an impact investment fund that invests in social enterprises that serve low-income communities in developing countries around the world. Before Acumen, Karen worked at the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship and has also spent time supporting female artisans in Bolivia and improving sanitation usage in India.

Why are we hosting this?

For us, community is the center of everything. In an age of prolific digitization, there's a great need for greater human connection. It's almost necessary to carve out time and space to purposefully engage in person. While it's amazing to be able to discuss and interact with multiple people online and exchange stories and insights, we don't think anything beats the experience of sharing a meal.

Igniting Tomorrow

💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding

UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.

Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you every day. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!

If you like what you read, please click on the heart below & continue sharing this newsletter!

Also, please continue to support us by following us on Instagram.

If you ever want to share any feedback or have anything you’d like us to include in the newsletter, please just reply to this email.

Good morning! If you missed yesterday’s newsletter, you can find it here.

If you enjoy reading Tomorrow, please hit the ❤️ button above and get your friends to subscribe. If you’ve been forwarded this email and looking to subscribe, do so here.

Let’s get into it!

AI and Criminal Justice

When dealing with an inefficient system, many people look for automation opportunities. Most of the time, this approach makes sense — if we can plug in an algorithm to reduce the time and labor required to complete a task, we should. 

This does not hold true for the criminal justice system. Unfortunately, algorithms are increasingly becoming an integral part of how we arbitrate fairness. The MIT Technology Review dove into COMPAS, an algorithmic risk assessment tool used in the US criminal system, to illustrate the failings of these algorithms — let’s take a closer look.

Understanding COMPAS. This algorithm is supposed to “help judges determine whether a defendant should be kept in jail or allowed out while awaiting trial.” It uses historical data on the defendant to find correlations between factors like age, history of incarceration, and whether the person was rearrested. It then spits out a “risk score” for whether the defendant will get rearrested for a new crime during the waiting period. High-risk defendants are generally left in jail, and low-risk defendants are generally released.

This should make sense, right? In theory, this should reduce judges’ bias by providing a more objective evaluation. In fact, COMPAS specifically doesn’t include race when calculating the risk scores.

Somehow, it still doesn’t work. A ProPublica investigation argued that the tool was still biased against black Americans. This group is almost twice as likely as white Americans to be labeled as high risk but not re-offend. White Americans, on the other hand, are much more likely to be labeled as low risk but go on to commit other crimes.

Can it ever work? Nope. The study offers an interactive section where a reader can try to fix the algorithm (we highly recommend checking it out). The reason is that black and white defendants are rearrested at different rates — so, black defendants will automatically have a higher rate or predicted arrest and a higher risk score. No risk score can work when the system itself is racially biased in rates of arrest.

This is worse than human bias. Despite its failings, some may argue that this is still better than relying on a biased judge. That’s not true — COMPAS is designed by a private company and the algorithm is a trade secret. Defendants cannot question its outcomes.

How to fix this. As a first step, we need to bring more public accountability into these algorithms — COMPAS and other similar algorithms cannot be held as trade secrets. Some even are questioning whether algorithms should be used to arbitrate fairness. Andrew Selbst, a law professor, agrees: 

“Whenever you turn philosophical notions of fairness into mathematical expressions, they lose their nuance, their flexibility, their malleability. That’s not to say that some of the efficiencies of doing so won’t eventually be worthwhile. I just have my doubts.”

We believe in creating efficient systems wherever possible, but we are in Selbst’s camp when it comes to areas like the criminal justice system. Sometimes, inefficiency is necessary — especially when human lives are at stake.

Beating CO2 and Earning $1TN+

Yup, that’s a trillion, not a typo. It’s pretty universally understood that CO2 is heating the atmosphere and increasing climate change, but what is less widely known how useful CO2 can be. It can be an input (feedstock) to a variety of industrial processes, from concrete to plastics. This thing that’s heating up the planet is also very, very valuable.

So use it. Many climate activists want to figure out how to better incentivize industries to use more CO2 to decrease what is ending up in our atmosphere. This basic idea is called carbon capture and utilization (CCU), and the topic is hot right now.

It’s not just trees. There are other options for gathering and removing CO2. You can pull CO2 from flue gasses of industrial facilities (traditional carbon capture) or pull it directly out of the air (direct carbon capture). It can then be concentrated and used as an industrial feedstock. Let’s take a look at a few technologies:

Something you’re familiar with

Concrete building material. Cement is usually a smoothie of cement, water, and aggregates. There are a few technologies that can be used here:

1. Aggregates can be made by converting CO2 into solid minerals

2. CO2 can be used to cure concrete during mixing instead of water, which actually makes the concrete stronger (and saves water!)

3. Cement can be phased out in favor of a new binding agent that absorbs CO2

4. There is some speculative tech that could change the way the production process for cement occurs. Instead of just releasing CO2, the process creates a purified CO2 that can be easily re-injected to become entirely carbon negative. This wouldn’t just reduce emissions, it’d semi-permanently store carbon

The last option hasn’t been accomplished yet, but if all these technologies become more prominent, we could sequester billions of tons of carbon.

Something you’re less familiar with

Algae. Captured CO2 can be used to accelerate the growth of algae, which for some reason has the capacity to absorb much more and do it much faster than any other source of biomass. What do you do with all the algae you’ve grown? You can use it for food, biofuels, plastics, and even carbon fiber.

Something you may not have heard of

Carbon composites, graphene, etc. The team at C2CNT is using “molten electrolysis” to transform CO2 into carbon nanotubes, which are stronger than steel and highly conductive. They’re pretty expensive to make and are only used in high-end applications. However, if the cost to produce these tubes can be decreased, they could be put into virtually every application of electricity.

Also, carbon sequestration could eventually replace steel. Steel, the most commonly used metal in the world, is responsible for 7-9% of global emissions. If carbon-based materials substituted steal, it could reduce billions of tons of CO2 emissions.

If you want to see other technologies such as liquid fuels and chemicals/plastics, go here.

As a result of the enormous growth potential in these markets, some with the ability to grow ten- or twenty-fold in the upcoming years, the annual revenue of the combined markets are estimated to be between $800 billion and $1.1 trillion by 2030. This dollar value would result in a 10% global cut of carbon emissions. Unlike the usual sustainable mantra of “use less,” this operates differently: “The more you use, the less you emit.”

Bonus: Scientists just engineered bacteria to eat CO2.

