An amazingly cool example of leveraging cell phones and paying the rural poor for work.
Check out:
http://www.technologyreview.com/business/21983/?a=f
and
http://txteagle.com/
So who’s got a bright idea on how to do something like this of use for the feds!
Well indeed this is a very interesting question, with so many possibilities.
1) the US Government and every agency has websites offering critical important public information.
But, that maze of information is at time difficult to find and it is not available in Swahili, Georgian, or Liberian, Cajun French nor a multitude of other diverse languages spoken and used here every day in the US.
2) Can we use crowd sourcing to translate critical KEY Govt agency Websites, press distribution into some sort of centralized tiered language system for let’s National Emergencies? Let’s say some sort of Mash Up of critical public information in different langugages- in ONE place?
2) Do you remember the old TV and Radio alerts from back in the day? Can we use crowd sourcing for emergency broadcasting in different languages? We all knew what it meant back in the day when we heard that SOUND. beep beep beep, This is a test, this is test of the emergency broadcast system. Can we use cell phonse and crowd sourcing for broading casting emergency messages, in different languages?
3) Can we use crowd sourcing for the dissemination of ” Materials” in other languages? Even Spanish has regionally nuanced language differences in NY, TX, CA. Case in point, let’s say for example, an 80 year old Cajun French speaking American needs to better understand exactly where to get information or where to call for help or where to evacaute ( btw she does not own a cell phone, nor does shehave the Internet at home and all electricity is down) how does she no where to file for help? She does not understand all of the English language nuances, did I mention she does not have Internet? But, she too needs critical public disaster information to be better prepared.
How could crowd sourcing serve her, and her Cajun speaking community, and her age groug better?
The nuances and understanding of language in her native tongue would help dispell misunderstood information only printed in English, and she could be better prepared and better served and understand more in her native tongue which she indeed still primarily uses every single day.
No materials were available to her. Only english language materials were handed to her and she did not understand those materials, nor the Goverment anacrynoms, nor how to get help. She had no food, no communications, no water, no information ( oh there was no phone service, and the Disaster Relief centers were miles away and had no translators on hand, no materials in French, no anything in Cajun French so she could understand what to do, where to go, how to apply for help or get insurance information). So, if I am on the ground with a cell phone trying to help her, one on one, how can crowd sourcing help me help her real time? I could pull from a crowd of people to help-real time.
4) Raising money or dropping food off to specific locations to feed 10 desperate families in a single night, for a week, for a month
5) Finding housing for 10 homeless families in a specific zip code so they do not have to sleep one one more night on a street or in a tent.
6) sending out and filling immediate jobs openings for the unemployed by a specific zip code.
7) raising and transfering immediate funding sources for disease research, to flood victims, for cancer victims who no longer have insurance ( 50 Million cell users could make a single .50 cent donation and provide the funds for life sustainingchemo treatements), or organ transplant surgey to save lives, to fire victims, to disaster victims, to Vets with immediate critical medical needs.
8) broadcasting critical CDC alerts like a pandemic by very specific zip codes
9) Save a family from foreclosure with small .25 or .50 donations right to their bank.
Just a few thoughts
Alice Fisher