Google loves all things scalable. So it comes as no surprise that the Second Annual Project 10^100 seeks to exponentialize ideas which can change the lives of millions. The basic premise behind Project 10^100 is to find ideas to some of the biggest challenges our world faces and scale those ideas for social good. In their own words:
“10100 is another way of expressing the number “googol,” a one followed by one hundred zeroes. Our company’s very name expresses our goal of achieving great results through smart technology that starts small and scales dramatically over time to have a tremendous long-term impact.”
The project began last year when the website was opened for community submissions. The world responded. Over 154,000 ideas were submitted in 25 languages. 3,000 Google employees joined together to review each idea with the following five criterion in mind:
Reach: How many people would this idea affect?
Depth: How deeply are people impacted? How urgent is the need?
Attainability: Can this idea be implemented within a year or two?
Efficiency: How simple and cost-effective is your idea?
Longevity: How long will the idea’s impact last?
They eventually shortened the list to 16 ideas which fall under eight categories. Vote for the idea you believe in most here.
Community: How can we help connect people, build communities and protect unique cultures?
- Make government more transparent
- Collect and organize the world’s urban data
- Create real-time natural crisis tracking system
- Create real-world issue reporting system
- Create genocide monitoring and alert system
Opportunity: How can we help people better provide for themselves and their families?
- Help social entrepreneurs drive change
- Build better banking tools for everyone
Energy: How can we help move the world toward safe, clean, inexpensive energy?
- Drive innovation in public transport
Environment: How can we help promote a cleaner and more sustainable global ecosystem?
- Work toward socially conscious tax policies
Health: How can we help individuals lead longer, healthier lives?
- Promote health monitoring and data analysis
Education: How can we help more people get more access to better education?
- Provide quality education to African students
- Make educational content available online for free
- Encourage positive media depictions of engineers and scientists
- Enhance science and engineering education
Shelter: How can we help ensure that everyone has a safe place to live?
- Create more efficient landmine removal programs
Everything else: Sometimes the best ideas don’t fit into any category at all.
- Build real-time, user-reported news service
While each category is noteworthy, we here are SocialEarth are espeically interested and proponents of helping social entrepreneurs drive change. In their own words:
Create a fund to support social entrepreneurship. This idea was inspired by a number of user proposals focused on “social entrepreneurs” — individuals and organizations who use entrepreneurial techniques to build ventures focused on attacking social problems and fomenting change. Specific relevant ideas include establishing schools that teach entrepreneurial skills in rural areas; supporting entrepreneurs in underdeveloped communities; and creating an entity to provide capital and training to help entrepreneurs build viable businesses and catalyze sustained community change.
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