China is Mapping Faces

Chinese researchers are using blood from Uighurs in their internment camps to try to figure out how DNA samples could be used to re-create an image of a person’s face.

What? It’s not science fiction. It’s a real process and emerging technology called DNA phenotyping. It looks at your genes associated with traits like ancestry, skin color, and eye color, and predicts what you might look like. If you’ve ever watched the History Channel, the 3D models of ancient humans are educated guesses sometimes built using this process.

No, I mean … what? Ethicists fear that China will use this process as another tool to crack down on Uighurs. Yes, what the government is building is:

“…essentially technologies used for hunting people,” according to Mark Munsterhjelm from the University of Windsor in Ontario.

It’s unlikely there is proper consent, especially as the subjects are being held captive in internment camps. Even worse, European scientists at institutes in Germany and Netherlands are listed as coauthors of the paper that detail the research, and respected institutions in Europe have funded part of the research.

Future fears. Will the Chinese government link this technology with the mass surveillance and facial recognition systems it’s building? Experts say it’s possible. They can feed images produced from a DNA sample into their surveillance systems and track dissidents and protestors as well as criminals.

Short Takes

• Check out the social entrepreneurs on the Forbes 30 Under 30 2020 list. Congrats to everybody here!

• China criticized the US UIGHUR Act of 2019. Yesterday, the House of Representatives approved the Uygur Intervention and Global Humanitarian Unified Response Act.

• Anti-Michael Bloomberg ads were run on Bloomberg.com by the NRA. How did this happen?

• Macron uses toddler reverse psychology to fool Trump into supporting NATO.

Tomorrow Today: Intro to Unconventional Activism

🎟️ Thursday, December 5

SOLD OUT

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are kicking off community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food, learn from some seasoned, unconventional activists, and meet others aspiring to change the world!

Our speakers:

• Anjali Chandrashekar: Anjali is the founder of Picture It, a global social project that uses artivism to raise funds and awareness for various health, humanitarian, and environmental causes. Her projects have been featured by the UN, and she had the opportunity to present her work at the World Economic Forum at Davos in 2011. Anjali also works as an innovation strategy consultant at Doblin.

• Karen Mac: Karen is a Business Development Associate at Acumen, an impact investment fund that invests in social enterprises that serve low-income communities in developing countries around the world. Before Acumen, Karen worked at the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship and has also spent time supporting female artisans in Bolivia and improving sanitation usage in India.

Why are we hosting this?

For us, community is the center of everything. In an age of prolific digitization, there's a great need for greater human connection. It's almost necessary to carve out time and space to purposefully engage in person. While it's amazing to be able to discuss and interact with multiple people online and exchange stories and insights, we don't think anything beats the experience of sharing a meal.

Igniting Tomorrow

💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding

UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.

Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you every day. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!

If you like what you read, please click on the heart below & continue sharing this newsletter!

Also, please continue to support us by following us on Instagram.

If you ever want to share any feedback or have anything you’d like us to include in the newsletter, please just reply to this email.

Good morning! If you missed yesterday’s newsletter, you can find it here.

We want to start with a quick update from COP25, the climate summit in Madrid — despite Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement, Nancy Pelosi went to make it clear that “The US is still in.”

If you enjoy reading Tomorrow, please hit the ❤️ button above and get your friends to subscribe. If you’ve been forwarded this email and looking to subscribe, do so here.

Let’s get into it!

Giving Tuesday

Today is Giving Tuesday. For those that don’t know what that is:

GivingTuesday is a global generosity movement unleashing the power of people and organizations to transform their communities and the world.

It was created in 2012 as a simple idea: a day that encourages people to do good. Over the past seven years, this idea has grown into a global movement that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate generosity.

Last year, the US raised $400 million online, and we’re hoping that we can collectively raise even more this year. Here are some resources that may help:

• “I care about the climate crisis” — if you’re interested in giving to a non-profit that addresses the climate crisis, you’ll find the best charities to donate to here.

• “I’m not sure where to donate” — if you’re unsure where your money will be the most effective, check out this new organization that rates the effectiveness of nonprofits. Research and then give with confidence.

• “I want to support my city” — we’re all about supporting local organizations. If you’re in NYC and want to help fund afterschool and career programs for youth in the city, you can give here. 

Building Sustainable Food Systems

Addressing global hunger and nutrition challenges requires the creation of sustainable food systems. Many countries are still very far away from building such food systems, as illustrated by the map we linked to yesterday — with Northern countries having a clear advantage over the Global South. Let’s dive a little deeper into this issue.

Defining a food system. A food system is “the entire web of food production and consumption from beginning to end — from growing and harvesting to processing and packaging, from transportation and consumption to the disposal of food waste.” 

Measuring sustainability. The International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) measure sustainability based on twenty indicators across four themes: the environment, economic, social, and food security and nutrition. Some of these indicators include agricultural GHG emissions, size of the female food labor force, and obesity rates.

Building sustainable food systems. The World Economic Forum has laid out guidelines on how we can continue pushing the needle:

• Alignment: There is no one-size-fits-all approach — countries and localities will need to design distinct systems that work best for their needs. Each distinct food system will need to work in alignment toward a common set of outcomes, especially considering the interconnected nature of global food supply chains.

• Inclusiveness: People need to be central to shaping food systems. We need to create open dialogues about options within communities in order to ensure that the solutions are practical and incorporate the needs of all members of society. The unaffordability of the EAT-Lancet diet is an example of how things can easily go wrong.

• Innovation: There are many scientific and technological innovations that can support developing regions, especially when combined with traditional farming knowledge and practices. We need to create infrastructure to help develop and scale such technologies, and we need to encourage collaboration across public-private systems.

• Incentives: Food system actors (e.g., food manufacturers) face real costs that make it difficult to become sustainable while remaining profitable. Incentives need to be shift to enable an effective transition while addressing the costs incurred in overcoming barriers. This can include market-based incentives, blended financial mechanisms, public fiscal incentives, and grant capital. 

What’s next. The UN and other international organizations have made sustainable systems a high priority, illustrated by the recently announced UN Food Systems Summit in 2021 that aims to highlight the centrality of food system transformation to the achievements of the other SDGs. In the run-up to this summit, the World Economic Forum has launched the Food Action Alliance to act as a “large-scale partnership aggregator and project accelerator” to break down silos. 

