1. COMPANY

Upright  ( https://www.uprightproject.com/ )

2. SEMINAR’s focus

How do you want to address a company’s responsibility to our world? What is the responsibility criteria that is important for you to evaluate in an organization? Furthermore, you are working or will work in an organization and contribute its growth, and have you asked yourself what type of responsibility do you want your organization to have for the world?  You want to be part of which type of responsible organizations?

To analyze the responsibility of our future employers from the eyes of future graduates is our main focus. What are the most important aspects from your perspective?

3. DESCRIPTION

Upright is a technology growth company, providing impact data and SaaS platform for corporations and institutional investors.

The current ways of measuring value creation by companies are lagging behind 21st century needs. We think the world needs more common sense. That’s why we’re building a model focusing on what companies actually do: their products and services. Our goal is to create the new global standard for managing impact.

Our net impact model consists of a machine learning-based quantification model that uses scientific research as its main data source. We take into account the natural,  monetary and human resources involved in the operations of each company.  Key methods to analyze this data include hierarchical bayesian modeling, natural language processing, convex optimization and deep learning.

In the future, companies’ net impact ratings will publicly available, whether the companies want it or not. This data can then be used by different stakeholders – such as investors, management teams, potential employees and consumers – to make more fact-based decisions on how they want to spend their time and money.

Our team consists of 30 people with diverse backgrounds from top-tier management consulting to high-growth tech companies, who are all highly committed to our mission and we are constantly looking for more talented individuals to join our journey.

4. CHALLENGE:

Nowadays, it is relatively common, at least in our societies, to hear about the responsibility of companies across different domains: social responsibility, environmental responsibility, economic responsibility, cultural responsibility, etc. To measure these different types of responsibility and offer a visibility of those calculations beyond the wall of industries is not a trivial task. We are finding ways to transmit this message as we have more open conversations about how each company is responsible.

However,  we are missing a bidirectional conversation, where future employees or entrepreneurs also express what they think is relevant or important for a company to be responsible. What if we could ask employers about their responsibility goals? Furthermore, what metrics can we utilize to measure the type of responsibility we want to see in the world? What is important for us? And if this reflects on the company.

In this session we open the conversation and reflect upon what aspects make a company responsible. Our reflection has an impact toward the future of a more responsible world.  The pre-assignment will help us to understand and reflect upon what Upright already measures and the type of conversation they have with the company and investors. Next is to open the conversation with the future talents and listen to us. What do we visualize as a responsible future from our employers? What do we value? And how do we measure it?

5. DAY and TIME:

November 25, from 12 to 16hrs.

6. SEMINAR  LOCATION and TENTATIVE SCHEDULE:

University of Turku, Agora Building Room  110A/B

7. ENROLLMENT

Please enroll to this session by filling the following form: https://link.webropol.com/ep/upright

Deadline for the enrollment to this session is Tuesday November 22th.

 

8. PRE-ASSIGNMENT

The topic of responsibility is not a trivial one. For this session we will utilize the term of responsibility as follows:

Responsibility is the company positive impacts that is handprints to the surrounding world. The whole concept of responsibility can be described using the net impact profile of a company, organization or fund.

 

To prepare ourselves for this seminar session you have the following tasks:

1. Read the white paper of Upright https://www.uprightproject.com/downloads/model-whitepaper-v2.pdf
2. Read the chapter 7 from from the Upright impact report. https://netimpactreport.com/chapter-7
3. After reading those documents, it is time to utilise upright platform. document participants will compare 3 companies in your platform.
   • Visit https://www.uprightproject.com/
   • Go to Explore the Data
   • Select 3 companies and compare their responsibility impacts. You do this by searching from top of the page (please see the photo below). No login is necessary.

Submission report. 

The report should reflect your work done in the preparation for this session. Please answer the following questions:

1. Write your reflections of the Upright white paper in one page.
2. Write your reflections of the chapter 7 impact report in one page.
3. Software use: After compared three companies on the Upright software indicate:

• What companies did you compare?
• What were your findings ? (you can add screenshots if needed)
• What did you find easy from the tool?
• What did you find difficult?
• What information you received was more meaningful and why?
• What weakness do you perceive of the tool and the method?
• What, from your perspective, should be improved in the method?

Submit your report, preferably a PDF file by Wednesday November 23th at latest at 4pm to Carolina Islas  caisse [@] utu.fi with the subject line: UPRIGHT pre-assignment.

Your file name should be labeled:  UPRIGHT_pre-assignment_YOUR-NAME If you have any questions please consult me.