Month: January 2024

Through the Qualcomm Wireless Reach initiative, Qualcomm collaborates with a variety of organizations to help close the global digital divide. In Washington, D.C., Qualcomm is working with George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates to reduce the digital divide in healthcare by providing Medicaid patients with digital literacy skills and remote patient monitoring devices.

Expanding digital literacy is better connecting patients to the care they need, especially with older patients. Many Medicaid patients don’t know how to use telehealth features, which can improve their overall healthcare experiences and remove physical barriers to care. Through the Tech2Home Care Unit Program, Qualcomm and George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates are working to teach elderly patients how to utilize telehealth technologies.

By providing Medicaid patients with a 5G phone and a Bluetooth-enabled device for remote patient monitoring, older patients are empowered to manage their own healthcare needs.

By investing in digital skills and making technology more accessible, the collaboration between George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates and Qualcomm Wireless Reach is helping more patients gain confidence in their healthcare options.

Learn more about the collaboration between Qualcomm Wireless Reach and George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates: https://www.qualcomm.com/content/dam/qcomm-martech/dm-assets/documents/WR_HealthDesk_Final.pdf

Learn more about Qualcomm Wireless Reach: https://www.qualcomm.com/company/corporate-responsibility/empowering-digital-transformation/wireless-reach

Watch more projects from Qualcomm Wireless Reach: KidzAlive Mobilized, South Africa

Learn how Qualcomm Wireless Reach is helping close the digital divide with students in Italy: 5G Smart School with WeSchool and Qualcomm Wireless Reach

Read the 2022 Qualcomm corporate responsibility report: https://www.qualcomm.com/company/corporate-responsibility

Originally published on bloomberg.com

“I one hundred percent believe that the solutions to the climate crisis are inextricably woven with solutions to wealth equality,” says Donnel Baird, the founder and CEO of BlocPower. The startup, which was founded in 2014, sources and implements sustainable building upgrades. But simply greening buildings is just the beginning of that work.

In the eight years since its inception, BlocPower has produced a dizzying number of large-scale initiatives across the country: In 2022, the company partnered with the City of Ithaca, New York to retrofit its entire building stock by 2030, the first electrification initiative of its kind in the United States. That same year, it announced a plan to bring a similar program to Menlo Park, California, and has since launched decarbonization efforts in Denver, Oakland, San Jose, and other cities. Most recently, through a new partnership with the New York City Mayor’s Office, BlocPower will train 3,000 workers for jobs in the local green economy. The startup has also recently expanded an AI-powered program to assist urban planners in their own sustainability initiatives, drawing on large swaths of data to model every building in the United States.

BlocPower’s work is deeply rooted in Baird’s own background, first as a resident of a dilapidated Brooklyn building and later as an organizer working towards decarbonization and sustainable job growth. “Setting a vision, organizing resources and people, and navigating obstacles were all core skills we develop as community organizers,” Baird says.

Baird joined Caroline Hyde, co-host of “Bloomberg Technology” on Bloomberg Television, at Bloomberg’s Global Headquarters in New York City on Thursday, September 28, 2023 for a conversation as part of the Cornell Tech @ Bloomberg Speaker Series. He shared lessons learned from his years as an organizer, how a mid-pandemic pivot saved his business, and why he thinks “AI for the sake of AI is not enough.”

An intimate knowledge of unsustainable housing

A child of Guyanese immigrants, Baird grew up in what he characterizes as a neglected building in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn. The heat and hot water almost never worked, he says, and his parents worked nights. When he was a child, Baird was taught to heat the apartment using the oven. But his parents always reminded him to keep a window open to prevent CO2 poisoning. Later, as a climate activist, he’d walk his old neighborhood in the dead of winter and see entire apartment buildings with their windows open. “We’re just burning fossil fuels,” he says, “and we’re paying for those fossil fuels, and the energy is just floating out the window.”

