Edith Elliott: People, not just patients

Calling on her experience as a 13-year old helping her mother recover after brain surgery, Edith Elliott co-founded Noora Health to provide critical support services and training to hospitalized patients and their families, ensuring a smooth transition from hospital to home. "We exist to transform health care from a scary and sterile experience into something full of compassion and love." For more information, visit poptech.org.

Edith Anne Elliott is the co-founder and CEO of Noora Health, which provides critical support services and training to hospitalized patients and their families, ensuring a smooth transition from hospital to home. Leveraging human-centered design, Noora Health has developed a simple, interactive and low-cost approach to teach basic treatments, encourage proper dietary/lifestyle changes, and recognize early warning signs of medical emergencies.

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Primoz Kovacic: Development is personal

"Development doesn't have to be sexy; it just has to work. " Primoz Kovacic and his team are giving communities simple tools they need to bring about development in their own communities, communities whose members are often forced to seek asylum in other countries, including his own. For more talks, visit poptech.org.

Primoz Kovacic is the co-founder and director of Spatial Collective, a Nairobi-based social enterprise that uses Geographic Information Systems for community development. Through data collection and visualization, Spatial Collective helps communities to identify available resources and apply this knowledge in development initiatives. 

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Shah Selbe: Making conservation proactive

The Earth is in the midst of its sixth great extinction—and the first one caused by a single species: us. PopTech Fellow Shah Selbe discusses how “the internet of environmental things” enables conversationists to better monitor the heartbeat of the world’s ecosystems. For more information, visit poptech.org.

Shah Selbe is an engineer and conservation technologist focused on identifying and developing innovative technologies that can improve how we protect our marine reserves and delicate terrestrial ecosystems.

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Raj Jayadev: 1,862 fewer years in prison

How do you keep people out of prison? Empower their loved ones. PopTech Fellow Raj Jayadev discusses “participatory defense,” a new method of justice-seeking that tells the story of individuals in the court system through their families and communities—and turns “time served” into “time saved.” For more information, visit poptech.org.

Raj Jayadev is the founder and director of Silicon Valley De-Bug, a media community organizing and social entrepreneurial collective based in San Jose, California.
Through De-Bug, Raj started a family and community organizing model, the Albert Cobarrubias Justice Project – a methodology for families and communities to impact the outcome of criminal cases involving loved ones, changing the landscape of the power of the court system. 

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Joyce Kim: 6 million financial transactions for just 20 cents

Joyce Kim, PopTech Fellow and Executive Director of Stellar.org, explores how the global financial system is a highway littered with roadblocks and tolls. Joyce discusses how connecting siloed systems with an open source financial network can foster affordable access to the economy.

Joyce Kim is the Executive Director of Stellar, a technology that enables money to move directly between people, companies and financial institutions as easily as email. Stellar sees financial access as not the final destination, but rather a necessary precondition for people to fulfill their other basic human needs, such as education, food, healthcare and safety.

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Taylor Downs: Systems that just work

“Technology isn’t the answer, but it shouldn’t be the problem.” PopTech Fellow Taylor Downs speaks about his company OpenFn’s mission to make disparate technologies speak the same language, unifying sources of information to enable social impact organizations to act faster and smarter. For more information visit poptech.org.

Taylor Downs is the founder of Open[Fn], a non-profit, fully open-source data integration platform that connects the "technology for development" sector.
Open[Fn] strives to make technology tools work more efficiently and effectively in the social sector through a process that ensures easy access to the best technology tools – in a sense, serving as its “app store.”. Beyond accessing the right tools, Open[Fn] also allows users to connect various technologies with clicks, not code. 

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Susana De Anda: Toxic California water

One million Californians are exposed to unsafe drinking water every year. Immigrants and the poor are the most affected, even as they pay exorbitant rates. Susana De Anda is creating a new advocacy model that give voice to the voiceless on the issue of life's most fundamental substance.

Susana De Anda is the co-founder and co-director of the Community Water Center (CWC), which helps build strategic grassroots capacity to address water challenges in small, rural, low-income communities and communities of color. Since opening its doors in 2006, CWC has worked with local residents from 82 California communities to improve access to safe, clean, and affordable water. CWC has trained over 2,674 residents as clean water advocates, and provided technical assistance to over 15 local water boards struggling to manage efficient and accountable water systems.

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Emily Falk: Brain waves and how people behave

Behaviors we can change, like smoking, are known to cause death—but determining what makes people do things differently is a daunting challenge. Psychologist Emily Falk’s research unites brain imaging and behavioral outcomes to discover the messages that work to help people help themselves.

Emily Falk is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School for Communication. She utilizes a variety of methods drawn from communication science, neuroscience and psychology. Her research shows how brain activity can be used to predict behavior change in response to persuasive messages as well as what makes successful ideas spread (e.g. through social networks and cultures). 

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