[Rubyforchange-talk] what is a successful geek nonprofit project?

[Giles Bowkett]

I have some hesitation about things like volunteermatch.org precisely
because the person who posted about creating a site like
volunteermatch had never heard of it. that's not a technology problem;
that's a marketing problem.

I'm also very much not surprised that volunteermatch has a marketing
problem. for several years I dated a woman who ran a nonprofit
foundation. they used Internet Explorer and crappy PCs. they had great
funding, but they spent it other ways. they didn't have any tech
support people, and if I had built them a Web app, I don't think they
would have ever remembered how to use it. there are plenty of highly
intelligent people who can't make heads or tails of new technology.

I'm wondering, what are the geek social change projects that have been
the most successful?

This is going to sound weird, but the best examples I can think of are
the Chicago street crime map from Adrian Holovaty (of Django) and the
Los Angeles homelessness heat map. Neither one really *changes*
anything, but both leverage tech innovatively, and both are very
useful. anybody who is working on improving either street safety in
Chicago or homelessness in Los Angeles can get a lot of benefit from
these tools.

What these projects have in common are local focus, and user interface
to existing public data. This I think is a HUGE area of opportunity
for social change. There is a LOT of very valuable public data which
most people cannot access usefully. Nonprofit people who have never
heard of Firefox will never even think to leverage machine learning or
statistical AI, and yet if they did they could have very powerful
tools of analysis which would make them very much more effective at
what they do.

I think the best tools we could possibly build would leverage machine
learning, RSS, public data, and Web APIs, in such a way as to create
free public Web tools which make nonprofit organizations more
effective. I'm unsure what specifically that would look like but I
definitely think that's our area of greatest opportunity, i.e., the
zone where we'll find a project that gives us the greatest amount of
impact for our efforts.

-- 
Giles Bowkett

Blog: http://gilesbowkett.blogspot.com
Portfolio: http://www.gilesgoatboy.org
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