Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

I'm doing a project that I think will help globally albeit it's a hobby project (as long I finish it, haha). The thing about my project is that it's not about altruistic desire to help people, it's about building towards something grander for me, a home in space.

The YC and other entrepreneurs ALWAYS help people. If they didn't, their business folds. Because simply: it's not useful to people. eg They created an app to put moustaches on every picture; you may think it's not helping people but it'll give a smile to families who see the wedding pictures with moustaches everywhere. So, help to people is quite subjective.

On the other hand, it sounds like you're doing a 'numbers of helping many people for as little work possible'. This is incredibly hard. For example, if you give water to communities but you also have to deal with culture that creates inefficiency issues. eg Corruption, malice, war and population issues. Yes, you could be exacerbating the problem by making their lives easier but in long term worst as so many people are reliant on you giving water. Don't always assume that helping many people at once will be the best solution.

I hope you seek something that's very helpful and is long term solution for them. Even if it's only helping one person. If that person lives to wealthy world life expectancy, that's better than many suffering at once because that person can pass on knowledge, etc.

If you want to get some ideas, listening to problems is usually helpful, then brainstorm with it. eg over a million children are trafficked; maybe create cheap GPS transmitters for children so parents in home countries can track their children's 'work opportunities' and report discrepancies. Bonus: There's an awful lot of lazy people or people with not enough time that talk about ideas but never execute them. Since you want to execute something, you have a lot of research and brainstorm material done for you!

Some directions to go from:

http://www.good.is/

http://itstartswith.us/

http://www.charitynavigator.org/

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-08-13/12m-children-trafficke...

Last tip: Try to release your project! It's time wasted if you let it be in obscurity. If you don't want to do it any more, release it anyway. eg free code repositories, free blog post with project notes and research, etc. People like me who want to do something similar to you will be able to make use of it.




Join us for AI Startup School this June 16-17 in San Francisco!

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: