"I love that you've brought this to attention. An extensive database of uncommon but resistant and hardy plants/foods could be developed and organized by climate. Ease of growth and processing should also be taken in to account. I will try to…"
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Grassroots solution knowledgebase (NEXTSTEP)
Here's an entry for the Next Step Challenge.
I read a couple of interesting posts recently; "Provide skills, not just finished technologies" by Fleep Tuque and The Graveyard of Good Ideas by Nick Heyming. Nick's post is about someone who implemented an array of solar panels in rural Peru. The really interesting part was that it was the local residents who wanted a clean power solution, and they were involved in building and maintaining it. It seems to me that the process of building the panels and training people to maintain them probably resulted in a lot of useful knowledge. This could be organized into several categories:
The knowledge base would have to have several important features.
I read a couple of interesting posts recently; "Provide skills, not just finished technologies" by Fleep Tuque and The Graveyard of Good Ideas by Nick Heyming. Nick's post is about someone who implemented an array of solar panels in rural Peru. The really interesting part was that it was the local residents who wanted a clean power solution, and they were involved in building and maintaining it. It seems to me that the process of building the panels and training people to maintain them probably resulted in a lot of useful knowledge. This could be organized into several categories:
- What the solution entailed
- What worked best
- What problems were encountered
- What to watch out for
- What skills the users needed
- What skills the maintainers needed
- How the solution addressed the problems in this area
- How the solution used resources of this area
- How the solution might be inappropriate in other areas
The knowledge base would have to have several important features.
- People who have addressed problems should be able to upload information about their solutions. The project might even need field researchers to make sure they get all the necessary information about a solution.
- The knowledge base will need editors and translators to make the information available in a suitable format. (All the information mentioned in the first list should be available.)
- The knowledge base will need a system to organize the information so it can be browsed easily (perhaps from a mobile phone).
- Information should be formatted in such a way as to preserve bandwidth; the site should definitely work on mobile phones. People should be able to quickly browse to find appropriate solutions and then read summaries of each solution, before committing to higher-bandwidth implementation details (including pictures, video, etc.).
- Discussion forums where different people implementing the same solution can share ideas would be ideal.
Views: 39
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Comment by Nick Heyming on March 8, 2010 at 11:32pm
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Man, thats a great idea! Best practices for relief work would be a tremendous knowledge base, so long as there is good info being put in. There are already some resources that try to quantify aid, but often they overlook qualitative factors.
A good example is the Charity Navigator, which just looks at the financials. To them, a big foundation with no staff that give all its money away is ideal, whereas one with a large staff doing meaningful aid and training would seem wasteful. The philosophy that employing people somehow deprives those you're helping is frustrating and pervasive.
So a database using qualitative data on a large scale could be a really nice counterbalance to the "just the numbers, ma'am" crowd...
/end rant
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Comment by John Evans on March 9, 2010 at 3:06am
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Hmmmm. So you're saying it would be useful as a guideline for those performing relief work? Best practices for relief work. Yeah, I can see how that would work.
Of course, I was thinking of it more like a "technology for developing nations wiki". Maybe someone in Africa would like hearing about the solar array in Peru.
It's possible one site could serve both purposes, or maybe we're talking about two different sites...I'm not sure yet. :)
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Comment by Alchemy on March 9, 2010 at 10:52pm
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Agent Evans, your Next Step shows the importance of access to information, and I am awarding you +20 Knowledge Share. Agents Tuque and Heyming will also receive +10 Spark each for their inspirations. Well done.
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Comment by Fleep Tuque on March 10, 2010 at 6:20pm
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I think the challenge comes in coordinating massive amounts of information, ensuring quality of the information entered, and then getting awareness about the resource out to the people who need it. But yes, something like this could be extremely helpful, and not only the information on the web, but the virtual environment could be used for setting up simulations, models, prototypes, providing meeting places for seminars, workshops, or training sessions...
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Yes, it would be vital to have some good editors. And letting people know about it is a big issue.
Hm, I wonder if there are any real-time chat programs for use on mobile phones? I mean, yes, obviously the wh*** point of phones is voice communication, so you could just do a conference call. Still, with a text-based chat it's easier to make sure nobody misses anything important.
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Comment by Kevin DiVico on March 11, 2010 at 6:30am
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Interesting - a few observations your proposed database/wiki will also need a layer of filter (human) to verify the uploads contain data that can help not hurt a situation. Not everyone in the world wants Evoke or something like this to succeed. Lets also look to the problems and solutions that wikipedia have experienced. no need to reinvent the wheel. Also with an eye towards the future this should be Tablet compatible.
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@Nick & @ John - you mention training- 3-d virtual training tools work best for repetitive tasks , games that are true to mechanical engineering on how to construct the windmill could work as well.
For massive amounts of Data look to compressive sensing for large data sets. Also Tableu public
and googole labs just released google public data
just a few thoughts
also a Second Life installation or its own virtual world platform could have virtual representations of the solutions in action.
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Also Pachube allows for real time data streaming from sensors through there network and into a virtual space, so if there was a virtual platform for this knowledge base, you could have real time changes in environment being shown in virtual space - makes environmental clean up data or growing food data meaningful the general public...
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finally let me play devils advocate and say all of this is great ideas but if the developing nation doesn't have the infrastructure to run the system or allow access to the system then the people this is meant to help never get to see it. Please don't stop brainstorming like this, but always cast a eye towards what is feasible on the ground where we want to help...
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