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Data for Social Sustainability call for proposals - fall 2021

Advancing the use of data science for social good

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About this CFP

The Sustainability Science and Innovation (SSI) team at Amazon advances sustainability through mapping, modelling, measuring, and developing insights into the environmental and social impacts of Amazon, both today and into the future. Our north star is to create science-based and data-informed decision tools that have the greatest long-term impact for Amazon and our customers.

SSI works together with the Social Responsibility team to ensure people, workers, and communities throughout Amazon’s value chain are treated with dignity and respect.

New technologies and AI provide the ability to collect and process large amounts of data and brings the promise that we can leverage that data to improve social conditions. However, experiences in this field are still limited and research is needed to determine the best ways to extract signals from a variety of data that will help strengthen human rights and improve livelihoods around the world.

Under this call for proposals, we are seeking to fund research projects on the following topics:

  • How can data be used to strengthen human rights protections in communities around the world at scale?
  • What data is the most promising to use, what techniques to analyze them and what safeguards are needed?
  • Can we assess the impacts of these data on expanded economic opportunities and welfare? If so, how?

Timeline

Submission period: August 16 - October 8, 2021
Decision letters will be sent out March 2022

Award details

Selected Principal Investigators (PIs) may receive the following:

  • Unrestricted funds, no more than $80,000 USD on average
  • AWS Promotional Credits, no more than $20,000 USD on average

Awards are structured as one-year unrestricted gifts. The budget should include a list of expected costs specified in USD, and should not include administrative overhead costs. The final award amount will be determined by the awards panel.

Eligibility requirements

Please refer to the ARA Program rules on the FAQ page.

Proposal requirements

Proposals should be prepared according to the proposal template. In addition, to submit a proposal for this CFP, please also include the following information:

  1. Please list the open-source tools you plan to contribute to.
  2. Please list the AWS ML tools you plan to use and data you plan to obtain.

Selection criteria

ARA will make the funding decisions based on the potential impact to the research community and quality of the scientific content.

Expectations from recipients

To the extent deemed reasonable, Award recipients should acknowledge the support from ARA. Award recipients will inform ARA of publications, presentations, code and data releases, blogs/social media posts, and other speaking engagements referencing the results of the supported research or the Award. Award recipients are expected to provide updates and feedback to ARA via surveys or reports on the status of their research. Award recipients will have an opportunity to work with ARA on an informational statement about the awarded project that may be used to generate visibility for their institutions and ARA.

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