Tag: 3BL

Leidos and the Milken Institute Center for Public Health (CPH) recently published a new report highlighting the work done by both organizations to address the addiction and mental health crises that deepened during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Why you should know: While COVID-19 itself claimed millions of lives, the pandemic also increased demand for the treatment for addiction, anxiety and depression. Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that drug overdose deaths reached record levels in 2021, and suicide rates were back near a record high after two years of decline.

In 2021, Leidos and the Milken Institute formed the CEO Collaborative Action Group to mobilize employers across industries to join the cause. More than 85 organizations joined the CEO Collaborative Action Group, representing an estimated 3 million employees nationwide.

What the results show:

Nearly 80% of the participating organizations committed to actions impacting organizational culture. More than half agreed to improve employer health care policies.Half the companies committed to improving internal wellness and community programs.

From the source: “This all started with an email from a grieving father,” said Roger Krone, Leidos Chairman and CEO. “We cannot ignore the real, but often silent, challenges facing our employees. By bringing together such a diverse group of employers, we’re being a catalyst for change. This is important work and I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished.”

You can view a full copy of the report here.

Related:

Leidos and Milken Institute team up to combat addiction and improve mental healthMission for the Mind: Advancing Mental Health Solutions

Originally published on GoDaddy Life

Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at GoDaddy.

I started out as an intern at GoDaddy in the summer of 2019. I joined back as a full time employee in 2020 and have been here ever since! My internship was with the Cyber Threat Intelligence team. I fell in love with this section of security — dealing with malwares, incidents, writing, and reversing code. The team and my mentors were really helpful and motivating, which is the reason I decided to join full time.

How did you get into tech?

I should probably thank my mechanical engineer dad for that! He taught me math and science in a way that I eventually fell in love with problem solving. I knew I wanted to get into engineering (originally, either mechanical or aeronautical). However, computer science was something I never expected. Taking the challenging math classes in high school was actually fun for me, as I felt like I was exploring new things. Over the years, I have had many mentors and teachers, and had the opportunity to work on various projects, which has shaped me and my passion for security.

What is your personal advice for women who are interested in your profession? How should they proceed and what should they learn?

One piece of advice I hold close to my heart is: “if you really really want it, take that step.” For many women, they lack support when they decide to get into tech (or other man-dominated fields). Growing up in a patriarchal society, I faced a lot of questions, such as: “is that necessary for a young girl?” Times when you doubt there aren’t people to support you, just keep putting in that effort. During the times where I have felt most alone, I’ve gone on to meet some amazing people and formed communities to support and lift me up. Even through failure, you have that experience for you and others following in your footsteps!

What do you enjoy the most about the flexibility/work-life balance offered at GoDaddy?

The work-life balance has helped me reset a lot of unhealthy habits that I had picked up in the past. Now, I have a much healthier routine. Having a routine requires effort and takes time for that self-care. A healthy routine also helps me take care of my body and mental wellbeing, as well! I am based out of the Seattle area and am an outdoorsy person. The flexibility that GoDaddy offers has given me incredible experiences and quality time with my loved ones.

What motivates you at work?

I love a good complex problem solving session. There is no dearth of it on GoDaddy’s InfoSec team. Combine it with an amazing pool of talented people working here, who support and lift each other up — that’s the strongest motivation! There is always something new to learn here and it’s equally important to share the knowledge you have.

Tell us about your biggest role model or mentor.

A very cliché answer — my mom. She broke a lot of barriers for her time — being the only educated and working woman in the family, managing her career and fighting the traditional norms that were thrown her way. While she made it look simple when I was a child, I cannot imagine myself in her shoes as an adult now. She is always the first one to pull me up when I’m down and stand with me if I am going through a tough patch. She has been my strongest supporter and biggest role model.

Are you enjoying this series and want to know more about life at GoDaddy? Check out our GoDaddy Life social pages! Follow us to meet our team, learn more about our culture (Teams, ERG’s, Locations), careers, and so much more. You’re more than just your day job, so come propel your career with us.

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Previously, Source De[Code] listeners learned how, by connecting a digital simulation to real-world environmental data, teams using digital twins can run a prototype through a myriad of potential scenarios, identify design challenges, and modify the product even before a physical prototype is ever built. In the third and final episode of Source De[Code]’s deep dive into digital twins, Ben is joined by Dr. Silviu Tuca to contextualize their limitless potential by demonstrating how these concepts are applied to a ubiquitous aspect of daily life: our cars.

ENGINE OF CHANGE: AUTO INNOVATION IS DRIVING PARADIGM SHIFTS

It can be argued that disruptive innovation in the auto sector has defined each of the modern eras. Through history, engineering breakthroughs have shaped the human experience. The wheel and calendar, printing press and cotton gin, electricity and the assembly lines are the vehicles by which we tell the story of human progress. Henry Ford’s assembly line not only democratized motor vehicle ownership, but, by enabling mass production, transformed industries far beyond discrete manufacturing. As we move into a new age defined by the full integration of the physical and digital worlds, the once hardware-centric auto sector must evolve to adapt to a new era defined by software. Digital twin enabled design and test workflows are streamlining this paradigm shift in the automotive industry from mechanical and analogue components to digital electronics and the intelligent machines enabling the Internet of Things (IoT).

This episode of Source De[Code] struck a particularly relatable chord for me because I am currently shopping for a new car. Nowhere is the digital transformation more evident to consumers than in the rapid evolution of technology in the cars we drive. The safety and entertainment features that now come standard were unheard of only a decade ago. Park and lane assist, adaptive cruise control, back up breaks, and so many more semi-autonomous features come standard on every make and model. I live in the downtown core of a large, very old city in the Northeast whose narrow one-way streets and crumbling infrastructure have resulted in incessant roadworks, detours and congested urban arteries which are too closely shared by vehicles, cyclists, and pedestrians. Sensor technology in new cars is already going a long way towards improving road safety by better equipping drivers to navigate the unpredictable.

