In celebration of World Pride, Halcyon was honored to partner with Gaingels, one of the largest investors in the world, aiming to show that equity of access and representation in venture capital delivers positive returns.

The event featured a fireside chat with three Halcyon and Gaingels founders who shared their insights on early-stage social impact ventures leveraging AI for innovation and impact. Check out some top quotes and takeaways below:

On the Power of Community

• “I just finished the Halcyon Health Fellowship in April. A conversation that I had in one of our one-on-ones was, you have to bring your full self to the table … I think that that was one of the most eye-opening experiences for me. Being at Halcyon is really being comfortable enough to bring my full self, but also knowing that is what I needed to bring on the users to my platform, and I cannot build trust in community if I’m not being my full self and coming to the stage however I am. So now I’ve kind of echoed that from the social media platforms anytime I’m speaking to just being okay with sort of taking up space and being transparent and honest about whatever is going on. So, I think that that was sort of the pivotal thing about being at Halcyon as well as I’m seeing how my trajectory for growth has definitely been exponential. — Kenneth Watson, HealthLink360

• “I’m so grateful that there’s such a strong voice of the community doing great things, because anyone can make a noise and tell the world to listen to them, but you need to have like iconic people doing iconic things for people to pay attention. I think that’s what’s amazing about communities like this—it’s iconic people building the future. And that’s all it needs. It needs visionaries that build the future. We’re part of this community, and I think it’s the work that comes first… And I think when you’re just authentic, you just do a better job.” — Aaron Jones, YEPIC

On AI Safety & Security

• For so many people, everything they see and know about AI is polarized through the lens of media headlines, which often drives fear and mistrust. “So, I think there’s a responsibility as technologists and as people that understand the future to think about how we communicate that future to everyone else, and how we make them feel included.” — Aaron Jones, YEPIC

• “On my end, it had become apparent for folks for some time now that the harms and the benefits of artificial intelligence are not equally distributed, and that the ways in which these things replicate sometimes tend to follow patterns of inequality between different kinds of groups. And when generative AI really went mainstream in late 2023, people started asking a lot of questions around the ways in which AI might do the same thing, and the ways in which the spread of misinformation, the spread of bias might become more pervasive and endemic because of this technology. What Aymara has done is built a set of tools that are easily accessible via a Python SDK that AI developers can use to build custom evaluations right off the bat. So, whether you want to measure LGBTQ+ bias in a Taiwanese context, or you want to look at bias in Spanish when you generate images in certain American contexts, it will let you build evaluations of AI safety in a way that serves your customers.” — Juan Manuel Contreras, Aymara