Visited Google.org and Virgance during the 1 week as well- two “technology companies” doing good. Was extremely taken by their work and their structure- they represent a departure from the usual social change models we are used to. Innovation meets social change, and they are the product.
Google.org would better be named philanthropy@google.com, and google donates [...]
Visited 826 Valencia and Upwardly Global over the break as well, two social organizations whose ideas can be transferred back to Singapore.
826 Valencia was started in 2002, and is essentially a nonprofit tuition centre cum playground, even though its stated mission is to “support students ages 6 to 18 with their writing skills, and to [...]
Visited Wokai.org and talked to its founder, Casey over Spring break to get to know about these two organizations involved in China. Wokai.org is a “Kiva clone” which specializes in China;
Wokai.org is essentially a Kiva for China, which exists due to China’s strict regulations and laws which prevent Kiva from operating. However there is one [...]
Have been on a Alternative Spring Break, visiting NGOs and social entrepreneurship startups in the bay area. Have a bit of internet now so am posting an update here.
Many of the organizations here are innovative and really awaken you to the number of causes out there one can support. Over the past few days I [...]
Just took the final of a class I really enjoyed, “The Making of the Modern World”. Even though I missed almost all the lectures (oversleeping at 9am), I really enjoyed the readings and learning about the progress of humanity from the Feudal ages to the modern world we know now.
I enjoy reading history for it [...]
Its Dead Week before Finals, and everybody here is studying. I’m (trying to) study as well, so the updates on this blog will probably be few.
Continued to assemble the UnseenPeople team this week, and now we’re 4 people after I roped in one of my friends. The name of the project will likely have to [...]
Now that I’ve started to update this blog again, I’ve noticed visitor counts increase rapidly over the past few months. I feel a bit guilty for letting the blog die in the first few months of Stanford- but I was really busy getting used to the new life here.
On hindsight I should have documented the [...]
My time here has exposed me to so many different fields of knowledge that I am increasingly confused about what I want to major in. On one hand I like economics a lot, on the other hand engineering attracts me because it gives me skills to create things. Anthropology and Sociology fascinate me, while creative [...]
Am listening right now to Jim Fruchterman, the founder of Benetech, Bookshare and many other social-related ventures. Fascinating account of how he went from a Stanford student to found all the amazing things he has done.One initiative he has done catches my eye. Martus, something which enables human rights organizations to report human rights abuses [...]
Stanford mailing lists should be banned; I receive an average of 250 emails a day, of which only about 20 are of vague interest to me. Today I get 360 emails, and am about to delete them all, when I see this email from Sparkseed:
You have been selected as a semi-finalist in the Sparkseed selection [...]
I am Daniel Isaiah Ong, an undergrad at Stanford studying Engineering and Political Science. I also work at locra.org.
I write mostly about social entrepreneurship, technology, design, and Singapore, the land where I come from.
