StartingUpGood

Supporting fresh entrepreneurial approaches for social impact

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The OpenAI Foundation pledged an initial $250M in grants, partnerships, and hands-on programs towards 3 priorities: studying how AI is transforming labor markets, assisting workers and communities confronting imminent job losses, and identifying new mechanisms for spreading AI-generated wealth more equitably. Specific programs will be announced before the end of the year. Unlike a conventional grantmaking body, the foundation is assembling staff to manage certain initiatives in-house. OpenAI separately pledged in March to channel a minimum of $1 billion through the foundation over the following twelve months toward AI-related efforts spanning life sciences and local community initiatives.
https://t.co/jTvWAxcOOl

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In the first of a 3-part series on venture investment to Black-founded startups, Crunchbase reports that only 0.32% of total U.S. venture funding went to startups with a Black founder or co-founder in 2026: https://t.co/bQLCfw1s2H

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Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Meta are teaming up with a nonprofit investor Elemental Impact to accelerate new technologies - including advanced cooling, energy storage and low-carbon building materials - using data centers as test cases.

https://t.co/Og6ggTGt0T

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@WEF shows why mission-driven enterprises need patient capital, not venture timelines.
🔹 Treat impact and profit as partners, not rivals
🔹 Track liquidity as social infrastructure
🔹 Reward verified results through blended finance, impact-linked loans and impact credits
https://t.co/5GmMOOCjxj

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MIT Technology Review examines what the numbers really say about AI's current impact on jobs: https://t.co/lgdSrXuOgu

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New @PitchBook data shared with CNBC shows more than 220 former unicorns have slipped below a billion-dollar valuation as capital floods toward AI.
🔹 Startups that last raised in 2021 are worth 68% less on average, with the 2022 group down about 52%
🔹 Over $250 billion has flowed into @OpenAI and @Anthropic ahead of expected mega-IPOs
"post-GPT startups are running laps around their older competitors"
https://t.co/jsVS7jKBom

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This article from @Devex discusses the landscape of international development jobs and how remote work fits into it all.

A good perspective for our readers working in (or looking to get into) the space.

https://t.co/CoPSVni5ZJ

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Check out this recap of May's Impact Investor Forum in London: https://t.co/5QXgOT70L5

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Unreasonable will hold its first-ever gathering 8 - 11 June in the Cotswolds outside of London. Learn more about the Unreasonable Alchemy 2026: https://t.co/6IDviWCACN

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Jasper van Brakel of Regenerative Social Finance explains how ESG asked the right questions, but it did not go far enough: https://t.co/eP5jqfiDoU #ImpactInvesting

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Agentic AI has an ambition gap problem. 85% of organizations want to be agentic within three years, but 76% admit their current operations cannot support that shift, according to a new MIT Technology Review Insights analysis.

The fix is not bolting AI agents onto a human operating model. It is redesigning the model around them.

🔧 The "sticky tape" trap. Layering AI employees onto legacy hierarchies is "like adding sticky tape to an operating model that is breaking," says Prasun Shah of PwC UK.
🧬 Agents as connective tissue. Value comes from coordinating across systems and surfacing higher-quality decisions, not from being one more tool in the stack.
📊 Outcomes over outputs. When one enterprise swapped activity metrics like cost per query for outcome metrics like contracts auto-cleared, measured ROI tripled in two quarters.
👥 Workforce reckoning. McKinsey & Company projects 75% of jobs will need redesign, upskilling, or redeployment by 2030.

Leaders who keep treating agents as productivity add-ons will stall. Those who rewire workflows, decision rights, and success metrics will pull ahead.

https://t.co/b6o7Y3VSPd

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2 shocks are reshaping the global economy at once: energy disruption and AI acceleration. At the Milken Institute Global Conference session on the global economic outlook, business and finance leaders offered their constructive views of what comes next.

The energy shock is exposing deep vulnerabilities in supply chains, inflation, and poorer oil-importing countries. At the same time, AI is moving from experimentation to real production, creating new risks but also new paths for productivity, financial inclusion, education, and healthcare.

The strongest takeaway for leaders is that they cannot plan for one predictable future. They need flexible strategies, scenario thinking, and the courage to build through volatility.

Moderator:
Zanny Minton Beddoes - Editor-in-Chief, The Economist

Speakers:
Kristalina Georgieva - Managing Director, International Monetary Fund
Mohamed Kande - Global Chairman, PwC
Ariel Szarfsztejn - CEO, Mercado Libre
Mike Wirth - Chairman of the Board and CEO, Chevron Corporation

Watch the full conversation: https://t.co/phLdVhcx7D

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CASE at Duke identifies 4 shifts reshaping the future of ompact from #SkollWF 2026:
1. Scale will increasingly depend on rethinking who holds power
2. The future of impact will require rethinking capital—not just raising more of it
3. Systems change is ultimately about culture, trust, and narrative
4. AI is becoming strategy—not just technology

https://t.co/atsKfe5bGp

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In a truly fascinating panel at the 2026 Milken Institute Global Conference session, Amy Webb, Tristan Harris, Suzanne DiBianca, and https://t.co/eTsGdOtLEI offered their views on AI and humanity. The conversation moved beyond easy optimism or doom. AI can expand productivity, creativity, access, and entrepreneurship. But without better planning, incentives, guardrails, and inclusion, it can also deepen inequality and displace people faster than institutions can respond.

