Thank you.
So, yeah, problems.
[Problems]
Mexico has problems;
some are very serious.
All we have to do is ask ourselves, "Who isn't affected by them?" Right?
Or, "Who hasn't had ideas of how to fix them?"
I loved how earlier we had a 20-minute group discussion,
and we came up with a ton of ideas at both of the tables I was at.
There were very different ideas about how to fix the issues.
The thing is, when we're constantly faced with problems,
we sort of become experts on them.
When facing a big challenge,
we don't have the luxury of wasting all these ideas.
Here's an example:
NASA is months away from launching the Atlantis.
Millions upon millions of dollars have been invested in this mission.
And for weeks, the smartest scientists from around the world
were trying to reduce the weight of the rocket by 1,300 pounds,
because it's too heavy and can't fly.
After a lot of frustration and attempts to improve their already perfect designs -
they're the experts, they're the smartest people -
they decide to try something they've never done before.
They call everyone in the building to the auditorium.
From the night security guard to the head of the program,
everyone was there.
They pose the problem to everyone:
"Look, we're 1,300 pounds over. What should we do?"
After a few hours of bouncing ideas around,
someone finally raises their hand and says,
"Don't paint it."
It was the maintenance person,
who has to carry cans of paint every day
and knew that a lot of paint was needed to paint the rocket,
which you see there, that copper color.
So they didn't paint it, the mission was a success,
and since then, NASA has taken its most difficult problems
that not even their best engineers can solve,
and they put them online and offer prizes to solve them.
This method is called "crowdsourcing,"
which basically means enlisting a large group to help with a task.
Nowadays, it's used for everything, from making the best predictions
in politics or sporting events,
using betting sites where people upload predictions,
to Wikipedia, which we've all used,
to the most successful T-shirt company today,
which doesn't have a single designer; all the designs are crowdsourced.
So if this model works so well,
why not apply it to the problems that affect us the most?
Why not use them to solve social issues?
[Social Issues]
It's not so crazy if you think about it.
Ultimately, the people affected by issues understand them;
we face them every day.
[Knowledge, Interest]
We know how to improve things,
what part of a government program isn't working and which could be better,
and we care, because if a problem is solved,
we could directly improve our quality of life.
A year ago, a couple of friends and I asked ourselves this question:
"Why don't we use crowdsourcing to solve social issues?"
And "Yo Propongo" was born.
"I Propose" is a civic engagement platform that does just that:
it gathers information from people closest to the issue
and transforms it into viable projects
that affect them directly and help solve the issue.
The way it works is simple.
We ask the community:
"What do you propose?"
"How could this issue be improved or solved?"
We gather all the information through media that's super easy to use,
like Twitter, Facebook, polls, SMS.
We want it to be easy.
Then we analyze the information,
trying to create a much more comprehensive picture.
Once we see the bigger picture, we can identify trouble areas
or what people might consider to be causes or possible solutions.
With all this information,
we meet with the people trying to solve the problem -
different levels of government, community organizations,
international institutions ...
All of them can use this information.
So now that we're sitting down with them, we say,
"You can improve the program in this way, or you can start a new one."
So in the end,
the ideas proposed by the people affected by the problem
become programs that affect them directly
and that help us find a solution.
I'll give you an example.
The first issue we tackled was alcohol-related traffic accidents
in Mexico City.
Many organizations deal with this issue,
investing millions of pesos a year,
but they rarely take young people's input into account.
We went to 100 universities and compiled thousands of ideas.
Fernando tweeted an idea:
"How about instead of closing sobriety checkpoints at 4,
which is an hour before the clubs close,
they close later?
That way, I'm not in the club having a few more beers
until the sobriety checkpoints close."
From there, we gathered the information from Fernando,
we gathered information from everyone who sent us ideas
for the "Drive without alcohol" program,
we sat down with the program directors and said, "What do you think?"
And voilà!
Now there are sobriety checkpoints that close at 6am.
To date, in a little over a year -
[2 cities, 2 issues, over 10,000 participants]
we've been in two cities,
dealt with two different issues in Juarez and Mexico City,
and we've had more than 10,000 people participate.
And we've realized that information is really important,
and all this participation can lead -
[Solutions]
to solutions that affect people's daily lives.
But more importantly,
we believe we've found a platform
that will allow for a transformation that goes beyond ideas and solutions.
We ourselves can be transformed
from seeing ourselves as victims of problems
and complaining about everything
to becoming part of the solution.
Thank you.
(Applause)