If we're already filing our taxes with the government online, & even entrust the security of our $$$ through electronic (ATMs, credit card scanners, bank records) & online/mobile (banking, bill payment,shopping,investing, etc.) means, why not voting?

Detroit's ~100K vacant lots are a reinvention opportunity. Could some be salvaged for community centers; others cleared for urban farming; & old building materials reused for furniture? Could "Reclaimed in Detroit" become a mark of Motor City pride?

Around the world, from the Arab Spring to Chinese Anti-Corruption Campaigns to African Crisis Mapping to Occupy Wall Street, people are using mobile phones & online social networks/media to become activists & communicate important information.

Applying tech to petitioning can make it more accessible, effective, & powerful; even helping protect petitioners (who're petitioning against injustices like others unlawful detention) themselves from unlawful detention & other human rights abuses.

So far, challenge sponsors have mainly consisted of large nonprofits, corporate philanthropy departments, public organizations, & celebrities, which is to be expected, given that being a challenge sponsor costs ~$50K (based on the quote Jennifer Davis received). These challenges have been great, but what would happen if we also had challenges run for scrappy, innovative, on-the-ground social enterprise upstarts; which could be subsidized by working with large corporations to transform their core business (not just their philanthropic/cause marketing programs) to become more socially conscious. How much positive impact could we achieve?

Our generation is passionate about contributing to make our world better. And, at least from my experience, there are many who have the drive to start new projects & programs, once they find an idea worth pursuing, worth believing in. By promoting & making OpenIDEO ideas, challenges, & OpenIDEO itself more accessible to these aspiring social entrepreneurs, we can recruit more doers to our community, & connect IDEAS with ACTION to create more IMPACT. We have something worthwhile to share and a lot to learn from them as well.

OpenIDEO's "Realization Phase" is mainly being utilized to share updates on realization efforts by challenge sponsors/OpenIDEO. This is great, yet there's the potential to be so much more! What if the "Realization Phase" also facilitated implementation by the OpenIDEO community at large (individuals, groups, organizations, etc.), building momentum by empowering people to initiate, self-organize, & contribute to concept realization efforts?

When seeking investments for Social Businesses, it’s important to remember that the wealthy are not the only ones who can help. In fact, while a wealthy individual can donate a higher absolute amount, studies have shown that those with average means are often donating a higher % of their own incomes. And of course, there are many more people of average means vs. those with significant wealth. The power of raising funds through small contributions from many individuals has been demonstrated everywhere from politics (Obama 2008 Presidential Campaign setting numerous new record amounts raised by small donations, enabling him to be the 1st major-party presidential candidate to turn down general election public financing) to microfinance (Kiva has raised ~$225 million for almost 600K working poor individuals, though individual no-interest loans that are as small as $25 and average ~$240).

The current level of economic inequality is one of the starkest things that stood out from the inspiration phase & our video chat with Grameen Caldas: Colombia has the most unequal distribution of resources in Latin America (Gini coefficient of .587 in 2009, with almost 50% living below poverty, and the top 10% making >80X what the bottom 10% makes ). Thus, there’s a huge opportunity to encourage wealthy Colombians to use their good fortune to help those less fortunate.

At the start of this month, Stonyfield Farm, the world's leading organic yogurt maker (also makes smoothies, ice cream, & milk), launched a campaign to build momentum for organic food. The focus is on encouraging people to share the reasons behind why they choose to eat organic through stories, videos, & photos.

Triscuit (owned by Kraft) is distributing 8 million basil & dill seed packets in its cracker boxes. What's going on?

Herbie the Hairy challenges kids to give it a full set of hair, using a fun planter pre-filled with compost, easy-to-grow herb seeds, & simple instructions/info for growing, cutting, & eating hair. Kids discover agriculture, cooking, nutrition, & new foods through play & the naturally encouraged adult interaction. The planter, which can be decorated as an art project, is made from repurposed items (yogurt cup, juice box, bottle, egg carton, can, etc.), ideally biodegradable for easy transplantation option.

Want to eat fresh food from your local farm, but worried about figuring out how to use the mystery box of produce that arrives weekly with your typical CSA (community supported agriculture) share (and which you often have to supplement with additional grocery shopping trips)? CSA Meal Subscriptions combine the fresh taste, organic health, and delightful surprise of local food with the convenience of ready-made meals. And on top of that, you’re supporting regional agriculture while minimizing environmentally harmful food miles.

Interested in growing some of your own food, but doubt you have the time, knowledge, or skills required? Food Landscapers help you turn your yard, balcony, window, or even rooftop (name a place, and we’ll find something to grow on it!) into beautiful gardens that provide the freshest food (fruits, vegetables, herbs, etc.) right where you are. Homeowners can break free from boring lawns, city dwellers can breathe life into their apartments beyond the potted pothos, companies can create truly relaxing break areas, schools can deepen their kids understanding about & consumption of fresh food, and governments can transform public spaces into attractive, productive, recreation areas.

