I found a story released about 3 days ago that talks about how parents received the money to fund IVF treatments through crowdsourcing! Crowdsourcing is a term used
for when a task is outsourced to a group of people, or crowd, in order to solve
a problem. This is different from outsourcing because the group of people is
not defined or specific. The process of crowdsourcing is now being used
primarily online, but can be done offline as well. A computer is used with the
crowd, thus solving the problem at hand together, reviews the information the
group of people applies to the problem. In the case of Jessica and Sean Haley, their problem was that they needed to raise funding for IVF treatments. The couple did not want to make their story public to their friends, but when they saw no way out they turned to the Internet. They first pitched their idea to Kickstarter, a crowdfunding website, but were rejected because Kickstarter does not handle medical funding. They were able to share their story instead on IndieGoGo. They asked for $5000, and ultimately were able to raie $8050.
You can read the entire story here:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/6802078/Woman-gives-birth-to-crowdsourced-baby
The story is quite moving and explains a new way crowdsourcing is being used these days. No longer is crowdsourcing used solely for solving a problem. Now a days crowdsourcing has helped locate missing children, and fund projects. The money raised for Kony2012 is also a form of crowdsourcing. I personally have helped fund a movie through Kickstarter. It is quite the experience. Usually there is a time limit for when the amount of money needs to be raised by. The worst part is if you get refunded it is because the project failed to raise enough money. With crowfunding, you really become part of the action. You can see how much is left and spread the word about it through Twitter and Facebook. I think this is the most innovative source of funding yet. How else do you expect to reach the masses in a short amount of time. The Internet is fastest way to spread your concerns all over the world, and many projects do receive funding from people in countries they had never even imagined their project would reach.
The whole theory of crowdfunding amazes me, and worries me at the same time. I am not sure how much these crowdfunding hosts screen, but what happens if a story gets funded that has no truth to it? How will people know what to believe. I have not found anything as of yet that would actually support what worries me; but if there is a crack in the system many people can learn to exploit it.
You can read the entire story here:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/6802078/Woman-gives-birth-to-crowdsourced-baby
The story is quite moving and explains a new way crowdsourcing is being used these days. No longer is crowdsourcing used solely for solving a problem. Now a days crowdsourcing has helped locate missing children, and fund projects. The money raised for Kony2012 is also a form of crowdsourcing. I personally have helped fund a movie through Kickstarter. It is quite the experience. Usually there is a time limit for when the amount of money needs to be raised by. The worst part is if you get refunded it is because the project failed to raise enough money. With crowfunding, you really become part of the action. You can see how much is left and spread the word about it through Twitter and Facebook. I think this is the most innovative source of funding yet. How else do you expect to reach the masses in a short amount of time. The Internet is fastest way to spread your concerns all over the world, and many projects do receive funding from people in countries they had never even imagined their project would reach.
The whole theory of crowdfunding amazes me, and worries me at the same time. I am not sure how much these crowdfunding hosts screen, but what happens if a story gets funded that has no truth to it? How will people know what to believe. I have not found anything as of yet that would actually support what worries me; but if there is a crack in the system many people can learn to exploit it.
1 comment:
Moms needing help, people needing couches to sleep on when traveling. There are so many ways for people to join forces. Kickstarter is one successful venture, but other crowdsourcing models exist. It's been around a while (and blogged about by Sam Meis). It seems that people really care about helping others, or is it just easy to do so?
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