Tag: technology for change

Tags: collective purchasing, environment, social market, sustainability, technology for change, web 2.0, Web-native projects for social change, Add more tags...,

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1Bog: alias, 1 Block Off the Grid. Solar energy at it best. Collective purchasing for green home improvements at its best. Social markets an entrepreneurship meet green living, this meeting happening on the Web.

 

 

 

1Bog is run by Virgance,  a successful Bay Area "incubator" that builds and owns "social enterprises, preparing them for Tier 1 venture capital investment" (Virgance.com).

As a combination of "activism and capitalism" Virgance, founded by Steve Newcombe, a successful "serial entrepreneur", and Brent Schulkin, activist and filmmaker, is at present working on 4 projects, ranging from a network of environmental blogs to a project empowering sustainable consumers and a very tasty Facebook preview of what is defined "the American Idol of social change" (more soon).

 

 

1Bog appears to have all it takes to be a winning model: it is about connecting entreprises to individuals and individuals among themselves, and using the Web to do so; it is about about an environmental and surely a demand-growing issue, or rather "good" like that of green improvements, specifically solar energy; it is about constructing a "social market" and generally harvesting the benefits of a transparent market encounter around a sustainable "good"; it is finally about generating a critical mass.

 

 

 

It all starts from Post Code and e-mail. Subsequently, when enough homeowners interested in green improvements are aggregated, 1Bog "uses collective bargaining power to negotiate group discounts and group financing options on their behalf", launching a request for proposal to screened installers. The aims are thus becoming visible:making the process of buying solar panels easier, cheaper and safer while creating a market for partners in the solar industry.

 

The rest of the equation is composed by a rich set of information and practical solutions to problems associated to the costly process of greening our lives: the site area dedicated to solar financing provides with a good set of solutions including suggested partners, municipal contracts, home equity and even peer-to-peer lending through Lending Club.

 

If you want to visualize some of the activity going on check the section on solar cities. If you want to learn more about solar, check the solar university. The Blog is also quite up to date and an interesting "volunteering" page suggests way of being helpful, starting from "volunteer 5 minutes". All pretty nicely crafted, including the funny "About" slideshow.

Tags: donorschoose, education, philanthropy 2.0, social change, teaching, technology for change, Web-native projects for social change, Add more tags...,

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DonorsChoose is surely one of the most successful and intriguing projects out there. Indeed not the latest, but I feel it is good to start with a charitable venture that has been able to become an landmark example for everybody in the philanthropic field.  

 

Like many of the Web-native platforms we will investigate, DonorsChoose is far from being a project that exhausts its impact in online discussions and information spaces.

DonorsChoose is, in fact, producing material change by choosing, buying and delivering goods aimed at educational projects. It does so by connecting American teachers (since 2000, more than 103,000, apparently) with the general public through a simple Web interface where teachers advertise their educational projects and the general public chooses to fund one or more of them on the basis of their innovativeness or any set of personal criteria.

The site itself suggests three interesting keywords in this sense: "get local, get inspired, get choosy". :)

 

 

 

A DonorsChoose user might thus end up funding a project because of its innovativeness and originality or rather its simplicity; because of its cost, high or low, or its need in respect to the "poverty level" (calculated in terms of students free/reduced lunch eligibility and thus associated to the average income level of the class); some other users might instead prefer find special, even personal attachment to a theme (for example a particular literature having impacted their lives) specified in an educational proposal or, ultimately, an objective of a learning project, be it science, sustainable living, peace, understanding of diversity, history or any other goal.

 

 

 

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Tags: online games, social change, technology for change, videogames, Add more tags...,

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I just came across this site, Games for Change, while reading Allison Fine's deserve-to-be-RSSd blog.

No doubts this isa very interesting and challenging project, especially if looking at all the different categories -Human Rights, Public Policy, Environment, Global Conflict, Politics, Public Health and so on.

 

I tried with "Economics", as it appeals my interests and I also felt I could compare it with some popular "civilization" games, and specifically launched 3rd World Farmer (see picture), an intriguing simulation of farming life in the third world (I suspect Africa in this case, looking at the landscape); the game includes different crops, animals (an elephant costs 500 dollars), tools, buildings and "ideas", this latter category including communications, infrastructures, schools, hospital and even insurance, which I guess can summarize financial services.

 

 

 

This is definitely already great, and I like the simplicity and immediacy of flash games, always playable through a couple of clicks.

On the other side, I would love to see if it would be possible to produce, maybe with the contribution of an open source-oriented and surely connected community, something that could involve the immense experience in the field of a coalition of NGOs, for example in microfinance, or the rich interaction produced by meta-organizations such as Change.org and others.

 

Ultimately, this is another example on how most applications, technologies, media can be of great use when mixed with social change goals, even when such mix appears least obvious (not that videogames are the least obvious, it is simply not obvious to produce games that are catchy, educational but still fun and engaging).

If corporate ventures are able, in the Social Web, to "commercialize freedom" and make money out of our interactions and life publicization, then changemakers can liase with new market forms and entertainment-driven spaces to advance positive social change.