The conference is the tip of the PopTech iceberg, and what lies under the surface is a series of "unconventional collaborations" in which the organization staff find creative ways to bring dissimilar and disparate actors together in order to see how their different perspectives and resources can amplify and augment one another. They've announced two more of their collaborations during the event, demonstrating some of the best experimental impulses of the network.
PeaceTXT: Violence is rampant in urban areas like Chicago. A few years ago, epidemiologist Gary Slutkin began to wonder if the spread of violence looked like (and could be stopped in similar ways to) the spread of infectious diseases. The result was an organization called CeaseFire, which uses a network of community members as "violence�interrupters." These community members are usually people with a sorted past who have seen the long-term results of violence, and can speak from experience that it just isn't worth it. The organization has produced amazing results, reducing homicides in some places by more than 75%.
The challenge for CeaseFire is to figure out how to meet the incredible demand for their services, successfully scale up, and even think about how to apply their model in new settings, such as combatting international terrorism. To explore whether there is a technology opportunity to help them, PopTech connected CeaseFire with the folks behind FrontlineSMS and Ushahidi. The teams have spent the last few months getting to know one another and brainstorming ways that technology can improve CeaseFire's work. If they figure something out, it would truly be a radical collaboration -- CeaseFire could hardly be more focused on real, local relationships and credibility.
Own Your Future: Again coming out of the PopTech Accelerator program and anchored by organizations from the Social Innovation Fellows program, Own Your Future is a collaboration between PopTech and the Brooklyn Community Arts and Media (BCAM) high school. BCAM is a highly innovative school that uses creativity and digital multimedia to engage students in a more significant way.
Own Your Future is a program that will help students make money from the creative works they produce. While the exact mechanisms haven't been figured out yet, the core of the program will be a one year experience that includes entrepreneurship training and financial literacy. Money that students make from their works will be put in savings accounts that they gain access to upon graduation.
These sort of collaborations are the hallmark of the PopTech network. I think both of them have huge potential not just for the actors involved, but as demonstrations of broader opportunities.
Photo credit: kk+
No comments:
Post a Comment