2. What is S.E.E.D Xchange?
• Exchange items you
no longer use for items
you need.
• Exchange skills in
return for other skills
you require.
• Exchange items for
skills and vice versa.
Offer: Want:
-Bike light
(good
condition)
-2-3 hours
piano lessons
-Halloween
costume
-Help with
Spanish
conversation
-DVDs (Titanic,
Lord of the
Rings)
-Bike helmet
-3 hours of
french lessons
-Desk lamp
-Umbrella
3. BENEFITS
• Environmental:
• Saves precious materials and resources.
• Reduces carbon footprint and waste to landfill.
• Social & Educational:
• Offers equal opportunities to all students, staff and alumni.
• Create a network & make new friends.
• Become Happier!
• Financial:
• Save time & money !
5. CHALLENGES
• Finding someone to SET UP website.
• COMMITMENT of people to their skills.
• SAFETY of meeting strangers online.
FUNDING (Cost : £1000)
• 1-2 students to create a professional website.
• Snacks.
• Flyers and posters.
6. TIMELINE
Nov 13th Dec 11th
Jan 18th
Recruited 1 or 2 people
Website launched
Weekly meetings in room
Editor's Notes
The SEED Xchange project aims to engage students, staff and alumni in social responsibility. This is the third goal of the University’s 2020 Strategy. The project intends to acheive this goal by raising awareness on environmental sustainability.
It is an online platform where users trade skills and reusable items. They will be able to login with their University ID to create a profile in which they list «what they are offerring» and «what they are searching for».
Items will include anything from desk accessories to small room heaters to fancy dress items.
Skills can include everything from knowledge of a certain discipline (like biology or chemistry), musical talents (piano lessons) to languages. There are over 1000 degree programmes here at the University but if students want to learn something they often find themselves having to search beyond the university and pay to learn it.
There is also the possibility of exchanging items for skills and vice versa. So for instance, if I wanted your old phone but I had no items to offer you, I could offer you 10 hours of french lessons instead.
The University has identified 8 areas which aim to encourage social responsibility. S.E.E.D Xchange engages with X of these areas:
Encouraging quality people (strategy 1)
Manages information (strategy 3) by providing students and staff high-quality seamless access to new skills and information
Supports a reputation for excellence (strategy 5) by engaging and networking with alumni, creating a professional online platform
Supports an international institution (6) by connecting individuals from different cultures, disciplines and countries
Most importantly, it encourages environmental sustainability by encouraging people to reduce waste, increasing co-working with in-house academic expertise
Benefits of the project can be categorized into 3 areas.
-It will have a significant positive environmental impact as people will be less inclined to go to shops and buy new items which would eventually end up in landfill. It will also reduce the carbon footprint of users.
-From a social perspective, it will foster connections between people with similar interests and create friendships across different disciplines and age groups. Happiness Expert and Positive Psychology lecturer at Harvard University “Contributing to other people's happiness provides us with meaning and pleasure, which is why helping others is one of the essential components of a happy life.“
-Financially, it will save users time travelling and trying to find items and information they need as well as money.
Reduce carbon footprint by avoiding long trips to the supermarket.
Control your cash flow: get the supplies and skills you need without having to worry about how much money you have in the bank.
Save time: get real value for your time and experise for someone else’s.
Related initiatives such as Freecycle and LETS attest to the growing interest of people in swaping goods and services.
-Swapz : Swap site offering many goods and services. Current offers include a DJ who will work for you if you service his van and a woman who will dogsit in return for DVDs.
-www.swapcycle.co.uk: Goods for exchange, ranging from cars to banjos
-read it swap it: book swaping site
-www.letslinkuk.net Community networks which link people who want to swap their skills and goods.
There are two challenges I have :
-Finding someone to set up the website in the next month. I already have a student volunteer who is willing to do this. I will also advertize it in the Computer Science department to see if I can get more volunteers on board.
-Another potential challenge might be how to guarantee that users will stick to completing the skills. For instance, how can you guarantee that I would deliver 10 hours of French lessons for your old phone. In order to do this, I have set up a society at the SU where we can use the rooms for free. It will create a safe environment to meet up and discuss details.
What is great about this idea is that it does not need much planning and can be rolled out straight away.
If you choose this idea, I will have recruited one or two people to create the website by November 13th. I already have a computer student who has offered to volunteer.
By December 11th, the website can be up and running just in time for Christmas swaping!
