Once upon a time, we all knew our neighbors.
We knew Daisy, the golden retriever addicted to soggy tennis balls. We knew the saggy sofa in the den, stained by one too many Strawberry Jello spills by the kids. We knew the noise of the lawnmower, the squeek of the garage door or the buzz of the doorbell. We knew just when we'd hear footsteps slogging up the stairway or when the elevator would ping open.
Now. in all too many cases, we only see 'neighborhood' on Sunday nights via Desperate Housewives or via Big Brother.
One of the best things about knowing your neighbors was knowing things like which house has the twins with chicken pox . . . which street has a couple of persistent gushers bubbling up . . . who has been 'down' with the flu or fighting breast cancer . . what new building/development is going on . . is that creek still flowing or drying up . . .
If we all still had BLOCK PARTIES, yes, that remnant of the 50's or 60's or whatever Leave It To Beaver era in which those organic mob-projects occurred, maybe we would have enough information to protect us and each other.
Yes, there are a wide variety of domestic and international public health/service agencies that track disease, safety issues, environmental trends, etc. But there are certainly legions of examples of why perhaps even the most ethical of public or corporate organizations seldom tell the whole or even the most realistic stories.
Which is why we must tap into the power of citizen journalism . . . or Neighbor-Sourcing to complete a realistic picture of health trends of all kinds, from traditional health care issues (including insurance) to environmental and safety. By harvesting glocallogy tools such as mapping, crowdsourcing and even crowdfunding, we may be able to act more quickly on trends, problems -- or opportunities -- as they occur. We need not wait for the government to announce issues long after it is too late to do something.
A Superfund site is an uncontrolled or abandoned place where hazardous waste is located, possibly affecting local ecosystems or people. Sites are listed on the National Priorities List (NPL) upon completion of Hazard Ranking System (HRS) screening, public solicitation of comments about the proposed site, and after all comments have been addressed.
For many years, I lived in a very large Superfund site area without knowing and I'm sure many are in the same situation. This is because the EPA's pollution information is buried in the files on the web that are not easily human readable. Even the information provided by the EPA is only cursory, naming possible hazards and whether is has yet been deemed "clean."
The "EPA Superfund Mashup: Exposing Environmental Hazards In Your Area" Project will make the 200+ Superfund Site's information visually available and human readable. It will promote engagement and accountability in private and public cleanup efforts and encourage those who live and work in those areas to document cleanup efforts and the human effect of large scale air, water, and soil pollution.
The project will change how we look at the world, thinking spatially and in terms of layered interwoven societal drivers.
With a map as the primary navigation tool users can access information on local, regional, national and international scales about:
1. The challenges;
2. Available resources;
3. Who is working to overcome the challenges; and
4. How 1,2 and 3 can be synergised.
Update: Based on all the wonderful feedback we got at the Netsquared conference, we've made some significant changes about how to implement our core ideas. We hope you'll read about that below, and also check out the assessment section. We'd really love to have you get involved!
We are building a social communication tool that uses a recommender system (similar to netflix.com or amazon.com) to help individuals and organizations understand which opportunities they are most likely to find interesting.
Communicating and collaborating online is no longer as simple as connecting with more people; the Internet is far too large and information overload can be as uninspiring as silence. Our solution is targeted information. When social change organizations use Squarepeg to build relationships, our recommender system will help them focus on individuals that are most likely to be inspired by their work. Individuals who use Squarepeg to find opportunities and organize people will have a more enjoyable user experience because we will mashup recommender data and social data, and filter out information that individuals are unlikely to act upon.
We believe that the social sector stands to benefit from recommender technology similar to how the private sector has - less wasted time for individuals and more action for organizers.
BMP is an experimental attempt to create a map of the business world that starts from critical information regarding certain companies, extends to their organizational structures, and spreads out to their shareholders, partners, etc.
Our database grows through two main efforts:
Searching for articles featuring a business element criticized for issues such as war profiteering, worker abuse and a bad environmental record, taking these companies and extracting all possible information on their business structure – including subsidiaries, affiliates, shareholders, owners and investments.
Charting as much of the general business world as possible, with an emphasis on household names and companies that supply common services and produce consumer products.
This growing map of the business world provides a scale by which to measure companies of interest, and to judge how much “blood money” runs through their corporate veins.
By looking up their preferred toothpaste brand, local gas stations, insurance company or stock portfolios, users will help in the effort to make BMP a comprehensive tool that covers much of the business world.
