apps Archives - NationSwell

Five Apps for the Tech-Savvy Environmentalist

Posted on October 4, 2018 by robbie

So you want to fix the environment? That’s a big job. Absent clear policy change from the powers-that-be, the onus is on all citizens to do their part and pitch in as much as they can. How much time and energy each one of us can devote to the cause varies, of course. Which is why we’ve rounded up five eco-friendly apps that will help put anyone, no matter their individual circumstances, on the path to sustainability.

SKEPTICAL SCIENCE

Here’s an alarming statistic: In a 2018 study, Yale researchers found that more than a quarter of Americans believe that global warming is naturally occurring (and, worse, 14 percent think that it’s not happening at all). If you happen to strike up a conversation with such a denier, the Skeptical Science app is your secret weapon. Run by a team of volunteers who have a wealth of combined expertise in climate science and environmental issues, the organization’s app lists common climate-denier arguments — such as “lack of consensus on who is causing climate change,” and “animals and plants can adapt” — next to true statements and then links those statements to science-based, peer-reviewed research that support them. Not only will you be able to fact-check the discussion in real-time, you’ll be armed with a wealth of knowledge and statistics that will either keep your heated banter going — or provide some big-picture food for thought that just might turn each skeptic you encounter into a climate-change believer.

DROPCOUNTR

Unless you live in a place where water conservation is mandatory — as was the case in California, for example — chances are you don’t give much thought to every drop you use throughout the day. That’s a mistake, even if droughts aren’t an issue where you are: A decrease in our water supply can lead to increased pollution from over-irrigation, and the destruction of pollution-filtering wetlands. What’s more, monitoring the amount of water you consume in your home can cut your monthly water usage by up to 9 percent, which can translate to serious utility savings and rebates. That’s where Dropcountr comes in: The free app partners with utility companies to track and analyze your home’s monthly water output, alerting you of leaks and usage by the gallon. The easy-to-understand graphs and charts also compare your household with others in the area, alongside data of what’s considered “efficient use” — hey, if a little guilt-tripping gets you to turn off the water when you brush your teeth, we’re game! While it’s only available in a handful of states — search by zip code to see if the app is available where you live — you can email your utility company to request it.

Environment Apps 1 — Seafood Watch helps diners find fish that were caught in environmentally sustainable ways.

SEAFOOD WATCH

If you’re eager to add more fish to your diet but are concerned about the environmental impact of doing so, Seafood Watch is here to help. Developed by scientists at California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium, the app is a pocket guide to finding fish caught or raised in an environmentally sound way that protects the long-term health of the species — info that’s not always easy to come by when buying seafood (or dining at your favorite sushi restaurant). Search for sustainable fisheries near you by inputting your zip code, or look up specific types of fish by name. The latter produces a shockingly comprehensive list of fish by type, ocean location and catching method, along with colored fish icons that indicate your best option. Overwhelmed by the amount of choices? Research your favorites before going out, and you’ll have no need to worry about putting your waiter or fishmonger on the spot.

GOOD GUIDE

If you’re confused about whether there’s anything toxic in the products you use on your body or in your home, you aren’t alone. A quick trip to the FDA’s website underscores the problem: “Under U.S. law, FDA does not have the authority to require cosmetic manufacturers to submit their safety data to FDA,” it reads. “The burden is on FDA to prove that a particular product or ingredient is harmful when used as intended.” That leaves a loophole the size of the Kardashian empire for cosmetic and household-product manufacturers to walk through — and walk through it they do.
Needless to say, much of this has a direct impact on the physical environment. Common cleaning products like this one contain chemicals that persist in the environment and are toxic to many forms of life; microbeads from a vast array of products end up in our oceans, absorbing toxins as they enter our food chain.
Enter Good Guide and its product-rating system. The Good Guide team assesses personal care, cosmetic and household products — more than 75,000 to date and counting — and gives each product a score from zero to 10. Scores hinge on what a product contains and the degree of transparency from the company regarding those ingredients (for example, “fragrance” is about as specific as “natural” when it comes to describing what exactly is in that bar of soap you just bought).
The app is easy to use, and you may be surprised by what you discover. Procter & Gamble’s Magic Eraser, for instance, scores a 10 (the least toxic rating) while Little Twig Organic Baby Powder gets a big fat zero (meaning, run for the hills!). Speaking of babies, there’s a special “Baby & Kids” section, so that you can keep your kiddos clean — and safe.

