MD4SG is a multi-institutional initiative bringing together researchers and practitioners from over 130 institutions in 50 countries. We take an interdisciplinary approach—using insights from computer science, social sciences, and humanistic studies as well as collaborations and partnerships with domain experts and impacted communities—to help improve access to opportunity. We focus on a range of domains from inequality to climate and energy to data economies and civic participation.

 

The initiative is a community of nearly 2000 participants and involves activities including working groups, colloquium series, and workshops and tutorials. The initiative is primarily led by junior members and focused on the mission of bringing together a range of expertise to tackle problems impacting marginalized groups around the world.

 

MD4SG was founded by Rediet Abebe and Kira Goldner in the fall of 2016 as a multi-institutional reading group of 12 members. The reading group, which ran from fall 2016 to spring 2018, predominantly comprised graduate students who were united by their interest to use an interdisciplinary approach to improve societal welfare. To this end, junior researchers in the group curated modules on housing, healthcare, inequality, and other related topics to provide examples of meaningful interventions and suggest directions for future research. Rediet and Kira also co-organized and co-PC-chaired the first two MD4SG workshops at the ACM Conference on Economics and Computation, at EC'17 and EC '18.

 

Join us if you are interested in this mission and reach out if you would like to learn more.