Topic: Nonprofit Management
Rotating, rolling, turning, moving forward and moving backward are all impressive gates for modular snake robots, but Per Sjoborg says the striking side-winding motion can only be described as beautiful. These complex patterns of locomotion emerge from simple fluctuations in oscillation. Beyond aesthetics and practical applications, one of the most striking features of Juan Gonzalez Gomez's work is his commitment to the free and open-source development model. He believes that the modular robotic community will emerge to solve problems together.
Despite falling to number 49 on the list of countries ranked by life expectancy, the United States still spends roughly twice as much on health care per capita as other top-ranked nations. In this panel discussion, Dr. David Shern and Father Larry Snyder discuss the role of the voluntary sector in this period of necessary reform, and what their organizations specifically are doing to improve the quality of American lives.
Can business be a power for good? Jean Oelwang, CEO of Virgin Unite, would argue yes. Virgin Unite is the nonprofit foundation of Richard Branson's Virgin Group, a conglomerate of more than 400 world-wide companies. In this audio lecture, Oelwang discusses the need to address root causes of social and environmental issues, the unsustainable nature of the growing disparity between rich and poor, and the potential to make a difference by adapting existing product and service innovations.
Connecting good, effective nonprofits and other organizations that get the job done is the mission of Craigconnects, the latest enterprise of Craigslist founder Craig Newmark. In this audio interview with host Ashkon Jafari, Newmark discusses the organization's philosophy, primary activities, and future plans.
Catchafire is a New York City-based, for-profit social mission business that matches professionals who want to give their skills to nonprofits and social enterprises that need their help. In this audio interview, CEO and founder Rachael Chong speaks with host Ashkon Jafari about the ins and outs of the organization, from its founding, to its funding, to how it finds "matches."
While much open source software suffers from poor design and usability, Firefox shines. What makes the Mozilla community different? With great branding, usability backed up by research but tempered by realism, and a powerful extension architecture, the Firefox web browser claims 400 million users. On the eve of the release of Firefox 4, Mozilla designer Alex Faaborg covers the unique challenge of coordinating user experience design in an open source community, important features of past versions, and the future of the Firefox interface.
As half of the world struggles to meet energy needs at a reasonable price and the other half strives to develop cleaner energy solutions, Alexis Belonio does both. In this interview by Stanford Center for Social Innovation correspondent Sheela Sethuraman, we hear from Alexis Belonio, of the Center for Rice and Husk Technology, as he joins the Prize Laureates from the 2010 Tech Museum Awards. He discusses how he is changing the world by providing a clean burning and accessible source of energy for all.
Taproot is a nonprofit that makes business talent available to organizations working to improve society. In this audio interview with host Ashkon Jafari, founder Aaron Hurst discusses how Taproot started, what impact the organization has had, and the challenges it has faced. He also shares how the enterprise evaluates nonprofits applying for grants.
From rebuilding communities in Detroit around technological and artistic innovation to improving legal services, each of these speakers share their experiences and insights as to why groups succeed - and sometimes fail - in their attempts to adopt the latest information technology developments and apply them to the greater public good.
Incident responders can use social media as they rush to put aid in place after disasters. Jeannie Stamberger, of the Disaster Management Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, shares her studies of crowd-sourcing. When disasters impact populated areas, social media helps agencies quickly identify the extent of the damage. This audio interview covers utilization of social media for disaster response, planning and risk analysis.