This concept seeks to rebrand "bone marrow donation" to "life saving stem cells" in order to provide a more accurate picture and drop the prevalent but outdated perception that by registering, you're basically guaranteeing yourself a very painful & scary procedure where your bone is drilled into to remove the contents inside. This is outdated because, a) 80% of the time, stem cells are now simply collected from the blood in an outpatient procedure, and b) when a true bone marrow draw is necessary, the procedure has been improving to become less painful than imagined. Sample messaging (which still aims for accuracy to ensure registrants are relatively committed, and includes an encouragement to donate cord/placental blood as well) below:

This campaign would be run at mass/spectator sporting & entertainment events where participants willingly subject themselves to tough conditions (for pride, the thrill of the challenge, camaraderie, to make a difference, etc.), and are supported and admired by spectators for doing so: i.e. marathon/triathlon/endurance races, fund/awareness-raising walks, UFC mixed martial arts, WWE, Football/Rugby games, etc.

This concept aims to address the sad fact that ~50% of bone marrow donor registrants decide not to donate when they are actually asked to. This can be heart breaking & life-threatening to patients when this decision reversal occurs late in the process, not to mention the sunk costs of testing/searching/verification/transport (direct testing/recruiting cost is ~$100, though there are cases of charges approaching $5000). Ideally the below would work together as one cohesive system, but various individual component combinations could also be effectively implemented to kickstart things:

This concept aims to virally create ripples of awareness of and registration for bone marrow donations through the world's social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, Kaixin, RenRen, etc. To spread the word, you simply change your profile picture (bones & heart symbol) and post a status update (along with associated hashtag) that evokes curiosity and interest.

Hate waiting forever at the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles)? What if, when you are filling out your car registration or driver's license application(which often includes opt-in or mandated choice questions for organ donor & voter registration), you are also asked whether you want to do a cheek swab on the spot to register as a bone marrow donor? If you do, you’d get a cool bones badge on your driver’s license (next to the heart showing you’re an organ donor), keychain, license plate, or bumper sticker to spread awareness (and perhaps swaying the nice officer who pulls you over for a traffic violation to let you off with a warning), but you also get put to the front of the line.

How many of you have experienced the discomfort of a blood test? I've often thought, "If I need to feel a little pain anyways, why not just leave the needle in longer & donate some blood too?" Consider that much of the blood donation process overlaps with your regular physical checkup/lab test: sign-in registration, waiting, vitals check (temp, pulse, blood pressure, etc.), interview, bandage, & relief that it's over! In addition, this may naturally match donation supply & demand to a degree, lowering distribution costs, as larger hospitals with more recipient needs are also likely to have a larger pool of checkup blood tests/potential donors. Marrow donor registration could also piggyback here, as the initial testing process can be done using drawn blood or cheek swabs. And for people who've already donated blood, the typical PBSC marrow donation (of cells circulating in the blood) is not all that different, so completion of rates of those following through on matched donations should be high.

Maternova's tagline is "Tools and ideas that save mothers & newborns" and they have a fabulous directory of health innovations at http://maternova.net/health-innovations

This concepts seeks to harness a family's (including the father, in-laws, etc.) concern for producing a healthy baby to improve the wellbeing of the unborn child and mother. Through mobile-facilitated group funding, it aims to recruit both financial and social support for the mother’s healthcare needs. And by bundling the financing of important healthcare services with small regular payments for items that people can easily understand and value, it aims to decrease the price tag barrier and thus increase the use of the total package.

This concept focuses on making nutritional intake convenient, attractive, and culturally-relevant to improve maternal and infant mortality and morbidity (direct improvements on anemia, neural development, infection, low birth weight, premature delivery, hemorrhage, heart failure, etc.). It was inspired by posts by Alessandro, Suzanne, Avi, Meena, Jennica, Chris, and others on this topic, as well as this New York Times Op-Ed: http://nyti.ms/69smBR . The example below focuses on the big 2 pregnancy nutrients (iron & folate/folic acid/vitamin B9), but depending on the common nutritional deficiencies in a region, this package could be adapted to account for other important nutrients as iodine, zinc, and vitamin A. This would also have broader effect on the long term health of the community. And adherence may be higher vs. traditional supplements that people often forget about or are afraid to take (fear of birth control side effects, etc)

Imagine if a mom to be could simply call or text to choose from a list of qualified, experienced moms in her community for a meet up in a public place (like a market). The mom mentor would share her own personal story & advise on how to have a healthy pregnancy & birth. Future communication can be arranged. And the mom to be, after her own childbirth, could pay it forward by volunteering to be a mom mentor herself. Experienced moms can apply to be mom mentors, and then activated by pre-approved local partners (like medical providers, Oxfam?). Mentors would be trained on important practices (proper nutrition, sterile umbilical cord cutting, etc.), given referral contacts for health providers (midwives, local hospital, etc.), & perhaps even provided with basic handout kits (birthing/emergency, supplements). This would increase access by virally spreading vital maternal health info, tools, & emotional support through trusted community members, independent of ability to pay or proximity to traditional hospitals.

