All of us have great ideas from time to time. Most often, those bright sparks extinguish quickly, usually because a great idea unshared is nothing more than that - a great idea.
But if you have a great idea that you'd like as many people as possible to hear about, to analyze, discuss and debate, or just have a fascination for other's ideas, then you should pay a visit to the Global Ideas Bank.
The Global Ideas Bank (GIB) is a not-for-profit website that is part suggestion box, part networking tool, part democratic think-tank and part "inspirational entertainment"
It is not interested in product or gadget ideas.
The GIB's database has nearly 4,000 ideas online. Hundreds of ideas are submitted each month by people from all over the world, and over 160,000 visitors have voted on the site with a rating, which allows the best ideas to rise to the top democratically. It currently attracts a quarter of a million unique visitors annually.
Ideas are categorized into the following groups:
- Politics
- Communications & Internet
- Environment & Ecology
- Education & Children
- Social invention & creativity
- Neighbourhood & Community
- International & Developing World
- Crime & The Law
- War & Peace
- Arts, Leisure & Lifestyle
- Relationships
- Welfare & Charity
- Science & Energy
- Transport
- Work & Unemployment
- Business & Economics
- New Money Systems & Financial Innovations
- Housing
- Taxation
- Old Age
- Health & Therapy
- Spirituality
- Quality of Life
- Death and Dying
The GIB's mission is:
"To promote and disseminate good creative ideas to improve society. It further aims to encourage the public to generate these ideas, to participate in the problem-solving process.
These ideas we term social inventions: non-technological, non-product, non-gadget ideas for social change. These are a mix of existing projects, fledgling initiatives and new bright ideas.
In this way, the Global Ideas Bank is part-suggestions box, part-ideas network and part-democratic think-tank, giving the "ordinary" person a chance to have their creativity recognised, rewarded and even put into practice.
The Global Ideas Bank further aims to provide information and a community to help those individuals who wish to make their idea or project a reality in their own community. See the Practical Help and Success Stories sections for more on this."
All that you need to do to submit your idea(s), or join in discussions about other's ideas, is to register. Once you've registered, you can also sign up to support ideas, comment on ideas and choose to receive ideas by e-mail in a particular category each week. You can alter your preferences whenever you want by logging in and checking out of 'MyGIB'.
Once an idea has been submitted, it gets a number of different ratings, both by the editors at GIB and by other members. Ideas can be rated with either a 'seed', 'plant' or 'tree' category.
An idea with a seed next to it is an initial concept: a bright idea. An idea with a plant next to it is a fledgling project for possible development. An idea with a tree next to it is a project that exists in some form.
"The intention is that ideas can evolve from an initial concept to a fledgling project and then be brought to fruition. The inventors of 'seeds' that get a high feasibility rating may be invited to submit more information to become a 'plant'; they, or someone else, can then use that to put the idea into practice....and become a tree, a project changing the world."
You can sign-up for email alerts by category to be notified when ideas arrive or are updated.
GIB also has a blog, which, of course, means you can have RSS newsfeeds delivered into your own news aggregator.
A truly amazing resource.
