I learned about the Window Farms project today and as I watched the segment on Growing a Greener World, I was excited by this powerful example of how the Web can support collaborative community, beginning with one person sharing a passion.

It demonstrates the local/global relationship that can be supported by the Web.  Home gardening is an intensive local activity, requiring lots of analog attention.  But, Windowfarms shows how individual gardeners, often solitary folks who spend much time among plants, can be part of a community where they are encouraged to make a positive contribution of their own ideas and experiences.  The assumption was that the first window farm, created by Britta Riley in a Brooklyn apartment, could be improved and modified, and through an open source community, the world is doing just that.  It is global problem solving to help solve local problems and is a model for collaborative research and development in the 21st century.

They are dabbling in a different business model as well.  Windowfarms is a business with a social mission, according to the website, a for-profit social enterprise. They have investors and sell some products.  But they take certain social and environmental factors into consideration as they do their business.  They used Kickstarter for fund raising, taking advantage of a more grass roots way to gather small investors.

So, here’s the question once asked by Ben & Jerry in the pre-Internet days: Is it possible to do good and make some money?  And with the advent of the Web can you afford to provide a free platform for collaboration as part of that mission?

And, for educators, the question remains: are we preparing our kids to live and thrive in this kind of world?