I have found open hardware and software to be a good outlet for my philanthropic desires. I don’t have millions to contribute but I do have a skill set that can generate useful Intellectual Property (IP). After thinking long and hard on what I could do to improve the world I decided to “inject some IP into the planet” rather than say working directly in the developing world. The specific area I contribute to is low cost VOIP phone systems.

To maximise the amount and quality of IP generated I have used the open source model applied to hardware, and using a community based approach we have built several products that have strong commercial appeal. The commercial appeal guarantees that the open hardware IP will be picked up and used through normal commercial processes, much like Linux is used to power $49 routers. Normal commercial forces then encourage competition, mass production, and new features. The end result (hopefully) is lower cost telephony for the world.

This approach has very high efficiency. Modest inputs (in my case roughly a single man-year of effort) can produce a lot of benefit (a product design that can potentially help millions). Combined with appropriate business models, we have a very competitive model for development compared to current donor-funded-forever approaches.