Like climate change, creating sustainable food systems is critical to helping us achieve most of the other UN Sustainable Development Goals. We encourage anybody who is involved in the space — maybe you invest in food companies, maybe you work for a large CPG — to really think about the overall systemic impact of any business decision made. For those who want to continue pushing the needle, check out the Food System Vision Prize from the Rockefeller Foundation, a $2 million prize for the team that can create a compelling and progressive vision of the world’s food systems by 2050.

Rebuilding Cities with People

When building a product, one of the first things you do is consult the customer you hope will use it — even if that product is an entire city. Recently, Sidewalk Labs, the urban innovation arm of Alphabet, has scaled back their smart city project in Toronto due to concerns about tech’s ethics, use of personal data, and the failure to consult the local communities.

Their dream. Sidewalk Labs began an ambitious project in Toronto to build a prototype of a futuristic city. They wanted one filled with smart power grids, underground tunnels for shipping, and countless other innovations. Unfortunately, Sidewalk didn’t include the people in their design process.

Caution. Not including people in the process of building public innovations increases the potential of citizen activism, new local regulations, and bad press about the companies. You don’t have to look far to find examples. Think of Uber and their fights with cities, Amazon’s departure from Queens, and WeWork’s fall. Social equity must become a foundation of projects that seek to provide new citizen services, solve local issues, reimagine urban infrastructure, and innovate the way of life in a place.

A leading role. Prop up the citizen, for each one can play a leading role to ensure that urban innovation does not drive inequality. If certain groups aren’t considered, they can be left behind or negatively targeted as the urban landscape in front of them changes. Here are two examples that are citizen-positive:

• DECODE: A project in Barcelona and Amsterdam that provides tools that put individuals in control of whether they keep their personal data private or share it for the public good.

• Open Data Institute and London: The organization and city have partnered to create new solutions to civic challenges while maintaining the privacy of Londoners.

Tech literacy. While Big Tech works to alter the status quo of public life by launching civic projects that change how cities operate, governments are only reacting to the changes — they are scrambling to rethink regulatory oversight and how to protect their citizens from unethical technology. These public sector leaders need to become more proactive and work in concert with the changes that are happening in their cities. This begins with better education of the current leaders and the hiring of new public sector tech talent who have the ethical framework and technical knowledge to stand up to Big Tech. Until governments choose to invest in the technology and talent at comparable levels to business, private innovation for the public will outpace the government’s ability to protect its citizens. 

If a human builds something, there will always be inherent biases. In order to discover those and fix them, social innovation needs to begin with the people and communities it hopes to benefit. They need to be in the conversation as early as possible to continually give feedback. As the beneficiaries, citizens should be able and willing to confidently champion the innovations. Placing social equity at the center will not only increase the success of change but ensure more impacted and enriched lives.

Short Takes

• Harlem Capital raised its first $40 million VC fund, with the goal of investing in 1,000 diverse founders over the next 20 years.

• A new climate solutions simulator from MIT lets you design a perfect plan to tackle climate change.

• Watch how four decades of inequality have driven American cities apart (a graph)

• Bangladesh is deliberately blocking Rohingya refugee children from education to prevent them from integrating into local communities.

Tomorrow Today: Intro to Unconventional Activism

🎟️ Thursday, December 5

SOLD OUT

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are kicking off community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food, learn from some seasoned, unconventional activists, and meet others aspiring to change the world!

Our speakers:

• Anjali Chandrashekar: Anjali is the founder of Picture It, a global social project that uses artivism to raise funds and awareness for various health, humanitarian, and environmental causes. Her projects have been featured by the UN, and she had the opportunity to present her work at the World Economic Forum at Davos in 2011. Anjali also works as an innovation strategy consultant at Doblin.

• Karen Mac: Karen is a Business Development Associate at Acumen, an impact investment fund that invests in social enterprises that serve low-income communities in developing countries around the world. Before Acumen, Karen worked at the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship and has also spent time supporting female artisans in Bolivia and improving sanitation usage in India.

Why are we hosting this?

For us, community is the center of everything. In an age of prolific digitization, there's a great need for greater human connection. It's almost necessary to carve out time and space to purposefully engage in person. While it's amazing to be able to discuss and interact with multiple people online and exchange stories and insights, we don't think anything beats the experience of sharing a meal.

Igniting Tomorrow

💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding

UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.

Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you every day. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!

If you like what you read, please click on the heart below & continue sharing this newsletter!

Also, please continue to support us by following us on Instagram.

If you ever want to share any feedback or have anything you’d like us to include in the newsletter, please just reply to this email.

Good morning! Hope you had a great Thanksgiving weekend.

On Thursday, we have our first community event. If you’re interested in hearing from changemakers and their stories, please sign up below! Only 3 spots left.

If you enjoy reading Tomorrow, please hit the ❤️ button above and get your friends to subscribe. If you’ve been forwarded this email and looking to subscribe, do so here.

Let’s get into it!

Future of life on our planet

Representatives from all around the world are gathering in Madrid today for the beginning of discussion on the climate crisis. Recently, the UN released a major report that shows the goal of holding climate change at 1.5°C above pre-industrial average temperatures to be near impossible. This is the threshold where scientists believe climate change will become catastrophic.

Waves hit the shore in Majuro, the capital city of the Marshall Islands, one of the small islands nations pushing for U.N. action at COP25. HILARY HOSIA/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

The fix. It’s not easy. By 2100, our little blue rock is on track for 3.2°C of warming, which will result in the drowning of cities. To stay below the target 1.5°C threshold, we need to cut more than 7% yearly between 2020 and 2030. How big of a change is that? Well, this would mean emissions in 2030 would be 55% lower than it was last year.

The summit. In Madrid, the various leaders around the world will attempt to finalize how they’re all going to meet their climate goals.

Debate. An exciting part of the global debate will be setting the rules around international carbon markets. Many countries plan to reach their climate goals by offsetting their emissions and buying carbon credits. These credits allow them to pay for the continual protection of natural resources such as forests and plant trees. Think of all those instagram ads you see of “buy a tee and we’ll plant a tree,” except at a much bigger scale.

Controversy around offsets. Some people don’t like them and you’re probably asking if ‘planting trees’ will make significant impact. Changing how the land will be used, including preventing activities such as deforestation, could influence a quarter of global emissions. On the other hand, some journalists have reported the various issues that could arise with offsets:

1. It’s difficult to keep track of these trees and ensure they’re not harvested later.

2. Carbon credits are too cheap to compete financially with the profits that come from deforestation. At the moment, you just make more money through cattle ranching and other activities.

