Ask HN: Which companies are doing anything good for the world?

11 points by manlio 11 years ago | 7 comments

Disclaimer: I know that 1) this will sound horribly naive of me and 2) I probably haven't had enough rejection emails to set me straight yet and 3) most of the people on this planet would kill to have a random, whatsoever job so nothing gives me the right to be picky; I'm down to earth enough to acknowledge all these are valid points, but I still don't care :) So now that we have these out of the way, here's my question:

What are some lesser known companies that are doing anything good for the world, and could benefit from my programming skills? [0]

I'm confident platonic-like meta-discussions [1] about what does it mean to do good can be avoided by applying some cheap common sense, so the question is left broad on purpose to fit multiple viewpoints.

Also, it's not like saving children is the only way to fit the profile; I'm sure there are tons of great companies involved with scientific research, activism, helping minorities, saving the whales, fighting global warming, treating loneliness, creating communities for older people, helping butterflies to mate and so on that I never heard of; and I'd love to get up in the morning knowing that my work will do a little more than increasing the GDP and selling ads.

Just to make it clear: I'm not looking down at people who sells ads for a living, but I'm in a very lucky position (white young male from a first-world country, with no debt and nobody depending on me) and I want to leverage this. I guess a lot of like-minded people out there would do the same if they knew where to look. Apologies for the --verbose.

TL;DR: see title

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXuFrtmOYKg [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_of_the_Good

dorfsmay 11 years ago |

The two that jump to my mind right now:

SENS: I know this sounds egocentric, but de Grey believes that even if not dying is not achieved, every dollar spent on these research will make people less sick, and that this is not "just for the rich" countries with government provided healthcare will (alredy are?) be pushing and paying for this because people not being sick will make the healthcare system save a lot of money:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SENS_Research_Foundation

Promotheus Research: They are fairly small, and write tools to help researchers digging into data:

http://www.prometheusresearch.com/

shoo 11 years ago |

You might have more luck looking for work with charities or not-for-profits, rather than organisations motivated by profit.

1. Reduce environmental damage:

This is a tricky objective, if the goal is to reduce the overall negative human impact on the environment, from the context of a company seeking to make profit in an economy where environmental consequences are largely not correctly priced.

* companies that directly or indirectly reduce the increase in global population, in an ethical way. E.g. greater access to contraception, family planning, women's rights. I do not have specific examples.

* companies that reduce the per-capita environmental footprint. E.g. http://taggle.com.au/ sells low cost remote water monitoring sensors, that can be used to detect leaks and reduce overall water consumption.

* where appropriate environmental regulation exists to pay for improvements to the ecosystem, it may be possible for companies to make a profit by e.g. carbon forestry, to compensate for greenhouse gas pollution by others parts of the economy.

2. Help the public access unbiased factual information:

* e.g. https://theconversation.com/ -- not-for-profit online news & opinion from academics & researchers, in AU, UK, US ; currently expanding into Africa.

3. Influence regulation/policy/laws:

* I believe there are plenty of think-tanks doing this, but probably the bulk of them are lobbying for change in directions that largely do not align with long-term public good.

manlio 11 years ago |

Contributing with what I bookmarked so far:

* Watsi - https://watsi.org/ - A nonprofit healthcare crowdsourcing platform

* Akvo - http://akvo.org - Akvo builds open source internet and mobile software which is designed to support international development partnership networks, and make cooperation and aid activity more effective and transparent

* DuckDuck Go - https://duck.co/ - Delivering a world-class search engine with great results and great privacy and with open-source instant answers at its core

* Electronic Froniter Foundation https://www.eff.org/

* Greenpeace - http://www.greenpeace.org/

* A bit meta, but good for inspiration: http://www.nonprofittechforgood.com/

jtfairbank 11 years ago |

We're working on automating scheduling for healthcare systems. Medical administration costs are huge in the US, and only growing. Smart tech is one way to keep them in check. We've also found that it has a profound impact on people's work life- no one likes spending 120 hours in excel to make a schedule.

https://reschedulemed.com

morpheous 11 years ago |

Glad to hear there are people like you around - not jaded by humanity (yet?). May I be so bold as to ask what age you are?

manlio 11 years ago | |

Thank you, but I want to point out I'm driven by selfish reasons just like anybody else: spending your life on something you hate/don't believe in is the recipe for alienation.

Also, I suspect a lot of companies are exploiting the fact that bright people in our field will be happy to work on stuff they don't believe in as long as you throw interesting problems at them. It's a tradeoff I can understand, but it still is a tradeoff. To answer your question, I'm 25.

dyoo1979 11 years ago |

US Digital Service?