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Comment by mdolon | Hacker News Reader

I've had two non-profit ideas I've wanted to work on for a couple of years now but haven't had the opportunity to because of financial obligations:

- Kickstarter for scholarships

- A cheaper, more effective means of transportation for third world countries (essentially creating a better bicycle)

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How would the kickstarter for scholarships work? Sounds interesting

Funny enough, I've had a similar idea in my notes.txt for a few months.

"microscholarships, crowdsourced, donorschoose for people"

I suppose students would have a page about themselves and donors would pick students to support based on their circumstances, talents, grades, and personality.

So really it woud be more like Kiva; loaning money to people based on charity. The problem with that is what makes Kiva so rewarding is the quick turnaround times, where you loan someone something and you get part of it back only a few months later to help other people with. That wouldn't work with student loans.

Except that it wouldn't be a loan, rather it'd be a scholarship or fund. The student should not be expected to pay it back, so I guess it would be someone like 'ChipIn' in that regards. If the site were built similarly to KickStarter, where the student posted a video and could post their grades, they could more easily solicit donations from friends and family. The organization could send the money to the university as a grant rather than to the student directly to lower the chance of the system being used for fraud.

http://educationgeneration.org/

I expect you will have a very hard time outdoing the bicycle.

It's a lofty goal but within the realm of possibility, given enough time, resources and effort.

Give it better tires and suspension for dirt roads and you've got a winner!

Suspension is properly handled by using the right tires. Anything else adds significantly to weight and cost, and detracts from durability and pedaling efficiency. Also, the existing infrastructure for parts and manufacture has to be considered. I agree that it's a great goal, but those machines have been evolving for a long time.

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