TEST DRIVING THE “WHAT IF’S” IN AUTO DESIGN

Like most drivers, I hadn’t really considered the design and testing that has gone into ensuring these shiny new features work as intended long before I see them in action on the dealership lot. In the episode, Ben’s guest Dr. Torin provides listeners with a brief overview of two ways that vehicle designs are tested. In the first, V-shaped drive testing model, the left side of the V represents the proposed design’s required elements– features, systems, subsystems, and modules– as defined by the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). This line accounts for components made by the OEM as well as those they outsource. On the right is the testing and validation required to make the proposed design a reality.

This traditional V model has been the gold standard for automakers for decades because it is ideally suited for the hardware-based testing that, until recently, has been the primary consideration in drive testing. In this model, new subsystems are integrated into the vehicle which is then taken to the test track where the features under test can be monitored. As the automotive industry integrates more software systems into vehicle design, the testing methods must keep up with the rapid iterations inherent in the software space. As a result, this model is not practical for keeping pace with the software industry’s rapid iteration cycles that are increasingly marking the automotive landscape.

Automakers are turning to the disruptive DevOps inspired design and test model introduced by the new software players in the auto space. As has been covered previously in Source De[Code], software design and test workflows must account for complex integrations that can impact the overall functionality of the end product. This model resembles the figure-eight shaped race tracks where the auto sector’s highest performing vehicles vie for dominance. “When you want to create a digital parity,” says Dr. Tuca, “you will need a continuous feedback loop.” This digital parity forms the basis for creating a simulation of the car and the numerous potential environments that it will navigate.

ANTICIPATING THE UNEXPECTED ON THE ROAD

At the end of the day, OEMs and consumers have a shared motivation: safety. Safety– my own, that of my passengers, and the safety of those nearby- is the primary consideration in my own search for a new car. I live directly across from an elementary school. Children dash into the road as they rush towards and away from the building, chase after soccer balls or clamber into the waiting busses and family cars that shuttle them between school and home. In my years at this address, I have observed close calls that have left me chilled to the core. The sensor technology equipped in the vehicles I am considering will help me ‘see’ more of what is surrounding my car and help me more quickly to the unexpected than I could ever do alone. While no amount of technology can replace a driver’s situational awareness, sensor technology and autonomous functions correct for the momentary lapses in attention we all experience from time to time and mitigate the potentially too-great cost of human error.

Put into this context, the need for digital twins in system and vehicle testing crystallizes. Given the critical nature of these new software-enabled features, the way they are tested must reflect the messy, chaotic landscape that we call “life”, which is euphemistically referred to as “noise” in systems testing. In test and measurement, Dr. Tuca says, “noise is the second term you learn. Noise distrubs everything.” The continuous feedback loop that connects the digital prototype to the physical environment allows for far more robust design testing that better accounts for the ‘noise’ of daily life.

Design testing can put constraints on ambitious automotive designers challenging the limits of what’s possible in the automotive space. “You want to push the boundaries of this testing–” Dr. Tuca explains, “– you don’t want to only simulate targets; you want to simulate the guard rails, sign posts, trees, and weather conditions” to see how the vehicle behaves under any array of conditions.

In addition to the objects that drivers will encouncer, tests must also accommodate unseen forces that can interfere with the efficacy of vehicle sensors like the 5G backhaul bands that lay just above and below the frequency band where these sensors operate. Moreover, sensors from other vehicles can interfere with each other, thus potentially cancelling out the enhanced safety of modern cars. Digital twins allow OEMs to replicate any imaginable scenario in a software environment that is so realistic the device under test cannot tell the difference, thus ensuring that flaws are identified and corrected well before the rubber hits the pavement of the open road.

If breakthroughs in sensor design and testing are the accelerator, digital twin technology is the clutch that will allow OEMs to shift into high gear and propel us towards a future where autonomous vehicles are the consumer’s first, trusted choice for safe travel.

ABOUT THE GUEST: DR. SILVIU TUCA

Dr. Silviu Tuca is the radar-based autonomous vehicle product line manager at Keysight. After obtaining an Electrical Engineering Master’s Degree in radio frequency (RF) electronics and a PhD in Biophysics, Dr. Tuca has dedicated his professional life to working with test and measurement equipment.

What was the ‘aha’ moment that started you down your path or influenced your journey to where you are right now?

My interest in product management was more of an acquired taste. This is because I witnessed different teams– and particularly colleagues whose work I admire– involved in the various stages of a product’s lifecycle as it was designed, developed, marketed, sold, and then supported.

If you hadn’t chosen your current profession, what would you have pursued instead? Why?

I’ve always been drawn to technology, but I think I would have enjoyed teaching physics.

Where can we find you when you’re not innovating the future of technology?

I am based in Stuttgart, Germany and in my free time you will find me outdoors hiking or running while listening to audiobooks and podcasts.

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You can learn more about digital twins and the other topics discussed in this and all episodes when you visit Source De[Code] online. While you’re there, subscribe to the mailing list to be notified first when new episodes drop and be entered to win podcast swag. Listen, subscribe, rate, and review Source De[Code] on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Google Podcasts.

For people working across the philanthropic sector, data science can feel like an unwieldy topic. Where do you start? What data is important? How does it fit into your community work?

Before you get deep into the weeds, it’s worth stepping back to understand what data science is and what it can enable you to do.

Data science for social impact is about structuring what is unstructured to help make data-driven decisions. It’s not about drowning you in information you don’t need. It’s about using data strategically to make a deeper impact.

We hosted a webinar in partnership with Chantal Forster and the Technology Association of Grantmakers. Three data scientists working in the social impact sector—Antonio Campello of Wellcome Trust, Jonathan Hertel of the Impact Genome Project®, and Andrew Spott of Submittable—shared how data science and AI help them fulfill their missions.

Highlighting insights and examples from this event, we’ve laid out nine ways data science can help your organization do more.

