RIPL announced this afternoon that Ambassador Suzan ‘Suzi’ LeVine is joining its Board of Directors. LeVine most recently served as Acting Assistant Secretary for the Employment and Training Administration at the US Department of Labor. She was formerly the US Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein and the Commissioner for the Washington State Employment Security Department.

“Suzi’s deep cross-sector experience and career-long devotion to public service will help RIPL successfully achieve its mission to help government use data, science, and technoloy to improve lives,” said Dr. Justine Hastings, RIPL’s Board Chair.

Gov. David Ige today announced a partnership with national tech-for-social impact non-profit RIPLto develop HI CAN, a digital hub for seamlessly connecting UI claimants and jobseekers to high impact career pathways.

The National Governors Association-Workforce Innovation Network (NGA-WIN) brought together this forward-thinking team to create an accessible, data-driven, and full-service government platform for job seekers and individuals eligible for supportive service benefits. This first-of-its-kind platform, called the Hawai’i Career Acceleration Navigator (HI CAN), will launch in early 2022.

RIPL headlined this week’s Politico Weekly Shift newsletter in an exploration of how ‘Netflix for jobs’ could aid in the Great Resignation.”

“A new program, DOORS, that uses artificial intelligence and unemployment insurance data to match workers with training programs and new jobs, based on their past experience and which industries are expanding in their state, could help get more Americans back to work as they reconsider what they do to pay the bills, its creators say.”

RIPL released a paper today describing the RIPL-developed Secure Data Enclave system, which allows data owners — such as state and local governments — to control data access and ensure data security while facilitating approved uses of data by other parties. The paper describes the technical requirements for implementing a Secure Data Enclave, and key use cases where the architecture has helped government solve a variety of policy challenges in the public sector, including rapidly delivering unemployment assistance and securely exchanging data between state agencies to reduce benefit processing time.

The RIPL team extends its congratulations to Drs. David Card, Joshua G. Angrist, and Guido W. Imbens on being awarded the 2021 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences on October 11, 2021. Dr. Imbens’ work on research methods has “reshaped the way researchers think about and analyze natural experiments,” reported the New York Times. RIPL Board Member Dr. Susan Athey frequently coauthors with Dr. Imbens on causal science methods, machine learning, and applied econometrics to help researchers answer pressing societal questions using natural experiments. Congratulations to all for their outstanding contributions to science!

While the U.S. spends billions of dollars annually on reskilling programs and unemployment insurance, there are few measures of program effectiveness that workers and government can use to guide training investment decisions and ensure delivery of valuable reskilling and improved outcomes. RIPL released a scientific working paper today describing how RIPL scientists developed causal machine learning methods using Rhode Island administrative data to estimate the causal ROI of workforce training programs. This approach can put facts on program effectiveness at the fingertips of workers and policymakers across the country.

During a panel at the September AWS Summit in Washington D.C., RIPL CEO Scott Jensen spoke about the need for government to help workers displaced by the pandemic restart their careers. StateScoop featured Jensen’s remarks around building digital platforms where people can apply for unemployment benefits, find other assistance programs and seek out retraining and new job opportunities without having to repeatedly re-enter their information. ‘“We’re helping states use the data they have to help people find jobs,” Jensen said. “If we don’t find talent for these employers, [America is] just not going to be competitive in the world.”’

The Florida Department of Education is partnering with PAIRIN, Credential Engine, RIPL, and other leaders in workforce innovation to build a cloud-hosted data and analytics platform to help policymakers and educational institutions determine the best use of funding and resources for education and workforce planning.

In the July 2021 essay, “Digital transformation in labor and education systems: Improving the government response to the next unemployment crisis,” the Metropolitcan Policy Program at Brookings highlighted RIPL’s work with the Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training during the COVID-19 pandemic to stand up a new interface to apply for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance quickly through a cloud-based call center platform, with features such as automated messages to end users that allow them to self-correct application errors and avoid long delays in their application.

In April 2019, NOVA, with the assistance of the United States Department of State, led a study trip to the United States with representatives of the Prime Minister’s Office and several other ministries. During the trip, participants met with Professor Justine Hastings, Founder and Director of RIPL, (Research Improving People’s Lives) to learn about the innovative collaboration between RIPL and the Rhode Island state government to establish an integrated database that would serve the government of Rhode Island policymakers and provide inspiration to the Israeli government to undertake a similar project.

A new article in the journal Digital Government: Research and Practice describes how RIPL and the State of Rhode Island developed a scalable cloud solution to collect Pandemic Unemployment Assistance claims as part of a new program created under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act to extend unemployment benefits to independent contractors and gig-economy workers not covered by traditional Unemployment Insurance.

RIPL scientists are partnering with Rhode Island to develop the CareerCompass™ RI bot, a first-of-its-kind job discovery bot that uses Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to successfully connect Rhode Islanders to new jobs and careers with personalized, data-driven recommendations. Read more about the initiative here!

The State of Rhode Island has partnered with Google Cloud and the nonprofit Research Improving People’s Lives to create the virtual career center and job-matching program, Back to Work Rhode Island.

RIPL Founder and Director, Justine Hastings takes part in a panel, moderated by Nicholas Kristof to discuss what it would take to reimagine the American Dream. The panelists attempt to identify the essential elements all individuals must possess to thrive and attain their personal American Dreams.

Data innovation differs greatly across sectors, from national and subnational government, to the corporate sector, to research and policymaking. As we enter the Third Wave of Open Data, there is more work to do when it comes to data collaboration and governance.

Data innovation differs greatly across sectors, from national and subnational government, to the corporate sector, to research and policymaking. As we enter the Third Wave of Open Data, there is more work to do when it comes to data collaboration and governance.

Nearly half of all Americans live paycheck to paycheck, with little savings to respond to an unexpected shock like a car repair or hospital bill. Many low-income and elderly households are reliant on government programs to make ends meet.

RIPL helped the Stated Rhode Island design and launch the first claims system in the country to deliver CARES Act benefits to Rhode Island workers and families, and produced open-source software that can be used by other states. Innovative technology enables state Department of Labor and Training to rapidly scale services for residents impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In January 2020, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published research by RIPL researchers Justine Hastings, Mark Howison, and Sarah Inman on using anonymized administrative data and machine learning algorithms to predict high-risk opioid prescriptions before they are given.

RIPL researchers Justine Hastings, Mark Howison, Ted Lawless, John Ucles, and Preston White release new research on unlocking the power of data to improve public policy and help government programs better serve those in need. See our featured article in Communications of the ACM here!

“Getting that text or that email reminding you ‘get this done’ was really good, because I actually saw a change in my scores.” Hear directly from the incredible students in the Rhode2College program, our statewide initiative to help low- and moderate-income students step-by-step to successfully prepare for and enroll in college! RIPL is proud to partner with Rhode Island to help students achieve their potential.

RIPL researchers Eric Chyn, Samantha Gold, and Justine Hastings release new research using administrative data from Rhode Island to measure the causal impact of health investments at birth for Very Low Birth Weight infants on educational outcomes and social services usage.

On Monday, September 24th, Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo announced the Rhode2College Program, a new statewide initiative to help low-to-middle-income high school students successfully continue on to college. RIPL is proud to partner with Rhode Island on this important initiative.