Digital Social Credits
Brief
Volunteering at a local community center. Mentoring an at-risk youth. Starting a book club. Helping your friend recover from drug addiction. There are many actions that create positive social utility that are currently uncompensated.
Enter Digital Social Credits (DSCs). This alternate currency would be tracked by an app and seeded, initially, by the government. After that, local administrators would oversee the program.
You could earn DSCs through:
Volunteering at a local shelter
Participating in a town fair
Coaching little league
Fixing a neighbor’s appliance
Working with those recovering from opiate addiction
Tutoring a local student
and a range of other activities that make your community stronger.
We’ve seen the power of these awards systems to drive behavior through online communities, “free sandwich” punch cards, and special status (e.g. Yelp Elite, Foursquare mayors, etc.).
Each citizen would have a running tally, along with an “unspent” total. As noted above, you could offer DSCs to a neighbor for watering your plants or taking your mail in while you’re away. But there could also be specific promotions where you could trade in your DSCs for special experiences, such as tickets to a local ball game
or meeting with a government or civic leader.
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