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7 innovators building antiracist tech

MIT Solve selected seven groundbreaking tech startups working toward a more equitable future across industries as diverse as financial literacy, criminal justice, and education.

By Sarah Murry — June 16, 2022

MIT Solve this week is kicking off a flagship event for two of its most important programs, which seek to support innovators doing the on-the-ground-work to shrink the disparities in economic, health, and educational outcomes for Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. 

The Indigenous and Antiracist Innovators Summit brings together Solver teams, MIT faculty and staff, and key partners for networking and workshops with participants in its Indigenous Communities Fellowship program and Antiracist Technology in the US Challenge.

Last year, Solve selected seven groundbreaking innovators working across industries as diverse as financial literacy, criminal justice, and education. These Solver cohorts are provided with a nine-month program of support that includes seed funding, a comprehensive resource needs assessment, technical/business mentorship, and tailored connections to a network of companies, foundations, NGOs, and more.

“Antiracist technology is about access—but that doesn’t just mean donating a laptop or device,” says Michele Malejki, global head of Social Impact at HP. “Tech companies have an opportunity and a responsibility to deepen digital literacy in communities of color so access to technology means access to quality information, economic opportunities, and healthcare services.”

“Access to technology means access to quality information, economic opportunities, and healthcare services.”

—Michele Malejki, Global Head of Sustainable Impact, HP

Kimberly Seals Allers, founder of Irth.

Yumi Matsuo

Kimberly Seals Allers, founder of Irth.

One member of the cohort, Kimberly Seals Allers, founder of maternal healthcare technology startup Irth, landed the HP Prize for Advancing Digital Equity. Irth, a mobile app for Black women to search for and leave their own reviews of childbirth and maternity care providers, received $88,000 in prize funding. 

RELATED: 7 entrepreneurs on a mission to improve Black maternal health care

The name Irth comes from the word “birth,” but without the “b” for “bias.” The Irth team uses data from the app to develop hospital and practice strategies to improve outcomes and care experiences for mothers and their babies. “Amplifying these stories can be instructive to the hospitals and providers who need to do better,” Allers says.

Below are the other six members of the US Solver cohort for Antiracist Technology:

EXHALE is an app created by BIWOC for BIWOC to promote emotional well-being through guided meditations, daily affirmations, coaching talks, and more, to share that knowledge. In the past year, founder Katara McCarty wrote a children’s book and forged partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

finEQUITY provides free access to credit and capital for community members released from prison to help families rebuild. For families affected by a head of household who has served a lengthy incarceration, it offers access to affordable apartments, transportation, utilities, cell phones and financial services such as banking, credit and savings.

Top row: Katara McCarty from EXHALE, Briane Cornish from finEQUITY, Devshi Mehrotra from JusticeText. Bottom Row: Meme Styles from Measure, Omolara Fatiregun from Thrive! Equity Audits, and Tony Weaver from Weird Enough Productions.

Top row: Katara McCarty from EXHALE, Briane Cornish from finEQUITY, Devshi Mehrotra from JusticeText. Bottom Row: Meme Styles from Measure, Omolara Fatiregun from Thrive! Equity Audits, and Tony Weaver from Weird Enough Productions.

JusticeText improves criminal justice outcomes for indigent Americans by helping public defenders categorize important evidence. Its audiovisual evidence management software generates automated transcripts of body camera footage, interrogation videos, jail calls, and more. The software applies natural language processing algorithms to automatically identify key parts of the transcript and enable attorneys to easily generate video clips in preparation for trial.

Measure, the nonprofit creator of NEXUS cloud-based platform, enables data-sharing among Black, Indigenous, and POC communities looking to track local disparities in community policing but health, education, and economic outcomes. It also matches BIPOC-led organizations to each other to discover data, share analysis, gain funding, and team up to tackle racial equity issues.

Thrive! Equity Audits, developed software that identifies systemic racism in local government budgets. It then prioritizes how to make enhancements to the budgeting cycle and reallocate resources with a focus on equity and economic mobility and to break cycles of poverty.

Weird Enough Productions uses diverse superheroes and comic books teaching  antiracism in schools. Its award-winning series “The UnCommons” and education platform “Get Media L.I.T.” helps young people improve their social emotional wellness, digital citizenship, and literacy skills.

In September, the new 2022 class of Solver teams will be unveiled at the Solve Challenge Finals. The live pitch event is set to bring together social impact entrepreneurs and leaders from around the world.  

 

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