Obama, Gates Team Up to Create “World Online Peace Corps”

11/4/09  Print This Post Print This Post    5 Comments      Written by Julie Schwietert
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“‘Most NGOs are still quite web 1.0 – we want to apply the web 2.0 technology that Obama used so effectively to the whole helping world.’” -Phil Noble, Founder, PoliticsOnline

Anticipation is building up around the UN Climate Change Conference scheduled for December 7-18 in Copenhagen, with environmental advocates expressing increasing concern that certain world powers–including the United States–won’t take a strong enough stand to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.

But whatever comes of the Climate Change Conference with respect to international environmental accords, there’s one piece of exciting news we can expect to see coming out of Copenhagen: the launch of “Hope Plus,” a new online platform that’s been dubbed the world’s “online Peace Corps” by founder Phil Noble, also founder of PoliticsOnline and technology adviser to President Obama during his campaign.

“Most NGOs are still quite web 1.0 – we want to apply the web 2.0 technology that Obama used so effectively to the whole helping world,” said Noble in a pre-launch announcement about Hope Plus. The idea of the program–to be backed by President Obama and Bill Gates–is to provide a global, multilingual platform where people interested in social change projects can meet online, share ideas and resources, and start planning projects.

We’ll be interested to see how Hope Plus develops and how it is adopted by changemakers around the world.

Thanks to our Twitter friend, @lrakoto, for the tip on this article.

Community Connection:

Other technology articles from our archive include:

Open Debate: Can the Internet Really Solve the World’s Problems?

Digital Divide Getting Smaller?

United Nations Launches Global University


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About the Author

Matador ID: collazo

Julie Schwietert is the managing editor of Matador Network. She contributed a chapter to the recently published book, The Voluntary Traveler, and is currently working on five features for Fodor's Puerto Rico, 6th Edition.

5 Comments... join the discussion!

  • JoAnna replied on November 4, 2009

    This is really exciting news … I can’t wait to see what Gates and Obama may be able to create when they work together. There are a lot of amazing NGOs and non-profit programs out there. Hopefully this will allow them to connect with each other and utilize all the resources available to make their organizations as strong and useful as they can be.

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  • Abbie replied on November 4, 2009

    Hope Plus could be really cool, but I’ll be interested to see how it differs from other volunteer/organizational sites.

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  • Nancy replied on November 5, 2009

    This is super exciting. Can’t wait to see how Hope Plus develops.

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  • AdventureRob replied on November 5, 2009

    Well migrating to web 2.0 should certainly cut down on management time so they can concentrate on the important things they have to do :)

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  • Scott replied on November 10, 2009

    Interesting. I am an online volunteer with the United Nations for two projects, one in Cameroon and one in Ghana. It’s a good way to use my programming skills as a volunteer.

    It’s good to see another program offering similar opportunities.

    (Report comment)

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