StuffBee aims to promotes “give and take” on Mobiles

StuffBee gives the opportunity to anybody having redundant objects to avoid trashing them by meeting other persons in need of those objects within the same geographic area, thanks to their mobile and Internet.

Benefits are multiple: increasing interaction between unknown persons, save time and money, avoid recycling.

At first sight, this project may seems exactly the same as "Freecycle Cellular Osmosis" but the application is operational and the project scope is broader:

- Deploy the ultimate "give & take" application in hands of 3 billion users.

- Broadcast the free object database created by mobile users with existing "give & take" websites to unify users of Internet and Mobile communities.

- Help bulky object departments to broadcast reusable stuff to persons living within the publication area instead of recycling usable objects.

- Help local humanitarian associations by increasing visibility of available items and give a better service to people in need.

StuffBee has been designed initially for Android mobiles. It will soon be ported to all other mobiles.

StuffBee is operational and shows an attractive, compelling, multithread design optimized to offer a rich give & take user experience.

Languages available are English and French.
In June, StuffBee will feature 10 Languages scaled to a total of 70 languages in September.

People over fifties who are actually a marginal population will have the  opportuntity  live with dignity.

We cannot change the world with this project but  we can make a better world. 

Givvy is a comprehensive online giving management system launching in early June. This is a real project with a dedicated team working without funding at this point.

Charitiable giving is personally and emotionally rewarding. By providing a framework and set of tools to improve the way we support our causes, Givvy users will feel more satisfied and successful with their giving.

Givvy is a system to enable donors to accomplish the following:

1. easily create and manage their giving plan
2. research over 1 million charities/nonprofits
3. execute their giving (donate thorugh Network for Good) and track donations made via other methods (mail, phone, etc.)
4. analyze their giving footprint - what types of charities, what geographic reach, how close their actual giving is to their plan, etc.

At Givvy we believe that better tools for giving can result in a better world.

This is a simple mashup using Network for Good’s donation API, with a particular focus on enhancing the donor experience with a virtualization of recent donations.

The NFG API mashed-up with a Google map would show all donations made to specific causes (by location) for a given time period over a US or World map.

This could be used on the homepage of Network for Good - to inspire others based on the action currently taking place.

The Nonprofits of the SF Bay and Silicon Valley become better networked and informed of like-minded people and groups they might not have been aware of, right in their area. Promote local organizations that really make a difference and how you can help.

Today Grameen Phone has more than 10 million subscribers, connects 100 million people through 250,000 phone ladies, who buy phones on microloans from the Grameen Bank and lease air time to villagers to make a living after paying off their loans. Today a phone lady earns on an average $750 a year, which is double the average annual income of a Bangladeshi. Grameen Phone has revenues of $1 billion and annual profits of $200 million.

Despite the success of microfinance around the world, nearly two billion people still lack access to financial services. In several countries, technology approaches are emerging that have the potential to bring financial services to those that microfinance has found difficult to reach up to now. Brazil’s banks use 90,000 electronic terminals in retail outlets as a low-cost channel for hard-to-reach areas. Millions of people in the Philippines receive remittances and make purchases using their mobile phones. Banks in India are sharing their technology platforms with microfinance institutions (MFIs) to expand their product range and reduce costs. Mobile technologies can be used to serve those without access to formal financial services.

Mobiles will be the PC for the people who don’ t have the resources to get computers and connect to the Net. Some 70-80% of poor consumers in the world are still without mobile phones, but millions of subscribers are added each year as the price of handsets drops and coverage expands.

Research by the London Business School has shown that 10 phones per 100 people add 0.6% to the GDP of a country and the United Nations estimates that 0.6% growth cuts poverty by 1.2%. 4 billion people living on less than $2 at the bottom of the pyramid. A recently report estimates that these 4 billion people in poverty are a $5 trillion market.

