Ripple Effects: An App to Prevent Violence?

Sometimes, a seminar that you expected to be interesting turns out to be astonishing. This is what happened to me last week when the Science & Innovation team in San Francisco hosted a talk at the Consulate by Alice Ray, cofounder and CEO of Ripple Effects.

Alice had been invited by one of the many British university alumni associations active in the San Francisco Bay Area – Oxford, in this case – and the conference room was packed with Brits. During her talk she summarized the work of Ripple Effects, a social enterprise based in San Francisco that provides computer-based training and assessment tools to help children and young adults overcome a range of emotional, educational and behavioural challenges. The company works with schools, juvenile detention centres, and other institutions, and offers software that can help individuals identify and overcome the challenges that they may be facing at school, at home or in other settings, that may be preventing them from reaching their full potential. The company’s software for teens is an excellent example of the techniques that they employ to do this. Overall, Ripple Effects products are now used in over 600 school districts in all 50 US states and five other countries – not bad for an independently funded company with a management team of three.

Alice explained that often, Ripple Effects is used as an alternative to detention or other kinds of non-constructive punishment for offences such as rowdy behaviour in school. Instead of being made to feel like a criminal, a young person is offered the chance to explore the reasons for their own behavioural difficulties, how they can overcome them, and why it’s in their own interest to do so. What’s more, since the system is entirely computer-based with no adults involved, it’s not seen as being judgmental, which immediately removes the resentment that an authority figure can induce. Many of Ripple Effects’ clients report that even when use of the system is initially offered as an alternative to traditional punishment, young people will go back to it time and time again at their own accord.

Although the techniques used by Ripple Effects are somewhat different from the basic and applied science and technology research that is the Science & Innovation team’s main focus, I found this to be an amazing example of how technology can be used for meaningful social impact. As the Ripple Effects team has shown, all it takes is a great idea, some slick implementation, and a lot of hard work.