OROECO

There’s been much hand-wringing over our carbon footprint here in the U.S., and there’s good reason for it. We are the biggest carbon polluter in history, ahead of the EU and even China, and our per capita fossil-fuel consumption still dwarfs every other country by comparison.
If you’re looking for a way to reduce, or just track, the size of your climate footprint, Oroeco is a bit like the MyFitnessPal of the eco-app space. Oroeco allows you to see how so many disparate aspects of your life contribute to the warming of our planet — even things you might not necessarily think much about, like the clothing you choose and the entertainment you consume. The app then turns that data into a game of sorts. Users can track performance, set goals and compete with friends to see who can hit the lowest carbon “score.”
In order to benefit from its full range of services, Oreoco requires a bit of a lift upfront — you need to input a variety of info, including your salary range; the average number of miles you fly per year; how much you eat; and the amount you spend on goods and services. But the results should present you with a pretty good idea of how you measure up to your peers and where you can shave off a few points to win the game. In the process, you’ll become a more responsible global citizen — and that’s a win for everyone.

The GovTech Apps Changing the Way We Live

Posted on August 8, 2018 by robbie

You don’t have to cast too wide a net to find people willing to criticize government officials as out of reach, out of touch or simply not doing enough to help propel communities forward. While those criticisms are subjective, of course, technology now offers an objective way for local leaders to better understand what’s working for their constituents and what isn’t.
Whether you’re a city official who wants to enhance your understanding of a specific community around you, or you’re a citizen looking to vent about impossibly long lines at the DMV to those in a position to do something about it, we’ve rounded up four apps that local governments are using to gauge how to best fix their cities.

THE APP THAT POLICES THE POLICE

It’s common practice for police departments to keep tabs on what’s happening in a neighborhood, such as the number of assaults, robberies and thefts. But there hasn’t been much traction in measuring more abstract problems, like how a community feels about their local officers.
Until now, beat cops have been the eyes and ears of a community, and major cities like Philadelphia and New York dispatch police to patrol on foot and talk with local residents in a protocol known as community policing. But how does one measure its efficacy?
Enter Elucd, a Brooklyn-based startup that compiles data on how residents view local law enforcement. The company reaches hundreds of thousands of people each month via location-targeted smartphone popup ads — including on perennially popular apps like CandyCrush and Instagram — that link to short surveys. So far, Elucd has announced partnerships with four police departments, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Grand Rapids, Michigan.
In New York City — home of the country’s largest police department and Elucd’s first client — precincts have implemented the company’s data-driven “sentiment meter,” which compiles users’ responses into a “trust score” and provides rankings on how safe they feel in their neighborhoods. Commanding officers then use that feedback to determine how to improve community engagement with neighborhoods where scores have gone down or remain low.

THE APP THAT ISSUES REPORT CARDS FOR CITY SERVICES

Had a really annoying time at the DMV? Disappointed by the state of your local park? Tell the government about it! In Washington, D.C., a city initiative has been letting residents do just that since 2012.
The website Grade.DC.gov is powered by software meant to analyze customer sentiment toward the hospitality industry, but local leaders in the nation’s capital have been tapping it to generate feedback on government services instead. On the site, users can grade their interactions and experiences with more than a dozen public agencies, including the departments of education, transportation and health, and submit comments; think of it as the Yelp of social services. The platform also culls publicly posted comments from sites like Twitter and Facebook and uses those to inform the letter grades.
The results have been mostly positive, and any bad grades that are initially recorded tend to improve almost immediately. For example, the District Department of Transportation received an initial F grade in November 2017; one month later, the agency was boasting an A-minus, putting it near the top of its class.
But whereas former Mayor Vincent C. Gray, who piloted the customer-service initiative, had viewed those grade bumps as incredible achievements, they also brought into question how measurements were actually done. For example, the Department of Transportation still has a B-plus rating as of June 2018, despite public sentiment showing quite the opposite.
Still, the platform continues to be a powerful way for people to voice their opinions on how their government serves them. Last month alone, Grade.DC.gov saw more than 4,000 people submit reviews.