Whether you have a strong background in data science or you’re just getting data-curious, we’ve got some helpful insights for everyone.

Some quick definitions for data science

Before we get started, let’s cover some of the terminology. For people new to data science, sometimes the language itself can be overwhelming, so here’s a quick primer.

Data analytics is the process of analyzing raw data to find trends and answer questions.Most organizations do some form of data analytics. For example, you might ask, where do our grantees live? Tracking geographic data to determine the top states or countries you provide funding to is data analytics at work.Machine learning is the process of leveraging algorithms to give computers the capability to improve automatically through experience and with data.Image recognition is a common application of machine learning; if you’ve seen your phone or computer identify on its own who is in a photo, you’ve seen machine learning in action.Data science is the application of machine learning algorithms to various data sources (i.e., numbers, text, images, video, audio, and more) to produce artificial intelligence systems that can perform tasks which ordinarily require human intelligence.Even if you haven’t worked in data science, you’ve likely benefited from it. Data science is leveraged across every sector—public and private—including healthcare, transportation, public safety, and more. For example, data science is now used to help analyze medical imaging and identify malignancies.Natural language processing is the branch of artificial intelligence focused on giving computers the ability to understand and respond to text and spoken words in the same way humans can.Think Siri or Alexa.Taxonomy is a classification or categorization system used to group similar items.In philanthropy, nonprofits might be grouped by size, mission, program design, location, or another designation.

Before you dive in, get the guide

To get more insight into building a data strategy for your social impact programs, get this comprehensive guide: How to Build Your Data Strategy: A Guide for Social Impact Professionals. Access online or download an easy-to-read version for later. 

How data science can empower your social impact work

1. Understand your portfolio at a more granular level

For grantmakers, leveraging data and social impact analytics can help you get a clearer picture of who and what you fund as well as the outcomes of that funding. You can reveal trends, overlaps, and gaps in how you distribute resources.

Why is this important?

Getting a more granular view of your programs allows you to identify and root out bias and find missed opportunities. Plus it can give you the insights you need to expand your efforts and build effective new programs.

It’s likely that you already have a lot of the data you need. But if that data isn’t organized and accessible, it doesn’t mean much. It’s hard to see patterns or draw conclusions from a big pile of unstructured data.

For example, Wellcome Trust—whose programs are focused mostly on health—analyzed its portfolio of over 100,000 grants. Using natural language processing, they applied 30,000 disease tags to their portfolio. This tagging is an important step in preparing data for analysis and segmentation. It allows the grant managers to easily search past grant programs. Say the organization is considering funding research around a specific disease, they can now look back at whether they’ve previously funded that focus area and the outcomes of that work.

Even if you’re not dealing with a portfolio of 100,000 grants, having a more granular understanding of your programs is important.

Automatic tagging is one way to start to organize the data you have. For example, Submittable enables automatic tagging so that when a grant application comes in, you can apply a tag based on answers to specific questions. This empowers you to track, categorize, and analyze the data that matters to your team, whether that’s demographics, geography, mission focus, organization size, or something else.

You can sort your applicants and grantees based on those tags to help you analyze how you distribute your resources and whether you need to shift your strategies.

2. Create clearer standards and taxonomies

In the world of social impact, too often we’re talking about the same things but using different language. This can make it difficult to see where our work overlaps with others’ work and make comparisons across similar programs.

For instance, when grantmakers, nonprofits, and researchers all use different language to talk about the same issues, it’s much harder to make connections between their work.

This disconnection hampers everyone’s ability to develop effective solutions and make informed predictions. Think of it like the foundation of a house. If we don’t have a strong structure at this base level, everything built on top of it will be unsteady.

The Impact Genome Project, within Mission Measurement, is working to systemize these standardizations. For example, they have created an Impact Registry™, a searchable database with impact and beneficiary data on more than 2 million nonprofit programs in the U.S. and Canada. This sort of tool can help shore up that foundation so that the philanthropic sector can build more effectively toward data-driven solutions.

3. Track outputs and outcomes more clearly

Philanthropic work is all about the impact. Are the programs you run creating the outcomes you intended? No matter what your budget is, if you don’t know this, you won’t know if your program is making a meaningful difference.

Data analytics can help you more accurately track the effects of your work. You can make connections between the resources you dedicate to a program, the short-term outputs it creates, and the longer-term outcomes achieved.

For example, Wellcome Trust funds a lot of research and clinical trials. Their team wanted to track the academic outputs from their grants. In other words, they wanted to know how many academic articles came out of the programs they funded.

Using data science techniques, the Wellcome Trust team was able to create an automatic pipeline to aggregate the research articles related to the programs they funded. They were then able to link this work back to specific grants to determine which programs had the highest number of academic outputs.

Think about your programs and the outputs and outcomes that matter most to your organization. Are you getting clear, detailed data about how they are connected? Do you know which programs consistently produce the best outcomes? Leveraging data science for social good can help you get a clearer picture of how it all fits together.

4. Find gaps in funding

Analyzing data can help grantmakers identify gaps in their funding. Are you underfunding certain populations? Are you overlooking some components of the work? Digging into the data can help you find opportunities to do more.

It’s sometimes easy for funders to get focused on the aspects of community work that feel more personal or more emotional. Providing assistance to someone in need feels good at an individual level. However, that empathetic response can sometimes skew how organizations build their programs. Social impact work relies on strong infrastructure. Supporting these less exciting, but essential frameworks can often allow organizations to do much more.

Using data science, you can identify gaps in funding in your portfolio or the philanthropic sector at large. Too often prevention and infrastructure don’t get the attention they deserve.

For example, Wellcome Trust used data science to analyze their portfolio and determine how often they funded technology across their programs. Using these insights, they shifted their priorities to fund more grants for software infrastructure, which is a key tool for many researchers.

5. Make new connections

It’s easy to overlook all the ways that subjects and identities overlap and intersect. But these insights can make a huge difference in how you design your programs.

