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This Perplexity cofounder wants to help AI breakthroughs graduate from university labs

Fast Company Tech

A team of prominent AI researchers, led by Databricks and Perplexity cofounder Andy Konwinski, has launched Laude Institute , a new nonprofit that helps university-based researchers turn their breakthroughs into open-source projects, startups, or large-scale products with real-world impact.

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In Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley,’ Black communities get all of the pollution—but very few of the jobs

Fast Company Tech

Residents of the mostly Black communities sandwiched between chemical plants along the lower Mississippi River have long said they get most of the pollution but few of the jobs produced by the regions vast petrochemical industry. A new study led by Tulane University backs up that view, revealing stark racial disparities across the U.S.s

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Want to stay healthier and fulfilled later in life? Try volunteering

Fast Company Tech

Even engaging in whats known as informal helping lending a hand to friends, neighbors, or community members in need, without getting paid or participating in an organized programcan help you in similar ways. 170 billion each year, according to AmeriCorps, the federal agency focused on national and community service. Start small.

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How an L.A. community of wildfire survivors is getting insurance to pay for contamination testing

Fast Company Tech

“If I can prove my community is not fit for human habitation then maybe I can show my home won’t be,” said Jane Lawton Potelle, founder of Eaton Fire Residents Unite. Many homeowners paid privately for the testing after their insurance companies refused, revealing gaps in coverage.

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How L.A. can rebuild after the wildfires without leaving vulnerable residents behind

Fast Company Tech

As the region starts to recover, communities have an opportunity to rebuild in better ways that can protect neighborhoods against a riskier future, but at the same time dont price out low-income residents. This can have long-term effects on inequality in a community. In the Los Angeles area, those risks are now impossible to ignore.

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The Next 4 Years: Tapping Into Nonprofit Expertise

The NonProfit Times

It has more than 125,000 volunteers, has responded to disasters in 700-plus communities, and raised nearly $250 million. Reckford CEO Habitat For Humanity Reckford was preaching that a house is just the first step in building community long before anyone else. Team Rubicon is widely known for its innovation and unique culture.

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Today’s housing crisis could learn from this 1960s anti-poverty program

Fast Company Tech

As a scholar of housing justice and urban planning , Ive studied how this short-lived initiative aimed to move beyond patchwork fixes to poverty and instead tackle its structural causes by empowering communities to shape their own futures. Earlier urban renewal programs had been roundly criticized for displacing communities of color.