THE APP THAT ENCOURAGES CITIES TALK TO EACH OTHER

As the old adage goes: People can find more strength in their similarities than in their differences.
Last year, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago began pairing urban areas with their sister cities through its Peer City Identification Tool, which was designed to help troubleshoot local issues based on what’s working in other cities of similar demographics.
By gathering data on close to 1,000 cities and townships across the nation, local government leaders in places from Anchorage, Alaska, to Montclair, New Jersey, can peruse data on a range of issues. By examining their city’s labor market conditions or economic outlook against those of comparable cities, officials are better able to discern solutions that have demonstrated impact elsewhere.
For example, let’s say your smallish town has an affordability gap. You could see where there’s another town of roughly the same size with similar industries and population demographics, but with plenty of inexpensive housing options, to try and figure out if what worked to close the gap in that city can be replicated in yours.
In Rockford, Illinois, city officials used the data from the tool to map out its Transform Rockford initiative, which aims to build a more inclusive and equitable city by 2025.
“For a community our size, having access to the data the Chicago Fed has — there would have been no way we could have done that by ourselves,” Jake Wilson, Transform Rockford’s program manager, told NextCity.

THE APP THAT LETS YOU REVIEW RESTAURANTS — AND PRISONS

Many people turn to the giant of online user reviews, Yelp, to pontificate on everything from the bathroom condition of a local dive bar to the best brunch for your money on Sundays.
And now, prisons and jails are increasingly getting the Yelp treatment.
“I reviewed jail on Yelp because I couldn’t afford a therapist,” one user reported. Others have left comments on how to score the best meals from a prison’s kitchen staff; the dress-code requirements for prison visitors; and the interior design of the facility (“The windows were too small and the view sucked,” according to one disappointed former inmate).
It’s unclear if prison administrators actually act on the reviews, but according to a report by The Marshall Project, just letting people know what to expect before their time in the slammer is helpful in its own right.
Athena Kolbe, a social worker in Detroit, told the publication that she wanted people to “be prepared for [prison] mentally when you go into it, [and] when you come out of it, know that all that disrespect you experienced, everybody else is also experiencing that. It’s not just you.”

6 Social Impact Apps Designed With You in Mind

Posted on May 8, 2018 by robbie

There’s an app for just about anything these days. And whereas sometimes it feels like many of them lack any real reason for being — like these, um, “wonders” of technology — there are several that serve a very legitimate purpose, which is to drive social change.
And just as technology has become personalized and accessorized, the ways in which you can donate your time or money is equally as diverse and seemingly tailored just to you. Here are a few choice apps to put on your radar, whatever the type of mission-driven person you are.

FOR THE SEE-AND-BE-SEEN CROWD

GLOBAL CITIZEN: Probably best known for the insanely packed festival it puts on in New York’s Central Park each year, Global Citizen rewards users for taking action on such issues as global hunger, poverty and climate change with free concert tickets.
Past performers at Central Park’s Great Lawn have included big names like Beyoncé, The Killers and Stevie Wonder. Coldplay’s Chris Martin, the festival’s curator, reportedly has his sights set on Johannesburg for another musical celebration later this year to honor Nelson Mandela, who would’ve turned 100 years old in 2018.
By simply tweeting a message of action or signing a petition, users earn points and are then entered into a lottery to win tickets to Global Citizen’s network of worldwide festivals and concerts.
WE DAY: The WE movement began life as a Canadian nonprofit and eventually grew to international status. Through after-school programs designed by WE, students are encouraged to take measurable actions on issues ranging from cyberbullying within their community to improving access to clean water in developing countries.
After a year, students who participate in the program are invited to attend a We Day festival, where they might catch appearances by bold-faced names like Kelly Clarkson, Selena Gomez and Andre De Grasse.
But for students who don’t have a WE Schools program, the WE Day app allows them to earn festival admission through volunteer work. So far, the organization has galvanized over 1 million youth to volunteer more than 27.6 million hours.

Social Impact Apps 2 — Apps like Charity Miles let users track their workout progress and donate per mile to charities of their choice.

FOR THE GYM RATS

CHARITY MILES: Sponsored by Johnson & Johnson and Humana, Charity Miles tracks how many miles you walk, bike or run, and then donate to charities of your choice.
Bikers receive 10 cents per mile to donate, while joggers and runners get 25 cents per mile. There are dozens of charities to choose from, including The Wounded Warrior Project, Stand Up to Cancer and the Alzheimer’s Association.
While the amount you can raise for any one training session is small — completing an Ironman triathlon would only donate a bit over $15, for example — the more you exercise, the bigger your impact.
MAXIMUSLIFE: Thrive on a little friendly competition? MaximusLife allows you to enter fitness challenges and compete against friends, all in the name of raising dough for the causes you most care about.
The platform pairs with your wearable devices to track your exercises, along with your sleeping habits, and rewards you points that corporate partners will accumulate and donate on your behalf. Participants can take on daily challenges to increase their points as well as join a team to up their rewards.