Using data science, grantmakers can identify opportunities to connect different topics or projects. With data visualization tools, you can see where connections already exist and you can find places where connections should exist but don’t yet.

It will be difficult to create effective solutions for big problems if we don’t understand these intersections. Take climate change for example. The impacts of climate change overlap and intersect with the effects of poverty and racial injustice in complex ways. If your organization seeks to address climate change without considering this, your programs will likely have a limited impact.

Want to see what this looks like? Wellcome Trust did a topic modeling project with their neuroscience team to extract data-driven topics for research funding. Using data science to analyze text documents, they created a map so they could visualize the connections and gaps between topics.

6. Place your program into the broader landscape

Many organizations and individuals are working to solve the same set of problems. Frameworks like the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals can help provide a high-level understanding of how your work fits into broader efforts to make change. But it doesn’t give you the details you need.

You want to get a clear picture of how your programs are contributing to progress on a bigger scale. Are you helping to move the needle? Do your programs replicate other efforts or are you fulfilling a unique role?

Data science can help you get these answers and allow you to be more strategic in distributing your resources.

For example, Wellcome Trust used a combination of API-search, web scraping, and natural language processing to assess how their work fits into broader efforts to combat COVID. To assess the effectiveness of the research they funded, they measured how often the research was mentioned in scientific evidence from government agencies and acknowledged in general literature around COVID. This gave them a clear sense whether the programs they supported were playing a part in the wider efforts.

7. Evaluate program effectiveness and cost 

Part of being a grantmaker is balancing program cost and effectiveness. You want to know that your resources are making the changes you want to see, but also that they’re doing so as efficiently as possible.

The stakes are high. We’re not talking about some bottom line or shareholder dividends. Your program costs often determine how many people or community organizations you can support.

Data science empowers grantmakers to get a deeper analysis of how outputs and outcomes are linked and how they compare to costs. If you don’t have this information, it’s impossible to know whether you’re making smart investments.

For example, Impact Genome focuses on financial health. They use data science to measure the effectiveness of programs and how program costs compare to the outcomes they produce. Using machine learning, they have evaluated 990 tax records for all U.S. nonprofits. From here, they can compare budget size to outcomes achieved.

Of course there are so many different strategies and program designs to address financial health. For instance you could help someone cover emergency expenses or provide financial counseling. These likely have different costs and results.

The team at Impact Genome has done a meta analysis to break down the outcomes that represent financial health and then lay out the associated costs.

Think how helpful this information could be to nonprofits working in financial health. They could compare their costs and outcomes to these averages. Are they spending significantly more without achieving better outcomes? Or are they on par with other nonprofits? That’s important information to have as they shape their future programs.

8. Automate your review process

For grantmakers looking to review a large volume of applications, data science can help. For the sake of clean data (data processed and formatted to eliminate inaccuracies and inconsistencies), some organizations replace open-response questions with multiple choice. This can be easier for people to review, but a lot is lost when you take away an applicant’s ability to explain their work on their own terms.

By leveraging machine learning, you can keep those open-response questions, and spend less time manually reviewing applications. You can also achieve less biased and more consistent results. How does this work?

Submittable’s Accelerated Review feature puts data science into action. Using machine learning, Submittable builds a model based on reviews performed by your team. In short, you’re training the computer to help review applications the same way your team does.

What does the process look like?

Your team reviews a sample of about 200 applications. The model is built around that process, learning how your reviewers score and rate applicants. Before applying the model in full, it’s evaluated for accuracy on a small batch of applications. If necessary, the model can be retrained.

Automating your review process this way means that you can review thousands or even millions of applications at incredible speed and with amazing accuracy. This greatly reduces fatigue and human error. Simply put, automated review enables your team to do more work with fewer staff by leveraging machine learning to help highlight key information.

9. Ease the burden on grantees

With an increasing awareness of the administrative burden often placed on grantees, data science can be an incredible tool to illuminate opportunities for grantmakers to lessen the load.

For example, the Technology Association of Grantmakers recently used machine learning and similarity analysis to determine that a random grant form is 39% similar to any other grant form.

Why does this matter?

It means that many organizations are often redoing the same work over and over again when they apply to different grants. What if funders got together and standardized portions of their grant applications to ensure that everyone was asking for the same information in the same format? Think of how much time that would save grantees. 39%!

Turning insights into action 

Data science is about using technology to provide insights and structure from the information you have. But creating change will require people to take those insights and turn them into action.

You may not have the resources or capacity to build your own in-house data science team. That’s okay—Submittable has you covered. As a social impact platform built to help organizations of all sizes, we can deliver all the benefits of a data science team for a fraction of the cost. Find out more today.

Our climate is changing, and 1.47 billion jobs globally depend on a stable climate.

Let’s turn the spotlight to discover how this crisis can create new opportunities for companies and individuals. Here, Gitte Winther Bruhn, global head of Social Responsibility Solutions at SAP, Alexandra van der Ploeg, global head of Corporate Social Responsibility at SAP, and Robert Richardson, HR tech strategy advisor, discuss the importance of reskilling for the green transition. This transition will help us protect our planet, our environment, and the “safe space for humanity” – our society, our friends, and our families – for the next generations to come.

Q: ​​​​​​​When we hear about the consequences of climate change, the social implications still don’t seem to surface in conversations as much – and certainly not as an opportunity. Can you offer some insight into what’s below the surface and why there is an important opportunity we should push above the horizon?

​​​​​​​Winther Bruhn: When discussing climate change, we mainly address carbon emissions, not the impact on humans. We have an opportunity to address human inequality alongside climate actions through an inclusive green economy. Human talent will be crucial for the transition, as a greener economy requires new, green skills – both for emerging jobs and for existing jobs that are evolving. The green and critical transition will be impossible without a suitably trained workforce. Recent reports forecast that by 2030 the global human talent shortage will be more than 85 million people, or roughly the same as the entire population of Germany. And 85% of these jobs have not even been invented yet. Demand for talent is outpacing supply and will impact society and businesses. This is a challenge, but it provides us with an unprecedented possibility of job creation.