Following his graduation from Duke University, Baird returned to Brooklyn and spent four years as a community organizer, eventually working with the Obama administration’s Department of Energy to hire young people from low-income areas like Brownsville to help make their neighborhood buildings greener. “We wanted to invest government money to create a freestanding green building industry in America, but we couldn’t quite get it to work,” he says. After a few years, Baird decided to reach those goals another way, and enrolled in Columbia Business School.

BlocPower was founded during Baird’s last semester at Columbia. “Wealthy buildings and low-income buildings burn the most fossil fuels per square foot,” he says. “We figured as a new startup, our niche was going to be to focus on the financially underserved communities.”

Bringing “bleeding-edge hardware” to existing projects

“I was really surprised to see how many skills from political organizing and community organizing applied to being a founder,” says Baird, who considers his relationship with other founders as crucial as the ones he has with investors.

When Baird spoke to Hyde, he’d just gotten off the plane from New Orleans, where BlocPower had signed a software contract with the city to figure out how to green the city’s buildings and plan towards climate resilience. The city is also running out of clean water. BlocPower is sourcing solar photovoltaic technology to power the process of capturing air to turn it into clean water. “We’re a platform that brings innovative, bleeding edge hardware into existing buildings and existing infrastructure projects,” he says.

In the first few years of BlocPower’s operations, the company greened around 670 apartment buildings in Brooklyn. Large luxury apartment buildings burn a lot of energy, according to the founder, but low income developments are also particularly inefficient: “They’re old and leaky,” he says. “They’re neglected because the folks who live there can’t afford to do sustainability upgrades or even basic maintenance. You may have multiple families crammed into one apartment. You may have people who are unemployed and are at home all day using energy.”

Despite these early projects, BlocPower was running out of money in early 2020 — a particularly bad time to run low on funds, as the pandemic shut down most of the country. “But whether or not the company survives, you need to remain focused on the fact that there’s a global pandemic, and people are dying left and right,” Baird says. “So what are the ways that you can be of service?”

As it turned out, the clean energy hardware BlocPower installed across New York was easy to rig into a series of data streams. The company connected a number of its buildings to the internet, allowing 10,000 people across the Bronx to access an essential utility for work and school.

“Out of that work,” says Baird, “some of our VCs called us and said they wanted to offer us a term sheet to do our Series A. So we lived to fight another day.”

And so BlocBower did. The company subsequently announced a second fundraising round of $150 million in March of 2023, bringing the total capital the firm has raised to over $250 million.

An AI model to democratize green engineering solutions

BlocPower recently bought and assembled a dataset that covers every building in the United States, creating a digital model of all 125 million buildings. The team then ran those models through an open source thermodynamic energy program from the Department of Energy. This software tool allows BlocPower to predict what kinds of green improvements will be most effective and financially viable, as well as how those improvements might impact pollution and energy bill reductions. Jeff Bezos and his partner Lauren Sanchez donated $5 million in Amazon stock to help develop this platform.

On top of this work, the team then built AI models to recognize patterns and anomalies. Eventually, Baird hopes, they’ll be able to integrate language models that will allow people without an engineering background to better understand these highly technical datasets. “We intend to use these AI models that we’ve been building to translate to real-world emissions. AI for the sake of AI is not enough,” he says.

“BlocPower was built out of the experience of a poor, first-generation kid growing up in a low-income neighborhood with no heating system,” says Baird. Now, the company is rolling out to 30 cities, where it aims to help municipalities replace their heating systems and attempt to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent. “The lived experiences of different kinds of Americans are really important to developing a broad range of solutions that we must apply to the climate crisis.”

