Tag: codeforpizza

Code4Pizza: Crowdsourcing Translink

Bob Borchers, who I met back in March of this year (known to most as Mind Mannered iPhone Guy) speaks to Colin Gibbs of GigaOM about Mobile. Bob is now a partner at Opus Capital, an early-stage technology venture firm. Bob will also be speaking at Mobilize. But the place I’m particularly interested in is … Continue reading “Code4Pizza: Crowdsourcing Translink”

Bob Borchers, who I met back in March of this year (known to most as Mind Mannered iPhone Guy) speaks to Colin Gibbs of GigaOM about Mobile.

iphoneguy

Bob is now a partner at Opus Capital, an early-stage technology venture firm. Bob will also be speaking at Mobilize.

But the place I’m particularly interested in is the white spaces — those places between (technologies and industries). That’s where mobile has the potential to take its transformative abilities and implement some changes in long-existing industries or markets. Take health care, for example — in my view, and I think a number of other people’s views, mobile has an interesting role to play in that. Everybody agrees that they want health care delivered more affordably, but at the same or higher quality, and I think mobile has an opportunity to help drive some of those changes.
…
Also, I think infrastructure is interesting: What are the things the network operators can do to extend coverage, to make backhaul faster, to enable location awareness on networks?

It’s the vertical markets that make Mobile interesting. It’s seeing the ‘humble’ mobile phone being co-opted into new roles. First as a camera, then an email device, then an internet browser, now a games machine and in the future – access to healthcare, public services, education, democracy.

The limited size of these devices means moving as much ‘brains’ as we can into the ‘cloud’. The network operators are able to monitor where you are (using cell towers) so there’s really no need to have an app and GPS burning battery power constantly. With Push messaging and context on your phone there’s reduced need for multitasking as long as the server side is somewhat intelligent.

Tomorrow night we’re putting some of this into practise with a project I dreamed up last year: Code4Pizza.

Code4Pizza is really about directed work. The concept being that you take some developers, you give them a few unsolveable problems and you feed them. By the end of a single evening you should have part of a plan of where to go.

The first unsolveable problem is improving the way we receive information about public transport. In theory, public transport is a more sustainable way to travel. The problem is always going to be communication. There are lots of bits and pieces here but having lists of bus stops, by their longitude and latitude, would seem to be most useful. We have a lot of this data already and we’ve started recruiting people to fill in the blanks. Moving it into the mobile arena where it can be viewed on iPhone, Android, Symbian and indeed any platform with a decent web browser is the main goal. Come along and join us.

(The second unsolveable problem will be in developing a sustainable funding-management application for some local charities. We’re going to be working with the Camphill Community, NICVA and the Open Source Solutions Centre for this. Work to begin soon.)

The long term plan is to have somewhere for the Code4Pizza workers to work. The only requirement is to have something to work on and allow that work to be reviewed by chosen peers and mentors. And in return you’ll get a desk, you’ll get Internet access, you’ll get business mentoring training and you’ll get pizza.

Related posts:

  1. MoMoBelfast and the Apps Show and Tell
  2. Ofcom: Toothless Regulator
  3. BarCamp WiFi Disaster
  4. Food for Thought

CoWorking: profit or non-profit

LaunchPad CoWorking An interview with Jerome Chang, founder of Blankspaces: Spike: You’re also using a for-profit business model (as is LaunchPad Coworking). How did you decide on this model? Did you take any heat for it? Jerome: I’m all for pushing collaboration and communities — if profit is what it takes to generate more participants … Continue reading “CoWorking: profit or non-profit”

LaunchPad CoWorking
An interview with Jerome Chang, founder of Blankspaces:

Spike: You’re also using a for-profit business model (as is LaunchPad Coworking). How did you decide on this model? Did you take any heat for it?
Jerome: I’m all for pushing collaboration and communities — if profit is what it takes to generate more participants and advance the cultural movement, then profit it is. Between the time and effort, money, and liability, we should be rewarded for that contribution and exposure. Besides, I didn’t know about coworking at all until I’d already started construction, so I was not “influenced” by the altruism.

I’m becoming more and more convinced that a Co-Working site needs to be a ‘company’ as opposed to a ‘charity’.

I’ve seen lots of non-profits fall by the wayside due to the founders needing to move on and it’s hard to find people with the right mentality to take over. I’ve seen non-profits founder because without the extra edge of needing to make a profit (and reaping benefits thereof) the good will can vanish.

I’m well aware that people working at a non-profit can draw salaries and that the non-profit moniker has been used in order to attract attention while the ‘workers’ draw insanely large salaries. I guess I’m not comfortable hiding behind the tax benefits of a non-profit while engaged in something that is creating things ‘for profit’.

But let’s run with the current school of thought. That CoWorkingBelfast will be a non-profit organisation.

That said – if I have anything to do with it, CoWorkingBelfast will have to be a shining light and not just a damp squib. I want it to be excellent, a model place to work and not just a set of desks in a dreary room above a bank. It has to make enough money to survive and prosper and not just be a half-empty space which has to resort to arcane marketing schemes disguised as trade shows in order to generate a bit of coin.

Part of the Co-Working Belfast ethos should, in my opinion, to create ‘industry culture’ in Northern Ireland. That’s got to be more than just creating a web portal (and how many of those have sprung up in the last year or so) but the creation of a lasting legacy, a tradition of fostering creativity in the technology sector. CoWorking is not about technology itself – it’s about connecting people where they were not previously connected.

Part of the culture of CoWorking Belfast should not only be the opportunities and connections which are brought about by proximity but also the potential for fostering tomorrow’s industry (you know, the people who will be paying taxes when you and I are in a home for the elderly). I have a plan which consists of nothing more than a couple of pledges, a holding page on a web site and a monthly bill which I’ll work to find sponsorship for – which will be wholly dedicated to finding people with energy, be they young in body or just young in mind, and giving them a place to work and express their creativity as well as providing mentoring (by using and abusing the people housed in the CoWorking building) – more on this later.

Through this meandering post I’m convincing myself that CoWorkingBelfast can be a no-profit. What do you think?

Related posts:

  1. Co-Working
  2. Coworking Microsupport
  3. coworking.ie
  4. Managers and non-Managers