Crowdsourcing Ideas - Part 1

Recently I stumbled upon the topic "CrowdSourcing" and it seems to be very interesting concept. Just take a look at it.......

What is Crowdsourcing ?

Crowdsourcing is a neologism for the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people or community in the form of an open call. For example, the public may be invited to develop a new technology, carry out a design task (also known as community-based design and distributed participatory design), refine or carry out the steps of an algorithm (see Human-based computation), or help capture, systematize or analyze large amounts of data (see also citizen science).
Source: Wikipedia

Popular examples of Crowdsourcing ?

* Wikipedia is often cited as a successful example of crowdsourcing, despite objections by co-founder Jimmy Wales to the term.
* Yahoo! Answers - Crowdsourced Q & A.
* Linux - Most prominent examples of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) collaboration.
& many more.

Crowdsourcing is not something new but it is there from long time. It all depends on how you take a look at the Crowdsourcing concept to get benefits from it. Crowdsourcing ideas to solve various problems related to IT or Non-IT that I can think of:

* Teach India initiative - Teach India is a nation-building initiative (or social initiative) from the Times of India that brings together children in need of education and people who can contribute a little time towards teaching them. It is based on one simple principle: If you have the desire to teach, we will put you in touch with underprivileged children who are willing to learn. With over sixty of India’s committed NGOs, corporates, schools and social organizations already supporting our cause, we now look for selfless individuals to come forward and help change the future of a child forever, by giving just a few hours a week to Teach India.Thus Teach India initiative can be considered to be crowd sourced because people volunteerly contribute their time towards teaching.

* Threadless - Threadless is a community-centered online apparel store run by skinnyCorp of Chicago, Illinois, since 2000. Members of the Threadless community submit t-shirt designs online; the designs are then put to a public vote. A small percentage of submitted designs are selected for printing and sold through an online store. Creators of the winning designs receive a prize of cash and store credit. In the open source community, a Threadless t-shirt or design is considered to be crowd sourced because the designer and the company retain all rights to the design. As the "source" of a design—i.e., its vector graphics file—is not available for download, it cannot be considered "open source".

* Youtube - Google's Youtube relies on crowds of video makers to garnish its site with the latest videos that will entertain its audience. Youtube is also considered as one of the prime examples of the crowdsourcing phenomenon.

* Toastmasters Educational Program - Toastmasters International (TI) is a nonprofit educational organization that operates clubs worldwide for the purpose of helping members improve their communication, public speaking and leadership skills. Through its thousands of member clubs, Toastmasters International offers a program of communication and leadership projects designed to help men and women learn the arts of speaking, listening, and thinking.

* Recently I was discussing in general with my friend Varun and he told me that in Tirupathi - Suzlon Energy Ltd, is developing the windmill system on a build, operate, lease and transfer (BOLT) basis. Don't know how exactly it works but if the people (or devotees) are allowed to invest in Windmill system then it will be a Win-Win-Win situation for Producers, Investors (or devotees) and Consumers - Isn't it a great crowdsourcing intiative?

Part 2 will be published soon!

Source: http://nandakishor.com/content/crowdsourcing-ideas