FOR THE INSTA-OBSESSED

EATWITH: Sampling food from different cultures is a sure-fire way to expand your knowledge of the world and better your relationships with people who are different from you. (It also makes for envy-inducing vacation posts.) In fact, culinary diplomacy has even warranted its own field of study at the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy.
The Eatwith app allows you to search dinner parties, food tours and cooking classes by location and matches you with local hosts who will serve up one-of-a-kind meals (and experiences) right in their home. The result is an authentic cultural adventure that just can’t be replicated in a restaurant.

FOR THE CONSCIENTIOUS CONSUMERS

FORWARD: Spring has officially sprung, which means that for many people, clearing out closets, garages and dresser drawers tops their to-do list. But instead of relegating household items and clothes to the curb, adding to the growing 12.8 million tons of textiles dumped into landfills each year, Forward lets you offload goods and do good in the process.
How it works: Simply upload a pic of the thing you no longer want and choose a charity. If someone decides to take it, they’ll “buy” it via donating to the charity of your choice. And if that’s not a win-win, we’ll just go back to sticking our smartphones in our mouths.

Want to Donate? All You Need to Do Is Tap Your Finger

Posted on January 16, 2015 by robbie

People are constantly on their phones, but now, downloading an app might actually be justified.
With Cause Tap, every time you put a new app (free or paid) on your device, a donation goes towards a worthy organization. And while this may sound too good to be true, it’s not.
To participate, simply install the Cause Tap app, which is free to download from the Google Play store and choose a cause. Then anytime you download a new app, its manufacturer makes a donation on your behalf (at no cost to you), reports Cause Artist. You can then spread impact by connecting with friends and inviting them to support your cause.
The founders of Cause Tap refer to themselves as “marketing and technology industry veterans with a conscience” on their website. As a result, the group makes all of their processes transparent, so users can track exactly where money is being sent and how it is being used.
“We wanted to create an app that would be accessible to people who don’t necessarily have the time or financial means to support causes,” co-founder Andrea Nylund tells Cause Artist. “CauseTap empowers individuals while providing nonprofits with a new way to grow their support base and apps a new channel for engaging users.”
MORE: Download This App, Fight Global Warming. (And Transform Your Business, Too.)

Where Helping the Poor Comes Before Innovating for the Privileged

Posted on September 11, 2014 by robbie

Silicon Valley and the ilk are often hatching ideas for the educated, middle-class, urban professional. Anything from renting an apartment in an international city to booking a car service has attracted national attention (and capital, for that matter).
But a New York City-based incubator is taking a different perspective on innovation and focusing on the rising number of low-income Americans who own a smartphone or tablet and that are looking for ideas to help the challenges of daily life. Significance Labs, a tech hub aimed at helping the 25 million Americans who earn less than $25,000, consults low-income device users to find out what type of technology they’re looking for to improve their lives.
For example, the lab found through their research that many low-income individuals prefer using an Android device, and often don’t retain a monthly data plan — opting instead to access public Wi-Fi at local cafes and restaurants like McDonald’s, according to Fast Company.
Funded by Blue Ridge Foundation, Significance Labs selected six fellows to spend three months and $50,000 and equipped with a team of designers and programmers to develop a prototype app. The catch was that unlike elsewhere in the tech sector, each team member earned the same $25 an hour as everyone.
The outcome? The bilingual app NeatStreak, which was created by 24-year-old Jessica Thomas and Ciara Byrne (a Significance Lab fellow) to help domestic workers communicate with clients. Thomas, who has been working as a self-employed housekeeper among other jobs as well as earning a degree in accounting from LaGuardia Community College, helped create a means for other domestic workers to clearly define and price out tasks.

“It’s so awkward to communicate with clients,” Thomas said. “It was nerve-wracking when you had to talk to clients about money. I was letting things go because I didn’t know how to communicate effectively in a normal, not nervous way.”

Using a simple web form and checklist, domestic workers can avoid decoding handwritten notes and avoid any language barriers with instructions.

“It makes it simple for us,” Thomas says. “I can say this is how much I’m charging you for this week, but it might be extra for this next week.”

Among the other ideas directed toward a population often left out when it comes to technology is an app to help fill out food stamp applications and one to assist students map out a path to graduation.