For example, making a carbon neutrality commitment requires significant changes to business operations. Companies must measure emissions, create action plans, execute change, measure performance, report results, and iterate. We need to reimagine training and reskilling for the global workforce. To understand how green skills are applied in jobs, pinpoint where gaps arise and what actions we can take to bridge them. An inclusive green transition could create millions of jobs in the next decade but requires significant investments in reskilling.

Green skills are the building blocks of the green transition to unlock the human capital that will power it – in a just way that leaves no one behind. For example, the transition to a green economy remains the best hope for lifting hundreds of millions of Africans out of extreme poverty. It would create new jobs and bring more investment to Africa in the long term for the continent’s sustainable development. This is crucial for Africa with approximately 70% of the population below the age of 30 and new entrants joining the workforce every year. UNEP estimates that expanding solar and wind capacity in Senegal will create up to 30,000 additional jobs by 2035.

​​​​​​​We see three key players in this transition: government, employers, and individuals. What are the biggest challenges and tasks for employers in this transition?

​​​​​​​Richardson: It’s great to see the thousands of companies making carbon neutrality commitments. Most companies don’t yet have the requisite knowledge and skills to achieve their commitments though. Achieving sustainability goals requires expertise, such as specialized data analysis focused on emissions and energy use, specialized hardware expertise focused on installing energy-monitoring modules, communicating and marketing with an understanding of how sustainability messaging is perceived in specific markets, and so on.

Three important focus areas for companies are:

Good job design: Jobs should be designed with the right requirements in mind. Some roles will require deep sustainability specialization, but most will simply require some sustainable competencies to ensure the whole company is rowing in the same direction. Data scientists don’t necessarily need a sustainability degree. Product sourcing specialists don’t need five years of experience in a social responsibility department to purchase less carbon-intensive products and services. Good job design can reflect these requirements to encourage upskilling, attract talent, and allow for the assessment of candidate fit.Attracting talent: Attracting talent goes beyond publishing jobs. Candidates regularly review a company’s sustainability commitments when considering where to work. CHROs and talent acquisition leaders who ensure their recruiting brand brings sustainability messaging front and center will disproportionately win over these candidates. People want more than a check; they want to make a difference. But candidates are skeptical of greenwashing. So, prove it by engaging in good job design and touting sustainable commitments and achievements.Developing talent: Just as companies can conduct a job design audit of skills required to achieve sustainability goals, they can also audit their people skills. Knowing the skills you require – job design – and the skills you have – people skills – elucidates the gap an organization needs to fill to accomplish its objectives. Candidly, this can be daunting without sophisticated software and machine learning capabilities required to streamline the process. But it’s worth it. Knowing your skills gap is key to delivering effective, personalized upskilling and reskilling programs. Individualized learning, goals management, and performance management drive employee engagement, retention, and achievement of sustainability objectives.

Currently, green job growth is outpacing the labor market’s ability to keep up. Organizations focused on thoughtful job design, recruiting marketing, and personalized, data-driven talent development will have the best chance of achieving their sustainability goals.

​​​Now that we have talked about the employers’ opportunities and duties in their own company and operations, what is the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in this?

van der Ploeg: In most companies, corporate social responsibility teams are responsible for overseeing and implementing a company’s social and environmental initiatives and, therefore, play an important role in supporting the green transition and addressing the skills gap and shortage challenge. The CSR strategy should acknowledge the interconnections of societal, environmental, and business challenges alike. So, CSR teams can set the stage for their own company and partner with others to reach joint sustainability goals. SAP has already successfully done this by integrating social responsibility into its sustainability framework.

A company will not only be impacted by the talent shortage in its operations but also in its partner network. It’s relevant for all stakeholders in the economy and it’s evident that the talent crunch is driven by a shortage of skills, not people. Plenty of people are willing to learn. That’s why, in their own interest, corporations should bring all of their assets to support the provision of quality education. CSR teams and their networks have the expertise to run such strategic programs. Last year, for example, SAP extended its partnership with UNICEF through Generation Unlimited, focusing on employability. This year, SAP and Generation Unlimited will pilot a program to support ‘learning to earning’ pathways for underserved young people in the digital and green economy. They’ll learn the hard and soft skills needed to become employable.

The consequences of climate change and other global developments such as the COVID-19 pandemic, often affect the world’s poorest. Any detrimental impact on economic or ecological systems will damage the social systems and disproportionately affect generally marginalized communities. That’s why our pilot focuses on marginalized youth in Nigeria, the Philippines, Kenya, and South Africa – with the goal of reaching more than 500,000 young people in the first year. They will get foundational knowledge and SAP skills to open a pathway to a successful career in the SAP ecosystem, along with on-the-job experience, coaching, and mentorship to help them launch their careers. This truly will be a win for the program, as SAP will see skilled young people in the ecosystem helping our partners and customers in their digital transformations and on their path to achieving their sustainability goals while providing the young talents better possibilities to have a career, earn a living wage, and live a decent life.

​​​​​​​What responsibilities and opportunities do you see for governments in this transformation?

​​​​​​​Winther Bruhn: The transition is a unique opportunity to mature functional labor markets with sophisticated, educational, and inclusive social protection systems and a future-proof workforce. Today, many commitments to international agreements are made without reference to the implications on labor markets and skills and training needs. Governments have an opportunity to link employment to action to address climate change and provide a significant driver for green job creation. To succeed, good coordination of policies and actions across government ministries and the private sector, including employers and workers, is needed to prevent and reduce skills mismatches.

I want to briefly mention one last key player, ourselves. Our actions do matter, as they collectively can lead to political change. We all need to embrace the change and the opportunities that come with the transition to a greener economy. We need to make choices on home heating systems, how cars should run, and reflect on our diet to avoid high-emission foods. We need to be proactive, take ownership of our own skill set, and embrace career flexibility. We need to internalize a mindset of lifelong learning.

