A couple weeks ago, I complained about a page on the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals website.
This kind of guide is pretty common, and it exposes a larger problem: there is no easy way for you to contribute to many of the causes that you might want to contribute to.
In the case of the U.N., their Sustainable Development Goals are really targeted to governments, institutions and organizations, not the individual. When you get to the individual level, the only ways to contribute are to upend your life and get a job at the U.N. or one of its partner organizations, or perhaps contribute money to an organization working toward those goals.
If you have, say, web development skills that you would like to contribute part time, there is no way for them to accept your offer. The organizations are closed. You’re either part of the organization and contribute that way, or you can’t contribute.
I think this is an amazing waste of resources.
The open source software communities have shown that great things can be done by skilled volunteers in their free time. Why not apply the same principles to designing the world instead of software?
That’s what the Open Artifacts Initiative (OAI) is for: encouraging the development of open projects for all aspects of the world’s design. That can include how we provide basic needs such as housing, to how we govern ourselves, to how to best educate our new life.
If you have worked on or are working on something that can make the world better, I encourage you to consider making it an Open Artifacts project. It can help you create a community around what you’re trying to do and you may end up with something better than you would have created on your own.
Send me a message if you need more details. I’m still creating needed content for the OAI website.
