WorldChanging.com Revisited

Nearly a year ago, Trend Hunter first profiled WorldChanging.com and added the site to our list of top sites… Now it’s time to revisit the site for a more in depth profile:

The color green, technically, is a shade that sits on the cusp of “warm” and “cool” colors. The Green Revolution and the concern for the state of world environment affairs also means two things: for some, a cause of fear. For others, a possibility.

WorldChanging.com is one of those positive sites that dedicate themselves to focusing on a positive possible future, rather than being negative or critical.

My Opinion:

WorldChanging is refreshingly contemporary - both in design and content. Here is a site where future is presented just the way it should be: in terms of a world that we create with conscious, careful choice - not a scary accident waiting to happen. It doesn’t leave the reader in a morbid mood - though arguably sometimes the alert is needed - such as when An Inconvenient Truth drove home the point about global warming dramatically.

WorldChanging addresses shelter, cities, communities, business, politics - areas of life that require a radical re-thinking. WC proposes how existing tools, models, and ideas can be deployed to create a greener future.

I belong to Pakistan (Asia), and in my part of the world, technique is more important than technology. In fact, in Pakistan, we have a word for it: “jugaar.” This rather crude term means everything from a “fix-up” to a brilliant technological bypass of a challenge. In our low-tech, educationally-challenged world, “jugaar” - a product of solution-oriented minds at work - is an artful science in its own right.

WC acknowledges the significance of technique. I browsed through Mumbai contributor Dina Mehta’s contributions to find what rural innovations are changing the lives of Indian villagers. From “zero-head water turbines” to “pedal washing machines,” I feel I see a solution to some of the issues of Pakistani villagers.

Purpose of the website accomplished: use technologies/ learn from the site. Replicate elsewhere. Create a possible future.

Downside:

A wider global coverage needed, including - and that’s my opinion - greater content coverage of low-tech required/employed in Asia and Africa.

About WorldChanging:
“WorldChanging.com works from a simple premise: that the tools, models and ideas for building a better future lie all around us. That plenty of people are working on tools for change, but the fields in which they work remain unconnected. That the motive, means and opportunity for profound positive change are already present. That another world is not just possible, it’s here. We only need to put the pieces together.

Informed by that premise, we do our best to bring you links to (and analysis of) those tools, models and ideas in a timely and concise manner.”