
Significance Labs: Hack on Real Social Problems - splitrocket
http://significancelabs.org/hackers/
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tsunamifury
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.

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splitrocket
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
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
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
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.

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trhway
>Could wearable technology that counts words heard (a key indicator of
cognitive development) be used to improve quality of early childhood
education?

we like to believe that for any problem there possible an app to solve it. How
about an app which would make government to not reduce SNAP benefits - one of
the most important tools for cognitive development of a lot of low-income
children. Counting words heard by a hungry child - yep that will help ...

~~~
splitrocket
Social problems are both about the huge levers of society and government as
well as a situation where poverty becomes a "death by a thousand cuts". I
agree with you: the huge levers of social policy and economics make a huge
difference in peoples lives. They are truly important issues, and there are
plenty of organizations focusing on those problems.

On the other side, though, the thousand cuts are real and maybe we can figure
out some way to help solve a few of them. A great example of a simple tech
solution that has hugely beneficial outcomes is text4baby
[https://www.text4baby.org/](https://www.text4baby.org/)

When you go for your first pre-natal care visit, you signup with your baby's
due date and it sends simple reminders at the right time about what you should
be doing to ensure your baby is as healthy as it can be. Things like reminders
for checkups, folic acid, diet, etc. Super simple app, huge results.

I think that there are other problems out there that technology can help
address. Certainly not ALL the problems, and probably not the systemic socio-
political problems, but some. Why not try?

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akilism
I think this out of the Blue Ridge Foundation space in Brooklyn which also
houses Datakind, [http://www.datakind.org/](http://www.datakind.org/) they do
exactly what you are talking about. Pairing up engineers with NGOs to help
them better use the data they have now and tackle the problems they are
facing.

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cottonseed
Looks like the deadline was yesterday (April 30).

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splitrocket
That's the deadline for the Fellowship. The deadline for applications for the
Hackers In Residence is May 20th.

See here:
[http://significancelabs.org/hackers/](http://significancelabs.org/hackers/)

~~~
cottonseed
What's the difference? Fellowship is for CEO of a social enterprise, Hackers
is for CTOs?

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splitrocket
Essentially, yes.

We figure that we can only really teach one thing: immersion and empathy with
the communities we are trying to help. We can't really teach people how to
develop products that people will really use, so we are trying to optimize for
fellows who already have that skill.

We haven't selected the fellows yet, however, our fellows applicants include
successful tech entrepreneurs, senior product owners at large tech companies
(usually with engineering backgrounds), etc.

~~~
cottonseed
Thanks for clarifying.

