Fair Trade is an international association of certifiers, producers and traders. By guaranteeing fair and stable floor prices, Fair Trade enables producers to invest in their farms, local communities and environment.
Fair Trade is a platform for sustainable economic development. It enables farmers to compete in the global marketplace. Through certification, Fair Trade is actively changing supply chain dynamics to bring a greater share of profits to producers.
The more people who use and supply Fair Trade Certified™ products, the more communities in some of the world’s poorest countries will benefit.
OLPC created the XO laptop to improve learning opportunities for all children around the world. Its revolutionary design can withstand water, dirt and heat; it has low power usage and can be recharged using a foot pedal or a solar panel where there is no electricity.
With open-source software and wireless broadband, the XO enables local communities to explore, experiment and express themselves, by bringing their knowledge, culture and interests into the digital world. It is a platform for children to be both teachers and learners.
The Give One, Get One program allowed US residents to buy two laptops, one being sent to a child in a developing nation. The more children who use an XO laptop, the more valuable it becomes as a tool for learning, sharing and creating. To achieve this, the XO needs to be fully localized in a number of different languages.
The Burning Man Project is an annual eight-day arts event held in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada. In its 20 years, the event has grown from a small gathering to over 45,000 participants who come together to form a temporary, self-sufficient city.
Organizers describe Burning Man as an experiment in community, owing its success to a strong sense of shared responsibility and creativity. The project challenges individuals to extend their boundaries of self-expression and self-reliance. Together, participants build the city, create the art, and ensure that no trace is left behind afterwards. Burning Man is a platform for creating new forms of a self-regulating, self-sustaining, creative community.
The more people who take part in the event, the richer the experience becomes for everybody, but also the greater the environmental impact. More Earth Guardian volunteers are needed to ensure Burning Man’s “leave no trace” philosophy.
BUG is a collection of easy-to-use electronic modules that snap together to build any device imaginable. Users decide which functions to combine, building their own custom gadget that can be reconfigured at any given time for different uses.
With the hackable BUG harware, open source programming environment and online community (BUGnet), anyone can build, program and share devices. BUG is a platform for putting the creation of gadgets in the hands of users, rather than technology companies.
BUG already has over 80 new module ideas, but there are many more yet to be thought of. The more groups who experiment with BUG in different environments and suggest new uses, modules and configurations, the more useful BUG will be for everyone.
World66 is an online travel guide based on the idea that travelers are the best source of knowledge. Anyone can contribute content about the places they have visited, the hotels they have stayed in or the restaurants they have dined in.
Every part of the travel guide can be edited directly online, making it much easier to update and expand than a conventional guidebook. As a platform, World66 also provides a range of travel tools to help people research, plan and share their travels.
The more contributors to World66, the more comprehensive and objective the information becomes and the more reliable it is as a travel tool.
BookMooch is an international, online community for exchanging used books. Instead of buying new books, it lets members give away books they no longer need in exchange for books they really want. The only cost is the mailing of books to others.
By keeping books in circulation and finding new readers for them, BookMooch encourages users to read more, but consume less. It is a platform for more conscientious reading, by enabling readers to save money, access out of print books and reduce waste, deforestation and household clutter.
By aggregating over 40,000 members’ book collections, BookMooch is building the best selection of used books in the world. They need more members, with more books to make BookMooch even more useful.
Nike has built the largest
online running club based on its Nike+ technology (a running shoe transmitter and iPod receiver). By uploading workout data to the Nike+ website, runners from every corner of the globe can run in their own time, on their own turf, while sharing and competing with each other.
Nike+ is a new way to train. It is a platform for more motivated running, by enabling people to set individual goals, track progress and compete to run faster, longer and more often. Runners can also join forums to share information and encouragement, and groups to work towards a common goal.
The more runners that join Nike+ community, the better the resource becomes for sharing advice and support, and the more competitive the challenges become. To keep people motivated to stay fit, Nike+ needs more runners to join in and keep challenging their goals.
Current TV is an independently owned television network led by Al Gore and broadcast on DIRECTV and AT&T U-verse. It airs a broad mix of topics and perspectives, produced and programmed in collaboration with its audience.
Via an online portal, viewers upload short non-fiction movies, called pods, which contribute to a third of all on-air broadcasts. Current TV is a platform for democratizing media, by giving more people a voice.
The more people who are equipped with filmmaking skills and join the production community to create films, the more representative and diverse the content will be.
Lulu is a do-it-yourself publisher. Individuals upload files to Lulu’s website, select printing and binding options, and set the profit margin. Authors retain copyright and books are printed on demand.
By eliminating traditional entry barriers, Lulu is changing the world of publishing by empowering authors to directly publish work themselves. It also provides practical tools to help market, sell and distribute books. Lulu is a platform for individuals to maintain complete editorial and copyright control.
The more people who take part in Lulu, the more diverse and representative the published world will be and the more useful the Lulu community becomes in helping and supporting new writers.
(RED) was created by Bono and Bobby Shriver to raise awareness and money for The Global Fund. It is not a charity,
but a new business model. Iconic brands like American Express, Apple, Motorola, Armani, GAP and Converse created new consumer products that share the same (RED) brand strategy. A percentage of (RED) sales goes to the Global Fund to finance HIV/AIDS health and community support programs in Africa.
(RED) is a platform for the private sector to help fight the AIDS pandemic in Africa, while also growing their businesses. By harnessing the power of brand it provides a steady flow of corporate money to the Global Fund.
To increase their effectiveness in generating money for the Global Fund, (RED) needs to develop more business opportunities. The more people who give their knowledge and expertise to imagine a greater (RED) future, the fewer lives lost to AIDS.