Labdoo

Labdoo
Founded 2010 (USA), 2012 (D), 2014 (SP), 2015 (CH)
Founders Jordi Ros-Giralt, Wendy Lu and Calvin Shen
Type NGO
Registration no. United States
EIN: 027-3489966
Spain:
53610 – J / 1
Switzerland:
CH-400.6.430.891-5;
Germany:
120/5703/1940
Location
Origins Irvine, CA (USA)
Area served
Worldwide
Website www.labdoo.org

Labdoo.org is a non-profit collaborative social network which brings unused Laptops loaded with educational applications to schools throughout the world without incurring any economic cost and without generating additional CO2 emissions to the Planet.[1][2][3] Through the collaboration of thousands of people around the globe, the Labdoo humanitarian platform has grown to support over 1000 schools in more than 115 countries, deploying more than 200 operational hubs spread over the five continents, benefiting more than 300,000 students from around the globe.[4]

Approach

Labdoo is a non-profit organization implemented as a social network that uses global collaboration to transport unused laptops and tablets loaded with educational software to schools around the world.

To achieve this mission, the Labdoo platform allows users to manage four types of resources.[1][2][3]

Dootronics

Dootronics are computer devices that satisfy two requirements: they can be used as educational tools at schools and they can be sustainably transported without generating additional CO2 emissions. Examples of dootronics are laptops and tablet computers.

Edoovillages

Edoovillages (or educational villages) are schools registered in the Labdoo platform that receive the dootronics.

Hubs

Hubs are locations in the world where people can bring their unused dootronics. Labdoo volunteers in these hubs are responsible for tagging and sanitizing the dootronics, installing the educational software and preparing them for their transport to a destination edoovillage.

Dootrips

Dootrips (or Labdoo trips) are trips contributed by travelers and organizations around the world who donate space in their luggage or cargoes to carry the laptops from the hubs to the schools. The dootrip system enables a collaborative global transport to bring the dootronics to the edoovillages without incurring any economic cost and without generating additional CO2 emissions to the Planet.[1]

Users anywhere in the world can contribute to the Labdoo cause in four ways: by donating their unused dootronics, by creating new edoovillages, by volunteering time at a hub to sanitize dootronics or by offering a dootrip to carry a dootronic to an edoovillage. The Labdoo social network allows each of these tasks to be globally managed in a transparent and open manner.[2][3]

History

As a graduate student at the University of California Los Angeles, Jordi Ros-Giralt joined the university’s Engineer Without Borders (EWB) chapter in 2004. During that year, Ros-Giralt proposed to his teammates the idea of collecting unused laptops from students at the university with the goal of sanitizing and delivering them to a needy school. Three other students, Christine Lee, Michael Bruce and Charlie Fan,[5] joined Ros-Giralt and together they spent the rest of that academic year collecting unused laptops, cleaning and installing them with educational software. During the Summer of 2005, the four students traveled to the village of Antigua, Guatemala, where they set up a computer lab with 12 laptops at a local school and connected them to the Internet using a 250 Kbps DSL connection.[5]

After the trip to Guatemala and to achieve a larger and more sustainable positive impact, the limited time resources were dedicated to program an online collaborative tool, enabling anyone to participate in the cause of bringing educational laptops to schools.[2] The result of developing this tool was the non-profit social network Labdoo, which allows users to make contributions of different sizes depending on their available time and resources. This strategy allowed Labdoo to unlock a large pool of small volunteering resources found anywhere in the world, making the project scalable and sustainable. In 2010, Labdoo was registered as a 501(c)(3) charity organization in California, USA, with a board formed by Jordi Ros-Giralt, Wendy Lu and Calvin Shen.[6][7] Thanks to its distributed grassroots approach, today Labdoo serves educational laptops to more than 1000 schools located in more than 115 countries.[4]

Zero Funding Organizations

According to its charter, the Labdoo Project runs as a zero funding organization[2]. This concept was introduced in the article “Humanitarian Social Networks and Positive Sum Development” presented at the 2013 International Conference on Sustainable Development Practice, in New York[2], an event organized in partnership with the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. Zero-funding organizations are a special case of nonprofit organizations and the concept of social businesses introduced by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus in his book ”Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism”[8]. A zero-funding organization is at the same time a non-profit organization and a social business which is self-sustainable without any major source of monetary funding, including philanthropic donations, external investment funding or even internal profits. This type of organizations are considered a special case of a nonprofit organizations because they generate no monetary profits, only social profits. They are also a special case of Yunus’ concept of social businesses [YUN07] because, since there is no money involved, its objective can only be social.

