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Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

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Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#91
post #63

I also run a company [1] that primarily recruits low-income Brazilians from remote locations and teach them how to code and create data-related products. The company itself is for profit in the long run, but the first priority is to make our members grow (financially and psychologically), then generate profit for the founders. During the entire process we focus 40% of their time to study/learn about soft skills (beco…

I really like this approach. I am in the middle of building a process like this in another country. Would you be willing to discuss your process in more detail with me? My email is in my profile. Thank you for doing good in this world.

Absolutely. I will e-mail you.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#92
I am Xavier, Mathematical Artist. And we are currently running a campaign called “Think OMNI” to introduce the entire US (for now) to a form of thinking that I call Omnidisciplinary Thinking. This form of thinking entails intuitively decomposing ideas into their root forms in order to efficiently use knowledge across, within, and between boundaries, disciplines, and industries. In essence, the boundaries that we put around our thoughts and ideas are useful tools yet we forget that such boundaries do not truly exist.

Think OMNI aims to show people how to use Omnidisciplinary Thinking pragmatically today! in order to provide solutions in three areas: personal, interpersonal, social.

Personal: Powerfully reason by analogy to better understand the world and one’s true capabilities

Interpersonal: Engage with Root of discussions to better communicate with others, especially when their views seem in opposition to one’s own. By decomposing to the Root and reconstructing, we can avoid rhetorical blocks and have difficult conversations.

Social: at this point, this is two-pronged. One is to show companies how to decompose talent because Keyword Bingo doesn’t work when entire industries need to shift into others. Furthermore, training efforts need to build on whatever is already there with a person’s skills rather than start from scratch.

At its most pragmatic, an Omnidisciplinary Thinker should be able to leverage every single piece of knowledge and experiences that one possesses to figure out how to meet basic needs in order to build Breathing Room to pursue other things. In general, it will allow for people to seamlessly blend insights across all disciplines. And the ultimate Omnidisciplinary minds will be able to powerfully and accurately draw insights from incredibly disparate subjects for pragmatic outcomes. (Imagine reasoning about medicine in terms of painting.)

Leading into the US election, the intent is that people of all social-political backgrounds, ages, etc. can use this to have the difficult discussions that we were not able to and still are not able to have with one another today. As a response to COVID, this tool must help employers and job seekers be more fluid with what a person’s skills actually are and what a role entails. In the longer term, this is expected to be a powerful thought tool to be leveraged by people around the world.

I may be contacted at [email address redacted].

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#93
post #59

We started Mullvad VPN in 2009 for political reasons. My cofounder Daniel and I viewed it as direct political action through entrepreneurship. In particular we wanted to protest Swedish surveillance legislation (FRA), which is partly why we chose a Swedish name for the service. So far we have refused at least five serious offers of investment and acquisition, because we would rather retain control, even if that meant…

I've been a Mullvad customer for several years now and love it - thank you for the service.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#94
post #89

With the help of some friends, I started Sublime Fund ( https://sublimefund.org/ ). It lets people donate to multiple charities on a monthly basis from one place, while maintaining their privacy. Sublime Fund is itself a 501(c)(3), and we don't keep any cut of the donations for ourselves (though we do deduct the cost of payment processing and distribution). A lot of the motivation for building it came from my own des…

In light of how the previous Mozilla CEO was forced out over private contributions to non-profits, do you see Sublime becoming more relevant given the current trend of deplatforming? Do you implement any policies or information assurance protocols that would e.g. prevent differential analysis or deanonymization your contributors by reporters/media? I think people would be more than happy that you charge a small fee for your services if stronger guarantees of privacy can be assured.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#95
Nanocents. Although not complete, it is an attempt to allow micro payments on the internet. It allows you to pay one cent on the internet fairly efficiently - most of the money ends up with the payee. This is not a single site payment thing, you can pay one cent (or more) at any site accepting nanocents.

While this may not seem especially important, it provides a way for responsible sites and services to avoid using AdSense and other intrusive systems that track user.

Tracking provides a way to target users with tailored information. This is the ultimate problem. If I can target you with one message and someone else with an opposing divisive message then I can disrupt social systems, including but not limited democracy itself.

Sole founder and developer desperately seeking help. If you are interested in helping or trying out micro payments go to https://nanocents.com and watch the demo video or send email to

info at nanocents.com

edited for grammar

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#98
2016 - While working as an engineer at Google, I decided to start a free coding bootcamp on the side. I believed I could teach anyone how to become a software engineer so I made a public post asking if anyone is interested in learning how to code and about 30 people showed up at my house. While I was at work in Mountain View, 30 people strangers used my house as a coding bootcamp.

2017 - 30 students were hard to manage and students started leaving. It bothered me, so I quit my job at Google to focus on this full time. I reached out to the students who left to see what happened and one of the reasons was money. So for the students who are struggling financially, I started giving them 2k / mo stipend.

2018 - Paying 9 students 2k / month used up all of my savings so I had to look for a new job. Also started a non-profit to write off all my payments as donations. This helped alot because to keep paying the students I took out my 401k savings and the donations helped offset the tax penalty.

2019 - Students got jobs. Realized that I want to train students to become good solid engineers that I want to work with instead of gamifying the interview process. Instead of padding resume and LeetCode, our curriculum focuses on building good products with good tests and maintainable code.

2020 - Ran into financial trouble, had to let all the students go and gave them a 3 month notice.

Now I'm primarily lurking on the chatroom of our final product, helping and teaching students who are following my curriculum.

https://c0d3.com

Next year I will get more RSUs and with that money I plan to kickoff a free code house, a safe environment for students to learn (much like 42) with free food and housing.

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#99

I am Xavier, Mathematical Artist. And we are currently running a campaign called “Think OMNI” to introduce the entire US (for now) to a form of thinking that I call Omnidisciplinary Thinking. This form of thinking entails intuitively decomposing ideas into their root forms in order to efficiently use knowledge across, within, and between boundaries, disciplines, and industries. In essence, the boundaries that we put…

Just visited mathis.art. My apologies for the bluntness but the general impression it gives off is a project by an eco-centric person making bold claims about things. You speak a great sense of pragmatism but I don’t see anything pragmatic about the campaign, both in your HN post and on the website. Also I don’t see anything mathematical or remotely art.

Please don’t get me wrong. What you are doing sounds interesting. Here is just my 2c and I hope you it find useful. Looking forwards to seeing your progress. You are in my watch list now =)

Re: Ask HN: Anyone a social entrepreneur, i.e. placing social impact above profit?

#100

I am Xavier, Mathematical Artist. And we are currently running a campaign called “Think OMNI” to introduce the entire US (for now) to a form of thinking that I call Omnidisciplinary Thinking. This form of thinking entails intuitively decomposing ideas into their root forms in order to efficiently use knowledge across, within, and between boundaries, disciplines, and industries. In essence, the boundaries that we put…

Currently looking for 3D visualizers to turn complex shapes into others. Grassroots at the moment, so would need volunteers.
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