Brandon May dreams of creating solutions to the world’s problems through innovation.
Last year when the senior social work major started thinking about things he wanted fixed around him, he decided to get other people involved in executing benevolent ideas.
Thus was born the concept of SocialVent.
The concept involves web-based interaction between contributors who identify problems and competitive capital investors who bid for rights to bring the idea to physical reality.
Contributors are in turn rewarded with five percent of the funds raised towards the cause.
“Just imagine what will happen when we create a global meeting place for the world’s most creative individuals, allow their intense motivations to be focused on benefiting the world, provide a global network of individuals willing to pitch in for the greater good, and then connect them with establishments that have the means to take that concept and turn it into physical reality,” May said.
“The potential is mind-boggling.”
But before he can change the world and aid others in doing the same, May too must come up with the funding to make SocialVent a reality.
May has set a deadline of Mar. 1 to raise the necessary funding.
Currently, he has raised three percent of his $10,000 goal.
Though he has still been tossing around ideas about raising awareness of the project, he has slowly been getting his friends and USI faculty involved in the effort.
His Exponential Expansion of Good (EEG) project allows those interested in the concept of SocialVent to effect an immediate change in the process of donating to the larger idea.
Contribution amounts range from $10 to $20,000, and beneficiaries of the EEG project include the Nothing But Nets Campaign, Kiva.org , the Seva Foundation and the Vittana Foundation.
Smaller contributions will provide anti-malarial bed nets and help fund a college education for the economically disadvantaged.
Larger contributions promise to fund laptops for children in developing countries and even the construction of an actual school.
If the fundraising goal isn’t met by deadline, the donations will be returned to contributors, though May hopes that will not be the case, he said.
May does not plan on giving up on SocialVent if the fundraising campaign fails.
The concept is, after all, almost a year in the making.
“Never before in human history has such a collaborative and streamlined approach to improving and creating our reality been possible,” he said.
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To learn more about the SocialVent concept, visit www.socialvent.net/blog .
To contribute to the Exponential Expansion of Good project, visit http://rockethub.com/projects/828-socialvent .
