9
14 Comments

Impact Makers: Building a Climate Change tech community

TL; DR: We gathered 120+ tech people to fight climate change by collaborating on impactful community projects.

It all started with this tweet from Steven Hylands:

I was the first one to answer his call, but dozens joined as well. We gathered everyone in a Slack workspace: Impact Makers was born on April the 23rd.

Things scaled quickly and the community was well received from the very first days. Lots of amazing people joined, sharing ideas and starting projects to fight climate change.

In less than a week, more than 100 people integrated our fellowship: developers, product managers, designers, entrepreneurs… we even started interacting with other communities sharing our purpose, such as ExtintionRebelion or WorldVsPlastic.

We are working hard on launching new high-impact projects to raise awareness about the global emergency we all are facing. Some examples:

  • Climate Choice - Learn how you can help prevent earth’s climate breakdown. It’s the best place on the web for anyone to learn what you can do today to reduce your carbon footprint. The emphasis is placed on facts and immediate action: https://climatechoice.co/

  • Shame List - A curated list of the top polluting companies in the world, next to simple actions you can take to pressure them into changing their eco policy.

… and there is more to come! Our list of ideas is growing by the day but we need more people from Indie Hackers to hop in. We can’t do this alone, but we know the members of Indie Hackers share our mindset. This is a call to you, reader: you are what we are looking for.

Why you might want to join us:

  • Find Projects to Contribute
    ¿Want to fight for our planet? You've come to the right place. In this community you'll find launched initiatives or projects in the making to have fun while doing your part.

  • Share Your own Ideas
    ¿Have your own idea for a tech project to fight climate change? Great! Share it in the community to get feedback or find collaborators who'd like to help you make your idea a reality.

  • Meet Like-minded People
    Become part of a community of tech workers sharing the same goal: to make a difference in the fight against climate change.

You can find more about us at https://techimpactmakers.com/. Everybody will be welcome!

Take action, join now & help us solve the biggest challenge of our generation.

  1. 1

    Is the project talking about population growth at all? To me everything else seems like a band-aid.

  2. 1

    Interesting. I have been thinking a lot about climate change and the current state of things on an individual and political levels. I could be wrong, but part of me feels strongly that the BIG problems that need solving are the disconnect between politicians and their constituents. Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places, but it feels like it's very hard to know where your elected politicians stand and how their actions align with the values and wishes of people who elect them. Are they hearing what the public has to say? Is the public SAYING the things that will impact their decisions? It just feels like there is a huge gap in communication between people making the important policy decisions and everyone else.

    As it stands, it feels like you do a lot of work researching a person's background and values when the time comes to vote for them, but once they are in the office it becomes this black box with me having no clue about what's happening, what issues are being voted on, if those issues reflect my values and if the politician is doing something I disapprove of. This is easier to track when we are talking about a president of a country, but on a local level (city / state), it seems more hazy.

    Also, I see a lot of hate and negativity around companies doing harm to the environment but very few people seem to take a broader look at just how they benefit from these companies. Take for example Koch Industries. Do you drive to work and enjoy nice roads? Did you live in a newly constructed building? Use paper? Paper towels? Toilet paper? Wear Coolmax shirts? Most of those things would not be possible without companies who do a lot of environmental damage. Don't get me wrong, I am not defending them or their lobbying efforts, but it's just so easy to point fingers and get angry at SOMEONE, instead of seeing the big picture and how it ties in to other things (other companies, other industries, politicians, etc). I can almost guarantee most of the companies on your shame list will be the ones that make your life so comfortable right now.

    I don't know where this is going or if there is a point that I'm trying to make. Ultimately, the effort people put in to make an impact feels incomplete and short of providing actual value. Of course they should be applauded for making SOME kind of effort over doing nothing, but I often wonder if a set of experts could come up with a truly powerful platform that tied transparency, action, communication, networking and all of these other things that would make for a powerful way of making real TRACKABLE changes and put real power into people's hands. This "solution" would need to be something that politicians are actually using or get notified of constantly or have to check themselves in order to see where they stand in terms of electability.

    I think sites like OpenSecrets are awesome and they have done a lot of good, but even those kinds of platforms must be actively visited or installed (as chrome addon they have) to make use of. If there was a way to put power into people's hands where they get feedback on the actions they take and things they do, I think that would make a far greater impact. Imagine being able to see your fellow residents express a strong opinion on something and seeing your elected individual respond and act accordingly to constituent wishes. Maybe it's all wishful thinking.. but I've said a tiny fraction what's on my mind and will leave it at that.

    1. 1

      Hi Gene, thanks for your extensive comment. First, we share our concern about politicians and various of our proposed ideas/projects try to solve this: making more clear and easy to know who to vote and trying to tightening the gap between politicians and constituents in a green perspective.

      As you have a great vision & opinion and lot of ideas, it will be nice that you could join our community and start a discussion about it all. You will be welcome!

  3. 1

    Awesome, nice work people!

    1. 1

      Thanks! We need everybody to fight climate breakdown and any feedback & sharing will be welcome!

      1. 1

        That's exactly what I keep telling people 😍...there can't be too many people, groups, organisations etc that are trying to fight for our collective future. There are almost no bad ideas in this space, if you're pushing any ideas that reduce emissions and pollution, then you're onto something and the planet is better for it 🙂

    2. 1

      @SuchIndieHackMuchWow , seems quite aligned with some of your ideas :)

      1. 1

        Indeed, this is very similar to what I had in mind! I will join ASAP, I'm very much on board with this :)

      2. 1

        Wow, he has a lot of nice ideas! It will be a great signing :)

  4. 1

    Great community, really excited about what's coming :)

  5. 1

    This is great to see! I want the shamelist please!

    1. 1

      Thanks Rosie! You can follow us on Twitter (@impactmakers_) and we will update the projects status

  6. 1

    Thanks for the write-up and all your help J.P! Can't wait to get some of our first Impact Makers projects launched.

    It would be great to see a few people from the IndieHackers community joining too!

Trending on Indie Hackers
How I grew a side project to 100k Unique Visitors in 7 days with 0 audience 49 comments Competing with Product Hunt: a month later 33 comments Why do you hate marketing? 29 comments My Top 20 Free Tools That I Use Everyday as an Indie Hacker 15 comments $15k revenues in <4 months as a solopreneur 14 comments Use Your Product 13 comments