3. Preventing and tracking double-counting of credits is difficult. Previous conversations would have prohibited double-counting, but of course Brazil, who would host much of the world’s offsets, objected to this. If it could count projects funded by other countries and organizations in it’s own goals, it would make reaching their climate objectives much easier.

The heart of the matter. The Climate meeting in Madrid will determine how the Paris Agreement will be translated to trackable and meaningful action. Literally, the future of life on Earth is in the balance.

9 things to be thankful for

News is often saturated with terribly heavy and depressing things. Here’s some positivity as you’re coming out of the thanksgiving weekend:

1. Extreme poverty has fallen

2. Life expectancy is up

3. Teen births in the US are down

4. Smoking in the US is down, too

5. In the long term, homicide rates have fallen dramatically

6. In the short term, they’re down in the US, too

7. More people in the world live in a democracy now

8. More people are going to school for longer

9. Solar energy is getting cheaper

Beijing vs US

This is a continuation on China and Democracy.

If you didn’t hear, Trump ratified the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act. We didn’t have doubts (he really had to sign it) and are happy that he did.

Retaliation. Every action has an equal opposite reaction. The new Act mandates annual reviews of the city’s political situation and possible sanctions. To show their disappointment, Beijing has suspended visits to HK by US military ships and aircraft. China also imposed sanctions on four US-based NGOs including Human Rights Watch and Freedom House. Beijing claims that these organizations have supported violence in their efforts to help protestors. Many people in mainland believe this narrative.

Protests continue. Yesterday, a peaceful march in Tsim Sha Tsui, a large shopping district, erupted into violence as police fired tear gas into the crowd. As you probably know, HK’s economy fell into a recession for the first time in a decade due to protests and the US-China trade war, which is surprising for a place that used to be seen as one of the world’s top financial centers.

Keeping watch. As always, we’ll be keeping you updated on the events here.

Short takes

• Legal pot. Hit the shelves in the Midwest this weekend.

• One chart on how much billionaires spend on charity.

• FB launches tool that allows you to transfer photos to google.

• Rating countries on how sustainable their food systems are.

• Early instagram employee on how to build meaningful communities.

Tomorrow Today: Intro to Unconventional Activism

🎟️ Thursday, December 5

Only 3 spots remaining.

Password: tomorrow139

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are kicking off community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food, learn from some seasoned, unconventional activists, and meet others aspiring to change the world!

Our speakers:

• Anjali Chandrashekar: Anjali is the founder of Picture It, a global social project that uses artivism to raise funds and awareness for various health, humanitarian, and environmental causes. Her projects have been featured by the UN, and she had opportunity to present her work at the Word Economic Forum at Davos in 2011. Anjali also works as an innovation strategy consultant at Doblin.

• Karen Mac: Karen is a Business Development Associate at Acumen, an impact investment fund that invests in social enterprises that serve low-income communities in developing countries around the world. Before Acumen, Karen worked at the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship and has also spent time supporting female artisans in Bolivia and improving sanitation usage in India.

Why are we hosting this?

For us, community is the center of everything. In an age of prolific digitization, there's a great need for greater human connection. It's almost necessary to carve out time and space to purposefully engage in person. While it's amazing to be able to discuss and interact with multiple people online and exchange stories and insights, we don't think anything beats the experience of sharing a meal.

Is this for you?

If you're an individual making change at your organization or looking to find ways to better impact the world, this is the right space for you!

Save my spot

Igniting Tomorrow

💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding

UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.

Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you everyday. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!

If you like what you read, please click on the heart below & continue sharing this newsletter!

Also, please continue to support us by following us on Instagram.

If you ever want to share any feedback or have anything you’d like us to include in the newsletter, please just reply to this email.

Good morning! If you missed yesterday’s, you can find it here.

As we’re all gearing up to eat (I mean… spend time with family), we wanted to say that we’re grateful for you and this community. Writing every M-F for the last few months has been an adjustment (to say the least), but it’s been humbling. We’re really thankful for everyone who’s reached out with their amazing ideas, feedback, or to just say hello. We’re also thankful for how much this newsletter has been opened and shared. It’s crazy for us to think that people open this every day and set apart some time to read.

With that said, we’ll be taking off for the next two days and will return on Monday.

Happy Thanksgiving! Hope you eat a lot of pie.

If you enjoy reading Tomorrow, please hit the ❤️ button above and get your friends to subscribe. If you’ve been forwarded this email and looking to subscribe, do so here.

Let’s get into it!

Charity transforms economy

GiveDirectly, an organization founded by economists, has been studying the impact of its program from the get-go. What do they do? They distribute cash straight to the poor residents in sub-Saharan African and have been doing so for almost a decade. They usually measure how better or worse off the individual recipients are.

New study. The team released a study on a large-scale program that distributed over $10 million in cash to residents of Siaya County, Kenya. Instead of studying just the individuals, they looked at the entire region this time.

Details. GiveDirectly’s program amounted to about 15% of the GDP of the local area. For context, that’s 3x the stimulus, relative to economy size, as the 2008 US stimulus packages.

So what happened? There was growth in the entire area. Imagine every dollar you invest returns $2.60. That’s what happened in this area of Kenya. Not only did the money benefit the recipients, but nearby villages also grew as people spent more money.

Why’s this important? This study lays out a strategy that can be useful in pulling poor countries out of poverty. It’s super simple—hand out cash to the people. This study suggests that basic income programs could not only pull individuals out of poverty, but produce region-wide economic benefits.

Seeds that can withstand climate change

Negotiations to strengthen an international treaty to develop hardier crops fell apart.

The situation. Hunger and malnutrition are on the rise due to the climate crisis. Changing temperatures and water shortages are not suitable environments for many crops. We, as a global society, need to produce better adapted crops that can withstand a greater amount of change, but political and commercial interests continue to challenge these developments.

The global food system. To develop new varieties of crops, researchers need to study a wide range of plants to understand the reasons why certain ones are more drought or pest tolerant. In order to do this quickly and effectively, the nations of the world share seeds. More than 500 reps gathered last week to discuss the International treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Six years of negotiations broke down because of access.

The rights to a seed’s genome. Northern developed nations believe that the digital sequence information of a seed should not be shared globally, while developing nations want the genetic information as well as the physical seeds.

