All Blog Posts Tagged 'LEARN1' (909)

It's impossible to find a good solution to a problem you don't understand. I think that the first place to start when looking for a solution is understanding the problem by listening to the people it impacts the most. The knowledge one gains creates a foundation for a solution to be built on.

Listening to the right people also leads to understanding the circ**stances of the problem: what other social, cultural or political elements contribute to this problem? What has already been…

One of the innovation tips that stood out to me was...

"What you have matters more than what you lack (If you’ve got a bicycle, consider what you can build based on that, rather than worrying about not having a car, a truck, a metal shop.)"

This is particularly relevant to 1st World Society today considering we are living more and more out of what we don't have, relying on lines of credit and living beyond our means. We are looking to add to societies rather than using…

My favorite, and perhaps most needed social innovation today, is

"Don’t fight culture (If people cook by stirring their stews, they’re not going to use a solar oven, no matter what you do to market it. Make them a better stove instead.)"

This simple idea has two meanings. First, it shows that the injustice of poverty and instability does not have a cookie cutter answer. Rather, it takes domestic and well educated responses that address the factors that drove a culture to suffer…

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Scott Warren is a 25 year old man from the Forbes 30 under 30 list who created an ingenious idea on how to get high school students more involved in in civics. His idea was brought to life when he founded the group Generation Citizen. Generation Citizen goes into high school cla**** and has college students lead and teach civics cla**** based off actions that the students care about. Instead of the students learning about mundane topics have no interest in, they can pick what topics they…

For this mission, I chose:

stay positive – don't be distracted by what other people think (if there
were a need for it, the market would have already created it)

I think a lot of time creative people are blocked by this obstacle. They do not want to be arrogant or stupid, but we all have to understand that there is a first time for everything.

This is important to get right because many societies have the tendency to build their economies or markets on a process or resource that will not be there for the long-term or only allow short-term benefits. To help countries, especially those in Africa, continue to progress it is important to get this secret right. It will help the population be motivated to improve their standard of living and overall contribute towards their economic goals.

I chose the live on $2 dollars a day option. I believe this is the quickest way to truly understand what it is like to live in developing areas where this is a common occurrence. To be forced to live like people in developing worlds it will quickly change one opinions about sending aid, helping, etc.

Provide skills, not just finished technologies. The current revolution in design for developing countries is the notion of co-creation, of teaching the skills necessary to create the solution,

rather than simply providing the solution. By involving the community throughout the design process, you can help equip people to innovate and contribute to the evolution of the product. Furthermore, they acquire the skills needed to create solutions to a much wider variety of problems. They are…

So often we fall short of our ultimate goals because we listen to what others think. Yes I understand feedback is important but often people are downplaying the great ideas we have because they are upset they did not come up with the idea. Focus on your goal then place as much emotional labor into it as you are physical labor. This will give what you are doing a human side and your personality will show through.

I choose "think like a child – children have no limit to their thinking" because as adults we are conditioned to immediately think about what will fail or go wrong with a certain approach and doom ourselves to failure without even trying. To think like a child means that you have inherent optimism that allows you to imagine so many different and creative solutions. The sky is the limit! meaning there is no limit but the ones that you place upon yourself.

In this mission, I chose "Live on 2 Dollars a Day" because this opens the eyes of people that I live around. This helps people realize how hard of a life some people around the world live. I know that when I try to live off 2 dollars for more than a day, I am very tired and hungry. I am spreading this knowledge of how others live to the people that I interact with daily.

"Provide skills, not just finished technologies. The current revolution in design for developing countries is the notion of co-creation, of teaching the skills necessary to create the solution, rather than simply providing the solution. By involving the community throughout the design process, you can help equip people to innovate and contribute to the evolution of the product. Furthermore, they acquire the skills needed to create solutions to a much wider variety of problems. They are…

I think the secret to being a social innovator is thinking outside the box. Everyone needs to stray away from their comfort zone and take chances to become the next great innovator.

What you have matters more than what you lack (If you’ve got a bicycle, consider what you can build based on that, rather than worrying about not having a car, a truck, a metal shop.)

My favorite secret was "make it inexpensive". It's so difficult sometimes for American's to try to fix the problems of others, especially those in Africa, based on our standards. What might seem like a simple $50 to us, something a fast-food worker makes in a day, could take up to two months for someone in Africa to make, meaning your innovation is drastically out of their reach. I can take this secret to heart, knowing that any innovations that I create must be well-built and inexpensive…

I found the secret of "innovating on existing platforms" to be fairly useful. Innovation tends to be attached to the idea of creating something from the ground up, but innovations rarely come from nothing. They are often just better versions of the things we use today. I recently read a great blog post written by Dave Morin on the blog site Medium. In the post…

When I think of what innovation is or where it is originated from I think of this: Innovation (often) comes from constraint (If you’ve got very few resources, you’re forced to be very creative in using and reusing them.). I feel like that summed up how I arrive at new solutions or an innovation to solve problems. When you have limited resources you are forced to come up with a new way of doing something and it really pushes your creativity and imagination to the limit.

I liked the quote "Learn everything there is to know about the specific context." I think this is a valuable lesson in life because learning should be a life-long habit. Whatever you do and where you are, there are always more things you can learn to better yourself and enhance your life.

#5 from Paul Polak says to "think like a child" and when we are able to do this we can take a lot of the confusion out of life and our decisions. Children have the ability to see past reason and focus soley on what they want, simple as that. If we really want something we will be able to imagine many different ways of accomplishing our goals and dreams and can then help others to do the same.