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A billion people drink highly polluted water. Treating water by putting it in 2 liter cola bottles and setting it in the sun on a black surface for 5 hours kills 99% of pathogens. One of the world's truly great ideas. See http://www.sodis.ch/ |
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The Gates Foundation, The Atlantic Philanthropies, and other foundations have announced plans to spend-down their endowments to zero. This greatly increases annual spending and gives the programs a sense of timing and urgency.
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Washington DC proposes a different approach to teachers' salaries. NYTimes "best of 2008" idea. http://bit.ly/5fAIqz |
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Drugs and vaccines that developing countries need are underinvested in because companies can't be sure there is a market. Guarantee a market commitment in advance so pharma will do R&D. See http://www.vaccineamc.org . |
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"Peace on Facebook", a section which show how many friendships are occurring across lines of conflict, offers a glimpse on what the social networking site could provide towards world peace. http://ow.ly/EjfW |
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The government should have a good reason before it invests in closed software, content or database development. In general, information products funded by the public sector should be public products.
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A new proposal seeks to bypass the Electoral College and elect the President via popular vote. Without amending the constitution, it calls on states to commit all electoral votes to the candidate winning the popular vote. Information at http://www.fairvote.org/ . |
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New "hybrid" organizations mix philanthropy and capitalism -- not a little of one or the other, but an aggressive pursuit of both. One example is Omidyar Network. http://bit.ly/6Jb08D |
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Does this database of good ideas make sense? Any suggestions?
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The non-profit Green Wi-Fi brings solar-powered wifi base stations to poor communities to allow cheap and reliable local networking. http://www.green-wifi.org . |
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Half a billion children have no birth certificate, blocking access to health care, education and welfare support. Universal Birth Registration seeks to remedy this problem. http://bit.ly/6Om2OZ |
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How does an organization balance the need to innovate with the need to execute on current projects? Eric Schmidt at Google imposes the 70 / 20 / 10 rule for percentage of company resources spent on core business / new businesses / speculative efforts. Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/70/20/10_Model |
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Micronutrient supplements, particularly iron supplements to combat anemia, are among the most cost effective health interventions possible. See Micronutrient Initiative at http://www.micronutrient.org. |
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Author Michael Pollan (Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food) provides this mantra for healthy eating: "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants." WebMD: http://bit.ly/52sBZP |
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Track disasters, monitor aid, map conflict - all through crowdsourced data. BBC: http://ow.ly/LSPk |
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The "Readability" service provides a bookmarklet for browsers. When pushed it strips pages of ads and graphics to make the page more readable. A David Pogue "best of 2009" selection. http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ |
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Through the use of online tools, Washington state public health officials have eliminated the need for a doctors appointment to receive a prescription for hormonal contraception. A Changemakers.com winning idea 2007. http://bit.ly/862fnj |
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The Chinese are creating a great deal of wealth in coming decades, but they have little experience with institutional philanthropy. The American philanthropic sector should make working with China a high priority. http://bit.ly/6GqGia |
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Methane only has 75% of the impact of CO2 on global warming, but has short lifespan and is easier to contain. WSJ: http://ow.ly/QJuy |
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Many foundations have distinct programs for funding risky ideas (Gates "Grand Challenges", RWJF "Pioneer Portfolio). The Energy Department has established a new office - Arpa-e - to fund "long shot bets". http://bit.ly/2dYhVO |
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