Profound Impact’s founder and CEO, Sherry Shannon-Vanstone, participated in a conversation with host Vincent Turner in the July 9th Shape the System podcast. Shape the System features conversations with inspiring people who are rethinking society’s solutions to global problems.

The focus of the podcast was how Profound Impact, through Research Impact, works to connect resources and capital in the form of research partnerships and funding to great people who are doing great things. While Profound Impact’s genesis was to articulate and visualize the impact of individuals within an organization, Sherry noted that the company listened to customers to understand their challenges and pivoted to develop the Research Impact product to meet those needs.

The $300 billion in global research funding available annually for 8.8 million researchers and hundreds of thousands of industry partners around the world can be seen as either a problem, if that funding is difficult to access, or an opportunity for conducting fundamental and breakthrough research. Research Impact’s use of AI and machine learning ensures that funding is used efficiently by the right people by connecting researchers to the funding programs most appropriate to their work. The automation of the matching process done by Research Impact means that researchers can focus on their ground-breaking work and research administrators can do their jobs more efficiently and accurately.

Shape the System aims to inspire more people to follow their purpose, deepen their resolve and have a bigger impact. The conversation with Sherry illustrated how her experience as a mathematician, cryptographer, technology sales executive and serial entrepreneur led to the founding of Profound Impact to meet that same goal by providing tools that allow researchers to make the greatest impact by solving issues of global importance.