[p2p-research] Kopernik: Design and Technology Matchmaking for the Developing World

[Ryan]

  Sent to you by Ryan via Google Reader: Kopernik: Design and Technology
Matchmaking for the Developing World via Big Think by Maria Popova on
5/12/10

Earlier, we noted the paradox of brilliantly innovative design-for-good
concepts that never materialize into the mass market. Today, we're
turning to a new platform that seeks to battle precisely that:
Kopernik, a new portal that connects innovative designs and
technologies with the communities that need them, microfunding their
execution along the way via donations from ordinary supporters like you.



Co-founded by World Bank and UN Development Fund alums Ewa Wojkowska
and Toshihiro Nakamura, Kopernik seeks to revolutionize the traditional
model of top-down assistance from aid agencies and empower local
organizations to take the fulfillment of their needs in their own hands.

The platform offers a refreshingly straightforward process. First,
tech-seeking local organizations -- which range from the African Centre
for Advocacy and Human Development to Sisari Women Initiative Group to
Action for Child Development Trust -- submit proposals for the designs
and technologies they need, and how they will be implemented to aid
their community. Then, donors browse proposals and choose which ones to
support. Once enough funds to cover the cost of production have been
raised, Kopernik relays the proposal to the technology providers, who
in turn bring it to life and ship it back to the technology-seekers.
Finally, once the technology is implemented, its recipients report on
how it's being used and progress reports get posted on Kopernik for
full transparency and accountability.

The projects being funded are remarkably wide-spanning, from providing
displaced families with LifeStraw for access to clean drinking water,
to granting computer access to local organization staff, to equipping
refugees with self-adjustable glasses, something the pivotal importance
of which we covered last week.



 From solar-powered lanterns twice as bright as kerosene lamps to
rollable water containers that make water portability tremendously more
manageable to online English courses, the products funded through
Kopernik address a wide array of social, economical and health issues
in countries where more traditional solutions, if at all affordable in
the first place, may take years to implement. More importantly, the
platform gives hope for improving quality of life through a
collaborative process and a cross-pollination of design, technology,
commerce and community, rather than the siloed and largely inefficient
model of traditional product development and aid delivery. By making
problem-solving a grassroots process, Kopernik empowers communities to
take ownership of their problems and the respective solutions, which
any social psychologist can attest is essential to long-term progress
and economic development.

Maria Popova is the editor of Brain Pickings, a curated inventory of
miscellaneous interestingness. She writes for Wired UK, GOOD Magazine
and Huffington Post, and spends a shameful amount of time on Twitter.

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