“What it all comes down to is that everyone should have fair access to genetic resources and that poor countries can get access to the benefits that arise from using them,” Lise Lykke Steffensen, executive director of The Nordic Genetic Resource Center

The organizations that disagree believe that if the genetic information ended up in a public database, anyone could use it without having to pay into the Treaty’s benefit fund which is supposed to support global seed conversation efforts.

It still helps. Though the treaty is flawed and still up in the air, it has so far helped farmers. 81 projects were launched in 67 countries to assist in seed adaption. Lost varieties of local produce were reintroduced in Malawi from international gene bank collections. Egyptian farmers were able to cultivate citrus varieties that had become rare and more seed banks were introduced in vulnerable regions.

We often wonder if the power dynamics in agriculture should be changed. Is there a way that ownership could be more people-owned instead of privately owned? Not so much entirely a public good, but could smaller communities become better responsible at producing their own food? Would this help the argument for access and shared information, ultimately resulting in better and more food? Imagine a community-based subscription to a global seed bank.

The fact that negotiations failed due to profit-based interests means that many organizations don’t see the urgency within the food system. Or maybe they don’t care. We’re going to look deeper to see if there’s anything actionable here.

Short takes

• Presidents are not kings. Federal Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson ordered ex-White House counsel Don McGahn to testify. Judge said that these officials do not have blanket immunity and absolute privilege.

• TikTok banned an American teenager who criticized the Uyghur oppression. Seems a little foolish to do so. TikTok is being investigated for its ties to Chinese government. Feels like they just announced who’s side they’re on.

• Iranian protestors started hundreds of fires. 200,000 people set alight 731 banks and 140 government sites.

• U.S. Police already using “Spot” Robot from Boston Dynamics. Feel like the start of terminator? We’re hoping that it increases safety for first responders.

Tomorrow Today: Intro to Unconventional Activism

🎟️ Thursday, December 5

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are kicking off community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food, learn from some seasoned, unconventional activists, and meet others aspiring to change the world!

Our speakers:

• Anjali Chandrashekar: Anjali is the founder of Picture It, a global social project that uses artivism to raise funds and awareness for various health, humanitarian, and environmental causes. Her projects have been featured by the UN, and she had opportunity to present her work at the Word Economic Forum at Davos in 2011. Anjali also works as an innovation strategy consultant at Doblin.

• Karen Mac: Karen is a Business Development Associate at Acumen, an impact investment fund that invests in social enterprises that serve low-income communities in developing countries around the world. Before Acumen, Karen worked at the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship and has also spent time supporting female artisans in Bolivia and improving sanitation usage in India.

Why are we hosting this?

For us, community is the center of everything. In an age of prolific digitization, there's a great need for greater human connection. It's almost necessary to carve out time and space to purposefully engage in person. While it's amazing to be able to discuss and interact with multiple people online and exchange stories and insights, we don't think anything beats the experience of sharing a meal.

Is this for you?

If you're an individual making change at your organization or looking to find ways to better impact the world, this is the right space for you!

Only 8 spots remaining.

Password: tomorrow139

Save my spot

Igniting Tomorrow

💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding

UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.

Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you everyday. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!

If you like what you read, please click on the heart below & continue sharing this newsletter!

Also, please continue to support us by following us on Instagram.

If you ever want to share any feedback or have anything you’d like us to include in the newsletter, please just reply to this email.

Good morning! If you missed yesterday’s, you can find it here.

Looking forward to seeing all the people that signed up for our event the last few weeks. Scroll down to learn more!

If you enjoy reading Tomorrow, please hit the ❤️ button above and get your friends to subscribe. If you’ve been forwarded this email and looking to subscribe, do so here.

Let’s get into it!

Breakthrough by Secret Solar Startup

Heliogen, backed by Bill Gates, opened their curtains last week. They’re a clean energy startup focused on eliminating the need for fossil fuels.

Cut global carbon emissions by 20%. The company has discovered a way to replace fossil fuels in industrial plants, a space untouched by the sustainability movements. It figured out how to use AI and a bunch of mirrors to concentrate the sunlight. This concentrated beam can generate heat above 1,000 degrees Celsius. Think of it as a massive magnifying glass you probably played with as a child. But is it really that important?

It’s counterintuitive. You wouldn’t expect that the ability to make something extremely hot paves a new way to fight the climate crisis. Well, the only way to produce steel, cement, and other chemicals in industrial plants previously was to heat them to very high temperatures, temperatures which were only possible with fossil fuels.

The journey. The solar industry has been attempting for some time to produce higher and higher temperatures needed for manufacturing. No one has been able to hit over 600 degrees Celsius until now. Heliogen’s breakthrough uses cameras to observe the sun’s movements and make constant small adjustments to keep the rays pointed in the right direction.

Coming soon. The company believes it can get above 1,500 Celsius, which is enough to split water molecules and produce hydrogen fuel. This could solve hydrogen fuel’s biggest problem, which was that the energy to produce it negated any gains from using it.

Obviously, the changes won’t happen immediately. But, it feels exciting that there are people out there constantly fighting to figure out how to better our future. All we can say is…

Protests around the world

Palestine. In the West Bank and Gaza, demonstrators are protesting against Trump’s reversal of a longstanding US policy on Israeli settlements. These settlements are considered illegal under international law. The Arab League formally rejected the US position.

Colombia. Dilan Cruz, an 18 year old, died in Bogota on Monday after being injured by a teargas canister. Protests began last week with a 250,000-person march over issues including economic reforms, police violence, and corruption.

“Old people in this country are accustomed to deaths being just one more statistic, and we want that to begin to change,” said design student Sofia Murcia, 20, standing with friends carrying white flowers. “If you do nothing, you’re complicit.”

Crackdown on Uighur Muslims

Continuation of our conversation on China.

1 million people are being held in internment camps in the northwestern Xinjiang region. Here’s some background information if you haven’t read up recently on it.

Photo taken August 5, 2008 [Nir Elias/Reuters]

Uighur Muslims… why are they being targeted? Beijing has sought for decades to suppress Uighur resistance to Chinese rule. They’ve always been afraid of separatists. They feared that the Uighurs wanted to split off from China and make Xinjiang independent, so they painted them as a threat. A lot of Uighurs refer to Xinjiang as East Turkestan. “De-extremification” was deemed as necessary to protect the nation. This crackdown began after a surge of antigovernment and anti-Chinese violence that included ethnic riots in 2009 and a may 2014 attack that killed 39 people.

