About

Lacuna Fund is the world’s first collaborative effort to provide data scientists, researchers, and social entrepreneurs in low- and middle-income contexts globally with the resources they need to produce labeled datasets that address urgent problems in their communities.

The Need

Machine learning has shown great potential to revolutionize everything from how farmers increase their crop yields, to how governments communicate with their citizens during natural disasters, to how healthcare providers respond to global pandemics. But in low- and middle-income contexts globally, a lack of labeled and unbiased data puts the benefits of machine learning out of reach. In many cases, data required to build AI applications for real-world problems doesn’t exist. And where it does exist, it’s often outdated, missing key information, or not representative of underserved populations, leading to bias and decreased accuracy. Machine learning tools then “learn” these biases, which can lead to harmful outcomes for people of color, women, and other marginalized populations.