Generation Refresh
The collapse of the US housing market and ensuing credit crisis led to a fully-fledged global economic meltdown, sparking fears of a repeat of the 1929 Great Depression. Roughly parallel to the financial crisis, the world has witnessed a chilling series of natural disasters (from tsunamis to hurricanes to more recently, earthquakes), which are becoming more and more frequent. Seen from the outside, these events depict a dim future for mankind on this planet that we call home, but despite all the doom and gloom, the positive amongst us are taking the challenge to find our own solutions to the world's problems.
It is clear that the world has swung desperately out of balance. Pockets of like-minded individuals are realizing that they have the power to make decisions that can influence the world around them. No longer are we able to rely on our governments and institutions to steer us clear of the pitfalls that life in the 21st Century presents us with.
On the South African front, our countries leaders have failed to take a stand against the corruption that cripples our country's progress on a daily basis, not to mention the lack of an efficient healthcare system and failure to house the country's impoverished as promised. Dissolution of effective leadership, sadly, is by no means unique to South Africa. On a global scale, the world's leaders have also failed us in many respects. Take for example the inability to reach an agreement at Copenhagen in 2009, leaving environmentalists and many others grasping at straws.
People are taking the power back. Sheer strength in numbers offers a glimmer of hope to the widening social and economic inequality that faces us. With technology as the enabler, people are developing strands of communication that allow them to virally spread messages of positivity and hope, in the face of uncertainty. Social media sites allow individuals to be part of a larger global community that seeks to be more active in shaping their own future, instead of having it dictated to them. Online, people are using the power of their purchases to make their statement, to support initiatives which resonate with them on a very human level.
Private organisations are flying under the radar of government and bureaucracy in order to steer us collectively on a more egalitarian, generous and socially minded course. In his article "The Dropout Economy" featured in TIME: 10 Ideas for the Next 10 Years, Reihan Salam highlights a "new confidence that citizens working in common can change their lives and in doing so can change the world around them".
A myriad of businesses are now employing the idea of generosity as a core characteristic of their business model, but be warned, if this is not authentic, you risk doing your business more harm than good. The 'buy one to donate one' trend continues to grow, as socially conscious companies create structures and systems that enable their customers to donate to those less privileged than themselves. Many online retailers are embracing this trend, such as Californian tie-making company FIGS, which donates a school uniform to a child in Africa who cannot afford one.
It is not only small entrepreneurial startups in who are embracing corporate philanthropy as a foot in the proverbial door. Pepsi recently ceded their advertising space during the Superbowl to their main competitor Coca-Cola, a move unprecedented in the last 23 years. Rather, they have decided to channel their adspend in more socially minded ways.
The "Pepsi Refresh Project" aims to "refresh everything" by creating a movement. According to Pepsi's advisory "Pepsi is seeking ideas that make us think, inspire us and ignite participation; ideas that make good things better or improve situations; ideas that refresh." People can identify what they believe doesn't work in the world around them and then submit their ideas via the website. Ideas are then voted on and the ones that come out tops are awarded grants in order for the individual or organisation to turn the good idea into a project that makes a difference.
Similar in thinking is Google's Project 10 to the Power of 100. Here people submit their ideas which are then put to a democratic vote. Ideas are categorized according to fields such as education and government. Some of the top ideas to be voted on include 'making government more transparent', 'making educational content available online for free' and 'creating more efficient landmine removal programs', all of which are very telling about where global society's head is at in 2010.
Mahatma Gandhi said "I would prize every invention of science made for the benefit of all" so in celebration of the birth of Gandhi, the IEEE hosted a free webinar promoting the idea of Gandhian Engineering. This paradigm, in a nutshell, seeks to create more, for less, for more. In his inspiring presentation, Dr R.A. Mashelkar, former Director General of the CSIR and champion of the developing world, talks about the innovator as "one who sees what everyone sees, but thinks of what no-one else thinks". Mashelkar looks at several examples where products are being redesigned that offer more, for less, for more.
The Gandhian model, when compared to the corporate model, would make any good capitalist green with envy. Products are being designed today in India that offer better performance at ultra-low cost. The difference being that where the corporate model benefits the few, the Gandhian model benefits the many. This new breed of inventions (from prosthetics to incubators to $100 laptops) are accessible to the masses and are created for the benefit of the previously excluded, or as Mashelkar puts it, the other two thirds of the iceberg.
According to Mashelkar, crowd-sourcing, collaboration, democratisation and the open source model can effectively tap into the common pool of knowledge and experience when addressing modern challenges. "Every life is equal, every mind is innovative", he says, pointing to the way in which we will come together to innovate solutions and plot an entirely new direction to navigate the 21st Century.
Observation by Loren Phillips
