Specific, honest work across methods and disciplines. No fake achievements.
We use the directory to match people with complementary strengths. A team might pair someone who can code with an economist and a regional-studies student to work on trade flows, migration data, or whether a policy did what it promised. The question comes first; the method follows from it.
We run structured reading groups covering both the technical literature and the work on what these systems do once they meet the world — governance, labour, political economy, ethics. Sections get assigned and we explain them to each other, whether that means walking through the mathematics or unpacking the argument.
When hackathons, data competitions, policy case challenges or research contests come up, we form squads. The club helps coordinate teams, plan an approach, and pool resources for compute when a project needs it.
Placements and applications are a collective effort. We run peer mock interviews — technical and non-technical — behavioural prep, honest CV reviews, and feedback on statements of purpose and research proposals for anyone applying to further study.
We use alumni and industry contacts to bring in practitioners — people building these systems, and people working on their consequences in policy, development and research. We ask what the work is actually like, not the textbook version.