The Promise of Family

I began my career as a middle school science teacher in New York City. One of my big takeaways from that job was that every student has their own individual needs — and teachers need more help meeting those needs.

I realized the same thing when I taught 8th grade science in Oklahoma. The experience led me to become a data scientist. I wanted to build tools that make it easier for teachers to get to know their students, follow progress, and tailor their lessons.

For my part, I decided to get involved with the Summit Learning Program. At T.L.P., we’re partnering directly with teachers, and we’re co-developing the kind of one-one-on learning experiences I always wanted to give my students.

I help Andy and his team in that work. T.L.P. designs professional development programs for Summit teachers. I analyze how effective those programs are, what’s working, and how we can make Summit training even better.

That really speaks to the heart of our partnership. Tom and his team bring technical expertise to the table, but they’re deeply respectful of teacher expertise, and use their tools to enhance it.

I’ve spent most of my life working in schools. One of the most powerful lessons I’ve learned, through direct experience, is that every student is equally capable of mastering every subject, including math.

My experience was similar in my years working in schools. Learning scientists, like Melina Uncapher who is leading this program, are confirming this in the lab. Early evidence shows that one key to helping students excel in math education lies in helping them hone their “executive function” skills which every student already has inside them. It is what helps them focus their attention, avoid distractions, and think flexibly.

EF+Math aims to teach executive function and math in an integrated way, and to rapidly advance approaches based on what the teams are learning in real time. No one has done this before, so I’m thrilled to help educators partner with researchers and designers to pioneer it together.

We call this approach “Inclusive R&D.” Learning science can tell us a lot, but it’s teachers who have to deploy it in the classroom, which is why this project is leading with educators. Debbra brings their voices into this work and makes sure they’re heard.

As CZI’s lead for venture investments, I always have an eye out for startups that have a powerful mission, outsize potential for growth, and strong execution. If you want to change the world for the better, you need all three.

I agree — which is why we’ve always looked for investors who are equally knowledgeable about building a business and making social impact. Vivian is one of the few who does.

Over the years, Garrett and his team have built Handshake into a thriving company. Because they’re operating at scale, they have a deep understanding of the barriers that limit students’ access to jobs — and how to break those barriers down.

One example of that work: with support from CZI, we recently launched Handshake Open. We were already reaching 14 million students, but now, any undergraduate attending a four-year university can see jobs on our network. Our goal is to democratize access to opportunity, so every student can find a meaningful job or internship.

The housing crisis is a question about who belongs in a place and who gets to be there. I’ve been thinking about that question my whole life, because I come from a family of community organizers. I believe all Californians deserve a place they can call home.

Fred and the San Francisco Foundation are deeply committed to equity. Which is why, in our first meetings, Fred and the TSFF team asked a lot of tough questions. He wanted to ensure the Partnership for the Bay’s Future would help the most vulnerable.

Caitlyn came into the conversation in a really respectful way. But at the same time, she recognized — rightly — that this moment requires urgency. We need to be bold. We need to try new and innovative things.

To us, that means empowering local leaders. They know the housing crisis inside and out, and they’ve spent decades developing solutions. Now is the time to invest in them.

For decades, Oklahoma’s criminal justice system has over-policed communities of color, and over-penalized low-level drug and property crimes. The result is a system that’s disproportionately biased and has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world.

In Oklahoma, incarceration isn’t just punishment. It’s a public crisis. It’s destroying our communities and dragging down our economy. Maybe the worst part is that it doesn’t even seem to be working.

We have so much work left to do on criminal justice reform. These problems are older than any of us, the system is incredibly complicated, and the scale of damage being caused is just massive. But victories like this one prove that criminal justice reform is not only possible, it’s worth it.

That kind of system failure isn’t a partisan issue. It’s not even a political issue. It’s a human issue. I’m really proud of how many different people and organizations came together to do the right thing.

With all the stigma around incarceration, I think it’s hard for most people to accept that the real experts are those of us who’ve been inside the system. Who has a better understanding of the culture and conditions that lead to crime?

And who better to help the rest of the world see formerly incarcerated people for what they really are: people. That’s something I admire about your work at Legal Services for Prisoners with Children. You move past the statistics and soundbites, and focus on the basic human costs of the criminal justice system.

You know, when the conversation is fixed on the system as a whole, it’s easy to gloss over the specific ways it can change for the better. That’s why we take a multi-track approach to reform. We organize affected communities and reunite families. We advocate for release and raise awareness about racism in policing, the courts, and the prison system.

And in all those specific ways, you’re helping the larger reform movement flourish. The criminal justice system is so big, we really can’t fix it unless we bring everybody together: crime survivors, law enforcement, corrections, and formerly incarcerated people. Together, we can move the system past the sensationalism of crime and punishment, and redesign it to restore our communities.

I was diagnosed with ALS in November 2017. Doctors told me I might only have months to live, and I knew I had a choice to make. Do I keep going like nothing happened? Or do I fight this thing?

When I met Brian six months later, it was clear what choice he’d made. He was going to marshal a movement to empower patients and unite all stakeholders in the fight against ALS.

I kept thinking about what the HIV community accomplished in the ‘80s and ‘90s. They needed research and they needed treatment, so they built a movement that made HIV impossible to ignore. No one had tried that approach with ALS.

The challenge is that people living with rare diseases, and their doctors, tend to be isolated from one another, so it’s harder to organize. But technology makes it possible. I believe the tools and techniques we’re developing won’t just be a game changer for ALS patients, but for other rare disease communities, too.

As a public health worker and microbiologist, I’ve seen the ways mysterious diseases can devastate entire communities. Take meningitis. When we don’t know what’s causing it, we cannot prevent future cases. It leaves us at a standstill.

In many pediatric cases, meningitis is deadly. But even when it can be treated, it nearly always leaves the child severely disabled.

We spent years trying to identify what caused the illness. We drew spinal fluids. We ran tests, most of which failed. After learning about metagenomic sequencing, I searched around the world for people to partner with. That’s how I heard about CZ ID. I flew to California to learn how to do sequencing and try CZ ID for myself. In under a week, we discovered a major cause of meningitis in my community: a virus called chikungunya (CHIKV).

With the help of CZ ID, Senjuti was able to go back and diagnose what had caused nearly half of the 'mystery' cases of meningitis. Watching the first CHIKV samples come through at the Biohub was an ‘aha’ moment. We realized that we could have a real impact on the public health community.

As someone who grew up in East Palo Alto during the 1990s, I know what so many of the families in my community are up against. Our students, their parents, and their teachers are facing challenges that just aren’t like the problems that come up in other communities.

Agreed. You’ve got to start with the context that makes those problems unique. When you work with people who have a deep and nuanced understanding of the community and the challenges, you have a much better chance of coming up with interventions that actually work.

That’s one thing that makes our work different than a lot of what’s been tried here before. CHC and CZI are making community-led solutions the priority. At CHC, we’re making decisions together with our community.

I remember when we first met, one of the things that stood out to me was that you and I are both Bay Area natives. For me, that’s more than just background information. I think it gives us a certain kind of fire — a sense of personal commitment to lifting up the community that raised us.