
Show HN: Solvers.io – use your skills to improve our world - Blahah
http://solvers.io
======
Jemaclus
Seems like a cool idea on the surface, but a few minutes of browsing make it
look like a jobs board for non-profits/startups instead of solving what I
might consider "real" problems.

In other words, I'd rather see something much more specific than what I'm
seeing here. Something like:

> Hi, we're FarmBot. We're building drones to help farmers farm better. Here
> are a list of problems we need to solve: UI for farmers to designate
> pathways, machine learning tools to identify crop quality, (insert more).

What I'm seeing now looks more like job descriptions.

> We need someone to build us an app to find bodies after the Haiti
> earthquake.

That's not really a problem to solve -- that's a position that's open.

I feel like I didn't explain that very well...

Edit: To summarize, what I really want is a list of problems to solve. I want
to know "Here's something that is stumping us. Got any ideas?"

I don't need a new job. I just want to help change the world. I don't know the
specifics of why providing clean water to rural areas is such a challenge. But
if I did know the specific problems, maybe I could help. What I don't have
time for is to take on the entire scope of that challenge.

In other words, give me something specific to solve.

I hope that makes more sense.

~~~
Blahah
Thanks for this feedback. I agree with you. At the moment a lot of the
projects are looking for open-source contributors.

In fact, the first 'problem' posted was also the first thing to be solved: a
charity's website was running really slow and they needed help fixing it. That
got fixed in 24 hours.

We're aware of this and recently added 'tasks' to projects so that specific
problems can be solved, and solvers get credit for them.

We'd love suggestions for other ways to encourage people to post smaller
chunks that are more like specific problems.

~~~
gavinpc
There's this website called solvers.io that is trying to solve problems, but
it looks like it's down.

~~~
Blahah
Thanks for the heads up, I've spun up a few more servos.

~~~
gavinpc
My bad anyway, it's just (yet) another one of those sites that looks like it's
completely hung if you happen to have cookies blocked.

Is this even considered a bug anymore?

~~~
Blahah
Definitely a bug! We use cookies only for GA and for login sessions. It
shouldn't affect a pageview that isn't logged in. We'll sort it out :)

------
vsbuffalo
This is a terrific idea. The better-blast[1] idea is a terrific example — an
interesting problem, and one where a better solution would drastically affect
biology (since BLAST is a common bottleneck).

[1]
[https://solvers.io/projects/XCaemW5kLMoxcx4jr](https://solvers.io/projects/XCaemW5kLMoxcx4jr)

~~~
Blahah
Thanks! Better-blast is one of my side-projects from my PhD that I don't have
the skills or time to do alone. I've already had offers of help from some
really talented engineers from all sorts of different backgrounds. Some of the
ideas people have had are really outside what's being done in bioinformatics
at the moment! More collaborators always welcome :)

------
Blahah
Hi, OP here. We started building Solvers after discussions on HN in November,
so we really want to get your feedback on what we're doing. Please let us know
what you think of the site, the idea, and how we can recruit more projects and
solvers to make good things happen.

If you want to chat to us in real time, we're sitting in our Gitter room:
[https://gitter.im/solvers](https://gitter.im/solvers)

~~~
josephjrobison
This is suuuper awesome. I've been looking for something like this for a long
time.

I've been wanting something that:

-Helps other people like volunteering at a food bank helps people -Doesn't require me to leave the computer -Takes advantage of my specialized skills (data crunching, website optimizing, etc.) -Doesn't require a full time commitment or leaving job -Can be done in piecemeal when I have time.

I'll be looking over all the posts, hopefully I'll find something to
contribute too!

~~~
davedx
Thanks!

We just implemented the tasks system last week, which should help people find
bite-sized bits of work, and project owners break up work into manageable
pieces to attract volunteers that can't commit loads of time.

------
emhart
I definitely wasn't expecting the "Got Skills" button to just link me down to
the unorganized project listings. I assumed that would be a place to list
myself as an available volunteer with the ability to list my skill set or
something like that, then receive suggestions for projects with an option to
browse all of the projects.

