Technology and Society Grantees Included in TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in Artificial Intelligence Share By Heising-Simons Foundation on 9/13/2023 on 9/13/2023 Two grantee partners of the Heising-Simons Foundation’s CEO Fund: Technology and Society initiative have been included in TIME Magazine’s inaugural list of the top 100 most influential people in Artificial Intelligence (AI).
President and CEO Sushma Raman Joins Heising-Simons Foundation Board Share By Heising-Simons Foundation on 9/12/2023 on 9/12/2023 Sushma Raman, President and CEO of Heising-Simons Foundation, has been elected to join the Foundation’s Board of Directors. Ms. Raman joined the Foundation as President and CEO in February 2023, following a national search, and joined the three other directors— Liz Simons, Chair of the Board; Mark Heising, Board Vice Chair; Caitlin Heising, Board Vice …
Multi-Donor Initiative to Award More than $500 Million to Revitalize Local News Share By Heising-Simons Foundation on 9/7/2023 on 9/7/2023 The Heising-Simons Foundation is joining a coalition of 21 other donors to create Press Forward, a new national grantmaking initiative with the goal to strengthen local news and information with a combined more than a half-billion dollars over the next five years.
Brian Eule: “The For-Profit Journalism Model is Broken” Share By Heising-Simons Foundation on 9/6/2023 on 9/6/2023 “Fox, MSNBC, and CNN air opinion disguised as news, knowing that anger, fear, and conflict draw eyeballs, which in turn results in greater advertising revenue. Speculation on who leads a political race more than a year away, with pundits pontificating on soundstages, costs less sending reporters out to cover communities,” writes Director of Journalism and …
A Year After Inflation Reduction Act Passage, Race to Accelerate Clean Energy Is On Share By Heising-Simons Foundation on 8/17/2023 on 8/17/2023 There are reasons for both grave concern and optimism in our fight to avoid a climate catastrophe. While each day brings news of the rapidly worsening impacts of climate change, I have hope at the one-year anniversary of the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the most consequential climate law in U.S. history.
New Mapping Tool Reveals California Suburban and Rural Counties are Disproportionately Impacted by Gun Violence Share By Heising-Simons Foundation on 8/17/2023 on 8/17/2023 While urban centers are often thought of as the leading settings of gun violence, a new mapping report by grantee Hope and Heal Fund, produced in partnership with RomoGIS Enterprises, reveals that two-thirds of California’s gun homicides during 2014-2022 occurred outside urban settings and California’s most populated cities. Using the California Gun Homicides 2014-2022 Dashboard, …
Science Program Director Dr. Cyndi Atherton Appointed to National Academies’ Climate Crossroads Advisory Committee Share By Heising-Simons Foundation on 8/3/2023 on 8/3/2023 Heising-Simons Foundation Science Program Director Dr. Cyndi Atherton has been appointed to the inaugural advisory committee of Climate Crossroads, a new climate initiative of grantee partner the National Academies. Climate Crossroads will focus on key pathways to tackle the climate crisis. “The National Academies are committed to marshaling the deep and broad expertise that this …
How Grantee WITNESS Builds Technological Capacity of Grassroots Groups to Increase Police Accountability Share By Heising-Simons Foundation on 8/1/2023 on 8/1/2023 Several years ago, while still a graduate student at MIT’s Media Lab, Joy Buolamwini began to notice a troubling pattern in facial recognition technology––an inability to detect a wide range of skin tones and facial structures, even in widely available systems employed by Big Tech, government agencies, and law enforcement.
Increasing Inequalities in Silicon Valley Highlighted in New Report by Grantee SJSU Human Rights Institute Share By Heising-Simons Foundation on 7/31/2023 on 7/31/2023 A new report by San José State University’s (SJSU) Human Rights Institute features data that highlights Silicon Valley’s persistent racial, employment, education, housing, and income/wealth inequality, as well as the astronomical concentration of wealth in the hands of a small number of households and companies. The fourth annual Silicon Valley Pain Index (SVPI) is a meta-analysis of …