What is the Day One Technology Policy Accelerator?
The Day One Project is launching its Technology Policy Accelerator to identify, develop, and publish a set of technology policy ideas that could be implemented by Congress or the Biden-Harris Administration.
The accelerator is a nine-week process, designed to guide each participant as they develop an initial idea into a tailored, actionable set of policy recommendations. Selected participants will have a chance to develop their ideas with guidance from policy advisors, meet with veteran policymakers to learn more about the nuances of policy implementation, hone their ability to craft actionable policy on the federal level, and build a community with their fellow cohort.
We are accepting applications for the third accelerator until Thursday, February 18, 5PM EST. Select candidates will be invited for a short 15-minute interview during the week of February 22. The accelerator will run between March 8th and May 7th, with a weekly time commitment of 4-6 hours.
What kinds of ideas are we looking for?
We are seeking a diverse range of policy proposals that will inform the Federal Government’s technology agenda. Below, we’ve identified a set of key focus areas and a non-exhaustive list of questions that the Federal Government will face in 2021.
These questions should help guide your thinking on potential proposals to submit for the accelerator. We encourage you to share a pitch for an idea that is either related to one of the guiding questions listed here or that is different.
As you develop your idea, please review our list of published proposalsand consider how the idea might intersect administration’s four priority areas: COVID-19, Economic Recovery, Racial Equity, and Climate Change.
Who should apply?
We are looking for policymakers, academics, entrepreneurs, or anyone else with at least one year of professional experience. The ideal candidate will propose an idea based on a deeper expertise of the technology issue at hand. For example:
A technology entrepreneur
A graduate student or academic researcher who has focused on particular technologies
A technology investor or venture capitalist
An activist or leading advocate for change on a technology issue
Women and underrepresented communities are especially encouraged to apply.
We hope that invited accelerator participants will benefit from working with the Day One Project team in three key ways:
Mentorship: You will have access to mentorship and training on government policy levers, technical assistance on proposal development, guidance on engaging policymakers, and other dedicated resources for you to become an empowered advocate for change, regardless of your starting point.
Networking: Not only will you work hand-in-hand with the Day One team, but you will collaborate with our network of experts, your impressive cohort peers, and a group of policymakers convened to hear your ideas in a final showcase event.
Impact: By the end of the accelerator, you will have developed an actionable policy proposal for the Biden-Harris Administration or Congress and be equipped with the tools to champion this policy in the Federal Government.
How can we utilize the expertise of disinformation scholars in developing national disinformation strategy? What insights should shape federal action on the issue?
What actions should the intelligence community, namely the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security agency (CSIA) among others, take to better secure U.S. elections against disinformation and foreign interference?
How should the Federal Government regulate platforms to curtail the spread of polarizing disinformation? Which agency or agencies should lead the charge?
Antitrust/Competition
What market-shaping policy tools or incentives could help new competitors emerge in technology sectors that suffer from a lack of meaningful competition, such as the social media market?
What should be the White House guidance to FTC and DOJ on articulating a non-price-based model for examining and investigating the rise of technology monopolies?
Securing the Internet
How should the Federal Government incentivize countries away from data localization practices, when data is increasingly crucial to national progress?
What actions should the Federal Government take to ensure that a satellite Internet doesn’t become a dragnet for information or an Internet/communications jamming weapon?
Net Neutrality/American Broadband
How could FCC leverage greater authority over the broadband market to advance causes like universal access to meet the modern connectivity needs of low-income families?
What new considerations should be part of any attempt to use legislation to secure net neutrality?
Future of Work
How can the Federal Government upskill Americans to the digital economy?
Are there new categories of work that the government should be accounting for in its labor policies and how should they be regulated?
Racial Equity & Technology Policy
What laws—existing or new—should the White House utilize to advance racial equity in technology policy?
How can the government hold dominant technology companies accountable for the potential future racial prejudices and civil rights issues they perpetuate? What new, specific capacities and expertise are needed in order for the government to uphold equity?
Technology & Trade
What should the future of trade and technology partnerships with U.S. allies look like?
How can the U.S. engage and invest in the half of the world still to come online?
What critical supply-chains and industries should the Federal Government seek to domestically reshore and why?
Autonomous Vehicles (AVs)
What actions should the Federal Government (Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, etc.) take to streamline the rollout of automobiles, drones, and other AVs?
How can the Federal Government ensure pedestrian safety and protect user privacy while balancing the incentives to innovate (e.g. avoiding liability shields when an AV injures a pedestrian)?
Digital Currency
How should the U.S. Treasury build infrastructure to account for the rise of digital currencies around the world?
How should the Federal Government protect the USD in a world of digital currencies, such as China’s Digital Currency Electronic Payment and Facebook’s Libra?
Quantum Information Science (QIS)
How can the Federal Government address the QIS talent gap and promote a quantum-smart workforce?
How can the Federal Government enable high-quality quantum error correction?
Thanks for sharing this! It could be a relevant opportunity for many of the Forum's readers, and I really appreciate links to resources outside of EA (which are much less likely to end up here than things within our small community).
