Sara Menker has spent her whole life thinking about disaster. She was raised in Ethiopia during a famine that killed more than a million people. Uniquely prepared for the worst, Menker left Wall Street to help prevent it, starting Gro Intelligence to leverage the latest advances in technology to tackle big challenges, including hunger and climate change. As CEO, she helps clients use artificial intelligence and machine learning to convert data on the global agricultural ecosystem into actionable knowledge.
Over the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change have given her plenty to work on as they have revealed how vulnerable people are to crises. By arming people with knowledge, Menker believes humanity can solve its most vexing challenges. But first, she told me in a conversation in 2018, we must find a “common language.” If anyone can find that common language in time to end hunger, prevent a climate catastrophe and avert other disasters—it’s Menker.
Shah is the president of the Rockefeller Foundation
- These Charts Show COVID-19 Is Still the Pandemic of the Unvaccinated
- Reddit Allows Hate Speech to Flourish in Its Global Forums, Moderators Say
- What It Takes to Get Support for a Black Boy With Special Needs
- Shonda Rhimes Already Knows What You're Going to Watch Next
- How Harry Reid Paved the Way for Democrats to Kill the Filibuster
- President Biden's Speech in Atlanta Was Designed to Appeal to Black Voters—But Not Everything About It Succeeded
- China Is Finding Fewer Reliable Sources of Coal. That Could Be Bad News for the Climate