Why is Xinjiang important? The region is actually oil- and resource- rich and geographically important to China’s new infrastructure project, the Belt and Road initiative. They’re afraid that any separatist actions would jeopardize their project.

What happens at the internment camps? There is evidence that violence is being used in the internment camps and that conditions are bad. The stories from escaped detainees and former guards shed light on how terrible the detainees are treated. These papers are

Sigal Samuel from Vox asks us to try a thought experiment.

How would the world respond if this were a story about a million Christians being locked up in internment camps? 

When she published an article on how China is likening Islam to mental illness, she was dismayed to find that a lot of people on social media responded by agreeing with China.

In terms of helping the Uighur people directly, we don’t know of much you can do at the moment. What would be helpful in general is to simply talk about it with friends and family, so more people are aware of what is happening.

Short takes

• Save the Koalas. $1.6mm has been raised to support the furry animals that were harmed by recent fires.

• Flash Funding. There’s a growing trend of large gifts that fund tons of crowdfunding campaigns at once.

• Drop in suicide rate. Legalizing same-sex marriage has led to big drops in suicide rates in the gay community.

• Mental health. Barbers are getting black men to talk about their mental health.

• Wild theories: Michael Bloomberg doesn’t really want to win the 2020 election.

• Women suffer needless pain because almost everything is designed for men.

• Sustainability is key to economic viability of packaging companies.

Tomorrow Today

🎟️ Thursday, December 5: Intro to Unconventional Activism

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are kicking off community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food, learn from some seasoned, unconventional activists, and meet others aspiring to change the world!

Our speakers:

• Anjali Chandrashekar: Anjali is the founder of Picture It, a global social project that uses artivism to raise funds and awareness for various health, humanitarian, and environmental causes. Her projects have been featured by the UN, and she had opportunity to present her work at the Word Economic Forum at Davos in 2011. Anjali also works as an innovation strategy consultant at Doblin.

• Karen Mac: Karen is a Business Development Associate at Acumen, an impact investment fund that invests in social enterprises that serve low-income communities in developing countries around the world. Before Acumen, Karen worked at the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship and has also spent time supporting female artisans in Bolivia and improving sanitation usage in India.

Why are we hosting this?

For us, community is the center of everything. In an age of prolific digitization, there's a great need for greater human connection. It's almost necessary to carve out time and space to purposefully engage in person. While it's amazing to be able to discuss and interact with multiple people online and exchange stories and insights, we don't think anything beats the experience of sharing a meal.

Is this for you?

If you're an individual making change at your organization or looking to find ways to better impact the world, this is the right space for you!

Only 8 spots remaining.

Password: tomorrow139

Save my spot

Igniting Tomorrow

💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding

UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.

Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you everyday. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!

If you like what you read, please click on the heart below & continue sharing this newsletter!

Also, please continue to support us by following us on Instagram.

If you ever want to share any feedback or have anything you’d like us to include in the newsletter, please just reply to this email.

Good morning! Hope everyone had a great weekend. If you missed Friday’s recap and community highlights, you can find it here.

Announcing our speakers

Tomorrow Today

🎟️ Thursday, December 5: Intro to Unconventional Activism

Only 10 spots remaining.

Password: tomorrow139

Save my spot

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are kicking off community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food and learn from seasoned unconventional activists who have started and have been part of mission-driven companies to accelerate change. Here are our speaker:

Anjali Chandrashekar

Anjali is the founder of Picture It, a global social project that uses artivism to raise funds and awareness for various health, humanitarian, and environmental causes. Her projects have been featured by the UN, and she presented had the opportunity to feature her work at the Word Economic Forum at Davos in 2011. Anjali also works as an innovation strategy consultant at Doblin.

Karen Mac

Karen is a Business Development Associate at Acumen, an impact investment fund that invests in social enterprises that serve low-income communities in developing countries around the world. Before Acumen, Karen worked at the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship and has also spent time supporting female artisans in Bolivia and improving sanitation usage in India. 

Save my spot

If you enjoy reading Tomorrow, please hit the ❤️ button above and get your friends to subscribe. If you’ve been forwarded this email and looking to subscribe, do so here.

Let’s get into it!

ESG funds aren’t real

There’s a knee-slapping WSJ story about how “Eight of the ten biggest US sustainable funds are invested in oil-and-gas companies, which are regularly slammed by environmental activists.” Shocking? BlackRock Inc. explains:

A BlackRock spokesperson said the firm has designed its sustainable funds to offer investors similar risk and returns that they would achieve in broad market indexes while including the highest ESG-rated companies in each sector.

Let me repeat. “The highest ESG-rated companies in each sector.” One more time! “The highest ESG-rated companies in each sector.” If there’s an entire group that is not environmentally conscious, then you just invest in the ones that aren’t acting as bad.

I still don’t get it. What BlackRock is basically saying is if you excluded an entire sector that’s not good for the environment, then you wouldn’t own the same stocks as the overall market. This could mean your fund would underperform if fossil-fuel companies did well. You wouldn’t want that, would you?

So is the fund really ESG? Depends on your definition. It seems that the goal for many funds is not to build a fund of environmentally conscious companies, but rather the goal is to track the market, while having “ESG” in the name. Why? well the ones that focus on index tracking outcompete the ones that focus on environmental, social, and governance issues alone. That’s not in performance, but demand for the actual fund. So really, the existence of these artificial ESG funds is a mix of investor demands and marketing.

We’ve said it before and we’ll keep saying it. The US needs better overall standards when it comes to all things related to social impact. Whether that’s the metrics that measure positive and negative change over time, databases that centralize that information for analysis, or the companies we label as environmentally friendly, we need consensus.

Xinjiang Papers

Continuation of our conversation on China.

Last week, we mentioned how the New York Times published the Xinjiang Papers. They’re 400 pages of leaked documents that expose China’s internment camps for Uighur Muslims. It’s terribly alarming and we’re going to do a deeper dive occasionally to give updates and explore what is happening. In addition, if we can figure out any ways to help or do anything about this human rights crisis, we’ll also include them here.

A virus. The language around how China describes Islam is awful. They use words such as “virus,” an “infection,” an addictive “drug” and the kicker is that the language comes from the top. President Xi Jinping has been describing the people and the faith in these ways since 2014.

