DIMENSIONS OF PEOPLES’ IMPACT

ISSUE # 67

No one is dumb who is curious. The people who don't ask questions remain clueless throughout their lives. - Neil deGrasse Tyson

DRAGONS' HEART

Governments do not have a cohesive, long-term strategy in place to break the chains of generational poverty (GenPoverty). They try to cut off the sharp edges, instead of attacking the heart of the poverty dragon. Essentially, they treat poverty as a money-only problem. Yet poverty is a multi-dimensional evil that needs more than money. Also, individual subsidies as a solution are not popular in society because it is fraud-sensitive. We need to look for solutions that are more effective and solicit more solidarity in society.

We believe societies should transform the welfare state from an individual subsidy-based system to a performance-based system driven by group collaboration. Societies should embrace the Peoples’ Impact Philosophy and use IkoCiti as a self-propelling infrastructure for social progress based on the mantra Help yourself by helping others.

The Peoples’ Impact Philosophy can be broken down into the following dimensions.

THE DIMENSIONS

• The Empower Dimension. You cannot break the chains of generational poverty without radically involving people in the barrios. Empowering people with adequate resources to tackle problems in the barrio (and their lives) is the foundation of the Final Revolution. Few people will disagree with the concept but somehow societies have not found ways to make it happen on a significant scale.
• The Power Dimension. Empowering people to change realities (redesigning the structure of society from the bottom up) does not occur in a vacuum. The moment some group in society gains power to make things happen, other groups may feel their interests threatened. How will they react using their power to counter-act?
• The Income Dimension. Maveriqs – producers of Peoples’ Impact - are not paid employees of the platform. They are partners and shareholders. Maveriqs earn money selling their projects on the PI Exchange while receiving a monthly upfront, non-refundable prepayment that will be netted with their income.
• The Barrio Effects Dimension. For any platform business, the Holy Grail is to achieve network effects?-?more engaged users, more platform value. Looking at the barrios through a platform lens, we say the more positive (collaborative) people, the higher the barrio value. We call it barrio network effects? (*barrio effects*). Just like a platform business seeks strong network effects, barrios benefit from strong barrio effects.
• The Education Dimension. Developing adult (hidden) talent is not only about pure skills training; it is also about improving the preparation phase -?getting people ready to receive the training. It serves no purpose to fund skills training if people are not ready to absorb the sessions. Additionally, we focus a lot on learn-by-doing while getting as far away from the traditional classroom setting as possible. Also, we need to integrate our AI and game expertise to shape the learning (and teaching) experience
• The Marketplace Dimension. Marketplaces play a crucial role because they allow us to match different groups across different fields. They help us to discover prices for services. They increase transparency. They substantially reduce costs for all groups to find relevant people, products, and services. They allow us to streamline supervision while providing crucial data feeding our collective/artificial intelligence. And they serve as predictive indicators of the performance of projects and people.
• The Intelligence Dimension. The smarter, more experienced people are, the bigger the projects will be, and the more impact they will have. But why connect social progress only to individual human intelligence? Why not add extra layers of intelligence like the concept of collective intelligence? And why stop there? The ascent of artificial intelligence opens up new avenues never seen before. Anything that helps us be smarter today than yesterday should be considered and tried. In the end, it is intelligence and Smartz that eradicates GenPoverty.
• The Psychological Dimension. Developing your (hidden) talents to become competitive in the Rat Races on and off the platform requires a personal transformation of sorts. Regardless of the external obstacles, there is always substantial room for personal improvement. Social and emotional skills (intelligence) are the cornerstone of a collaborative world. In some way, IkoCiti is the ultimate confrontation with the Self.
• The Freedom-4 All Dimension. Nobody wants to be discriminated but many reserve the right for themselves to oppress others. This kind of blatant, unacceptable hypocrisy won’t cut it in IkoCiti – the Citi for Freedom-4 All. Our biggest challenge is how to organize a bias-free platform with biased people. Besides the moral aspect, we believe it is the foundation for people to be more creative and effective as barrio changemakers.
• The Innovation (Data) Dimension. IkoCiti will never get it right the first time. That is why we draft the first versions as a reconnaissance mission - an imperfect vehicle confronting the cold hard realities of the barrios. As a data-driven enterprise, we build a flexible infrastructure that innovates (improves) itself continuously based on progressive insights.
• The Next-Gen Dimension. We aim to introduce a more “business-like” environment in the barrio that helps to break its factual isolation from the rest of society. One of the objectives is that Maveriqs and Barrionistas will be able to transfer their own business experiences to the next generation (next-gen) giving them a more diversified worldview.
• The Peer-2-Peer Teaching Dimension. Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man To Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime. IkoCiti takes it further. We teach people to teach other people to fish. Teaching others is probably the most important skill barrio changemakers have to have. Without P2P Teaching there is no self-propelling dynamic and poverty will not be eradicated, regardless of the money that is thrown at it.
• The Self-propelling Dimension. The chains of GenPoverty will only be broken if we can generate a self-propelling dynamic that drives the perpetual loop of progress. This loop depends on two major engines: [a] the production of projects on the supply side and [b] adequate buying power (funding) on the demand side. Scaling both sides of the market is the essence of IkoCiti.
• The Macro Dimension. The social projects of the Maveriqs take place on the micro-level but just producing projects randomly translates into a highly fragmented portfolio of outcomes resembling the social impact sector of today. Something we need to avoid at all costs. Our MicroMacro360 Approach establishes a clear local macro framework that leverages our Maveriqs micro projects. Included in the macro framework are our ideas for sound pro-growth policies on the regional and national levels.
• The Trickle-Up Dimension. The micro-level impact produced by the Maveriqs alone will not be enough to lift the barrio to where we want it. We need to encourage the influx of private investments from a wide variety of investors and entrepreneurs. As our impact grows, the barrio develops a better risk/return profile attracting more trickle-up investments. The smarter the talent pool of barrio changemakers, the more attractive the barrio becomes for new business.
• The Taxpayers' Dimension. Wicked social problems cannot be solved through commercial ventures run by social entrepreneurs and social investors alone. Tackling GenPoverty needs taxpayers' money. But IkoCiti is not a black hole devouring dead presidents. What we propose is a success-based performance model in which the government does business directly with its ambitious citizens. Society invests in the production of barrio changemakers that elevate the whole of society.

These are the most important dimensions that shape our Peoples’ Impact Philosophy. You can design each separate dimension in different ways but the ultimate measurement of success is how the system works as a whole - it is all about optimizing the synergy between the dimensions.

THE END