Duke Outlet (DO)

Team Leader:

Jack Zhang

Team Information:

Erica Duh, Michelle Sohn, Arjun Khanna, Tammy Leung, Derek Mong, Helen Ho, Neel Mehta, James McMahon, Spencer Eldred, and Will Passo and YOU! Join Duke Outlet @ http://groups.google.com/group/dukeoutlet

The Idea:

Duke Outlet (DO)

Duke Engage. Me Too. Purple. Hamburgers for Haiti. Chili for Chile. At Duke University, there is never a dull moment, especially when it comes to civic engagement. Though each Duke student may individually engage in a wide array of activism, it is not uncommon to hear talk about the collective apathy of the student body. The major barrier to effective activism is information overload. Paralyzed by the overwhelming number of causes to champion, it’s easy to withdraw, to retreat into a state of unthinking apathy. Let’s face it, we are all busy people. Sustained and thoughtful engagement with the social issues that lie behind the causes of the day sometimes takes more time than we have. So we settle for quick fix activism rather than sustainable social change. We table on the plaza for the cause of the day without ever locating our activism in the context of greater social issues. But the staggering number of causes advocated on this campus testifies to the fact that Duke students DO truly care about social change. We propose the following plan to empower Duke students to engage in social change in a sustainable and thoughtful way: Duke Outlet (DO)

What is DO? DO seeks to empower social change through information management. DO is a student-run multimedia wiki administered by a think tank that will research and present the social issues behind the causes Duke students care about in a structured, accessible way. Basically, think “wikipedia” + “TED” talks. Duke students themselves will provide the raw input for this site, uploading causes and issues they are advocating for. The student-run think tank will do the fact-checking, editing, organizing, and maintaining of the site. Faculty and students can make and post informative videos to educate the rest of campus about important social issues. Relevant articles, links, and contact information for organizations can be compiled in one centralized location. By researching and archiving the existing causes on campus, DO allows students to learn from and build upon existing projects, saving students from having to reinvent the wheel. Information empowers activism. DO will manage the information needed for effective social change. DO draws upon the energy Duke students already devote to social activism and connects students with the relevant information they need to turn activism of the day into sustainable and thoughtful social change. Not only will useful information be centralized, it will also be interconnected. DO links individual causes to the greater issues of social change and connects Duke students who share a common cause to each other. By making activism cumulative, DO also breaks down the separation between class, internships, and extracurriculars and puts the focus back on achieving social change. The logic behind this model is collective collaboration through crowd-sourcing to the talented human resource pool of Duke University and then managing and presenting this information in an accessible way. Everyone can have a role in promoting social change. DO you want in?

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