More tomorrow. We’ll continue with some background and ways to help. If you’ve heard of any unique ways to do so, please send them here.

Short takes

• More toilets! Bill gates unveils new toilet. What makes it special? It transforms waste into fertilizer and doesn’t require water or sewers.

• 114,000 students in NYC are homeless. Here’s two that share their life experiences. [More to come here on how you can help]

• Uber stripped of it’s London license. The city refused to give the company a new permit over safety and security concerns. However, it can still operate while appealing the decision.

• Michael Bloomberg for 2020. The billionaire and former NYC mayor announced his candidacy.

• HK’s protest movement won at the polls. Pro-demo candidates, many with ties to the protests, captured a majority of the district council seats. There was a historic turnout.

Tomorrow Today

🎟️ Thursday, December 5: Intro to Unconventional Activism

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are kicking off community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food and learn from seasoned unconventional activists who have started mission-driven companies to accelerate change. Stayed tuned for speaker announcement and the menu. Get excited!

Only 10 spots remaining.

Password: tomorrow139

Save my spot

Igniting Tomorrow

💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding

UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.

Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you everyday. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!

If you like what you read, please click on the heart below & continue sharing this newsletter!

Also, please continue to support us by following us on Instagram.

If you ever want to share any feedback or have anything you’d like us to include in the newsletter, please just reply to this email.

Happy Friday! If you missed yesterday’s update, you can find it here.

If you have something you’d like to showcase or simply something that you want to celebrate, please reply to this email and we’ll incorporate it next week!

If you’re interested in connecting with people actively working to make change and learning from their experiences, please check out our first community event, Tomorrow Today: Intro to Unconventional Activism, below.

If you enjoy reading Tomorrow, please hit the ❤️ button above and get your friends to subscribe. If you’ve been forwarded this email and looking to subscribe, do so here.

Let’s get into it!

This week, we were invited to attend a community event at Big Idea Ventures (BIV) that showcased the companies in their accelerator creating plant-based food and alternatives. From a new seed-based milk to plant-based cheese that melts like mozzarella to a nondairy gelato, the new startups are working on perfecting texture and taste.

From what we know, this fund and accelerator is the only one of its kind in NYC and we’re excited to see the companies grow and succeed in the market.

If you know of anyone building a new protein startup, join their next cohort in 2020 by applying here.

Andrew Ive, Managing General Partner of Big Idea Ventures

Over the next 10 years, we’re going to see a whole bunch of new brands, new products, and technologies that just didn’t exist five years ago… It’s a big opportunity. And the great thing about it is that if we do our job right, and we deliver a lot of delicious foods that just happen to not have animal protein or animal byproducts in them, it has a really significant impact on climate.

Can the plant-based industry grow from $1billion to $20billion?

Big Idea Ventures is solving the World's greatest challenges by supporting the World's best entrepreneurs. We're a Venture Capital + Accelerator Fund undertaking deeper due diligence in the world's best seed & growth stage companies using acceleration and investing in our top performers. New Protein Fund I is our first fund. We’re raising USD$50M+ to invest in the best companies in the plant-based foods, ingredients and alternative protein ecosystem. We combine capital and partnership to support and grow the world’s most compelling plant-based food and alternative protein companies.

The Impact Fellowship. The Impact Fellowship is a 2-week program in NYC for tech students who want to build a better world! Applications for 2020 are now live!

The David Prize. 5 New Yorkers. $200,000 each. No strings attached. The David Prize is a celebration of individuals and ideas to create a better, brighter New York City. Open to any individual working in the five boroughs, the Prize welcomes those with the grit and vision to change our communities, our culture and our future for good. Applications are live!

The Unknown Fund. “Anonymous” (yes, that group) is going to invest and donate $75 million of bitcoin in startups that help create anonymity ideas. Applications are up!

Career’s in Social Impact. Careero is hosting an online conference on December 5-8th all about Careers in Social Impact. We have already lined up amazing hiring companies and speakers from some of the world's most impactful companies.

Tech Jobs for Good helps mission-driven companies hire the best tech talent in the United States. Every Friday, we’ll highlight a few amazing recent opportunities.

• Impact and Learning Manager - Global Health Corps · New York, NY

• Technology Associate - Arab American Institute · Washington, DC

• Software Engineer - Azavea · Philadelphia, PA

• Product Manager - Housing Navigator Massachusetts · Boston, MA

• Backend Engineer - Tia · San Francisco, CA

• Lead UX Researcher - OpenGov · Portland, OR/Chicago, IL/Dallas, TX/Boston, MA

For more, check out their site here. If your company’s looking to post a job and reach purpose-driven and passionate people, please reach out.

Monday. A ski lift-esque machine could produce energy through gravity energy storage. Violence in Hong Kong has exploded. Two of America’s biggest coal plants shut down this month.

Tuesday. You can purchase a color-coded, pre-cut, and pre-drilled micro-grid that’s easy to put together. Even in conservation solutions and problem solving, the full picture isn’t always considered. There’s an immense human impact to conserving half the planet.

Wednesday. Could the US implement a more forgiving legal system? Also, did you know that flying is important to conservation efforts?

Thursday. Iran has gone 5 days without internet. Worker’s Fund supports new companies changing the way gig workers are paid and supported. There’s a global fight against the anti-vax movement.

Tomorrow Today

🎟️ Thursday, December 5: Intro to Unconventional Activism

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are kicking off community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food and learn from seasoned unconventional activists who have started mission-driven companies to accelerate change. Stayed tuned for speaker announcement and the menu. Get excited!

Only 10 spots remaining.

Password: tomorrow139

Save my spot

Igniting Tomorrow

💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding

UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.

Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you everyday. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!

If you like what you read, please click on the heart below & continue sharing this newsletter!

Also, please continue to support us by following us on Instagram.

If you ever want to share any feedback or have anything you’d like us to include in the newsletter, please just reply to this email.

Good morning! If you missed yesterday’s update, you can find it here.

Today is World Philosophy Day. Throw us some of your favorite quotes by replying to this email.