Watch the full conversation: https://t.co/qVUUnIHplA

Speakers:
Suzanne Dibianca - Executive Vice President and Chief Impact Officer, Salesforce
Tristan Harris - Co-founder, Center for Humane Technology
Amy Webb - CEO, Future Today Strategy Group; Professor, Stern School of Business, New York University
https://t.co/eTsGdOtLEI - Founder and CEO, https://t.co/C5RdvKNlKH; President, https://t.co/SchSUPhaK9 Angel Foundation

Moderator
Erik Schatzker - Editorial Director, Bloomberg

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Social entrepreneur Jeroo Billimoria emphasizes the importance of collaboration in Pioneers Post: https://t.co/UeaelzniFH

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Serena Williams has invested in 16 unicorns, but the lesson she shared at the Milken Institute Global Conference was not about picking winners. It was about who gets to write the check. Speaking with Bloomberg's Jason Kelly, the tennis champion turned investor explained why she built her firm, recently renamed Starfire Ventures, around access.
- Less than 2 percent of venture capital goes to women, so she set out to change who sits at the top of the funnel rather than carve out a quota
- Her firm backed Esusu early, the fintech that turns on time rent payments into credit history for renters the system overlooks, before it became a billion dollar company
- Her edge is not a selfie, it is opening doors only the largest firms can, then staying in the room to close
- Every portfolio company must now evolve with AI or risk becoming obsolete
Watch the full conversation: https://t.co/jMJ1IMwGYG

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Sequencing the first human genome cost $3 billion. Today, a genome can be sequenced for about $100 in a few hours. Health is finally starting to compound the way computing did.

At the Milken Institute 2026 Global Conference, a panel of innovators, investors, and experts mapped where the next wave of medical breakthroughs is heading.

Key takeaways
🧬 Liquid biopsies now detect cancer from a simple blood draw, with one test 10x more sensitive than its 2014 version at the same price
🧠 Mental health is moving from chemical imbalance to brain circuitry, with new therapies showing durable remission after just a couple of doses
🤖 AI imaging can halve full body MRI scan times while doubling resolution, expanding access where clinicians are scarce
💊 Outcome aligned payment, proven in a sickle cell model that reached 84 percent of eligible Medicaid patients, rewards results rather than volume
🌍 The real test is not who innovates fastest, but who actually makes people healthier

U.S. health spending is over $5 trillion and rising. The winners will turn breakthroughs into care that patients can reach and afford.

Panelists:
Helmy Eltoukhy - Co-founder, Chairman, and Co-CEO, Guardant Health
Taha Kass-Hout, MD, MS - Global Chief Science and Technology Officer, GE HealthCare
Maha Katabi, PhD, CFA - General Partner, Sofinnova Investments
Eric So - Co-Founder, Executive Chairman & Interim Chief Executive Officer, Helus Pharma
Abe Sutton - Director, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation

Moderator:
Alice Park - Senior Health Correspondent, TIME

https://t.co/XYXjzI0yxV

#healthinnovation #AIforGood

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YAMA, a France-based company that developed an electrified carbon capture technology, and Singapore-based Metha8, that developed a methanol-to-power system, claimed the top prizes at the 9th edition of the global innovation competition, backed by Temasek Foundation with new support from Singapore government agency A*Star.
https://t.co/lCA4WC2FNy

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Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how terribly expensive it is to be poor. This line framed a candid conversation about what philanthropy can actually fix at the Milken Institute 2026 Global Conference.

Four leading funders shared what works, what lasts, and what they would change about the way capital reaches families.

What stood out
💵 Put money directly in people's hands. One matched savings program turns $1,000 saved into $3,000, helping families clear debt and put down payments on homes
🏠 Treat housing as a capital stack problem. Ballmer Group is targeting families at 50 percent of area median income, using philanthropic capital to help make safe, affordable housing possible
👶 Early childhood is the highest leverage point, yet there is no real system. One bet funds 10,000 pre-K seats at $170 million a year for a decade
🏛️ Unstick capital that already exists. Roughly $8 billion in small business credit sits unused, waiting on simpler rules and technical help
🤝 Stop cutting checks in silos. The real unlock is convening, de-risking, and scaling what already works

Philanthropy cannot fix market failures alone, but it can de-risk the ideas that do.

Panelists:
David Clunie - President, Principal, and Head, Community Impact, Edward Jones Foundation
Roma Kaundal - Managing Director and Head, US Philanthropy, JPMorganChase
Terri Ludwig - CEO, Ballmer Group
Carla D. Thompson Payton - Chief Strategist and Impact Officer, W.K. Kellogg Foundation

Moderator:
Rachel Reilly - Senior Director, Finance, Milken Institute

https://t.co/pEcYDL1ydJ

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Learn more about how Conduit Capital is launching the Pioneer Gap Impact Platform Fund, an inaugural $20 million blended capital vehicle with 20% philanthropic first-loss, 30% junior equity, 50% senior equity. https://t.co/wjnNfpFA0V