Our inspiration is the notable story of Grameen Phone. The project will provide rural families in the Andes of Peru with access to microfinancial services in their communities for the first time. The project will in particular employ an extremely economical open source technology for cellphones, " OpenMoko ", which support all Web2.0 services and an unique, cost-efficient and effective way to deliver, commercialize and financing these services.

It looks like green is the new black: eco-chic is everywhere. Companies large and small are trying to cash in on the new eco-economy, showcasing their supposedly green initiatives at every turn.

But how much is green, and how much is one big greenwash?

Greenwashing is a practice of deceiving consumers about the environmental practices of a given company. It's all around us: oil companies making billboards about their one solar demonstration project, coal corporations claiming to be “clean” on television, bustop ads promising environmental enlightenment if only you buy the latest eco-widget.

Progressive and enviros alike have been grumbling about greenwashing for a while in their own narrow circles. It's time to expand that dialogue, harnessing the power of the mashup to catalyze powerful direct action where it counts: in the real world.

Here's how it works: you see a nauseatingly dishonest example of greenwashing near your office. You take a picture of it, and upload it on WeGreenwashYou.org. You plot the location of the billboard on a Google Map, and add a link or two to reports and articles verifying that the billboard is a blatant Greenwash.

And then the fun begins: the community of users gets the chance to Greenwash the Greenwashers.

After watching a quick video-tutorial about how to make simple, cheap paintballoons, the anti-greenwash army finds your billboard. They load up a couple of balloons with greenpaint, launch them from a distance: SPLAT! Job done, and the renegades escape safely under the cover of night.

They make a quick video of their billboard liberation (anonymity preserved by concealing their faces with—what else—green handkerchiefs) and upload their photo/video/text report. Another victory in the public space, another corporation held to a higher standard of honesty. And if the corporation disagrees, let them comment on the action and take part in a lively discussion about the true definition of “environmentally friendly.”

The public will thank you for saving our common visual space from deception. And who knows? Eventually corporations might think twice about greenwashing and might even start some real greening.

By some counts, there are more than 18,000 civil society nonprofits/NGOs registered in Lebanon, but only a fraction of them are actually operational. Information about where they’re working, their funders, their successes, and their grantees is often hard to find. The lack of organization of and access to this data not only reinforces rampant corruption but also makes it difficult for donors and volunteers to find partners to whom they are willing to contribute funds or time. In addition, there is a lot of overlap between NGOs. Our mashup would help identify areas of redundancy and neglect, render them visually, and become a call to action to distribute resources accordingly.

There is nothing like this in Lebanon, or perhaps the world? If we were able to realise our concept, it could become a model for other countries in similar circumstances and/or link into a global network.

What is the state of social and economic justice where you live? This project will inform people on several measures of social and economic justice in their area. It will help them to see that some problems they are having are part of a larger societal issues and to connect with others with similar or related problems. The social and economic justice indicators will include:

* Housing Affordability: income vs. rents/housing costs
* Health Care Accessibility: number of uninsureds/underinsureds
* Jobs: unemployment, trends in wages, unionization,
* Income Inequality: trends in share of total income received by the top earners, middle class, and lower income.
* Race, Gender, and Age disparities in the above.
* User-posted stories about issues they are facing in the communities or at work.

Hundreds of environmental organizations will be able to collaborate, add/see/utilize each other's posted environmental events from all over the world.

Work has already begun and well on its way, but we need a programmers to implement certain features.

We have found over 100 event calendars so far (and are still receiving an average of 1-2 per day) and contacted many of them. It is very difficult for an event planner to submit to so many calendars, as well as people looking for events needing to search many calendars. We aim to allow one submission which will spread to all calendars/social networks/websites/widgets to easily find events. All organizations will spend less time inputing events, approving events, and finding events.

Events will be spread virally across the internet to spread awareness of local events which showcase events, workshops, classes, film festivals, conferences, etc. Those events bring awareness to environmental efforts and education for protecting and enhancing nature and the environment around us.

This all includive calendar will also allow event registration, social networking around the events, carpooling to events, and a place to share photography/video of the events.