Note: I am not a malaria expert. This is my best-faith attempt at answering a question that was bothering me, but this field is a large and complex field, and I’ve almost certainly misunderstood something somewhere along the way.
Summary
While the world made incredible progress in reducing malaria cases from 2000 to 2015, the past 10 years have seen malaria cases stop declining and start rising. I investigated potential reasons behind this increase through reading the existing literature and looking at publicly available data, and I identified three key factors explaining the rise:
1. Population Growth: Africa's population has increased by approximately 75% since 2000. This alone explains most of the increase in absolute case numbers, while cases per capita have remained relatively flat since 2015.
2. Stagnant Funding: After rapid growth starting in 2000, funding for malaria prevention plateaued around 2010.
3. Insecticide Resistance: Mosquitoes have become increasingly resistant to the insecticides used in bednets over the past 20 years. This has made older models of bednets less effective, although they still have some effect. Newer models of bednets developed in response to insecticide resistance are more effective but still not widely deployed.
I very crudely estimate that without any of these factors, there would be 55% fewer malaria cases in the world than what we see today. I think all three of these factors are roughly equally important in explaining the difference.
Alternative explanations like removal of PFAS, climate change, or invasive mosquito species don't appear to be major contributors.
Overall this investigation made me more convinced that bednets are an effective global health intervention.
Introduction
In 2015, malaria rates were down, and EAs were celebrating. Giving What We Can posted this incredible gif showing the decrease in malaria cases across Africa since 2000:
Giving What We Can said that
> The reduction in malaria has be
Cross-posted from my blog.
Contrary to my carefully crafted brand as a weak nerd, I go to a local CrossFit gym a few times a week. Every year, the gym raises funds for a scholarship for teens from lower-income families to attend their summer camp program. I don’t know how many Crossfit-interested low-income teens there are in my small town, but I’ll guess there are perhaps 2 of them who would benefit from the scholarship. After all, CrossFit is pretty niche, and the town is small.
Helping youngsters get swole in the Pacific Northwest is not exactly as cost-effective as preventing malaria in Malawi. But I notice I feel drawn to supporting the scholarship anyway. Every time it pops in my head I think, “My money could fully solve this problem”. The camp only costs a few hundred dollars per kid and if there are just 2 kids who need support, I could give $500 and there would no longer be teenagers in my town who want to go to a CrossFit summer camp but can’t. Thanks to me, the hero, this problem would be entirely solved. 100%.
That is not how most nonprofit work feels to me.
You are only ever making small dents in important problems
I want to work on big problems. Global poverty. Malaria. Everyone not suddenly dying. But if I’m honest, what I really want is to solve those problems. Me, personally, solve them. This is a continued source of frustration and sadness because I absolutely cannot solve those problems.
Consider what else my $500 CrossFit scholarship might do:
* I want to save lives, and USAID suddenly stops giving $7 billion a year to PEPFAR. So I give $500 to the Rapid Response Fund. My donation solves 0.000001% of the problem and I feel like I have failed.
* I want to solve climate change, and getting to net zero will require stopping or removing emissions of 1,500 billion tons of carbon dioxide. I give $500 to a policy nonprofit that reduces emissions, in expectation, by 50 tons. My donation solves 0.000000003% of the problem and I feel like I have f
In my past year as a grantmaker in the global health and wellbeing (GHW) meta space at Open Philanthropy, I've identified some exciting ideas that could fill existing gaps. While these initiatives have significant potential, they require more active development and support to move forward.
The ideas I think could have the highest impact are:
1. Government placements/secondments in key GHW areas (e.g. international development), and
2. Expanded (ultra) high-net-worth ([U]HNW) advising
Each of these ideas needs a very specific type of leadership and/or structure. More accessible options I’m excited about — particularly for students or recent graduates — could involve virtual GHW courses or action-focused student groups.
I can’t commit to supporting any particular project based on these ideas ahead of time, because the likelihood of success would heavily depend on details (including the people leading the project). Still, I thought it would be helpful to articulate a few of the ideas I’ve been considering.
I’d love to hear your thoughts, both on these ideas and any other gaps you see in the space!
Introduction
I’m Mel, a Senior Program Associate at Open Philanthropy, where I lead grantmaking for the Effective Giving and Careers program[1] (you can read more about the program and our current strategy here).
Throughout my time in this role, I’ve encountered great ideas, but have also noticed gaps in the space. This post shares a list of projects I’d like to see pursued, and would potentially want to support. These ideas are drawn from existing efforts in other areas (e.g., projects supported by our GCRCB team), suggestions from conversations and materials I’ve engaged with, and my general intuition. They aren’t meant to be a definitive roadmap, but rather a starting point for discussion.
At the moment, I don’t have capacity to more actively explore these ideas and find the right founders for related projects. That may change, but for now, I’m interested in
Thanks for sharing this! It could be a relevant opportunity for many of the Forum's readers, and I really appreciate links to resources outside of EA (which are much less likely to end up here than things within our small community).