Thursday, December 04, 2014

The Nominet Trust 100 and Social Tech Guide 2014

What do cancer, cow fertility, and civil rights have in common? How about encrypted email, e-democracy, and educational access? Stumped? Here's one more - what about 3D printing, distributed networks of open source building plans, and privacy protecting search engines?

These, and 91 other issues, are areas where people from India to Iceland are combining software, hardware, and people power in new ways to tackle a shared social problem.

100 such ideas are being honored today by the Nominet Trust 100 and the Social Tech Guide. This a curated list of inspiring tech-enabled social good activities.The list and guide are like a "Wow - really?!" list of cool applications of software and hardware being put to use for social good. Proposals came from all over the world - 24 countries are represented among the final 100. The applications were curated first by staff and then judged by an external steering committee (me included).

This is the second year that the Nominet Trust and the Financial Times have curated the list and created the guide. Some of the winners are brand new, others have been around for awhile and have proven themselves. There's sure to be individual applications that make you think differently about your work. And taken as a whole, the list (along with last year's list) provide us with a starting inventory of "digital social innovation."

There's more information about the NT100 and digital social innovation in this year's Blueprint - available for free next Tuesday, December 9, at www.grantcraft.org/blueprint15

Check out the #2014NT100 at http://socialtech.org.uk/nominet-trust-100/2014/.

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