Research & development for the social web
‘Prepare to die’ – an idea for Social Innovation Camp
Rattle were at London’s Kings Cross Hub last night for the announcement of the ideas that will take part in December’s Social Innovation Camp. This is a weekend-long affair, at which designers, thinkers, social entrepreneurs and coders will meet to develop seven socially-benefiting ideas into working prototypes.
Rattle submitted an idea called Prepare to die, which we’re pleased to say is one of the ones shortlisted. Our idea proposes a web service that assists people in making decisions about what they’d like to happen when they die, and to communicate these preferences with their friends and family.
We hit upon the idea after looking at the significant social events that happen in our lives, and realising that whilst births and deaths are well represented online, death is more of a sensitive subject that often simply isn’t discussed.
The idea became ever more significant on Monday, with the news that the UK organ donor taskforce had recommended not to switch to an ‘opt-out’ (or ‘presumed consent’) system for organ donation. The taskforce’s conclusions are that at this point, to improve the availability of donor organs (which is critically important), it would be better to focus on a public awareness campaign, rather than to change the law.
‘Public awareness campaigns’ usually mean lots of expensive advertising, which can work, but perhaps an online service that hooks in with existing social networks might be just as effective. An important point to make about signing up to the UK organ donor register, is that it’s not enough to simply signup online (which only takes a few minutes), but that you also really need to tell your closest friends and family. This can be an awkward subject to broach, which is where an online service could help.
You can read more about the idea (and add your comments) over on the Social Innovation Camp website. More importantly, because the idea made the ‘play-offs’ of 4 ideas competing for the ‘lucky seventh place’, you can go and vote for it too. The poll closes at midnight on Sunday.
You can also go and read about the other selected ideas, all of which are interesting in their own way, and aim to use online technologies and platforms for social change.
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