We hope to see ethical considerations become a stronger influence on shopping habits, and offer BMP as a research tool for professionals, activists, and consumers. Our view is that all our efforts in condemning these corporations are diminished when we end up buying their products, and that the public battle should be taken to the financial field. Instead of cooing at some of these companies when they pledge to make minor concessions, we should promote their best available competitors, and keep our grudge until the corporate climate and culture changes.
Agri Mashup is a strategic tool to increase data utilization for creating new economic opportunities and will have a considerable impact on facilitating access to information and knowledge for the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) segment.
This project also present opportunity for visionary companies looking for new markets to increase competitive advantage while helping BoP communities meet their basic needs but also accelerate economic growth, reduce inequality and poverty.
PowerMundo strives to improve people's lives and conserve nature by connecting millions of people in developing countries to market driven, affordable, appropriate technology.
Business Overview
Imagine paying $10 per month to light your home with a single kerosene lantern or cooking dinner on a campfire in your kitchen. Amazingly, over half the people in the world do not have access to safe and affordable products to meet their basic needs for these simple tasks like cooking meals, lighting homes, or purifying water. As a result, billions of people suffer from preventable illnesses, deplorable living conditions, and energy poverty. Surprisingly there are hundreds of affordable products that can safely meet people's daily needs, save people money, and conserve the environment. If these appropriate technologies exist then why are billons of people who live at the base of the economic pyramid not using these products? To address this problem, we have established PowerMundo, an innovative marketing, wholesale distribution, and micro-franchise company that connects people living in poverty to a network of sustainable resources. We manage a worldwide distribution network for clean technology products and support local economic development in emerging markets. As a result, we improve people’s lives, create employment opportunities, and conserve natural resources.
Initial Target Market
After reviewing eight Latin American markets (excluding Brazil), PowerMundo identified Peru as one of the largest underserved markets for appropriate technology. In Peru, 9.2 million people use traditional biomass cook stoves and 7.5 million Peruvian’s live without electricity. Worse yet, 20,000 Peruvians die each year due to respiratory infections. Similarly, the two leading causes of death for Peruvian children under the age of 5 (excluding newborns) are from pneumonia and diarrheal diseases. Many of these health problems are directly related to indoor air pollution and poor sanitation. To reverse these startling statistics, PowerMundo is targeting the most economically disadvantaged areas of Peru where millions of people lack access to affordable appropriate technology solutions. Following our success in Peru, we will scale up our operations to reach other Latin American markets and other underserved areas of the globe.
Our country is facing the Iraq War, the War on Terror, the Drug War, environmental policies, support for Africa, education, and health.
Our congressional representatives are supposed to represent our interest, but are under increasing pressure from lobbyist, corporations, and big money.
Govit is a website that is inspired to help balance the power, and get your voice heard on the issues.
Greener One is empowering millions of mainstream consumers to shop responsibly.
The Greener One project is based on the following premise:
Our goal is to provide a simple environmental score for most products sold in major retail outlets across the US online and offline. We are bringing this score to the point of sale when and where people make purchasing decisions.
The end result is twofold: first, companies will take notice that people are buying more responsible products and change their practices accordingly, and second and more importantly, the more that consumers buy greener products, the less damage will be done to the environment. Greener One believes that the positive power of information + critical mass = real change.
As part of our digital Inclusion work, we are developing a holistic approach to media change. We realize the importance of creating a digital infrastructure that is accountable to and sustained by the community it aims to serve and support. The development of a community based DigiMapping system enables community members to identify and track their local technology assets over time would be helpful in creating a infrastructure that comprehensively addresses the access needs and concerns of historically marginalized communities and groups on their own terms.
A mapping system that focuses on neighborhood technology assets offers a strengths-based approach to developing priorities, and would address the limitations of needs-based development. For example, county-wide needs surveys that are designed to extrapolate results down to the neighborhood level neglect specific neighborhood trends. In addition, county-wide surveys are often landline/telephone based, and exclude important segments of the population such as those without phones or permanent homes. Factors such as language, calling hours, and sample diversity are variables that weigh heavily on the quality of survey data, and yet are easily dismissed once decisions are made. By focusing exclusively on what is deficient in a community, needs-based approaches fail to incorporate the positive characteristics of a neighborhood into the survey. This gap has social implications that are beyond methodological. Our goal is to create a new method which better reflect neighborhood needs, desires, assets, and capacities which would translate into more effective and sustainable improvements for communities.
The information available through our proposed DigMapping system would be helpful for funders, policymakers, researchers, and organizers engaged in sustainable development, technology infrastructure, and community building strategies.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
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