About
Ashoka is a global network of social entrepreneurs dedicated to creating systemic change. To better understand and support their network, Co-Founders of the Ashoka AI Lab, Daniela Matielo and Odin Mühlenbein, developed an internal AI-powered semantic search tool that tracks the activities, impact and recognition of their fellows. Their tool, Rapid, aims to explore their extensive database of 4,000 Ashoka fellows and their initiatives generating deeper insights into their social impact ecosystem.
Challenge
Ashoka’s primary challenge was to collect and integrate extensive public data from their fellows’ websites and social media, while ensuring this information remained dynamically updated.
Tracking and updating the social media channels (LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and Facebook) for their fellows weekly was a significant challenge, as the sheer scale made manual collection impractical and inaccurate. Through their partnership with The Bright Initiative, Ashoka was able to automate this entire process, using Bright Data’s Web Scraper APIs, to streamline data gathering from all key platforms leading to what their team called a “data revolution.”
Impact
By developing efficient data collection strategies, Ashoka can now enhance its data insights, improve internal access to information, and foster more connection and collaboration amongst their fellows.
The project started by scraping data for 400 fellows then quickly scaled to 700 for initial testing, and is on track to encompass all 4,000 fellows within a few months, marking a significant leap in their data capabilities.
To read more about Ashoka and how they accelerate the next generation of changemakers please visit: ashoka.org