Awards and publications

  • In 2017, the Labdoo Project is awarded the Alan Turing Award by the Catalan Association of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Engineers.[9]
  • In 2017, Labdoo is one of the 3 nominated projects in the area of sustainable development of the GreenTec Awards in 2017.[10]
  • In 2016, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel awarded the Labdoo project for its social commitment.[11][12][13]
  • In 2016, Labdoo was one of the 100 winners of the Google Impact Challenge Award in Germany.[14]
  • In 2016, Labdoo was one of the 3 nominated projects in the area of recycling and resources of the GreenTec Awards in 2016.[15][16]
  • In July 2014, an article about the Labdoo Project was published at the Humanitarian Technology Conference in Boston, United States.[1]
  • In September 2013, an article about the Labdoo Project was published at the Earth Institute International Conference on Sustainable Development Practice, in New York. [2]
  • In 2012, a chapter of the book for IEEE Service-Learning in the Computer and Information Sciences was dedicated to explain the Labdoo Project.[3]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Dootrips: A CO2-neutral Global Transportation System based on Collaboration,” Jordi Ros-Giralt, Adrian Rosello, Jordi Garcia. Published by Elsevier, Procedia Engineering Volume 78, 2014, Pages 124–133. Accessed 24 December 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Project Labdoo.org: Humanitarian Social Networks and Positive Sum Development,” Jordi Ros-Giralt. International Conference on Sustainable Development Practice—Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, September 2013.
  3. 1 2 3 4 “Using Labdoo to Bridge the Digital Divide: A New Form of International Cooperation,” Jordi Ros-Giralt, Kevin Launglucknavalai, Daniel Massaguer, Julieta Casanova, C. M. Lee. Published by Wiley-IEEE Press, Service-Learning in the Computer and Information Sciences: Practical Applications in Engineering Education, 2012.
  4. 1 2 "Statistics are displayed at the top of the page".
  5. 1 2 “A Portable and Sustainable Computer Education Project for Developing Countries-Phase I,” Jordi Ros-Giralt, Christine Lee, Michael Bruce, Charlie Fan, Regina Quan, Henry Pai. International Journal for Service Learning in Engineering Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 27-47, Spring 2006.
  6. ↑ "Labdoo, Inc. in Irvine, CA | Company Information & Reviews". Bizapedia.com. Retrieved 2017-02-20.
  7. ↑ "Labdoo charity | irs.gov". apps.irs.gov. Retrieved 2017-02-20.
  8. ↑ 1940-, Yunus, Muhammad, (2007). Creating a world without poverty : social business and the future of capitalism. Weber, Karl, 1953-. New York: PublicAffairs. ISBN 9781586484934. OCLC 167501962.
  9. ↑ "Alan Turing Award by the Catalan Association of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Engineers".
  10. ↑ Awards, Greentec. "GreenTec Awards - Online-Voting". abstimmung.greentec-awards.com (in German). Retrieved 2017-02-13.
  11. ↑ derwesten.de, DerWesten -. "Kanzlerin zeichnet Labdoo-Projekt aus" (in German). Retrieved 2016-12-31.
  12. ↑ Mülheim, Radio. "Das Computer-Projekt | Labdoo". www.radiomuelheim.de. Retrieved 2016-12-31.
  13. ↑ "Labdoo project 2015 | startsocial". startsocial.de. Retrieved 2017-02-13.
  14. ↑ "Google Impact Challenge | Germany 2016 | Labdoo". Google Impact Challenge | Deutschland 2016. Retrieved 2016-12-31.
  15. ↑ "Mit diesem Trailer wurde Labdoo als nominierter Kandidat auf der Green Tec…". plus.google.com. Retrieved 2016-12-31.
  16. ↑ "Winners and Nominations 2006-2016 | GreenTec Awards" (PDF). Retrieved 2017-02-13.
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