I love the idea, and I don't want to suggest you go toward catchafire's very
narrow model of pre-determined skill sets. That leaves me out in the cold,
which is frustrating. But the ability to list your expertise and willingness
to help so that project creators could proactively reach out to potential
volunteers, would be awesome.

~~~
Blahah
Thanks for the feedback, I agree completely. It's on our to-do list to let
people add tags to their profile so they get notified when new projects are
posted with their skillset, without restricting them to only helping out with
those.

Any other ideas for how to achieve this are very welcome. We'd love to get
some UX designers involved in the project long-term, and we've already got a
talented designer creating a new style for us.

~~~
emhart
I don't have a fully formed thought here, but I think, sometimes, it can be
difficult to know what your problems are, and perhaps even more difficult to
know whether or not your problems are solvable.

I received a mass email years ago from someone I was acquainted with who was
heading off to volunteer at a hospital in Somalia. She was spreading the word
that they were rebuilding this hospital, lot of details, and then asking for
anyone who could devote a month of their life to come to Somalia and train
staff or help with construction.

I can't train medical staff, and I doubt I'd be much use with construction,
but I reached out to ask if they needed any help securing their facility. The
person coordinating the volunteer efforts didn't know until she contacted the
woman heading the whole project. She told my friend that everything was being
stolen. Sheets, office supplies, mattresses, and the drugs, which would be a
huge target, hadn't even arrived yet. They were in serious need of a
comprehensive physical security solution and didn't have a plan.

That is a situation where I can provide potentially invaluable help, but
despite knowing there was a problem, they didn't even know that there were
people in the world who could help with that on a volunteer basis.

So, again, I don't have a solid idea, but if there were any way to help
project creators think through and detail their pain points, I think that
could be incredibly helpful. My example was extreme, but I'm sure there are
many people muddling through archaic, complex problems that don't there are
better ways. The Toyota logistics donation to NYC Food Bank springs to mind:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/nyregion/in-lieu-of-
money-...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/27/nyregion/in-lieu-of-money-toyota-
donates-efficiency-to-new-york-charity.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0)

~~~
Blahah
I think you're spot on that many people don't even know what problems they've
got. Something we'd like to do in the long term is build a community of
solvers that actively seeks out projects. That way people are taking their
expertise to the problem and saying, "can you use _these_ skills?".

Another idea is to have a team of enablers - if someone has a project but they
don't know what to post we invite them to come and talk to the enablers in a
chat room. They then help the project owner figure out what kinds of skills
could help them, and get the project posted.

I loved that story of Toyota's engineers, and it was probably in the back of
my mind when I conceived Solvers.

~~~
emhart
That would be fantastic. I'm sure there will be some pendulum swinging as you
nail down the balance of enthusiastic solvers & the maximum capacity for cooks
in any given kitchen, but I think its a great goal and I'll be following along
enthusiastically.

------
vise890
This should just be how (at least some) homework/coursework material is
generated at universities/colleges.

If a simple CRUD app can solve real world problems, then why not make students
make it. If it ends up being used, it can even go on their resume.

~~~
davedx
Great idea! It's a nice way for people to find work or study experience. We'll
look into reaching out to undergraduate programmes.

~~~
vise890
I'd really love to see that! So much of my undergraduate coursework felt like
a complete waste of time since it was essentially throw away work.

As a plus, a teacher/TA is marking the work anyways, so you might have several
people going at a problem from different angles and having the quality of the
work evaluated by someone who (presumably) knows their stuff.

I bet this could work well for group works/final projects.

------
mehulkar
This is great. Just met someone who works at the FoodBank and as she described
some of her tech problems it became pretty apparent that some basic CRUD apps
could save them many, many hours every year. I do not think this is an
uncommon thing.

~~~
Blahah
Please do ask her to post on Solvers. If she needs help formulating the
project just ask her to email us: team@solvers.io

------
balls187
Like the concept. There was a guy at a local meetup who was a startup involved
with helping the homeless. I think this would be a great resource for him.