A Swedish startup has created a chamber pot that is comfortable to sit on that also doubles as a tightly sealed, odor-containing watering can. By diluting the urine with water, the resultant fertilized can be used to increase plant growth/crop yields. More info at http://www.guldkannan.se/english.aspx

When are people most likely to relate to others’ sanitation problems? When they’re feeling the urge to relieve themselves of course! Imagine if awareness/action-raising stickers/posters were placed on the inside of public toilet stalls in the developed world (from restrooms in schools to libraries to restaurants to gas stations; the possibilities are endless). As the toilet user reads the material to be distracted from the task at hand (just like people often have household bathroom reading material, or, in the case of some public toilets, check out the random scrawled phrases and pictures), they learn about sanitation issues elsewhere in the world and are referred to text a # to donate to help build hygienic, environmental public toilets where they are needed most, or for more information. A similar campaign could also target tourists at the airport returning from countries with less developed sanitation systems. Please see below for example campaign text. Image Attribution: http://xkcd.com/229/

This builds on Larry’s concept of “Gold Medal Service”. Imagine if public toilet users could transparently tell whether a facility consistently met high standards for hygiene and disposal. This could become a reality by leveraging government sanctioned disposal services (such as vacuum trucks). Each facility that uses such a service would receive an annual “Certificate of Cleanliness Calendar” posted at the entrance. Each week/month (or however often the service is meant to be used), when the service is used (which could consist of not just disposal, but also hygiene inspections or even cleaning bundled right in), a dated star sticker/seal/stamp is affixed to the appropriate location on the calendar. In addition, part of the certificate could include words and illustrations that explain the importance of hygiene and steps for cleaning toilets and yourself after toilet use.

The PeePoo is a brilliant project that addresses existing “flying toilet” behaviors through a single-use sanitizing toilet bag that improves hygiene and creates fertilizer. As the project has been field testing (well worth a look: http://www.peepoople.com/pdf/GTZ_toilet%20bag.pdf , http://www.peepoople.com/pdf/Peepoo.Impact.Assessment.Report.pdf ), there’s likely to be iterative improvements over time. This concept envisions an “upgrade” to the PeePoo that 1) PeePoo users could trade-up to or start off with directly if funds allow, and 2) Bucket Latrine/Chamber Pot/Public Toilet users could switch to for a similar cost. It very much builds upon Jeff’s “PeePoo Bag” inspiration (http://bit.ly/ccACaG), Adriana’s “Toilet Lid” inspiration (http://bit.ly/c6kNIo), and Jocelyn’s connecting comment.

As the elderly population in Japan increases, companies there have developed technology that turns adult diapers (and child diapers) into sterile, odorless, concentrated, portable pellets that can be used for fuel and construction (http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20004020-1.html, http://www.japantoday.com/category/lifestyle/view/used-adult-diapers-get-new-life-as-fuel).

This concept is directly inspired by Alessandro’s call to “imagine that people would not have to pay anything to use the bathroom, but that these bathrooms were small factories that produce gas and fertilizer”, as well as by the many other OpenIDEO contributions that I’ve linked to in the text and to the right. I will focus on trying to propose a framework that pays for poop and makes sustainable sense for the challenge’s focus area of Kumasi, Ghana.

Studies show that GDP growth, after passing the point where basic needs are met, produces diminishing returns for our actual life satisfaction and happiness. Other factors, like social relations, health, meaningful work, freedom, caring for others, etc. become far more important for our overall wellbeing. However, we often continue to chase the treadmill of economic growth, at the expense of these other critical things. How do we shift from a narrow focus on economic growth (Gross Domestic Product) to a holistic pursuit of genuine wellbeing (Gross National Happiness)?

This concept is inspired by the following article “Toilets are being converted to bedrooms in Kumasi “ (http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=165948), as its direct commentary on the toilet situation in Kumasi (the region this challenge is focused on) from Ghana’s most widely read newspaper (the Daily Graphic). This article highlights the trend of people “converting…bathrooms in their houses into bedrooms for renting”, which actually violates the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly’s by-laws that “every household in the metropolis is expected to have a toilet facility”, though unsurprising given the city’s ~16% unemployment rate. However, this article also contains the hints towards a possible solution: income generation.

