The Brown Institute is pleased to announce that 2022-2023 fellows Noah Schechter and Miles McCain have received top innovation awards from both the Westly Foundation and IE University’s Tech4Democracy initiative for their open-source investigation platform Atlos, along with $40,000 in prize money. These prizes were awarded in recognition of the team’s mission-driven platform, which leverages technology in order to facilitate collaboration between members of the open-source intelligence community as they investigate human rights abuses.
The Westly Foundation named Atlos a winner of the 2023 Westly Prize for Young Social Innovators, granting the group $40,000 in order to support the development of its platform. The Foundation supports “young innovators with early-stage, novel solutions to community and global challenges” with cash prizes; Atlos plans to use this funding to expand access to their platform to new investigative partners and to promote long-term, sustainable growth.
Atlos was also named the best startup in the continent at Tech4Democracy’s 2022 Venture Day. The event, jointly organized by IE University and Stanford University’s Global Digital Policy Incubator, seeks “to showcase the beneficial applications of tech.” The event’s jury of Silicon Valley investors, academics, diplomats, and executives awarded Atlos the top prize for leveraging cutting-edge technology in order to protect democracy and human rights. Atlos will go on to compete against award recipients from other continents in the global final competition.
Congratulations to Noah and Miles!