In the spirit of freedom and especially free thinking, we need to be watchful of the protests and struggles in Iran. Currently, Iran has reached its 5th day without access to internet. The shutdown is part of a fight against anti-government protests, which not only is harming the economy, but limiting communications and access. We at Tomorrow believe that internet access should be a right just as much as the ability to protest. Students and journalists are being arrested and sent to prison for their involvement and more than 100 protestors are believed to have been killed by Iranian security forces as the government gives them the green light to use lethal and excessive force to stop them. Here’s a petition to help the people in Iran by giving them access to internet. Sign it, keep paying attention, and let us know if there’s any other actionable ways we can help.

We’re trying to think of different ways to improve this dashboard. Something we’re considering is making it entirely based on our community. How can we track the impact our community is making? How can we better use this as a way to celebrate the changes we are making together?

If you enjoy reading Tomorrow, please hit the ❤️ button above and get your friends to subscribe. If you’ve been forwarded this email and looking to subscribe, do so here.

Let’s get into it!

Worker power

The gig economy is expected to grow tremendously in the next 10 years and is comprised of a variety of different roles. From dairy worker to construction contractor, what do all these they have in common? They’re standing on a shifting landscape with growing concerns for their future wages, safety, and community. In order to help, the Workers Lab 2019 Innovation Fund launched its 2019 class yesterday, and it has awarded $750,000 to a cohort of organizations working on improving worker wages and protections.

Empowerment. Workers Lab, founded in 2014, seeks to empower workers by fighting for their wages, protections, and benefits as the environment in labor industries are changing.

“Across the economy, what we’ve seen in the last 30 years is a hollowing out of benefits, protections, and wages that working people need to live lives of opportunity in the United States,” says Carmen Rojas, founder of Workers Lab.

The winners. The five innovation winners are given $150,000 to commit 12 months to building their idea and solving how to create greater worker power. (These appear in no particular order.)

• Migrant Justice. Dairy companies enroll in their Milk with Dignity program, which is a code of conduct for the employers to ensure their workers receive dignified wages, schedules, housing, safety protocols, etc.

• Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha (CTUL). Works with nonunion construction workers and helps them “raise the floor” of their work conditions by setting the standards that eliminate labor trafficking, wage theft, fraud, etc.

• Co-op Dayton. Builds a co-op model for small, working class cities to assess the gaps in neighborhood goods and services and then create new businesses that solve them.

• Working Washington. Leads a national #PayUp campaign that calls for digital gig workers to have pay standards. That means at least $15 an hour after expenses, tips on top of base pay, and transparency in how they are paid. This supports the gig workers from delivery platforms like Instacart, DoorDash, and Postmates)

• New Deal Home Improvement Company. Will create a center for support in the sustainable construction and renovation market. Small and new businesses will have the opportunity to compete in the green building space.

Yes! Of course, there’s a lot of issues out there that need attention, but there are also people working tirelessly to solve them. We should always celebrate that. This Innovation Fund has invested more than $2,000,000 in 38+ projects nationwide. Check out the ideas and if you know of anyone in need of pre-seed funding, please reach out.

Global fight against Anti Vax

Some believe that refusing vaccines for your children equates to child abuse, and that the parents who choose this path should be punished. Vaccines are overwhelmingly safe and effective. They prevent the spread of disease and people without vaccines have tremendous risk of illness and even death during breakouts.

Fed up. Germany, Australia, and a few other countries are experimenting with punitive measures for parents that refuse to vaccinate their children. They’re not claiming child abuse, but parents may face fines and even directors of schools could be fined if they let unvaccinated kids in. Here’s a quick roundup:

Here’s a quick roundup of the global crackdown on vaccine-refusing parents:

• In Germany on Thursday, lawmakers passed a law stating that parents need to prove they’ve vaccinated their kids against measles — or risk fines up to €2,500 (about $2,750). Unvaccinated children also risk losing their places in school.

• Italy’s parliament passed a law that makes 10 childhood vaccinations mandatory for kids up to age 16, and requires parents to prove their children are immunized before entering school or else face a €500 (about $560) noncompliance fine. And kids who aren’t vaccinated are being told not to come to school.

• In France, the health ministry made 11 vaccines — up from the current three (diphtheria, tetanus, and polio) — mandatory for children, though there’s no talk of a fine yet.

• Further afield, New South Wales, Australia, passed “no jab, no play” legislation in September 2017: The law bans unvaccinated kids from preschool and day care and fine the directors of schools that admit un-immunized children $5,500 Australian dollars ($4,400). The law in New South Wales is modeled on similarly stringent laws in other Australian states, and across the country, parents with children who aren’t immunized aren’t eligible for child care benefits.

• In the US, New York — where a large measles outbreak raged on for nearly a year — the government threatened parents who don’t vaccinate their children with a fine of up to $1,000.

It’s back. Measles cases all around the world have been creeping its way up, with a 300% increase in cases over the same time period in 2018. Countries such as US, Britain, Greece, Brazil, France, and Germany that have eliminated measles from their population have found the disease appearing again. With more than 1,200 cases this year, this has been the largest outbreak since 1992.

Short takes

• A strategy on how the US can get to zero emissions by 2030.

• Coldplay won’t go on tour because the environment. They want to develop a “carbon neutral” show first.

• Doctors put humans in suspended animation for first time.

• US bill on Hong Kong is now on Trump’s desk. People say if he signs it, it’ll worsen China relationship.

• Tens of thousands are marching in Colombia. The borders are currently sealed as the government prepares for the national strike.
  

Tomorrow Today

🎟️ Thursday, December 5: Intro to Unconventional Activism

Change cannot be achieved alone, only together. In that spirit, we are kicking off community events at our space in New York City. Eat some food and learn from seasoned unconventional activists who have started mission-driven companies to accelerate change. Stayed tuned for speaker announcement and the menu. Get excited!

Only 10 spots remaining.

Password: tomorrow139

Save my spot

Igniting Tomorrow

💰 $100k-$250k Pre-Seed Funding

UPDATE: We’ve already had multiple people reach out and share their ideas. It gets us super excited to learn more about the projects and companies everyone is working on. Please keep reaching out. We’ll be releasing more information around this in the upcoming year.

Many of you are either already working on a number of world-changing things or have ideas bursting out of you everyday. Our goal is to see unconventional activists like you succeed. Let us help connect you into the space and access the financing you need to get started. If you’d like to share your ideas (or know a friend working on something exciting), please reply to this email!

If you like what you read, please click on the heart below & continue sharing this newsletter!

Also, please continue to support us by following us on Instagram.

If you ever want to share any feedback or have anything you’d like us to include in the newsletter, please just reply to this email.