You can watch the entire discussion here

Originally published on Essity.com

Placing the spotlight on equality in health and well-being

The future of health and well-being for women and girls1 is at a crucial turning point. The convergence of multiple crises, including the Covid-19 pandemic, conflicts, and climate change, has deepened societal inequities and worsened women+’s possibilities to lead healthy lives. For example, closure of schools during the pandemic resulted in increased caregiving responsibilities for many parents, in particular women+. This, in combination with the economic instability compounded by the cost-of-living crisis, has left many women and girls without access to their right to health and essential services around the globe.2

Decades of research shows the direct and indirect benefits of investing in women+ and girls’ health and well-being.3 Prioritizing women+’s health does not only represent investing in the well-being of individual persons, but also benefits the health and prosperity of communities and promotes social and economic development. It contributes to making progress towards several SDGs and provides unparalleled returns on investment in improving society’s overall health.4

Placing the spotlight on equality in health and well-being drives progress towards achieving health and well-being for all.5 Applying a gender focus requires prioritizing investments in women+’s and girls’ health, increasing knowledge and awareness to break stigma, and engaging men and boys in all their diversity in women+’s and girls’ health. Consider the following:

When governments and businesses position women+’s health issues as central to decision making, they can enact long-term sustainable change that facilitates health and well-being for all.Prioritizing women+’s and girls’ health, through alignment with the SDGs, will bring productivity increases across generations, leading to positive and sustainable economic development.6When menstrual health is defined as complete physical, mental, and social well-being in relation to the menstrual cycle, from menarche to menopause, multiple women+’s health outcomes are better understood and can be strengthened.Menstrual health as part of the curriculum in schools increases understanding by both girls and boys – in all their diversity, and also enables access to education for girls, which opens more options for jobs later in their lives. Each additional year of schooling can boost a girl’s earnings as an adult by up to 20%.7

Menstrual health is defined as complete physical, mental, and social well-being in relation to the menstrual cycle.8

Promoting equitable ideas about gender drives progress on women+’s health

Ideas about gender are closely linked to women+’s and girls’ health. Engaging men and boys as allies and addressing stereotypical attitudes and behaviors about gender are crucial drivers for meaningful progress towards gender equality.

Women+ Not everyone who menstruates is a woman and not all women menstruate. Inclusive language is imperative in helping create a world free from stigma. That is why the term ‘women+’ will be used in this report. The term does not detract from those who identify with the term ‘women’, but the addition of the ‘+’ sign is intended to capture the full range of people who menstruate. In certain cases, the term ’women’ will be used, such as when referring to research that only includes cis women9 or does not differentiate based on gender identity.

According to the International Men and Gender Equality Survey (IMAGES), carried out by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Equimundo in 2022, young men are more likely to hold inequitable views about gender than older men. This is persistent with the recent era of backlash against the progress of gender rights.10

At the same time, views and attitudes on gender vary significantly among younger men, providing an opportunity for change where needed and to shift gender norms by building on progress already made. Research shows that gender-normative societal expectations are often imposed on children from an early age, and because of these expectations, boys are not always given the space to fully develop their relational and emotional skills. These norms can sometimes negatively impact boys’ and young men’s views on gender equality.11 Different stakeholders, such as policymakers, communities, and businesses can play a role in building inclusive environments that foster healthy views on gender and that involve men and boys from diverse backgrounds around women+’s health and menstrual health to drive progress.

SDG 5. Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. Engaging men and boys, in all their diversity, on menstrual health issues to increase their knowledge and understanding, creates environments that foster healthy views about gender norms, increases gender equality, and reduces the stigma surrounding menstrual health.12 This drives progress to achieve SDG 5.

Engaging influential individuals who shape the environments where boys and young men grow and develop is crucial to promoting positive change. Creating spaces for discussions around gender norms and menstrual health with parents, teachers, coaches, religious leaders, healthcare workers, and others who impact men and boys’ daily lives enables progress.13 By working together, these individuals can address underlying societal norms and create safe and supportive environments that promote constructive dialogues and gender norms that can help break barriers to women+’s overall health and menstrual health in particular. There is an opportunity to build resilience and courage for men to use their voice positively and stand up for women+ in situations that may feel awkward and to break traditional norms. Ultimately this enables better health outcomes for all.14

Download the Essity 2023-2024 Hygiene and Health Report to learn more

Learn more about Essity here

1The term “women and girls” in this report is used as a shorthand term in this report to increase readability but refers to all people who menstruate and go through menopause including girls, women, transgender and non-binary persons.

