Why the world needs more social makers

Are you a future maker? Someone who wants to be a maker but don’t know how? Or are you already a maker wanting to come up with your next big thing? Do you believe in the audacity to hope?

Barack Obama did. In fact, that was the name of a book he wrote before he ran for president. If you read Michelle Obama’s book, Becoming, you get an insight into Barack Obama’s audacity.

This was a man who had a tough upbringing by anyone’s standards, but never saw it that way. He just got on with it. It did not matter that his mother lived on a different continent for a part of his childhood, or that he barely had a relationship with a father that also lived on another continent.

From reading the book, you will not get the impression Barack Obama felt his upbringing was difficult while he was living it. He went on to Harvard Law School, and he had the audacity to believe he could actually be the first black president of America. Michelle knew America was at a point where they needed someone like Barack, who would listen and care about Americans, so she supported him running for president.

The reason I have taken you on this mini-journey of the Obamas’ life is to show you what can be achieved if we focus on the right issues. As makers, it is our duty to listen to the stories of people in our community going through hard times, and to think about how we or someone else could help, even in a small way.

How to improve the world we live in

Do we really need another app to increase our dependency to our phones? Do we really need a flying car? Do we really need for every house to have a system that talks to us and switches off the lights when we tell it to?

We don’t need any of those things, but we want them. And while we are focusing on building products addressing these desires, important issues such as healthcare or eradicating poverty or gender equality stay unaddressed. How can we, as indie makers, improve the world we live in?

What skills or connections do we have to help people who are suffering? How can we support people in our local communities? How can we use our privilege to help others that have none? 

I have started a not-for-profit organization. My experience has taught me that there is no such thing as impossible. It has taught me that no problem is that big you cannot find a solution if you have the right people to help you.

If everyone did this within their own community or country, I strongly believe we can create a better world. This is how, as makers, we can create a world people are happy to live in.

The world wants makers, but what the world really needs is social makers.