A New Way to Look at Location

by Emily Abell
9/24 Assignment

What3Words is an internet service that links addresses and places with a 3-word keywords to make them easier to find and share. Instead of having to give a full address for a place, you can provide a much simpler 3Word, such as plant.city.harsh which is the “location” of Margaret Morrison Hall:

Read more about the project in this Wired writeup

before continuing on to my reactions.

You can also learn more about the product on the What3Words website.

My thoughts on the article

Did you read the wired article? Ok then, you may continue 🙂

This project very much reminded me of the paper Social Innovation: Ten Cases From Benjamin Franklin that we read for the course.

Reading that article had me thinking anew about what social innovation is, and that social innovation can be more about how we structure our communities and societies on a basic level, and not just about feel-good projects that help people.

This 3words project is an example of something that, to someone like my Mom, would probably just seem absurd, yet for me, it’s extremely intriguing. I can see how, if it caught on (and that’s certainly a long-shot if, but still), this project could really change how people think about a place, and their affiliation to it.

The company makes a good case for the practical benefits: it’s easier to remember the w3w location to meet someone, mail a package, and especially for children to remember locations for their home and school. And it certainly has some interesting potential in regions that don’t yet have sophisticated postal systems, and now may never develop them with the decline of physical mail and packages.

But much larger context shifts are possible if we imagine a world in which this system is something children grow up with as a their primary address structure. If this type of system became a major yardstick for place, people may feel less identity wrapped up in government-based locations such as cities and nations. People could become more attached to a much more localized version of place, providing more of a link to close neighbors. It may even cause children to realize that the city, state and nation they were born into is, as far as their personal say in the matter is concerned, random — just like the assigned words. This could lead to greater appreciation and respect for people born into other places and worlds, and perhaps help people recognize that they just might have as much in common with someone across the world as they do with some in their own city.

This is certainly an optimistic, blue-sky look both at this particular service, and what it could afford. But I do think it is fair to say that if this system were to take hold, it would certainly qualify as a major social innovation by changing how we organize and think of ourselves with respect to place.

A Liter of Light

The project I selected is “A Liter of Light”. The project addresses the issue of lighting in rural areas. This project was so successful other countries adopted the same solution. For more information, visit http://aliteroflight.org

The idea behind the project is to collect empty plastic bottles, fill them with mineral water, and some bleach. Those bottles are installed on roofs while ensuring that the roof will not leak. The natural day light comes through the bottle which illuminates rooms and houses. The video shows how the idea works, its implementation, and impact:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOl4vwhwkW8

The idea was addressing the issue of darkness where they lived. However, this solution addressed environmental issues. They are recycling plastic bottles and reducing electricity consumption.

The takeaway from this, I believe, is no matter what the problem is, there is always a solution.

Blog Post 1: Product (Red)

Product Red is a division of the ONE Campaign that was cofounded by U2 frontman Bono. Product Red was launched in 2006 in order to raise awareness and funds for the Global Fund; this is a charity that invests in HIV/AIDS programs in Africa. In order to achieve this, the charity has teamed up with big name brands so that a portion of their sales are donated to help the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Recently, the mission of the charity has slightly shifted from a general HIV/AIDS awareness and help to specifically trying to make sure that no babies are born with the disease by 2015.

I believe that this charity and campaign is extremely relevant to the class and interesting because of the way it integrates humanitarian impact into everyday life. Product Red has uniquely put its name on existing brands and products. By doing so, they have created a way to easily and quickly become a household name because they don’t have to introduce themselves to the public and rally attention. For example, Beats by Dre have been out for years and are a popular product. It just so happens that the red Beats by Dre are now a Product Red product and when you buy them, money goes to the charity. A buyer can simply just like the color red and all of a sudden, their purchase is now a contributing factor in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

By learning more about the campaign and all of their partners/products, I have learned a lot about how to implement a unique campaign design. I’m so used to campaigns being very in your face and making sure you know exactly what they stand for, etc. Product Red seems to go in a different direction and do everything quietly though. Their name is out there because of the products that they have behind them, but you don’t see them spending money on advertisements and other forms of campaign material. Even when you make a Product Red purchase, you are not bombarded with information about the charity; you have to actively seek information about them, but it isn’t hard to find everything you need to know about them once you go to their website. It seems that their campaign design wants to stay modest in its tactic and let its products speak for themselves by attracting people with a nice name and bright red colors.

For more information, visit:  http://www.red.org/en/

-Ivory Assan (iassan@andrew.cmu.edu)

Rooftop Micro-farms in Refugee Camps

9/22/2013 by Lowell Reade

 

The Deheisheh refugee camp is located just outside of Bethlehem, and is home to nearly 15,000 Palestinian refugees. The people that live there, just as refugees in camps worldwide, face many hardships on a daily basis. They live in extremely overcrowded housing, public services are essentially non-existent, sewage disposal systems malfunction regularly, and medical services are expensive and in short supply. Access to food, especially fresh food, is inconsistent. On top of these physical hardships, there are taxing emotional hardships that make living there difficult.

The refugees in Deheisheh have been there since 1948. UN provided shelter was horribly cramped and uncomfortable, so refugees build their own shelters. Here is a picture of what Deheisheh looks like now.

The Karama Organization (karama means “dignity” in Arabic) is trying to improve the quality of life for refugees in the Deheisheh camp. They have been helping women build micro-farms on their roofs. There are numerous benefits these rooftop farms provide. Of course, they help to provide food security but in addition to that, the farms create green spaces in a space that lacks any kind of parks or nature. The gardens are very simple: open pipes, an irrigation system, and netting to shade the plants. Women grow vegetables like spinach, cucumber, and zucchini, and it is often enough to feed their family.

Many social innovations, especially those related to developing nations, are colonialist in nature, attempting to force what are essentially western capitalist ideals on people to whom those are totally foreign constructs. This project is not like that. What I find effective about Karama’s garden project is how it empowers Palestinian women and provides them autonomy and a way to support their families. Many of these women came from farming towns, and so providing gardens gives them a way to go back to their roots and connect with their past in a way that otherwise wouldn’t be possible in Dheisheh. Farming restores a small amount of dignity, and lifts a bit of the emotional load of living in a refugee camp, with little hope of returning to your land. I think that anyone who has gardened before knows that it can be a profoundly emotional, or even spiritual, experience. Connecting with land (even if it’s just a bit of dirt in pipes), allows you to escape from the problems of the world and realize you’re part of something bigger.  In a refugee camp, hope and dignity are all that many people have, and these rooftop micro-farms help to preserve that.

http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/01/gardens-palestinian-refugees.html

http://www.karama.org/eng/rooftop_farms.html