2UN Women (2022) PROGRESS ON THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS. https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2022-09/ Progress-on-the-sustainable-development-goals-the-gender-snapshot-2022-en_0.pdf

3UN Women (2022) PROGRESS ON THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS. https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2022-09/ Progress-on-the-sustainable-development-goals-the-gender-snapshot-2022-en_0.pdf

4Remme M, Vassall A, Fernando G, Bloom DE. (2020) Investing in the health of girls and women: a best buy for sustainable development. doi: 10.1136/bmj.m1175.

5Remme M, Vassall A, Fernando G, Bloom DE. (2020) Investing in the health of girls and women: a best buy for sustainable development. BMJ. doi: 10.1136/bmj.m1175. PMID: 32487585; PMCID: PMC7265042.

6Onarheim KH, Iversen JH, Bloom DE. (2016) Economic Benefits of Investing in Women’s Health: A Systematic Review. doi: 10.1371/journal. pone.0150120.

7UN Women (2022) PROGRESS ON THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS. https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/2022-09/ Progress-on-the-sustainable-development-goals-the-gender-snapshot-2022-en_0.pdf

8Hennegan, J., Winkler, I. T., Bobel, C., Keiser, D., Hampton, J., Larsson, G., … & Mahon, T. (2021). Menstrual health: a definition for policy, practice, and research. Sexual and Reproductive Health Matters, 29(1), 31-38.

9The term cis, short for cisgender, is used to describe people whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth.

10Equimundo. (2022). The International Men and Gender Equality Survey: A status report on men, women, and gender equality in 15 headlines. https://www.equimundo.org/resources/men-and-gender-equality-a-global-status-report-in-15-headlines/

11Equimundo. (2022). The International Men and Gender Equality Survey: A status report on men, women, and gender equality in 15 headlines. https://www.equimundo.org/resources/men-and-gender-equality-a-global-status-report-in-15-headlines/

12Sommer M, Torondel B, Hennegan J, Phillips-Howard PA, Mahon T, Motivans A, Zulaika G, Gruer C, Haver J, Caruso BA (2021) Monitoring Menstrual Health and Hygiene Group. How addressing menstrual health and hygiene may enable progress across the Sustainable Development Goals. Glob Health Action. 1;14(1):1920315. doi: 10.1080/16549716.2021.1920315.

13Sommer M, Torondel B, Hennegan J, Phillips-Howard PA, Mahon T, Motivans A, Zulaika G, Gruer C, Haver J, Caruso BA (2021) Monitoring Menstrual Health and Hygiene Group. How addressing menstrual health and hygiene may enable progress across the Sustainable Development Goals. Glob Health Action. 1;14(1):1920315. doi: 10.1080/16549716.2021.1920315.

14Sommer M, Torondel B, Hennegan J, Phillips-Howard PA, Mahon T, Motivans A, Zulaika G, Gruer C, Haver J, Caruso BA (2021) Monitoring Menstrual Health and Hygiene Group. How addressing menstrual health and hygiene may enable progress across the Sustainable Development Goals. Glob Health Action. 1;14(1):1920315. doi: 10.1080/16549716.2021.1920315.

By sasgarza

Originally published by sasgarza on NBA

Pizza Hut and San Antonio Spurs player Tre Jones have once again teamed up with Spurs Youth Basketball League (SYBL) to support the league’s mission and athletes with a promotional offer. As the presenting partner of the SYBL, Pizza Hut will donate a portion of their proceeds to the youth league for every large one-topping stuffed crust pizza sold between Jan. 8 through Feb. 4.

Continue reading here

For the past 30 years, Pilar Fernandez has navigated living with metastatic breast cancer. And while she’s faced a series of related health challenges, it hasn’t slowed her down. 

