I just outsourced my first job via Elance- basically to find somebody to splice and code the Locra site from a basic Photoshop file to CSS-compliant webpages. As a team of mostly busy undergraduates, working on Locra means a trade off with either academics, activities, or sleep- and it unsurprisingly things move quite slowly as school life gets in the way. Hopefully, by outsourcing activities which are simple but tedious we will be able to move faster. It has been almost a year since the project has started and it is about time to make it happen.

This also made me think a bit about the opportunity cost of education. A few days earlier I received a warning from my scholarship provider as my grades for the past quarter had fallen well below an A- average (though my career average was ok). Outsourcing the more mundane tasks, and focusing on the important things (good grades?) will hopefully be better in the long run, though expensive in the short run. Typing this on a Saturday night (sigh) with 2 midterms next week, I sure do hope this works.

The WiserEarth site

We pitched Locra.org to Angus and Wibowo, the director and chief editor of WiserEarth over 2 hours. They were able to tell us where we were headed in the right direction, and offered us great advice on how to move forward. It was humbling to listen to them talk about how WiserEarth came about and how they planned to move it forward, tapping on their veteran wisdom.

Meanwhile, things are looking up for Locra.org. After the summer lull, we are ready to pick up, reorganize and move on. Along the way we have managed to hit a few new ideas which look very promising- I’ll write about them another day. Next week we begin recruitment, and from there things will be much more interesting as we move forward.

On another note, paying for the taxi ride from the San Francisco Caltrain station to WiserEarth’ office in Sausalito cost a fortune. The public transport outside of the city is non-existent, and I can’t rent a car till I’ve had my license for a year. Thus I might be getting a cheap car if finances allow, and will be going for my driving test soon.

The Locra.org Logo

The past few weeks have been hectic weeks for the Locra.org team. We’re beginning to see light at the end of the tunnel as the various pieces start to come together, and things are beginning to pick up momentum. The Locra.org welcome site went online last weekend, and since has been receiving quite a few visitors (1000) without much publicity.

I have begun to realize amazing a thing it was for Locra.org to happen. 5 months ago, the then called “BeneficiariesDB” was just an idea, scribbled on pieces of paper in a notebook on a 18 hour flight from San Francisco to Singapore. Back in Stanford a month later, I tried to look for people who were interested, emailing lists- although there was interest from a number of people, nobody wanted to commit to it. I remember nearly giving up then, as the stresses of trying to fit into a new society and working on this idea was too much to handle.

It was only with encouragement from a few people (Adam Tolnay, James, Derianto) that I continued with this idea a month later, eventually setting up a “recruitment” site at Needintel.org after crystallizing much of the idea. I again advertised this through mailing lists- out of which one (and only one person) replied. That person was David Murray, who today manages everything Locra.org is.

It was also by a miracle that I met Keshav, who came on the team 3 months ago. During the last class of Winter Quarter, the conversation in our IHUM section inexplicable turned to social entrepreneurship. Keshav spoke a bit about Ashoka and social entrepreneurship; deciding not to pass up the opportunity I spoke to him after class about the then called UnseenPeople, and within a day he was on board. His business “instincts” and dedication is probably the single reason why we’ve managed to move so quickly from where we were 3 months ago.

That’s the story up to three months back- I’ll continue this at some other time, when there’s less work due (it gets much more interesting!). Meanwhile we’re working on the first iteration of the site, so it’s an exciting time for all of us.

However Google Apps is interesting in that it makes it easy to create intranet wikis for people to collaborate. Ever important in a global age, and only increases productivity. Will post a review of it when I’ve finally managed to get it working.

I’m taking 4 classes this quarter: a history class (Making of the Modern World), a writing class (Rhetoric of Crisis), Econ 52 (Macroeconomics) and CS106A (Fundamental of Programming). Almost all of them are enjoyable and this should be a good quarter, academics-wise.

But most of my efforts will be spent on the open infobase project, which we’re working on now. The team is now 4 people strong, and we’ve got interest from a few key players in the industry- all this with nothing more than personal pitches to people and a few emails.

However I hope to hold of all the hype for a while. It is of paramount important that we develop a product that is actually useful to the people on the ground; very often we fall into the trap of developing what we want for the world, and not what the world needs. Thus we will be  talking to NGOs and individuals to learn what they need. Only when we have a clear idea of what we are doing will we go and ask for money and support from others.

I do feel guilty, however, for not enjoying freshman year as it should be enjoyed. But sometimes the burden of an idea which could do something to make all of us better off weighs on your back, and again I dive into another project. Here we go.