Parked vehicles occupy almost 40% of the total street width in Malé. Right now, ambulances can’t pass through almost half of the streets we measured because they’re blocked by parked vehicles. Clearing street parking lets emergency vehicles stop at your door when you or a family member has an emergency.
We identified challenges in public service delivery and public sector efficiency due to low retention of institutional knowledge, especially through leadership change and staff turnover, and are building knowledge management systems, sectoral information, and institutional memory for government agencies.
A well-designed remote worker program limiting workers to islands in need and requiring a spend of $2,400/month, less than most remote workers pay for rent in San Francisco or Sydney, could support 2,000 remote workers with no more than 10 per island, injecting $57.6 million annually into local economies and creating 8,000 new jobs.
Our research finds that AI models often operate well below maximum model capabilities in research work. We identify a key gap as what we call ‘intent deficit’ and develop skill-level architecture that demonstrably improve model outputs through layers that create intentional decision-making.
Asphalt roads can hit up to 82°C under the sun, while shaded pavements only reach 32°C. Streets with dense tree canopy are up to 13.9°C lower in radiant temperature. Malé proper has 12–16% green cover against a 40% threshold for meaningful urban cooling.
Many in the Maldives lack a third space, leading to isolation and an atomized society. Our policy work and consistent advocacy for third spaces has had impacts ranging from supporting the National Library in securing additional budget for expansion, launch of a Third Space community centre by Cabinet decision, and proliferation of our small-venue event model.
76% of children who mastered three early numeric tasks went to college; only 26% of those who mastered none did. More heavily prioritizing arithmetic, fractions, and number sense as necessary passage up to Grade 3 makes the difference between understanding math for the next 9 years of school.
Key information about islands is often not seen anywhere online. With high costs of domestic travel, foreign investors have no means to analyze opportunities, environments, and risks in many islands. We compile information on islands that allow them to seek out foreign investment.
Motorcycle seats hit 65°C in direct sunlight, absorbing heat and radiating it back out, acting as waist-height heaters on every street. Tree-lined streets cut radiant temperatures by 35%. Clearer streets and shading massively improve quality of life in urban environments.
The Maldives emits 0.0058% of global CO2. Even diplomacy reducing a major nation’s emissions by 0.01% doubles the impact of the Maldives going net zero. We argue for the value of allocating more resources to targeted decarbonization lobbying to global cities, states, and companies while focusing on mitigation at home.
In interviews with women experiencing abuse or hardship in divorce, they told us exactly what they wish they’d been told in their youth and what would have helped them. Through the CFW program partnering with UNICEF and MSFD, we are working to make these systemic and direct policy changes to protect the next generation.
Only 10 of 27 roads we measured have enough room for buses to pass through. If street parking were cleared, 26 out of those 27 roads would be able to fit buses, enabling more connected public transport.
Social isolation in elderly drives disease and mortality at rates comparable to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. We advocate for free minibus routes connecting elderly residents to community spaces, medical facilities, and parks.
We extend state capacity, public administration, management, and psychology models to AI output, finding parallels in isomorphic mimicry, and seeing mistake patterns shared by both AI and inexperienced human staffers. We built novel frameworks that improve judgement in both AI and human outputs.
Current bus routes treat Malé and Hulhumalé as separate cities connected by a land ferry, rather than one city with a transit system. We propose a few bus route adaptations to make life easier, such as Carnival route extending to Jumhooree Maidaan so government employees from Hulhumale get on and off the bus at their office doorsteps.
In partnership with Australia Aid, we map key quantitative and qualitative information about islands in three atolls through survey interviews, currently building mapping tools for quantitative data and designing narrative briefs from rich qualitative information.
