ThinkCycle: Solving World Problems With A Cluster of Brains

eaglemoon writes: "ThinkCycle is an MIT Media Lab project to apply SETI@Home principles to design problems for underserved communities. Only, intead of donating spare cpu cycles, you donate spare 'think cycles.' Their aim is to build a community of designers, inventors and innovators that want to collaborate on developing novel solutions to some what intractable problems like clean water access , cholera treatment and appropriate shelters. Their aim is to encourage an "open source" ethos for tough design and technology challenges."

Comments

Ok..hmm.

[k98sven]

So this is a wonderful idea..
I somehow do not see this working. Of course I'd be happy to be proved wrong, but how do they plan
on breaking these big, complex, problems up into manageble pieces?

How can they make all these peoples ideas work together without it all turning into a watered-
down compromise-type idea without any edge?

I, for one will be interested in seeing the
results of this experiment..

Re:Ok..hmm.

[caesar-auf-nihil]

Interestingly, these ideas are already being tackled. You can get an idea of how the workload is being broken up by reading an article on Low Tech Improving the 3rd World (Wired, April 2002, pages 108-115)

The way it would work is that you figure out what all resources a project needs, then you break it down into appropriate parts. If you read the article you'll see what I mean. One example is a simple water pump - and they broke up the workload (some of it donated on other people's off time) by dividing it into materials, engineering, and distribution. Each member handled their own part until it was done.

For this proposed project, you'll probably sign up by listing your areas of expertise (like a resume), and then when a project is proposed, you search through the skill sets until you find what you need, and then you assign that particular person to "Think" on that part of the problem and then report in when they're done. Its not really that different than working in a team. Now your team may truly be distributed among the world.

At least, that's how I think it could be done.

Sounds like...

[anzha]

an overgrown newsgroup. Or a benevolent (now that's mind boggling) Slashdot.

The primary problem with anything like this is going to be the fact that just like in Usenet, people - valuable, vital people - will move on due to lost interest, changes in their lives, and the fact that anything like this started over the net tends to die off pretty quickly.

There are exceptions notably some software projects (What I can't imagine ;)), but more often than not ideas get thrown around online pretty quick and easily...and then nothing comes of them.

Excellent idea.

[vkg]

A lot of problems in third world development and disaster relief are not cash-limited, they're brain limited: we really do not know the best ways of treating epidemics in places without any decent high tech infrastructure, for example. Innovative ideas and approaches help: I've seen structures at Burning Man which were a lot better for their purpose than yer average disaster relief tent.

I think opening the design process up to the widest possible collaboration and really encouraging people to follow through could make a difference: kinda like the Simputer project may: a diversity of minds, of approaches, may be the best way to help the poor and the starving.

We can't wait for government to feed the people, you know? Too big, too slow. It's up to us. And it always has been - this is just one more way to help.

The trick is ...

[doug_wyatt]

...going to be finding out who is good at doing what, and breaking up hard problems into components that can be shipped to the people that are good at working on them. It doesn't seem like technology is the real problem here. More human and project management skills.

Given that the devil in most large systems is in the number of inter-dependencies, not the complexity of any one given component, not having everyone involved relatively close in meatspace is going to make re-constituting a total solution based on the individual component solutions quite difficult indeed.

<mandatory-lcs-grad-rip-on-the-media-lab&gt
But atleast this project is has more societal value than some of the other a virtual dog that you can pet.
</mandatory-lcs-grad-rip-on-the-media-lab >

Where is the sweat!

[bluGill]

Remember innovation is 99% persperation, and 1% insperation. Looks like they are focusing on the 1%, and assuming that the rest will take care of itself.

I don't have all the answers, but I do know that these third world areas are in desperate need of people to do some work. Someone to come in and create a stable goverment (that will not starve opponents). Teachers to show them how to think. There is a total glut in the food market. (The US could easially supply all the world's nutrirtion needs if people would be willing to live food that doesn't taste good)

AIDS is a large problem in Africa. We don't have a cure, but we know how to prevent the spread. However most goverments in Africa are doing little to prevent the spread. (In fact some are actively doing things to cause more cases - at least in groups they don't like) We could use a cure, but until there is a cure, we don't need more non-biologists thinking about AIDS (where they are unlikely to make progress), but we could use those same people in Africa teaching people how to prevent aids. Of course if you actually go to Africa you will soon discover that other problems need to be solved before the AIDS problem can be solved.

We don't need more thinkers, we need more doers. That is much harder. I can go home tonight and think about a methane digester that can be used in a mud hit. I can't go to a village and build them after work tonight.