This builds on the observations by the OpenIdeo Ghana Field Team that “in just about every home there [were] cell phones (one or two per family member)” and Andy’s remark that “there’s more cell phones than toilets in Africa”, as well as building comments and additional inspirations by Ashley and others (linked to on the right side). Given the situation, this concept leverages widely available/used mobile phones to improve toilet hygiene and access. Potential labor cost-savings could also be invested to lower usage fees, improve facilities, or build new toilets.

Please view the included media that illustrate this concept and the need for it. By slightly modifying the pre-existing pay public toilet system and nudging users through signage placed inside and outside the toilet stall, this concept aims to build responsibility, accountability, and pride in maintaining and using clean community toilets with the users of the toilets themselves; thus, making their own experience of using these toilets more pleasant and hygienic. Furthermore, this lowers cleaning/maintenance costs so savings could be used fees, improve the facilities, or expand toilet access to new areas.

The Millennium Development Goals (http://www.un.org/milleniumgoals) were agreed to by all members of the United Nations, as well as >20 other international organizations. As about 2/3 of the time has passed from the launch of the Millennium Development Goals in 2000 to the target achievement date of 2015, the UN recently held a summit (http://www.un.org/en/mdg/summit2010) to assess progress and commit to an agenda. This topic will focus on sharing success stories, and collaborating on concrete ways to inspire more development & accelerate change. Below are the goals (and some great example inspirations from the OpenIdeo community):

Each student brings their parent (or other relative) to class for 1 hour each semester (or class visits parent on site for contextual learning), during which the student & parent jointly teaches the class about something related to the parent's work (agriculture, cooking, mobile phone repair, anything presents a real-life learning opportunity!). Of course, parents could bring their work tools to be used as educational aids.

Carrot Producers have invested $25 million in launching a multi-faceted campaign to promote baby carrots vs junk food including convenient packaging, vending machines, scarrots (for Halloween), a video game, social media, & tv ads. Check out the attached videos & website: http://www.babycarrots.com/

Akanksha, an Indian NGO founded by the CEO of Teach for India when she was 18, utilizes after-hours office & school space as learning centers for slum children, as well as community teaching volunteers (college students, Teach for India, working people, etc.). It runs 58 learning learning centers and has an enrollment of ~2,500 students. Recently, it partnered with the Mumbai & Pune governments (which provide the public school facilities, while Akanksha does everything else, as long as it meets certain targets), to manage 6 municipal schools that enroll an aggregate of ~1000 students.

DonorsChoose.org improves US public education by empowering people to fund teacher-posted requests ranging from pencils to computers. It’s already raised >$50 million for classrooms & >60% of projects get fully funded. By expanding this model to the developing world, supporters help vital schools obtain necessary resources & develop a personal connection. This could also fund scholarships for the neediest children, who can’t afford associated school fees.

After I checkout at supermarkets, I often scan the receipt totals to see how much I've saved vs. spent. It's becomes a game to maximize this %, and I've even had a friend call just to report a "high score". Imagine if grocery receipts included simple pie charts of the % (by weight) bought in each food group. If you’re within the advised range, you receive a discount on your next or current purchase. With loyalty cards, you can even track over time & provide additional rewards for say “4 weeks of health”.

This builds on Smriti’s inspiration about matchboxes having the most pervasive distribution network/deepest market penetration in rural India. As matchboxes have unused but visible print spaces, perhaps this space could be used as an educational opportunity for children & adults. I.E., by printing a simple picture, the local language word, & its Hindi/English equivalent, matchboxes could improve local language/Hindi/English literacy. These matchbox sides can be easily turned into makeshift flashcards as well.

The Mobile Learner makes it easy for students & teachers to create, share, & interact with educational content like books, tutorials, flashcards, & quizzes. The Mobile Learner consists of a re-purposed mobile phone loaded with a free educational software bundle. Content sharing occurs through an online repository (accessible through the cellular network & the Internet), or directly between phones (through memory cards or Bluetooth).

Building on Chris’s “Zones on Plates” & Max’s follow-up, color coding is applied to lunchboxes & trays, encouraging kids to eat balanced meals and simplifying/nudging assembly (for the likely busy adult). The inside of the lunchbox lid mirrors the colored compartments, providing an always visible area that can use text & images to describe each food group & its benefits. I.E., the protein area could show examples like fish & tofu, while also showcasing Superman with the caption “to build strong muscles”.

Herbie the Hairy challenges kids to give it a full set of hair, using a fun planter pre-filled with compost, easy-to-grow herb seeds, & simple instructions/info for growing, cutting, & eating hair. Kids discover agriculture, cooking, nutrition, & new foods through play & the naturally encouraged adult interaction. The planter, which can be decorated as an art project, is made from repurposed items (yogurt cup, juice box, bottle, egg carton, can, etc.), ideally biodegradable for easy transplantation option.