Schmidt Futures has announced the inaugural recipients of the Impact Fellowship. 

A joint effort of the Federation for American Scientists, Coding It Forward, and Schmidt Futures, the fellowship matches entrepreneurial software engineers, product managers, and designers with a host nonprofit, where they spend time working on a pressing societal problem. A key goal of the program is to create a scalable model around helping nonprofits attract top tech talent while enabling STEM graduates to make an impact early in their careers.

The 2020 Impact Fellows include Amita Shukla, a product manager at Code for America, where she is working to build tools for automatic record clearance of eligible criminal records and serves as product lead for the organization's unified accessible design system; Chris Lee, a product manager at Recidiviz, where he is leading the development of a case-level microsimulation population projection that will help Department of Corrections leadership make informed budget decisions and policy forecasts; and Jonathan Mak, a software engineer and product manager at UN Global Pulse, where he leads development of an AI/machine learning initiative utilizing speech transcription models to track and analyze radio content for COVID-19 aid distribution in low- and middle-income countries.

The other 2020 Impact Fellows are Mayuka Sarukkai, a data scientist at Recidiviz, where she is working to characterize levers for change within the criminal justice system, quantify the impact of reform initiatives, and help states set and achieve high-impact decarceral goals; Paola Martinez, a product manager at Enveritas, where she leads development of a platform that will provide data-driven insights to inform decisions around sustainability initiatives in the coffee sector; and Spencer Yen, a software engineer and product manager at MIT Media Lab – Social Machines, where he is building social media analytics tools that better recognize misinformation and political fragmentation online.