Last week I posted about the One Laptop Per Child Project, and it reminded me that I had received a GlobalGiving gift certificate months ago that I hadn't redeemed. I decided to put my money - or at least my gift certificate - where my mouth was and donate towards this project:

Improving Computer Literacy in Afghanistan Afghans continue to struggle for survival within their devastated economy. They lack the skills employers need. Help 200 Afghan students learn computer skills, fill the technical void and get jobs. Theme: Technology | Location: Afghanistan | Need: $9,825

I can't help but feel small when I think of how little a dent my meager offering put into the $9,825 listed need for this project. Then again, it is closer than it was. Education at every level is a key indicator of what the future will hold. If you want to live in a global community that works together instead of one that wastes all of its time and resources on new and more complex ways of destroying one another then the best place to start is by educating the young and creating an environment that is hospitable to the opportunities a peaceful and prosperous world requires.

Technology has a role to play in education. I don't believe that the OLPC effort is a panacea, but I am not inclined to see it as a bedeviling evil foisted upon the poor by greedy capitalists either. I am more inclined to believe that it is a huge step in the right direction that will inevitably hit some bumps along the way. Maybe I'm just overly optimistic, but I think it will be very enabing for those kids who end up with these shiny green machines.

Which brings up their environmental impact. I was asked about this when a friend read my post from last week. Looks like they're doing more to be green than your regular old standard landfill loving laptops.

This week's event on Social Edge asks you who your favorite social entrepreneur is. Well, what if you didn't have to choose just one? What if you could create the Social Entrepreneur equivalent of the Beatles? Oh sure, individually the Beatles were formidable. John had Imagine, Paul had Band on the Run, George had My Sweet Lord and Ringo had Caveman.

Think what it would be like if you could launch a social enterprise with all of your favorite social entrepreneurs. Jim Fruchterman slapping down a healthy bass line, Heidi Kühn keeping time on the kit, Matt Flannery wailing on a wah-wah stick and Muhammad Yunus rocking the hardware. For this week's event, we decided to put four of our favorite entrepreneur's together in a replica of the Beatles' first album cover.



Karen Tse, Blaise Judja-Sato, Muhammad Yunus and Victoria Hale, Heavyweights, indeed. Perhaps the Traveling Wilburys would have been a more appropriate model.

With a Web 2.0 approach to integration, this kind of entrepreneurial mash-up is certainly possible. I'm thinking of something along the lines of a Kiva + Roots of Peace + Google Maps + Flickr mash-up that let's you buy fruit from a specific farmer in Afghanistan, read about them, see where they are located and see pictures of their orchards. GlobalGiving + International Bridges To Justice that allows you to give financial aid to specific legal battles and research the issues involved. Riders for Health + Institute for OneWorld Health + Healthcare Without Harm + VillageReach working together to get the latest medicines to the most remote parts of Africa.

Makes me look at the issues of scale in a whole new light. A bunch of small organizations working together could have a greater impact than a single large organization with a limited focus. Imagine the possibilities.

Google has rolled out a customizable version of their search functionality, so now anyone can roll their own custom search engine. Here's one I made and cheekily decided to call Social Edge Re:Search:

It searches a limited number of sites in the social entrepreneurship field, such as Omidyar.net, Changemakers.net, Kiva.org, GlobalGiving.com and the like. If you Google "job listings" you are going to find a whole heck of a lot of Monster.com and HotJobs listings before you ever find listings from companies seeking social entrepreneurs. If you Re:Search "job listings" via the search box above, you will find job listings from the sites that Social Edge (in this case, me) has pre-selected as being relevant to the field of social entrepreneurship.

I've never been a big fan of customizable functionality that you link to from your site, and even though the search is integrated into this blog post, it still takes you off of the site and onto Google's site. At least it does by default. There is also the option to have the results hosted on your own page as well, and a Google AJAX search API available if you wanted to get really fancy. If this functionality is of use to your customers, take a little extra time and make it part of your site. Who knows? Re:Search might make it into the upcoming redesign of the Social Edge website, and if it does, rest assured that it will be fully integrated.

Also by default, ads are included in your results. If you don't want the ads to show, there is a checkbox for 501(c)(3) non-profits, universities and government agencies to turn the ads off. If, however, you are interested in making a little extra coinage, you can connect it to a new or existing AdSense account.

You can also share the burden of managing the custom search engine with others. By default, visitors can volunteer for this "privelege", or you can choose to restrict it to people you invite, like your unsuspecting co-workers.

One word of warning is that this is brand spanking new, and I've already come across one Safari bug related to some Ajax-y input for adding new sites. Worked fine from Firefox, but I haven't tried it out on Windows at all yet. I'm sure the Safari bug is just an oversight, since Google is working to make sure they're very Mac-friendly. Not surprising given that their CEO is now on Apple's board.

More information is available on John Battelle's SearchBlog.