Instead, Pilar’s experience and desire to help others motivated her to co-found the Metastatic Breast Cancer Association (AECMM) in her home country of Spain. With 2,000 members from a dozen different countries, the organization seeks to empower people with a metastatic breast cancer diagnosis and help them share their stories.

It was through this work that Pilar and AECMM were pitched an innovative idea: to use artificial intelligence to share the experiences of women living with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer (mTNBC).

Using AI to Raise mTNBC Awareness
The first iteration of this partnership was christened Paintings of Hope. Through a collaboration with Gilead, the AECMM found three women through their network to share oral accounts of living with mTNBC. Those interviews were converted into sound waves, and an AI robot used the sound files to create nine unique paintings that depict the emotional weight of living with this diagnosis.

“We were very surprised from the beginning to see the paintings made with AI, and how they captured three situations: the diagnosis, with dark colors, the acceptance and the future,” Pilar says. “It is a very innovative way to give visibility to the disease.”

The three women who participated were awed by the outcome. “It was a mixture of amazement at how accurate artificial intelligence could be, and excitement at seeing the art created from their story,” explains Pilar. “We had never seen anything like it – nothing that transforms the emotions of the patients onto a painting.”

The project’s avant-garde concept was recognized with numerous honors, including a Clio Award, and was empowering for those who participated. “It’s their own story that they are sharing with us,” Pilar says.

From Paintings to Portraits: Personalizing Stories of Hope
Paintings of Hope, which included the images and information on the women’s experiences, were displayed in hospitals around Spain and are estimated to have been seen by more than 50,000 healthcare professionals. The work was also shown to government officials when it was displayed in the entrance to the Spanish Parliament in late 2022. After its success, Gilead and AECMM teamed up for one more project, which was launched late last fall. Portraits of Hope takes an even more personal approach, with the AI machines set aside in favor of several well-known Spanish artists.

The goal was to feature the same three women from Paintings of Hope in Portraits of Hope. But in the months between projects, one of the women — a woman from Málaga named Angela — passed away. This was hard for Pilar. “Angela’s story is unique because her son is autistic and the responsibility of caring for him made her struggle with her situation,” she says. “So soon after her death, once we started to think about the second phase of the project, we contacted her husband to see if he would like to take her place, so that we continue to feel Angela’s presence.” He picked up the rest of the story, sitting in for her in the second series.

This time, the process was different. While the AI machines had simply processed the data from interviews into art, the artists themselves bring their reactions into these new pieces. As the women told their stories, the artists wore a device around their chests that allowed them to hear their subjects’ heartbeats. The resulting works of art are now being exhibited in different hospitals across Spain.

Both projects are part of Gilead’s efforts to spotlight the voices of people living with cancer. As for Pilar, she hopes the art shows will help raise awareness about mTNBC and the need for early diagnostics and more research. It’s a personal journey for her; in the years since she and four other people founded AECMM, she’s the last one still living.

It’s in the other women’s memory, she says, that she continues this work.

Gilead Sciences
Gilead Sciences, Inc. is a research-based biopharmaceutical company that discovers, develops and commercializes innovative medicines in areas of unmet medical need. The company strives to transform and simplify care for people with life-threatening illnesses around the world. Gilead has operations in more than 35 countries worldwide, with headquarters in Foster City, California. 

Originally published by Gilead Sciences

Originally published on Built From Scratch

ATLANTA, January 23, 2024 /3BL/ – The Home Depot is kicking off its 2024 Retool Your School program, which provides career development opportunities and improves campuses at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The 2024 program marks the 15th year that The Home Depot has supported campus renovations that uplift HBCU students across the nation. This year, The Home Depot is expected to surpass $10 million in financial support since the program began in 2009.

A portion of The Home Depot’s 2024 investment will focus on career development such as internships, externships, scholarships, community projects and innovation lounges. The remaining funds will support the flagship Retool Your School Campus Improvement Grants.

