Orange attracted a flurry of excitement when it launched what it called “a landmark volunteering project” earlier this month.
In case you missed it, the mobile operator is seeking ideas for a smartphone app that will allow people to volunteer for charities on the move by carrying out digital work. The winning entries, it says, will go into development.
A good idea? Yes, but it's not revolutionary. Volunteering smartphone apps exist already. One or two are compelling and far-sighted.
My favourite is GiveWork, which supports US social enterprise Samasource. Last week, I used it for 10 minutes every morning to help poor but educated workers in Haiti, Kenya and India to get paid – by assessing tweets about the film Karate Kid.
It works like this: Samasource is an outsourcing company with high-end corporate clients such as Columbia Pictures, Facebook and Google. It hires, trains and equips poor but educated workers in the developing world to complete digital tasks on its clients behalf. They might tag articles, monitor tweets or transcribe audio snippets into text files.
Samasource's volunteers – people like me on a London commute – carry out the same tasks in bite-sized chunks, which helps verify the reliability of Samasource's workers' work.
So all I have to do is use my app to work out whether “Karate Kid kicks the A-Team into touch!” is a positive, negative, neutral or impossible-to-classify tweet. Columbia Pictures gets its social media monitoring double-checked and Samasource's worker gets paid.
You can watch Samasource founder Leila Chirayath Janah explain how her organisation works here.
I like Samasource's simple business model because it pays its workers fairly and takes account of their literacy, education and endeavour. It offers some of the poorest people the chance to work for the richest, most successful companies for a fair wage.
And I like its app because it feels right to use my dead time to help others participate in the digital economy where I earn my living.
Charities entering Orange's competition should take a look at Samasource's app first. If their idea loops together supporters, beneficiaries and big business money in a similar way, they could be on to a winner.
Entering Orange's volunteering app competition? Look to Samasource first
Posted on 18th August 2010, by Helen Barrett, under Charity landscape, Innovation, Technology
Tags: apps, chirayath, givework, janah, leila, orange, samasource, smartphones, volunteering
by Tom on 23rd August 2010
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Took a look at GiveWork on the app store but the rating is woefully low and the reviews are scathing to say the least. Hopefully Orange will improve on Samasource’s app even if it isn’t revolutionary.
by Ben on 24th August 2010
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What Orange* can bring to the table is “reach”, as a large organisation with a large user base, and powerful marketing ability they can do things small organisation can only dream of. I guess it would be nice if they were to build on some of the existing work that organisations like Samasource have done, but let’s be honest they are also doing this work for promotional reasons (that’s not a bad thing at least they are doing something) and as Orange are very fussy about their brand working with other organisation does not give them the level of control they would want over products and their brand.
It will be interesting to see what comes out of this idea, how much influence will Orange have on the entrants and he resultant ideas? But I do welcome this kind of thinking from large organisation – Well done Orange!
*Other networks are available!
by Helen Barrett on 27th August 2010
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I agree the Samasource app itself is clunky – or at least those hooking up from the UK will find it so. But I still think the idea is compelling even if the technology is lagging behind. Hopefully the Orange competition will see microvolunteering taken to the next level.