Open Source Solutions to Promote World Peace

An Election Day mightily influenced by global conflict seems the perfect time to look to a new approach for promoting world peace.  Changemakers, which is building the world's first global online "open source" community that competes to surface the best social solutions, is holding a contest called:  Entrepreneuring Peace: Innovations in Managing Group Conflict.

The scope of the competition is "...actual conflict resolution solutions for a significant number of people that can be replicated for not only the location of origin but also at the country, regional, or global level.  Ideas proposed..are beyond the stage of idea, concept, or research, and, at a minimum, are at the demonstration stage and indicate success."

While the contest prize is only $5,000, winners stands to gain a great deal from partners involved with Changemakers like Ashoka: Innovators for the Public, the Skoll Foundation and Stanford Social Innovation Review.

The wide array of solutions proposed so far enabled Changemakers to futher illuminate the topic by articulating governing principles into which they place proposed solutions.  The guidelines for the contest are also terrific. The organization has already held a number of contests and the next one up focuses on solutions for domestic violence. 

Is this (competition, open source approach, collective intelligence, conflict resolution) an idea that might work in your community?

Susan Herr