To conclude, it is essential for all stakeholders, including governments, businesses, and workers, to collaborate on a new social contract and ensure we move forward together – toward a future that works for everyone.

Energized by Edison

For Southern California Edison’s business and residential customers in the agriculture-rich Central Valley, the future has arrived. That’s SCE’s message at the World Ag Expo, the largest agriculture trade show bringing together more than 100,000 people from across the globe to learn about emerging trends and technologies in the farm industry and beyond. 

SCE has been a sponsor and exhibitor at the expo in Tulare for more than 30 years. In addition to daily electric safety demonstrations by linemen, SCE is helping visitors visualize how to integrate clean energy into their daily lives. 

“The World Ag Expo provides SCE an opportunity to continue to engage our agriculture and Central Valley customers with our programs and services to enable clean power solutions through electrification and related opportunities for increasing operational efficiencies and a cleaner energy future,” said Mike Bushey, director of SCE’s Business Customer Division.

Visitors to the SCE booth will find themselves walking into an imagined “smart home,” equipped with an induction cooktop, smart thermostat, electric heat pump water heater, a battery storage system and an EV parked in the garage. The smart home display simulates how residents can implement electric technology in their homes now and what it will be like in a decade or more. Switching to energy-efficient home systems can put people on a path to sustainability, leading to cost savings over time. 

“Space and water heating systems are the two largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in residential buildings,” said Jose Buendia, senior manager of SCE’s Building Electrification Program Operations. “One of the benefits of electric appliances is that they can be programmed to operate during off-peak hours. This means customers can take advantage of our more favorable Time-of-Use rates, and those who install electric heat pumps can receive an additional electric baseline allowance on their monthly bill.” 

Building electrification isn’t simply a matter of adopting the most innovative technology, it’s about the resiliency that is critical to achieving the state’s zero-carbon emissions goal of 2045. To get there, SCE’s Pathway 2045 blueprint estimates that 30% of residential and commercial space and water heaters need to be electric by 2030 and 70% by 2045. With the first major milestone seven years away, California can no longer afford to delay decarbonization, and everyone’s participation is needed now more than ever.

“Something’s afoot — climate change is real, and we feel the impacts through wildfires, driven by high winds, and there’s more extreme weather everywhere,” Buendia said. “The state and many others have identified electrification as the most cost-effective way to mitigate the impacts of climate change. There are also many health benefits and opportunities for customers to save money as we move in this direction.” 

For visitors to the World Ag Expo mulling how they can participate in electrification, or anyone interested in decarbonization, SCE’s Energy Education Centers host free online classes. Together, Californians can power a clean energy future starting now. 

To register for SCE’s online classes about the benefits of electrification, visit on.sce.com/electrification. Learn more about electric technologies and their benefits by visiting sce.com/cleanenergy.

Originally published on HARMAN News Room

From helping improve academic, social, and cognitive skills to inspiring creativity and fostering a sense of belonging, there is no doubt that music and music education have a positive impact on people. And with our long history in the music and audio industry, all of us at HARMAN have experienced first-hand the power music has on our lives.

Through our global cause initiative, HARMAN Inspired, we work closely with our longtime partner Music Will to bring the benefits of music education and helpful resources to students across the U.S. in classrooms and communities in need. In honor of Music In Our Schools Month, we wanted to take stock of our recent accomplishments and share how we’re bringing the power of music education to the next generation of leaders…

During the 2021-2022 school year, HARMAN helped Music Will recruit, train, and equip more than 450 new music teachers who each launched a new, modern band music program in their classroom. Take a closer look at our achievements by the numbers:

Launched 458 new music programs in 21 markets to bring music to more than 86,000 new students987 new and returning Music Will teachers participated in a total of 52 training workshops and gained 5,750 professional development hoursDonated 3,200 instruments to schools nationwide682 teachers, arts administrators, special guests, and supporters participated in our second Virtual Modern Band Summit594 teachers enrolled in the new online learning management system, which provides asynchronous training to advance teachers’ skills on their own time60 pairs of JBL headphones were donated to students in Washington, D.C., Detroit, and to performers at the Music Will Benefit event

Overall, HARMAN helped Music Will serve 560,000+ total students in more than 2,400 classrooms from coast to coast! Because we know that music has the power to bring us together and connect in new ways, HARMAN and Music Will also partnered on several in-person events and activations throughout the year:

One-of-a-Kind Performances: As part of our DE&I Inclusive Leadership Summit held last year in Detroit, MI, a group of all-female Music Will students was invited to perform a special concert showcasing their musical abilities.Instrument Donations: At Theodore Roosevelt High School in Washington, D.C., HARMAN, Music Will, and special guest artist Harry Miree donated a drum set and other instruments, as well as eight pairs of JBL headphones to help further the student’s musical learning experiencesCelebrating 20 Years of Impact: At the Little Kids Rock 20th Anniversary Benefit Concert, HARMAN was one of more than 350 special guests that gathered at New York City’s Terminal 5 music venue to honor Hall of Famer Mavis Staples with the Peace and Freedom Award and John Reznick, frontman of the Goo Goo Dolls with the Rocker of the Year award. The evening concluded with special performances from Music Will students alongside stars like Hozier, Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, Cassadee Pope, Michael Bearden, and Jon Secada, as well as a silent and live auction that raised over $1 million to help bring the gift of music to even more schools across the country.

At HARMAN, we remain dedicated to partnering with leading organizations like Music Will to provide students with opportunities to experience the benefits and impact of music education. For more information on HARMAN Inspired and our work to empower the next generation to realize their potential through the power of music, technology, and service, visit: https://www.harman.com/inspired

In her six years as chief financial officer at Medtronic, Karen Parkhill has helped advance women’s representation at all levels of the company.