This year’s Retool Your School Campus Improvement Grant is expected to support 30 campuses with grants ranging from $40,000 to $150,000 per school. HBCU students, alumni and supporters can vote for a deserving college or university at RetoolYourSchool.com/vote. Voting opens Monday, February 26, and ends Sunday, March 24, 2024.

“Over the past 15 years, I’ve personally witnessed the long-term impact of this program,” said Arlette Guthrie, senior vice president of human resources at The Home Depot. “Retool Your School reflects The Home Depot’s core values and commitment to supporting the communities we serve, and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for the next 15 years.”

Since its inception in 2009, the Retool Your School program has:

Enabled HBCUs to allocate funds for need-based initiatives. Examples include upgrading high-use campus spaces like dorms and athletic courts, as well as improving surrounding communities through neighborhood clean-ups and supply drives.Supported students through career development. Scholarships and externships have not only helped pay for college tuition and other costs, but also supported students by providing opportunities to learn from professionals in their chosen fields and gain critical experience as they enter the job market.Garnered over 68 million votes and positively impacted 77 campuses, accounting for more than 70% of the nation’s HBCUs.

For more details on The Home Depot’s Retool Your School program, including student opportunities and grant applications, visit RetoolYourSchool.com.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are not just words but values that are exemplified through our One Cadence—One Team culture and the importance of sustaining it as we learn from diverse perspectives.

“Diversity of thought and experience are key for driving innovation. Fostering diversity, equity, and inclusion is at the core of who we are as a company, and…we’re working to create equal opportunities for current and future workers in our industry, paving the way for fulfilling careers.” – Dr. Anirudh Devgan, President and CEO, Cadence.

There is a growing conversation around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and almost everyone has an opinion on this topic. What do these values mean at Cadence? Does DEI have any real impact on our work here? And finally, what are we doing at Cadence to make sure these values are an intrinsic part of our company culture?

Watch this video to see what some of the thought leaders at Cadence shared with us.

How It Started

It was at the beginning of 2023 that a global team from varied organizations and locations within Cadence came together to discuss creating an employee-led community that celebrates the diverse perspectives and the One Team – One Cadence culture at Cadence. After extensive brainstorming, a new blog series, DEI@Cadence, was launched in March 2023.

Since then, we have had blogs on a range of topics that showcase the vast range of experiences that abound at Cadence and celebrate the diverse and inclusive culture here, and we are already planning new and innovative topics for the next year.

The Stories Among Us

The experiences of women in technology were shared through Cadence Women’s Conference in India, Cadence Voice Initiative, and the summary of the various Cadence Women Conferences through the year. The perspectives and challenges of employees at new locations as well as interns were shared through Empowering Women at Cadence Cork and My First Month as an Intern at Cadence Cork.

At Cadence, our various inclusion groups bring employees together through events and celebrations, and Veterans and their Transition to Tech and Advancing AAPI Professional Success, brought out the personal stories about the struggles and achievements of the diverse groups in technology and business. Similarly, through AAPI Heritage Month Spotlights, Do You Know the Dragon Boat Festival, and The Three T’s, we learned about the heritage and riches of each other’s backgrounds and traditions.

Not just that, the innovative approach of finding solutions while volunteering was brought out by My Volunteering Experience with WiTU Uganda, and the impact of the Words Matter Initiative exemplified through DEI at Cadence was shared by Why Words Matter.

New Voices in the New Year

It has been a pleasure leading this initiative, and I am looking forward to bringing you many more stories in the future so that we continue to learn and unleash the potential within us. As the late associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, “We will all profit from a more diverse, inclusive society, understanding, accommodating, even celebrating our differences, while pulling together for the common good.”

After all, it is only when we feel included and appreciated that we become more innovative and successful.

Wishing you peace and joy for the new year!

Jonaki (on behalf of the DEI@Cadence blog series team)

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