The 10,000 Solutions University-wide initiative has been making positive strides in the last two months with more than 1,000 solutions in the works.
The solutions that have been proposed combat problems ranging from poverty issues to bringing back songs for ASU football games.
10,000 Solutions is a University-wide challenge to propose answers to problems from education to human rights. A $10,000 prize funded by Kauffman Campuses Initiative will be awarded for the top idea.
“We’ve seen a lot of exciting solutions coming in,” Office of University Initiatives Program Manager Nikki Gusz said.
While it is an ASU initiative, participation from those outside the ASU community is encouraged, Gusz said.
One idea that has already seen implementation was to bring back the song “All I Do Is Win” by DJ Khaled to ASU football games.
President of the 10,000 Solutions Club on the Polytechnic campus and engineering undergraduate Hannah Kolar-Quezada and some of her friends presented the solution for the song. It only took three days for implementation.
“It got the stadium pumped up,” she said.
Kolar-Quezada and the 10,000 Solutions Club are working to promote the initiative across all four campuses. She hopes to expand the club’s influence further than only the Polytechnic campus.
While the playing of “All I Do Is Win” at football games is an idea thought of rather quickly, 10,000 Solutions is also a place for already-developed ideas.
Business graduate student Tom Noble recently started a company called Good Cloud that makes software for nonprofit and educational organizations. He proposed his company as a solution.
“It’s a nice way to get the word out there,” Noble said about 10,000 Solutions.
Noble has worked with many nonprofit organizations and saw the lack of available resources.
With Good Cloud, Noble can make sure nonprofits have useful and cost-effective software to advance their goals.
If Noble were to win the $10,000 prize, he would put the money back into his company.
“We could definitely use that type of funding,” Noble said.
While 10,000 Solutions is a collaborative process, encouraging users to comment on solutions so they can be built on, Noble hasn’t received any comments on his solution.
Associate professor at the School of Arts Media and Engineering Hari Sundaram said that while the initiative is meant to inspire collaboration, users are not commenting on other solutions much.
Sundaram is one of several professors using 10,000 Solutions to study how social networks form and grow.
One reason users might not be commenting, Sundaram said, might be attributed to the way the 10,000 Solutions website is designed.
“Maybe it’s not very obvious that you can build off other solutions,” he said. “We are trying to examine that issue more carefully.”
Sundaram said he is happy with the general response the initiative has received.
There is no definitive end date for the initiative, but Sundaram hopes it becomes an integral part of the freshman experience at ASU.
“We do see it as a project that lasts several years,” he said.
Reach the reporter at ryan.mccullough@asu.edu Click here to subscribe to the daily State Press newsletter.