She’s proud of the progress. As of 2022, women make up 51% of Medtronic employees, 43% of managers and above, and 36% of its board of directors.

But for Parkhill, that’s still not enough.

“The medical device industry has many great women in senior levels, but we need more,” she said in a recent episode of the MedtronicTalks podcast. “Where women lead, the world is better off.”

For Parkhill, those words are at the heart of her personal focus on mentoring and developing a rising number of women executives. Her commitment to inclusion, diversity, and equity led her to support the company’s international pay equity efforts and Medtronic has achieved 100% gender and ethnically diverse pay equity in the aggregate in the U.S. and 99% globally. She also serves as the Executive Sponsor of the Medtronic Women’s Network’s hub for women vice presidents as well as Executive Sponsor of the Medtronic PRIDE Network for LGBTQ+ employees and allies.

Parkhill began her career at JP Morgan in investment banking and rose to CFO of its commercial banking business.  She went on to become vice chairman and CFO at Comerica, before stepping into the healthcare technology industry as CFO at Medtronic, where she’s helped to drive transformation across both the finance function and the company.

“It wasn’t daunting to me to learn a new industry, but it was my next, new challenge,” said Parkhill, adding that the company’s higher purpose to help patients provided the real appeal of joining Medtronic. “What we do to alleviate pain, restore health, and extend lives really does change lives.”

Hear more from Karen Parkhill about her observations of the MedTech industry, the progress Medtronic has made, and what she expects from the future in this episode of the MedtronicTalks Podcast. And learn more about the company’s efforts to remove barriers and shape equitable outcomes in the Global Inclusion, Diversity & Equity 2022 Annual Report.

KANSAS CITY, Mo., March 27, 2023 /3BL Media/ – Building on its leadership in lab grown diamonds, Helzberg Diamonds® announced today the launch of rêve™, a lab grown diamond collection that is 100% third-party rated and certified for sustainability. Helzberg Diamonds is now the first national jewelry retailer accredited by SCS Global Services to offer diamonds certified under the strict SCS-007 Jewelry Sustainability Standard.

Grounded in science and advanced technology, rêve (a French term meaning “to dream”) provides environmentally conscious purchasers with a new way to shop for and enjoy real diamonds. One that not only embraces customers’ increasing demand for brands that prioritize environmental responsibility, sustainability, and a social commitment, but also a purposeful passion to make the world a better place.

“As the first national jewelry retailer to offer lab grown diamonds in 2017, Helzberg Diamonds has a longstanding commitment to providing diamond purchasers with a world-class shopping experience and expertise to help them choose the best diamond for them,” said Julie Yoakum, president of Helzberg Diamonds. “The SCS-007 certified rêve lab grown diamond collection offers sustainability-minded customers with a new choice in diamonds that meets their expectations.”

Grown and meticulously handcrafted by Craft Lab Grown Diamonds and designed to achieve SCS-007’s highest rating standard, the new rêve collection promises end-to-end sustainability, transparency, traceability and climate neutrality. Each certified diamond in the rêve collection is accompanied by a unique certificate of sustainability that outlines its provenance, journey and unique features.

“The rêve collection promises to deliver the highest standards for environmental responsibility and social consciousness by giving consumers a high-quality diamond that can be transparently traced back to its sustainable origins,” said Hasu Dholakiya, CEO of Craft Lab Grown Diamonds. “We’re thrilled to partner with Helzberg Diamonds on this new groundbreaking brand that embodies and elevates a diamond’s extraordinary brilliance, beauty and artistry. Truly, rêve is a brand without compromise.”

Each ring in the rêve collection exquisitely combines on-trend design fashioned in recycled gold settings. All are showcased in beautiful ring boxes made of recycled materials.

“SCS Global Services is thrilled to welcome Helzberg Diamonds and Craft Lab Grown Diamonds as accredited partners under the SCS-007 program,” said Stanley Mathuram, executive vice president of SCS Global Services. “We congratulate Helzberg Diamonds and Craft on this achievement and for recognizing the importance of sustainability rated diamonds in today’s fine jewelry marketplace.”

Lab grown diamonds are created from responsibly sourced diamond seeds in a state-of-the-art lab and possess the same physical, chemical, and optical properties as natural diamonds. Both lab grown and natural diamonds are one-of-a-kind diamonds that are individually graded by the four Cs: cut, color, clarity and carat weight. The price-to-carat ratio of a lab grown diamond costs a fraction of the price of a similarly sized natural diamond, making it an excellent option for the informed, environmentally conscious shopper.

The exclusive collection is now available in select Helzberg Diamonds store locations nationwide and online. For more information, please visit Helzberg.com/reve.

About Helzberg Diamonds

Helzberg Diamonds®, a retail and online jewelry store focused on customer service, has 170 stores nationwide featuring a wide selection of fine jewelry, including diamond engagement rings and wedding rings, precious gems and watches. Helzberg Diamonds takes pride in a legacy built on trust, knowledge, and high-quality diamonds at an incredible price. Helzberg Diamonds is based in North Kansas City, Missouri, and is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK/A and BRK/B). For the locations nearest you, visit Helzberg.com or call 1-800-HELZBERG (800-435-9237).

About Craft Lab Grown Diamonds

Craft Lab Grown Diamonds, a division of H.K. Designs, is a leading global manufacturer and supplier of lab-grown diamonds and lab-grown diamond jewelry. Headquartered in New York with design and manufacturing centers in Mumbai and Surat, India, Craft’s vertically integrated business model spans its own diamond growing laboratory, proprietary technologies, and cutting and polishing facilities, through jewelry collection design and manufacturing.

All Craft diamonds are sustainably created and independently certified by SCS Global Services to be SCS- 007 complaint encompassing stringent environmental and sustainable production practices, comprehensive origin traceability, climate neutrality, and socially conscious investments.