~~~
Blahah
Thanks, and if you get a chance to reach out to that guy, please ask him to
contact us: team@solvers.io. We'd love to help him.

~~~
balls187
Email sent.

------
insuffi
If I may, I'd like to comment on my initial impression:

Bland. Sorry. I know minimalist is all the rage these days, but I (speaking
only for myself) would prefer more of a grid-image-based view of the
projects.1)It'd add some flare; otherwise it just reminded me of
stackoverflow. 2) While I think of developers as largely rational, if your
sales pitch is going to be "make a difference", you'll probably need to appeal
to people's emotions, personalizing the projects, making people feel
something. Loving the idea, though.

~~~
Blahah
Thanks very much for the feedback - I agree. Neither of us founders are
designers. However, we've now got a great designer working with us, and we'll
have a new look in a few weeks. Others have mentioned wanting images for
projects, and that's definitely something we're considering. However, we have
to balance it with not wanting to make it hard for people to post projects.

A lot of charities, for example, are already tentative about asking
programmers for help, and we're a bit concerned that asking them to produce a
pretty picture could put them off posting. Ideas for how to have the look
without putting off posters are very welcome.

~~~
insuffi
You guys probably have more important things to to think about, but when it
comes to personalizing projects, here are my thoughts:

1) Not everything will sound or seem uber exciting, so the only images they
will be able to post will be generic getty ones or none, making them look
inauthentic or just plain.

2) Have you thought about, uhm, video proposals maybe? Something like webrtc
could make it pretty easy to record using the posters webcam, without making
it more challenging to post. It'd personalize the post, make it easier to
relate to, put a face to the project. webrtc + html5

Can't really come up with anything else off the top of my head, but I wish you
luck.

~~~
davedx
Yes, someone else also suggested video postings. At the time I argued that it
needs to be optional to keep friction low, but I do agree it's a great way to
get people engaged! We'll definitely keep this in mind and take your
suggestions on board. Anything we can do to pull people in to help is a good
thing.

------
RRiccio
Congratulations - this is a beautiful concept. Very inspiring.

~~~
davedx
Thank you! It's great having a project you really believe in. I was inspired
by Richard's original idea, and if we can continue to inspire other people
then we'll be extremely happy.

------
Loughla
What does this do that a site like catchafire doesn't already accomplish
(except for focus exclusively on technology)?

~~~
Blahah
Catchafire is awesome.

Our goal with solvers is complementary. We're very focussed on enabling
hackers and other technically skilled people to solve problems. And once we've
got the platform in shape, we want to build a community that actively seeks
out people who could use their help. We hope to have subject-specific task
forces that go looking for projects to solve.

~~~
Loughla
So, it doesn't really bring anything to the table then. (that's not meant to
be as rude as it sounds - text doesn't lend well to that type of statement).

Why not just work with catchafire to branch off your task force idea rather
than weakening an already weak system of nation-wide volunteers?

~~~
catshirt
seems like catchafire focuses on actual organizations and requires an
interview with volunteers.

i'd really like a platform where i can just practice my skills and learn new
things on someone's open source project, rather than committing myself as a
volunteer of a nonprofit.

i have skills i'd like to improve on in a practical application with guidance.
there are people who need, or dont want to do, that kind of work. we just
can't find eachother.

------
Houshalter
Well I applied to two projects. I'll see how it goes.

------
nancyhua
awesome idea!

~~~
davedx
Thanks Nancy! :)

------
turbotoilet
This is what I read after going to this site:

Hi, I'm a "creator/founder" looking for people to finish my cockamamie idea in
which I can stamp my name all over it when it's finished. I use the old, tired
"changing the world" slogan over and over. I'm basically what's wrong with the
internet.

~~~
Blahah
Wow, I hope that's not the impression we're giving.

These are scientific or charitable projects, not startups. We've already had a
few nice problems solved. For example, a charity that does neuroscience
training in Africa had its broken website fixed and now has some long-term
help from developers.

Credit for the solution will always be given to the solvers.

~~~
jaegerpicker
Some people always take the most negative view of everything. This is an
amazing project don't let others get you down. I signed up and it will be one
of my goals to help out on some projects.

