The Interra Project
What is the world we want for our grandchildren?
Despite modern society’s progress and ability to create wealth we continue to see
dangerous urban neighborhoods, a deteriorating biosphere, declining health standards
and most of all – a massive institutional failure to deal with the issues dominating our
world today.
We all know that current vehicles for change are not enough. Social service
organizations and governmental agencies do good work, but are always constrained by
a lack of resources. Their budgets can never keep pace with the engines of corporate
growth and scale of the needs they strive to address.
The design challenges we face:
- How to harness the massive power of our everyday consumer spending and
investment?
- Empower the change from how we habitually spend our dollars in destructive and
extractive ways to restorative patterns that re-circulate our money for the benefit
of the community as a whole.
What are the big objectives?
- Restoring community
- Building economic opportunity
- Creating a culture of sharing and caring
What will Interra accomplish?
- Demonstrate the concepts of sustainability, collective effort and personal giving by
utilizing brand-based principles and by providing incentives to choose restorative
products and services through aspirational rewards and donations;
- Elevate - Utilize the pre-existing payment card network, which 88% of adults
already use;
- Educate consumers about the impact of their choices, and make alternatives
easily available through an online community and meta- directory system;
- Aggregate data across the network, showing people the difference their choices
can make, while sending a real signal to the market;
- Generate the system itself through transaction revenue, making its potential scale
almost unlimited;
- Disseminate best practices, key learnings and critical information cross the
network in real time;
- Democratize access to the technologies of transaction processing, customer
loyalty, community marketing and automatic donations.
Use Case: The Boston Main Streets Program
In partnership with Interra, the Boston Main Streets is introducing the Boston
Community Card program. The overall goal of the Boston Main Streets program is to
improve the quality of life in Boston's neighborhoods. The vitality of a neighborhood's
business district is critical to the health of the neighborhood as a whole and for that
reason all sectors of the community are involved with each Main Street organization.
Stakeholders include residents who typically represent the consumer to business and
property owners, public and private institutions, community development corporations
and merchant associations. http://www.cityofboston.gov/mainstreets/
As of February 1 we are signing up charter member businesses and we plan to launch
the card in the Spring of 2006.
This web site has been prepared for presentation purposes at the Workshop on User
Centric Identity and Commerce taking place at the Berkman Center on February 9, 10
and 11.