Craft and its parent company’s philanthropic foundation are committed to promoting sustainable practices and encouraging a sustainable future for the well-being of the planet and future generations. The company is proud of its social welfare and environmental water conservation activities that have had a significant positive impact on vulnerable global communities. These achievements have been recognized by the United Nations with a special accreditation to participate in this year’s UN World Water Conference.

For more information about Craft Lab Grown Diamonds, its products, and ESG-related activities, please contact jeff@craftdiamonds.co.

About SCS Global Services 

SCS Global Services is an internationally recognized leader in third-party certification of environmental and sustainability claims.

Headquartered in Emeryville, California, SCS has representatives and affiliate offices throughout the Americas, Asia/Pacific, Europe and Africa. It is the certification arm of Scientific Certification Systems, Inc., a chartered benefit corporation. For more information, visit: http://www.scsglobalservices.com/services/certified-sustainability-rated-diamond.

For more information on the SCS-007 standard for sustainability rated diamonds, visit: https://www.scsglobalservices.com/standards/scs-007-sustainability-rated-diamonds. 

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HANGZHOU, China, March 27, 2023 /3BL Media/ – The Alibaba Global Digital Talent (GDT) program last week brought together representatives of its partner educational institutions worldwide in a hybrid conference, reaffirming its commitment to driving digital economy education globally. The first GDT event of its kind since the pandemic outbreak, the conference showcased the latest learnings and achievements of the GDT program in promoting academic exchanges and talent incubation for global digital transformation and inclusive development, while also shining a spotlight on outstanding institutions, lecturers and students in the program’s network.

Open to universities and learning institutions all over the world, GDT is a flagship training program under the electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) initiative pioneered by Alibaba Group, which strives to create equitable access to cross-border trade opportunities for youth, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and women globally. It is also part of Alibaba’s talent incubation endeavor to promote inclusive development in the digital economy.

By providing educational institutions with teacher training and networking opportunities, the GDT program helps incubate the institutions’ own qualified trainers who are capable of nurturing the next generation of digital talent in their respective markets, based on a curriculum framework that covers various components of the digital economy such as New Retail, smart logistics, digital marketing, and start-upinvestment and financing. Its training courses leverage learnings from the development of China’s digital economy and taps into resources and best practices in the Alibaba Ecosystem. GDT also supports institutions in its network with student training and examination platforms as well asstudent certification.

“Human capital is key to more pervasive digitalization across industries. The Alibaba GDT program allows educational practitioners around the world to apply the underlying logic of Alibaba’s time-tested business models to their communities’ business landscape, in a way that will complement and augment local digital transformation initiatives,” said James Song, Secretary General of Alibaba’s Globalization Office and Secretary General of eWTP.

“In the past five years, the GDT initiative has cultivated 1,400 teachers and tens of thousands of students from 30 universities and training institutions around the world. We are encouraged by the local digital transformation that has arisen out of the GDT program, and hope to continue working closely with more aspirational partners to move the needle in grooming young talent for the flourishing digital economy worldwide,” added Song.

During the event, GDT signed agreements with INTI International University & Colleges from Malaysia and NTUC LearningHub Pte Ltd from Singapore, signifying an extension of GDT and the two organizations’ collaboration on local digital talent development.

The event also featured an award presentation ceremony which recognized excellent institutional partners, lecturers and students who have exemplified innovation and inclusiveness in their participation in the GDT program.

One of the institutional partners recognized was Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) from Malaysia, which won two awards for its academic excellence and social impact. Since becoming a GDT partner in 2017 – the first in Malaysia, UTAR has seen over 100 of its lecturers receiving GDT certification and close to 3,900 students benefiting from its GDT-based training. To further apply their digital knowledge from logistics to marketing acquired from the GDT program, a group of teachers and students from UTAR launched a New Village e-commerce community project named “We Care, We Act,” in which the students have identified and facilitated the online sales of over 30 local products – ranging from chicken biscuits to soy sauce – supplied by small and medium-sized companies across four Malaysian states. The initiative allows the New Village delicacies, originally available only offline, to reach consumers nationwide and even abroad.

In the coming year, the GDT program is expected to train 400 college teachers who will, in turn, cultivate 10,000 local students worldwide. It will also continue to explore collaboration with government and educational institutions across the region to incubate digital talent as well as help revitalize the rural economy – tapping on its experience of establishing eight Digital Villages in Mexico with local schools to bring the inclusiveness of Taobao Villages[1]in China to a wider part of the world. In the near future, the GDT program is expected to resume offline training and events to optimize trainees’ learning experience.

Since its inception in 2017, the Alibaba GDT program has been introduced in Asia, Latin America, Africa as well as Oceania. Currently, the global reach of the program spans Asia-Pacific countries including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, Pakistan, Mongolia and Australia; Latin American countries including Mexico, Colombia and Bolivia; African countries including Rwanda, Tunisia and Ethiopia; and Kazakhstan in Central Asia.

About Alibaba Global Digital Talent (GDT) Program

Alibaba’s GDT program is a flagship training program under the electronic World Trade Platform (eWTP) initiative pioneered by Alibaba Group and is part of Alibaba’s mission to make it easy to do business anywhere. By tapping into the resources and best practices from the Alibaba Ecosystem worldwide, the initiative aims to share the positive impact of the new business paradigm of the digital economy and promote inclusive development to inspire and empower youth globally. The program’s global network, known as the Alibaba GDT Network, is open to universities and educational institutions wanting to incorporate digital economy curriculum in the education and training system and develop young entrepreneurs and digital talent. For more information about the Alibaba GDT Network, please visit https://gdt.alibaba.com/

Download：

Alibaba Reaffirms Commitment to Driving Digital Economy Education Worldwid.pdf

[1] In China, a Taobao Village is a cluster of rural e-tailers within an administrative village where residents got started in e-commerce spontaneously primarily with the use of Alibaba’s digital retail platform Taobao.

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Please refer to https://www.alizila.com/esg/ for additional information about Alibaba’s sustainability efforts.