“The most important thing that we can do is use this project to demonstrate to entrepreneurs and tech firms and the folks that are building all the great technical innovations that are currently aimed at middle- and high-income Americans that this is a viable model,” says Significance Labs co-founder Hannah Wright.

Just as good of news? The lab is planning to add more programs and possibly expand next year.

MORE: A Tennessee Food Bank’s Quest to End Rural Hunger

These Student Hacks Make Choosing Classes Less Nightmarish

Posted on September 5, 2014 by robbie

Crafting a college class schedule is no easy task. It’s a delicate balance of finding the right classes at the right time with the best professors. Inevitably, poor souls (mostly freshmen) will have no choice but to take 8 a.m. classes Monday to Friday with instructors they never wanted because all the best classes are already full.
However, two ingenious college students from different institutions have figured out how to beat the minefield of class-shopping time, the New York Times reports.
MORE: How Chicago’s Community Colleges Are Training the Next Generation of Business Leaders
Vaibhav Verma, a Rutgers University student in New Jersey, was frustrated about not getting the classes he wanted. So he built an online app, called the Rutgers Schedule Sniper, that surveys the university’s registration system and notifies users whenever someone drops out of a class. After developing it, 8,000 students used it the following semester, according to the Times.
And Zach Hall of Furman University in Greenville, S.C., created Classget.com that allows students to search course offerings based on teacher, time, date and general education requirement. Users are also alerted when the class they want has an opening.
While students crave these types of digital tools, universities can be less than enthusiastic about them, in part due to laws protecting students’ privacy. Which is exactly what Brown University student Jonah Kagan discovered when he created an app that enabled users to submit their three favorite classes, which, in turn, helped course shoppers find interesting electives. Because he couldn’t access student data and enrollment figures, the project never took off.
“Students are always more entrepreneurial and understand needs better than bureaucracies can,” Harry R. Lewis, the director of undergraduate studies for Harvard’s computer science department, tells the Times, “since bureaucracies tend to have messages they want to spin, and priorities they have to set, and students just want stuff that is useful. I know this well, since students were talking to me about moving the Harvard face books online seven years before [Mark] Zuckerberg just went and did it without asking permission.”
To help mediate the disconnect between students and university administration, student developers from across the country held a Campus Data Summit last summer. From the gathering, they published a Campus Data Guidebook that includes advice on making friends with faculty and asking for forgiveness, not permission.
Some lucky app developers, like Alex Sydell and William Li from University of California, Berkeley, attend schools that see the value in their creations. Sydell and Li created Ninja Courses, a course comparison website, and were paid by Berkeley for their innovation.
With STEM being such a hot button topic in education these days, we can only imagine that it’s only a matter of time before all universities welcome this type of student innovation with open arms.
DON’T MISS: Meet the Undocumented Immigrants Who Created an App to Press for Immigration Reform

Landing at This Airport: Millions of Bees

Posted on June 24, 2014 by robbie

The decrease in bee population is something that many people are fighting to fix, and rightfully so: they are vital to the survival of the very plants that provide our food. From the EPA’s recent grant to an app that catalogs bees around the world, there are countless solutions buzzing about.
At Seattle’s Sea-Tac Airport, they’re trying a new approach (pun intended): Pairing the bee’s infrastructure — colonies — with our own.
Each day, Sea-Tac facilitates up to 855 take-offs and landings and now, the jets will be in the company of European honeybees, thanks to beekeeper Bob Redmond.
Redmond is the founder and executive director of Common Acre, a local nonprofit that “produces public programs at the intersection of earth and art,” according to its website.
The project, dubbed Flight Path, fits squarely into that mission and plays an important role in helping the bee population, as it aims to transform the open space at the south end of Sea-Tac into an ideal ecosystem for them, as well as educate travelers about the importance of bees. Twenty-five hives were constructed at Sea-Tac, housing up to 1.25 million bees — which is 50,000 bees per hive! With all that bustling activity, the airport is the perfect place to house the bees.
Doing so, however, means creating a habitat that will not only be suitable for pollination, but also breeding bees that are more adaptable. The second part of this plan is what makes Flight Path so unique — instead of just giving bees a home by setting up an apiary, Redmond is giving the whole population a boost and a better chance for survival. By actually breeding the bees to best survive life in the Pacific Northwest, he is effecting permanent change for the species.
Redmond sees a lot of similarities between the buzzing little yellow insects and airplanes, which he pointed out to Grist:
“All of these things humans have figured out — but fairly late in the game, evolutionarily speaking — the bees have been solving for eons,” Redmond said in reference to the bee’s “wiggle dance” navigation system, as well as its complex transportation and storage structure, all of which are unbelievably advanced for something so small.
Redmond’s dedication to these fascinating creatures began with a few hives in his yard, and has since expanded not only to Common Acre but also his business, the Urban Bee Company, which produces local and sustainable honey bee goods and services.
“The thing that we can learn from the bees is the collective spirit of cooperation — and consumption,” Redmond said to Grist. “That’s something that is not as easy to swallow, but vital to understand for our own future.”
A future that we can only hope has more arrivals than departures when it comes to the all-important bees.

