Washington, D.C., has a lot of impressive startups using technology for businesses of all shapes and sizes. But profit isn't the only goal for many of them. Plenty of startup founders started their businesses with a particular vision or goal entirely unrelated to making money. Instead, profit may be only a side objective or entirely irrelevant to the mission of improving the world or people's lives. We've picked out six social-enterprise startups to highlight here. Each of them offers an innovative solution to a worthy cause or causes, and they are just the tip of the iceberg.
GoodWorld- A recently launched startup out of 1776, GoodWorld developed a hashtag donation system to make it easier for people to donate to worthy causes. Basically, any charity that GoodWorld partners with can collect donations when people use #donate on Twitter. People can quickly forget their intention to donate or get turned off by having to jump through hoops to give to a good cause and GoodWorld is working to make actual monetary support as easy as advocating for a good cause on social media has already become of late. “We are essentially creating an online global community fueled by generosity,” said GoodWorld CEO Dale Nirvani Pfeifer in a statement.
Datasembly - Government data can be immensely useful in improving people's live. Datasembly is trying to bridge the gap between the raw data and its usefulness. Founded by Dan Gallagher and Ben Reich, who had worked together on big data projects before, Datasembly aggregates and organizes millions of open data sets from thousands of governments. Communities can then use that public information for things like civic planning and public health analytics.
Ethical Electric - Ethical Electric arranges renewable energy for its clients through its utility partners. Basically, whatever you pay on your electric bill goes just to wind, solar and other renewable energy sources. Though it's certainly not the only way to buy from those energy sources, it offers one of the quickest and most straightforward systems to do so. If you live in an area serviced by its partners, you just have to fill out an online form to ensure your electric power comes from just renewable energy sources.
Inspire Living- Inspire Living developed a low-cost tool for checking the health of children quickly and with minimal effort. It's designed to be used even in remote locations that might not have easy access to healthcare by using automated sensors for heart rate, respiration and other measurements and then can securely send the information for remote diagnosis by doctors. The company was founded by Kristi Otto, who had been president of GuardIt technologies, a maker of smart sensors.
Re-Nuble - Re-Nuble has method for turning food waste into agricultural fertilizer. Supplemented by other plant compost, the discarded food is processed and sterilized into a liquid, organic fertilizer, aimed especially at the hydroponic farming market. The company's mission is to tackle two problems at once, not only how to give new purpose to discarded food but to make a fertilizer that doesn't require additional chemical additives and with the bonus of being cheaper to make and buy than most industrial fertilizers.
Control A+ is working on an early-warning system for kids having an asthma attack. The Asthma Assist device combines advanced sensors with data analytics to monitor and determine when and how serious an asthma attack is. Ten percent of children in the U.S. have asthma, and having an early warning can catch asthma attacks before they become critical. The company was founded by Matt Fischer, who has been working with non-profit startup for years, after he was inspired by helping his friend who had been diagnosed with asthma adjust his living situation to limit possible causes of attacks.
