Check out our curated Weekly RoundUP of the breaking and must-read news – ‘Imagine Boston 2030’ crowdsourcing the city’s future; crowdsourcing ideas for improving railways; crowdsourcing new prediction tool for better prognosis of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer and more …
‘Imagine Boston 2030’ is crowdsourcing the city’s future
The Walsh administration has come up with a 300-page first draft, based on feedback from thousands of residents, to change Boston’s future.
The Imagine Boston 2030 draft was shaped with input from 12,000 Boston residents on the biggest challenges the city faces and what policies would best address them, according to officials. And now, they want to hear your thoughts, too. “We’re excited to imagine Boston’s future, and we wanted to include everyone’s voice. Over the past year and a half, we’ve engaged with over 12,000 residents who helped shape this plan,” Walsh said in a promotional video. “This is the first draft, so we’re going to go back and ask everyone for more of your feedback.” The report says Boston’s economic recovery and population growth have already resulted in pricier housing costs that are two-and-a-half times more expensive than the average U.S. home. In addition to moving to increase the housing supply, Imagine Boston 2030 says the city will work to preserve existing affordable housing and pursue policies that encourage production of low- to middle-income housing.
Crowdsourcing ideas for improving railways
The Indian Railways will kickstart a brainstorming exercise for the future of railways at the three-day Rail Vikas Shivir.
The Shivir will be held at Surajkund near New Delhi from November 18 to November 20. The exercise will involve all railway employees from gangmen to Railway Board Chairman, cutting across hierarchies. The Vikas Shivir is aimed at energising the entire organisation, building momentum for execution through numerous pragmatic yet innovative ideas, showcasing the collective thought of the leadership of railways, said a press release by the Railway Ministry. The Shivir is the outcome of a two-month long preparation. All railway employees were invited to submit ideas online or through the helpline. Four lakh messages were sent, 10 lakh posters made, advertisements were placed on 13 lakh pay slips, 1 lakh WhatsApp messages were sent. A website was also created for online submission of ideas. Top three teams with the best crowdsourced ideas will be awarded prize money on the final day.
Crowdsourcing new prediction tool for better prognosis of metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer
A new prediction model published today in Lancet Oncology offers a more accurate prognosis for a patient’s metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer.
“Scientists like me who mine open data have been called ‘research parasites’. While not the most flattering name, the idea of leveraging existing data to gain new insights is a very important part of modern biomedical research. This project shows the power of the parasites,” says James Costello, PhD, senior author of the paper, investigator at the University of Colorado Cancer Center, assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the CU School of Medicine, and director of Computational and Systems Biology Challenges within the Sage Bionetworks/DREAM organization.
Six key ingredients for crowdfunding success
Here are the six key ingredients for crowdfunding success discovered in study of nearly 10,000 campaigns.
Early funding and backing is key to successful crowdfunding. When project proposers add an online social network link to their project’s pages, they indicate that they are intentionally using their social network in order to boost their crowdfunding campaigns. But we identified many projects which were simply over ambitious – as shown by the negative impact that a high funding goal has on the chances of a project’s success. Being impatient to get off the ground increases the probability of a project‘s success. This is very important in an environment such as crowdfunding where the entrepreneur knows much more about the characteristics of the new product or service to be launched than the potential backers. Crowdfunding is now a global phenomenon – around the world more and more people in more countries are using this method of raising funds to support their ideas.
Indiegogo launches equity crowdfunding platform
Indiegogo has launched equity crowdfunding platform.
“Our mission has always been to make it easier for individuals to raise money for projects they are passionate about, and this is the latest way we’re helping entrepreneurs access the financing they need while also giving backers the chance to invest in new companies,” Indiegogo CEO David Mandelbrot said in a press release. “Since Indiegogo first launched we’ve wanted to offer these sort of investments, and we’re very excited to be officially giving the millions of people who visit our platform every month the chance to get involved with equity crowdfunding opportunities.” “It’s great to see an industry leader in the rewards crowdfunding space jump into the equity arena,” says Kendall Almerico, CEO of BankRoll Ventures and an attorney who works with crowdfunding campaigns. “The long-term success of the JOBS Act laws and regulations will be accelerated when people already familiar with pre-purchasing goods on rewards-based sites like Indiegogo move to actually investing in small companies and emerging businesses through equity crowdfunding.”
Image: boston
There are many fantastic stories out there. What else caught your eye this week? Did you come across some breaking news or a good thought piece? Please do share them with us…
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