Hi everyone. Hi everyone. I'm so excited to be doing this today with Whitney who is a hero and an incredible mentor for me. And so I'd love to start out first with of course you next year will mark a decade since you first launched Bumble in 2014. And love and connection are two things that most define what makes us human. And Bumble has expanded from love finding to friend finding. So how do you see technology's evolving role in building connection and how do you mitigate the dangers of outsourcing love and friendship to the algorithm?
Yeah, so I can't believe it will be almost a decade. I think it's important to kind of go back in time a little bit to understand how we approached solving for what was broken in love. So, you know, if you look back over the course of history, love has always operated a certain way. It is something that's actually been quite toxic. You know, if you go back to even the prehistoric times, women were captured. And then you fast forward to medieval times and, you know, there was lots of dowry and there's just been this undercurrent of toxic love where women were essentially forgotten through the course of love. And then modern love didn't operate all that differently. Right? Of course, you know, there were some advances, but I grew up in the era of the rules where women were meant to be quiet. You know, it meant a man liked you if he was mean to you. And so there was this toxic abusive ecosystem around offline love.
And then love went digital. And no one ever sat and changed any of the rules of love. But what also happened was there was this intersection of the toxic internet. So if you look at the way the internet was actually set up, there was no guardrails for how we treat each other or how we engineer a kinder ecosystem or an environment to be more polite. You know, you drive down the road, you see signs that say see something, say something. There's nothing like that on the internet, right? And it's just the wild wild west. And so what happened at the explosion of online dating was all of the toxic broken mechanics of love offline really intersected with the dangers of the internet online. So this was this moment to take a step back and say what if there's a way to do this differently. What if we could actually use technology to be a force for positivity? It doesn't have to be toxic. It doesn't have to be the way it always was. And so Bumble was really about rewriting the rules not just of love and not just of how women are treated, but of how we actually behave on the internet so that we can have healthier offline love.
So I think it's a big responsibility of a lot of the folks out there with AI right now to not make the same mistake again. How do we actually think about women at the intersection of this next kind of digital wave? And so, you know, I think this is where technology leaders have to step in and have guardrails and ground rules. We do not tolerate hate. We will ban someone if they're on the app. And we've taken it offline with legislation. We passed a law in several states now that actually makes sending an unsolicited lewd image illegal. So this has to be an effort beyond just technology as well.
So moving to you, I have to just take a moment to say how remarkable this young woman is. I mean the fact that she is 21 years old and on the stage here and also balancing school and being a young woman. I just am so impressed with you and you set such an amazing example for all the young entrepreneurs and activists around the world. So thank you for being you. It gives me great hope for my children and everyone ahead. So Sophia, you started a nonprofit as a teenager after really witnessing the devastating effect that pollution was having on your parents' home country of Iran. And through Climate Cardinals, you're using technology to make climate education more accessible by translating the scientific literature into more languages. So, three years in, which is remarkable. How do you see technology's role in really educating people about climate change and how are you fighting disinformation? This is something that is such an issue about the climate crisis in your work.
Yeah. So, it's so exciting for me because when Climate Cardinals first started, we were entirely youth-led, youth-run, and volunteer-oriented. So on the very first day we launched, we had over a thousand young people sign up to volunteer with us with an average age of just 16. And together they were able to translate over half a million words of climate resources into over 100 languages. And a few months ago we were very fortunate to create a partnership with Google and we now are using their latest and greatest translation technology to basically automate our translation process at a very very high efficacy rate. And so we've now been able to translate over a million words of climate resources with their help, which has been truly incredible.
And it, in my opinion, also really showcases not just the power of technology to be used for good, but also the power of intergenerational cooperation of a private sector and a public sector, a private sector and a nonprofit coming together to actually come up with a solution that helps people. So in my mind, it was really like a win-win-win. And of course being at Stanford, I just have seen how AI has become the new buzzword and I know it's something that I've seen in all of my classes and I'm really excited to continue to think about how can we leverage technology to further social impact. Of course, what we've done with Climate Cardinals is just the start and we're really excited to continue to grow and expand this partnership with Google and to explore other ones. But for me also, I mean my next step as you know is going to be starting a company with my best friend Phoebe at Stanford and we similarly are really excited to explore how can we use technology to make it easier to shop sustainable fashion solutions. So I think for all young people I really encourage to look at how can we leverage STEM, how can we leverage tech, AI, this is what is going to be the future and there are so many ways that we can integrate that with honestly the passion of young people to get things done to make a difference to make our results even greater.
I think that's incredible. And just to further that for a second, I was really blown away to hear the way you were talking about this generation of peers that are so passionate about climate change, yet they might still be shopping at, you know, very toxic places for the environment. So, they're buying fast fashion because that's all they have access to maybe in their mind. And so I think this new company that you're starting is phenomenal in the sense that you actually make it tangible and easier because when you think how do I go buy sustainable clothing, this is a daunting question. How do you even navigate that, right? You'd have to spend your whole day going around town. So I think that making that easier will be an extension of what you've already done with your nonprofit in just educating. And I think that is where it all starts. And what about the misinformation piece? How do you combat that?
I completely agree with you and I think actually it all harbors back to education. Climate Cardinals is an education nonprofit. We're trying to make it as accessible as possible for people to learn about climate change by translating into over 100 languages. And similarly with this new company, really what we're trying to create is this movement for people to be more educated about the ills of fast fashion because of course young people are also the most likely to say they care about climate change, but then they're also the most likely to go and shop from these fast fashion companies. And so it really is a matter of making sure that they feel empowered, that they understand really what impact their dollar is having and how they can use it for good. And so in my opinion, like one of the biggest ways that we can fight climate misinformation is by putting quality educational resources out there in a way that is accessible and digestible for people.
I'll give an example. The UN has an IPCC report. It's their report that basically summarizes the current state of the climate crisis. It's very long, very technical, very scientific. And it's typically only available in the six UN languages that account for less than half of the world's speaking population. And so what Climate Cardinals did for the most recent IPCC synthesis is we worked with a group of scientists and we actually created an executive summary of the IPCC synthesis and then we translated that into over 20 languages and then we use social media to disseminate it to hundreds of thousands of people. And that to me is like the perfect example of the way that we fight the negativity of the internet is by putting more positivity out there.
I agree with that 100%. And I think that's a perfect segue into talking about how harassment and bullying are real online and women take the brunt of it. I know for me, I have increasingly become more active on social media and it honestly has come to the detriment of my mental health because abuse is so real. And so, how do you engineer better behavior and better mental health outcomes on your app and others?
