4 thoughts on “Ideas for non-profit projects”

  1. Wow…you’re a big fan of wikipedia, huh? Kind of surprised, but it does make sense — your early efforts at Greenspun.com and photo.net were similar iterations, particularly regarding user-generated essays and so forth on photography and travel. Any thoughts as to why Wikipedia worked out so well? Is it a technology issue, or a time-and-place issue?

  2. Hi Philip,

    I liked the African computer science idea very much. I think Google millionaires can easily setup e-learning centers with high bandwidth in select cities of Africa, and make it possible for students to freely learn from outreach education programs like OCW of MIT, and Engineering professional curricula like that of UW-Madison.

    Giving bandwidth alone would open up doors…anything more is a bonus.

  3. Paul: I would not have expected Wikipedia to work. I would have thought that they’d need a moderately heavy hand with paid editors. Why did Wikipedia work when similar efforts in the mid-1990s failed? I don’t think it is technology, which was similar for all efforts. I think it was the fact that there are so many more people on the Internet now and Wikipedia achieved critical mass pretty quickly. People could see that it was in fact going to work and believed that it could work so they put a lot of effort into it.

    Swaroop: You are right in that simply setting up a lab and letting people come to do projects, without even having a curriculum or teachers, would probably be of enormous value. There are quite a few self-motivated Africans.

  4. Phil, as someone who is educated and worked in the classical music field for a while I was intrigued by your suggestion of a classical music library, and while I’d certainly enjoy it, I’m not sure it address the real problem of engaging youth. It would be interesting to actually ask some kids what they think of classical music. I think most would answer that it’s simply boring. Arts organizations have been trying to address this by signing artists who are more attractive physically than musically and marketing them like rock stars, but dress a cellist up like a model and the kids still think the music is a drag. This is like trying to get kids to like Henry Constable and Thomas Nash poetry; work of both of these guys is easily available on the net, but it’s not exactly getting a lot of play on myspace.

    I think the problem is that kids who haven’t been taught (not just exposed to) the language of music don’t really have the tools to enjoy it. It’s like any language: you can expose kids to as much French lit as you like, but if you don’t teach them French you’re wasting your time. This is in accord with what arts managers have learned about their audiences: most were exposed to actual music making as kids–piano lessons, band, choir and orchestra in schools. The decline of attendance at classical music venues is no surprise given the level of hands-on art education in this country. While the internet library might be a great tool in engaging kids, I don’t think it will do much until you can get kids interested in the music and teach them how to hear it. And it’s difficult to do this without putting instruments in their hands.

Comments are closed.