Jimmy Santosa, a Mechanical Engineer at Applied Materials, first heard about The Extraordinaries while reading The Christian Science Monitor article, Smart-phone app lets you do good deeds in your spare time, at the airport.
He'd volunteered for several things in the past, but found that; unfortunately, he didn't have as much free time to give. He'd been a literacy volunteer at the San Francisco Public Library, but because he works in Santa Clara, coordinating his commute back to San Francisco in time to meet with his student became too difficult.
When Santosa read about The Extraordinaries, he thought, "This is cool. Someone can enable me to volunteer in the time I have. I can totally do that." He signed up on the spot.
Since then, he has contributed to the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution image tagging projects. He thought both were interesting, but felt like he didn't have the historical background needed to tag some of the images properly.
He'd like there to be a filter on image tagging projects, like the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution, that allow him to search photos by a particular time period, or a particular topic that fit his expertise. For example, as an engineer, he would be excited to tag photos of cars, or machinery.
For future projects, Santosa thought it would be cool if people could document daily life by taking and submitting photos or video with their phone. "I like the idea of people, wherever they are, collecting information, and submitting it," he said, "It could be used for databases, or information gathering in some way."
He was going to submit something for breakthrough's microvolunteer opportunity that asks people to record a 30-second audio clip telling the government what immigration means to them, (both of his parents are immigrants), but he didn't because he didn't know where the clip was going to end up.
Overall, Santosa thinks The Extraordinaries is, "a really great idea," and is looking forward to an increase in the different kinds of microvolunteer opportunities available. "It could be really exciting to contribute to something that is a little part of something larger," he said. "I look forward to seeing what else is on there in the future."Let us know about your experience using The Extraordinaries in the comments or contact a member of the team.
Britt Bravo also blogs at Have Fun * Do Good, BlogHer.com, WE tv's WE Volunteer blog, and the Global Center for Cultural Entrepreneurship blog. She is a Big Vision Consultant.
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