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This is really noble and I'm glad people are doing it. However, from what I know of the "lets solve real problems on the streets" world -- you need to spend mor

This is really noble and I'm glad people are doing it. However, from what I know of the "lets solve real problems on the streets" world -- you need to spend more time on the streets than in a lab trying to come up with abstract technological solutions. Heres likely why: You don't understand the problem You don't empathize with the problem You don't understand potential users from a radically different class or culture You assume solution toolsets that users don't have access to, aren't familiar with or just are unrealistic Sometimes I wish this money would go to funding engineers to join EXISTING organizations that have identified or are on their way to solving real problems, but simply aren't 'cool' enough to warrant google.org money.

comrh 13y ago
Great response and something I've been thinking a lot about recently. It is also the best argument for diversity in tech you can make because different people come with different experiences. I would love if someone could better link journalists and hackers together. There are hackathons and data projects but I feel these are too cursory to tackle real big problems. edit: upon more searching it looks like http://www.datakind.org/ http://www.datakind.org/ is doing that just with NGOs instead of journalists
splitrocket 13y ago
Hey! I'm one of the Cofounders of Significance Labs, and I completely agree with you. Our fundamental premise is that we don't understand the problems. That's why we are focusing on providing our fellows and hackers with extensive immersion into the very communities we are trying to help, as well as organizing as many focus groups and user feedback testing sessions as we can so that we know that what we are building not only helps, but that it's something people will use. It's going to be a challenge, that's for sure, but if it works, I think that this could be a very powerful agent for change.
- tsunamifury 13y ago
  I'm curious why Brooklyn? Its a tough place for most of us to move to even for a short time. Lets take a personal example: For the last 4 years my brother has worked on reducing recidivism rates in LA's skid row and has created a program which has gotten it to near zero in a small sample sets -- while I work in Silicon Valley trying to make computers reduce unstructured knowledge into products to sell as ads. Most days I think I'd rather be him, and he rather be me -- but we can't find ways to merge technology and street-problems in a meaningful manner with the restrictions we have in life (his family, my student loans etc). I say all this to illustrate -- to get to solving problems on the streets, we may need to solve a problem with even getting the right people together. The right people are often working because they need the money and real do-gooders are often trapped in a poverty cycle that ends up draining their contributions to the community. Essentially good work feels unsustainable to the average educated producer like ourselves -- and we give up. How do you think you can help?
  - splitrocket 13y ago
    Well, Brooklyn for two reasons: it's where we are, and where our foundation is. It's also a place where there is a high density of low income communities. Let me try to put this into perspective: 615 thousand people live in public housing in NYC. The population of San Francisco is 825 thousand. As for the questions about the life restrictions, that's part of this program: these are going to be funded projects, and then at the end of the program, we're going to hopefully be handing them off to foundations, organizations, governmental organizations, or possibly even VCs for further support. Ideally, all of the products that come out of the labs will have a life of their own long after the summer is over and we're going to do everything in our power to ensure it. We want to figure out a process to bootstrap social enterprises from the ground up, and part of that is making it economically feasible for excellent people to take the jump. All that said, we are totally open to remote Hackers In Residence. Our primary goal is building products that help. Our fellows are either in NYC or relocating, but for our engineering teams, remote work is fine.
    - carlosrt 13y ago
      The fellowship, and Hackers program looks promising. However, it appears to leave out a position for the OP's brother. As he mentioned there are many people with deep insight into a problem, but lack the technical resources to execute their solution.
- tipsy 13y ago
  I'm iffy on the efficacy of immersion. Some (and many top-star coders) just like coding- that's their thing, that's what they do best. They don't want to have to deal with bureaucracy and the doubt of working on the right solution. I think there is value in understanding the problem and being immersed in it, but I've been to a few hackathons where the organizers try to play it up and create an "ideation" phase, which often just ends up frustrating many programmers who would prefer to focus on the technical problem.

comrh 13y ago

Great response and something I've been thinking a lot about recently. It is also the best argument for diversity in tech you can make because different people come with different experiences. I would love if someone could better link journalists and hackers together. There are hackathons and data projects but I feel these are too cursory to tackle real big problems. edit: upon more searching it looks like http://www.datakind.org/ http://www.datakind.org/ is doing that just with NGOs instead of journalists

splitrocket 13y ago

Hey! I'm one of the Cofounders of Significance Labs, and I completely agree with you. Our fundamental premise is that we don't understand the problems. That's why we are focusing on providing our fellows and hackers with extensive immersion into the very communities we are trying to help, as well as organizing as many focus groups and user feedback testing sessions as we can so that we know that what we are building not only helps, but that it's something people will use. It's going to be a challenge, that's for sure, but if it works, I think that this could be a very powerful agent for change.

tsunamifury 13y ago
I'm curious why Brooklyn? Its a tough place for most of us to move to even for a short time. Lets take a personal example: For the last 4 years my brother has worked on reducing recidivism rates in LA's skid row and has created a program which has gotten it to near zero in a small sample sets -- while I work in Silicon Valley trying to make computers reduce unstructured knowledge into products to sell as ads. Most days I think I'd rather be him, and he rather be me -- but we can't find ways to merge technology and street-problems in a meaningful manner with the restrictions we have in life (his family, my student loans etc). I say all this to illustrate -- to get to solving problems on the streets, we may need to solve a problem with even getting the right people together. The right people are often working because they need the money and real do-gooders are often trapped in a poverty cycle that ends up draining their contributions to the community. Essentially good work feels unsustainable to the average educated producer like ourselves -- and we give up. How do you think you can help?
- splitrocket 13y ago
  Well, Brooklyn for two reasons: it's where we are, and where our foundation is. It's also a place where there is a high density of low income communities. Let me try to put this into perspective: 615 thousand people live in public housing in NYC. The population of San Francisco is 825 thousand. As for the questions about the life restrictions, that's part of this program: these are going to be funded projects, and then at the end of the program, we're going to hopefully be handing them off to foundations, organizations, governmental organizations, or possibly even VCs for further support. Ideally, all of the products that come out of the labs will have a life of their own long after the summer is over and we're going to do everything in our power to ensure it. We want to figure out a process to bootstrap social enterprises from the ground up, and part of that is making it economically feasible for excellent people to take the jump. All that said, we are totally open to remote Hackers In Residence. Our primary goal is building products that help. Our fellows are either in NYC or relocating, but for our engineering teams, remote work is fine.
  - carlosrt 13y ago
    The fellowship, and Hackers program looks promising. However, it appears to leave out a position for the OP's brother. As he mentioned there are many people with deep insight into a problem, but lack the technical resources to execute their solution.
tipsy 13y ago
I'm iffy on the efficacy of immersion. Some (and many top-star coders) just like coding- that's their thing, that's what they do best. They don't want to have to deal with bureaucracy and the doubt of working on the right solution. I think there is value in understanding the problem and being immersed in it, but I've been to a few hackathons where the organizers try to play it up and create an "ideation" phase, which often just ends up frustrating many programmers who would prefer to focus on the technical problem.