Tamer Institute

Business Roundtable recapped the "Charting a Path Forward With Business Schools and Corporations" conference, where attendees learned more about the shared benefits of second chance hiring, what academia and government can do to support these efforts, and how to maximize employee retention.

"We have all the hardware, software, and data we need to reduce about 30 to 35 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions generated by buildings. It just requires focus and will — and a lot of funding," says Donnel Baird '13, founder and CEO of Blocpower.

The city of Ithaca has a goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030. The city teamed up with clean tech startup BlocPower, where Donnel Baird '13 is founder and CEO, to manage the program.

SHRM covered how the "Charting a Path Forward With Business Schools and Corporations" conference explored how organizations and business schools can educate leaders on the benefits of second-chance employment for people with criminal records — particularly those who are formerly incarcerated.

Professor Bruce Usher spoke on the role of investors in the climate crisis.

Companies across the globe will be impacted either by climate change directly or by the policies implemented to mitigate or adapt to it. Professor Geoffrey Heal shares insights into how climate change and its related policies will influence businesses worldwide.

After losing 100 percent of its business in the beginning of the pandemic, Eat Offbeat (a Tamer Fund for Social Ventures portfolio member) pivoted by repackaging their "catering best-sellers into individual portions for customers to order online, then by launching a subscription business, and finally by adding a line of shelf-stable goods and treats they could ship nationally."

Co-founder Su Sanni says that he "often found [himself] as young as seven years old walking a mile just to get to the nearest subway station,” which is what inspired him to start Dollaride, a Brooklyn-based tech startup (and a Tamer Fund for Social Ventures portfolio member) that digitizes payments and transit routes for dollar van drivers and their customers.

In its latest round of funding, Kinnos (a Tamer Fund for Social Ventures portfolio member) raised $15M, bringing the company’s total funding raised to $22.8M and helping establish Highlight — a colorizing technology for mission-critical disinfectants that helps prevent the spread of surface-borne pathogens — as a global standard of care and practice.

Phoebe Boyer ’93, president and CEO of Children’s Aid, makes the case that higher wages are needed for nonprofit employees in NYC.