By Jason Payne, CEO of Ada Diamonds, the world’s first custom fine jeweler exclusively using laboratory-grown diamonds.
My wife and I founded Ada Diamonds in 2015 on the belief that diamond jewelry should brighten the entire world, not merely the recipient’s world. To achieve that goal, Ada Diamonds proudly utilizes real diamonds that are sustainably grown by mankind above the Earth, rather than mined diamonds that cost the Earth. In other words, we believe that powerful technology and new ideas can polish the diamond industry and create a more brilliant future for all.
Ada Diamonds is named in honor of Lady Ada Lovelace, the Enchantress of Numbers. She was an audacious and brilliant 19th century mathematician, mother, musician, socialite, and philanthropist who is widely credited as the world’s first computer programmer.
On Giving Tuesday 2017, Ada Diamonds is proudly joining Pledge 1% and committing to a donation of at least 1% of Ada’s profits every year as well as a donation of 1% of our equity to fund philanthropic causes upon an IPO or acquisition of Ada Diamonds, Inc.
We call our CSR efforts the Sixth Element Program in honor of carbon, the sixth element of the periodic table of elements. Ada Diamonds proud to support the following six organizations in their efforts to brighten the world:
- Doctors Without Borders – Support of Mining Communities
- World Wildlife Fund – Ecological Recovery from Mining
- Direct Relief – Women’s Health
- Finding Ada – STEM Education
- Swords to Plowshares – Overcoming Substance Abuse
- Team Rubicon – Natural Disaster Response Efforts
Corporate and personal philanthropy are quite important to me. Before founding Ada Diamonds, I was the founder and leader of the Philanthropy Engineering Program at Palantir Technologies. In that role, I donated big data analysis software and forward deployed engineering resources to help data driven nonprofits better fulfill their missions. One my focus areas at Palantir, fighting modern day slavery, led me to start Ada Diamonds as there is still bonded and child labor involved in the cutting of diamonds into gemstones, as you can see in this AP report.
Many of the organizations Ada is supporting today are organizations that I had the pleasure of supporting while at Palantir. Here’s President Clinton discussing recovery efforts of Team Rubicon we supported after Hurricane Sandy, and here’s the CEO of Direct Relief discussing how they use data analysis to improve lives around the world.
On this Giving Tuesday, I encourage you to explore Guidestar or Charity Navigator to find a cause you believe in and support them with a donation of your time or resources.
Originally posted: November 28, 2017