These Middle School Girls Saw a Classmate in Need, So They Designed an App for Their Blind Friend

Posted on June 11, 2014 by robbie

“Not only do these young ladies have big brains, but they’ve also got big hearts.”
When the Commander in Chief himself sings your praises, that’s when you know you’ve done something great.
So who were the recipients of President Obama’s compliment?
That would be a group of girls from Resaca Middle School (RMS) in Los Fresnos, Texas that have designed an app called Hello Navi to help guide the blind and visually impaired in their surroundings.
Once in operation, Hello Navi will involve the use of a compass, scanner, VoiceOver, optical braille readers and Google navigation to help visually-imparied students traverse the world.
The app was one of eight winners in Verizon’s Innovative App Challenge, earning RMS a $20,000 grant. The bonus prize? Meeting the President during the White House Science Fair on May 27th. Not too shabby for a group of sixth and seventh graders.
MORE: These High Schoolers Solved a Foodie Problem With a 3-D Printer
According to a press release, the winning teams (four middle schools, four high schools) were selected from a pool of approximately 1,300 teams across the country that entered the contest.
The young inventors — Jacquelyne Garcia Torres, Caitlin Gonzales, Janessa Leija, Cassandra Baquero, Grecia Cano and Kayleen Gonzalez — were inspired by a friend, Andres Salas, a sixth-grader who is visually impaired.
The girls, with help from Verizon employees and MIT App Inventor Training Corps, will learn to code and focus on developing their app concept into an actual app, the press release states.
Good News Network reports that it will soon be available for all visually impaired students to download — for free.
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How Your Food Porn Can Provide a Brown Bag Lunch for a Hungry Child

Posted on June 3, 2014 by robbie

The reasons that some people abstain from social media? It’s a time suck; it jeopardizes your privacy; it’s filled with superficial flotsam (such as people posting pictures of what they’re eating for dinner).
But the new mobile app Feedie, which was developed by the nonprofit The Lunchbox Fund, is turning an activity that might be considered frivolous into a new way to spread generosity. How so?
Every time a user takes a photo of a meal at a participating restaurant and shares it with his or her social network through the app, Feedie donates 25 cents to The Lunchbox Fund, which provides a daily meal for orphaned and disadvantaged school children in South Africa.
The Lunchbox Fund founder Topaz Page-Green explained the level of poverty in South Africa to Patrica Dao of Take Part: “There were children sitting away from the other kids at break under some trees,” she said, “and when I asked why children sat separately from the others during break, the teacher mentioned they had nothing to eat and didn’t want to see the kids who had food eating.”
Restaurants across the United States have signed on to participate — from Los Angeles to San Antonio and Miami Beach to Atlantic City. The app lets users know how many meals have been shared at each location; so far more than 12 million meals have been shared using it.
With the market for food-sharing being as huge as it is — Dao notes that “on Instagram alone, more than 20 million photos are hashtagged #foodporn” — converting virtual sharing into giving is bound to make a huge difference in the lives of those with empty stomachs.
MORE: How 40 Pounds of Leftover Broccoli Sparked a Farm-Friendly Innovation

Download This App, Fight Global Warming. (And Transform Your Business, Too.)

Posted on December 25, 2013 by robbie

These are a little different from the usual round-up of green apps, but they just might be what you need to move your business or social enterprise to the next level. On this list, you’ll find 20 sustainability apps that do everything from encourage transparency about building materials in real estate to predict the effect of chemicals in home products that get dumped down the drain. The apps also use innovative tools like gamification and cloud computing to help entrepreneurs go green. What they all have in common is helping people connect, share and collaborate to solve our society’s biggest challenges.
Source: Greenbiz