Thanksgiving is right around the corner and with it comes a focus on gratitude, thankfulness, and giving back. In the tech space we have a unique opportunity to get involved in our communities and leverage our skill sets to create the tools and solutions necessary to help those around us. Since 8-in-10 business executives feel an urgency to be a part of change on important social issues, Thanksgiving is a great time to jumpstart your plan for making an impact with tech.
Beginning during this time of giving dedicate time with your team to find ways to support your community, here’s how:
- Identify the opportunity and your fit
Begin by looking around your community to understand what most urgently needs to be addressed. Survey team members to find passions and areas of focus and design your solution accordingly. For the Shockoe team, the beginning of the pandemic brought to light the need to support farmers in Latin America. With traditional supply chains and selling points on hold farmers found themselves with a surplus of products and no way to get them to buyers. Shockoe’s CEO Alex and his team got to work on the Agrodemanda Marketplace, an intuitive easy to use online marketplace to match growers with sellers nearby
2. Rely on local experts
While we’re experts in tech, we need to rely on the expertise of those we hope to help to create an impactful solution. For example, the Agrodemanda Marketplace was built on feedback from farmers and sellers to understand what was beneficial in an online marketplace. Based on responses from potential users the marketplace was created as a freeium model that used a quick profile setup, and easy to use tools to set prices so both buyers and sellers benefited
3. Keep adapting
Make giving back to your community an ongoing priority, not just during the giving season. Since launching the Agrodemanda Marketplace we’ve seen its reach grow to over 11,000 users. Each user can more transparently and efficiently access what they need, while supporting local farmers. Most recently, the United Nations has now joined the project, so even more farmers have access to this new marketplace.
There is more opportunity than ever to give back and make a difference and use your skills for the greater good. Together we in the tech community can create meaningful change in our communities.
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