SAN FRANCISCO — Staff at the Airbel Center, the research and development arm of the International Rescue Committee, worked with experts in machine learning at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, to develop an algorithm that would better match refugees with jobs in the locations where they were placed.
“Initially, my thought was: ‘This is going to be a marginal improvement,’” said Ravi Gurumurthy, chief innovation officer at humanitarian response organization IRC.
But the results showed a 40 percent improvement, building on a list of examples that point to why IRC is working across disciplines to design and test solutions for people affected by crisis.