"We love data and helping people at the same time, so it’s a win-win," Janine Miles, MySocialPulse Co-Founder

My guests this week are Divya Prashanth and Janine Miles, or – as I was introduced to them initially – "super-smart data scientists in the UK who are building a social listening tool that could have huge implications for stopping the spread of misinformation."

Divya and Janine are co-founders of MySocialPulse, a digital dashboard that makes it easy to search for and track public sentiment on social media. They're testing its application in media and advertising, finance and reputation management, but what they're really excited about is its potential to help journalists and help identify how misinformation is spreading around the world.

"Something that I learned during the pandemic: I remembered why I started in this journalism career to begin with, and it was to serve and to listen." – Maritza Félix, Founder of Conecta Arizona

Serving and listening started with a WhatsApp group for Maritza Félix, an independent journalist in Arizona. The group kept growing until it reached the size limit.

“I knew that there was a need for information. But I also knew that the traditional media outlets weren’t providing all of the information that the community needed because they are obviously understaffed and underpaid," Félix said. "They were working remotely without an understanding of how to work like that.”

She saw the need for stories and information during the pandemic in Spanish, so she launched Conecta Arizona as a journalism experiment, bringing on experts and answering questions. Félix thought it would last for only a few weeks, but word spread quickly. Her experiment has turned into a committed team of journalists and other community members.

The journalism world is taking note. She is a JSK Stanford, IWMF, and Listening Post Collective Fellow and part of Take The Lead’s 50 Women Who Can Change the World of Journalism 2020 cohort.

“I’m a big believer that the internet can be a force for good and that there’s a lot of power in the connections that can be formed online.” -- Vidhya Ramalingam

We've talked before about how the internet and social media can spread disinformation and hate-related posts but how can it also be used for good? My guest this week is Vidhya Ramalingam, CEO and Founder of Moonshot, a company that uses technology to identify people at risk of violent extremism. Moonshot repurposes target advertising methods to intervene by connecting those people with humans who can help.

"If it's human connections that are gonna get people out of these movements, then actually facilitating those connections (...) that’s something that we can replicate and we can scale," Ramalingam said.

Her journey to founding Moonshot is pretty unique. She started by attending white nationalist rallies in Sweden and having personal conversations with people involved in the movements. She was surprised by what she learned.