reRoot

reRoot helps people make more informed decisions on where is the best place to move in the United States, outside of existing networks and word-of-mouth.
Time
 – 
Location
online
Picture of reRoot

During the 2021 fall semester, metaLAB (at) Harvard facilitated a student datathon in conjunction with The Opportunity Project (TOP) run by the United States Census Bureau’s Open Innovation Lab (for more on the datathon see TOP (at) Harvard). One of the projects was Community LifeRAFT by Mier Chen, Lily Huang, Karma Tarap, Pranay Varada, Yujie Wang, and Thomas Zhang with mentorship by Sabelo Mhlambi and Jack Cushman.

As social, economic, and climate landscapes change, individuals and families tend to move to where they can find a suitable community. Yet, moving is a huge risk that not many can afford to take, and not everyone is aware of what opportunities may even exist. reRoot is a migration support platform that uses the U.S. Census data to assist minority and disenfranchised communities within the United States to migrate and make more informed migration decisions outside of existing networks and word-of-mouth. reRoot debuted at The Opportunity Project Summit, a virtual event hosted by the Open Innovation Lab in December 2021.