David: Glad to be with you, Spiffy! Special Olympics empowers individuals with intellectual disabilities to become fully contributing members of their communities and nations. We use the transformative power of sport to break down barriers of exclusion and replace them with opportunity, solidarity, and a common understanding of our shared humanity that the world desperately needs. We amplify the voices of individuals most on the margins of their communities—persons with intellectual disabilities—to highlight their talents, skills, and key contributions to the global community. Special Olympics believes that everyone has inherent gifts and abilities, and it puts its energies into building inclusive communities through the convening power of sport.
Kely: Glad to be with you, Spiffy! The personal challenge for me is always that there is so much need in the world that it is difficult to not be able to help everyone. Raising money is also always a challenge. The focus of our work is on two elements of the world of sports: “sports for development,” which is sports used as a tool to address the world's greatest needs and further the UN Social Development Goals (SDGs), and “sports diplomacy,” which means—as an individual, a brand, an organization, a culture, a nation—how do you use sport to tell your story? How does your involvement in sport tell us about what you believe? These are areas that are incredibly powerful in sustainable development and storytelling, but they also are areas that are still not commonly understood.
Matt: Glad to be with you, Spiffy! At Oko, we believe that artificial intelligence (AI) has the power to make learning more fair, more effective, and more fun! We're using AI to power small group learning activities, with an initial focus on collaborative math games and puzzles for grades three to five. Our vision is that teachers and tutors can use Oko as part of small group rotations with their existing lessons and curricula. In the future, we see Oko being used for small group activities across many different subject areas and ages.
