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Stories filed under: "tedtalk"

DailyDirt: Changing The Way We Think About Charity

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

When we donate to charities, it’s never clear exactly where the money goes and whether our donations actually benefit the people they’re supposed to help. Many donors are often shocked and outraged when they learn that some executives at nonprofit charities are being paid salaries exceeding $1 million. But activist and fundraiser Dan Pallotta thinks this anger is misplaced and could damage charity fundraising, pointing out that people blame capitalism for creating inequities in our society, but then they refuse to let nonprofits use the tools of capitalism to fix the problem. Here are a few more things to think about when it comes to charities.

• In a recent TED talk, Pallotta suggested that charities should be rewarded for what they actually accomplish even if it costs a lot. People may not like the idea that their money is being used to pay for a charity’s CEO salary or for advertising and marketing, but they should think about it this way — investing in a capable leader and effective marketing efforts will significantly increase the amount of money raised that can then be used to help those in need. [url]
• It’s really hard to turn money into help. That’s what Tim Myers, founder of the Haiti School Project, realized after having spent more than $100,000 to build a school in Villard, Haiti. [url]
• Somaliland’s success could be partly due to its lack of foreign assistance. Somaliland has been operating successfully as an independent country since it seceded from Somalia in 1991. Since Somaliland isn’t recognized as a country by the rest of the world, it hasn’t been able to receive foreign aid. As a result, it has been surviving by raising local tax revenues, which its citizens have been using as leverage to make the government more accountable.[url]
• Experts at The Center for Global Development suggest that there may be an “aid-institutions paradox” in developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. They concluded that foreign aid could undermine a developing country’s long-term institutional development and that donors should consider giving money to other more beneficial development activities, such as eradicating endemic diseases, peacekeeping, regional or global public goods, and debt relief.[url]

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: capitalism, charity, dan pallotta, debt relief, donations, economics, foreign aid, fundraising, marketing, nonprofits, tedtalk

DailyDirt: Getting An Online Education…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The existing system of going to a school, listening to lectures and getting a degree after you’ve passed some tests might not be the way education will operate in the near future. Massive open online courses (MOOCs) promise to teach a wide array of subjects, and there are plenty of students willing to try out these online classes instead of sleeping through another boring lecture at 8am. Obviously, not all the kinks have been worked out yet, and there will undoubtedly be online degrees that aren’t worth the paper they may (or may not) be printed on. Still, there are some interesting developments in the field of education, and here are just a few.

• Sebastian Thrun is optimistic about creating an online class that will confer a master’s degree in computer science. All the class material will be online for free, but the actual degree will cost a few thousand bucks still (via Georgia Tech). [url]
• The traditional education system might be in for some disruption as more online education startups attract students and pull tuition dollars away from bricks and mortar institutions. If professors don’t like their student reviews now, it’s going to get a bit worse when online classes are rated instantly by students…. [url]
• Professor Sugata Mitra has demonstrated that kids don’t necessarily need a teacher — if you just set up an internet-connected computer in the middle of a village in India, you’ll be surprised by what the kids learn all by themselves. And now, Mitra has $1 million from a TED prize to further his research into self-organized learning. [url]
• Don’t have time to attend a class? You might not need to with the University of Wisconsin’s upcoming program to grant bachelor degrees based on existing experience. You still have to take some tests and demonstrate your skills, but the school of hard knocks might be good enough in some cases? [url]

If you’d like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: college, degree, education, moocs, online classes, sebastian thrun, students, sugata mitra, tedtalk, tuition
Companies: udacity