Vote Pi!
We’ve been nominated for the People’s Choice Award in next week’s Index Award: Design to Improve Life. The competition makers have encouraged us to share the news with you, and we’d be really grateful if you could visit CNN’s page about the awards and click on the Pi button.
The Index Awards are a very big deal for us: they’re the world’s biggest design awards, and we were overwhelmed to be told we were finalists in this year’s event. Although it’s not the prettiest computer ever, the philosophy behind the not-for-profit Raspberry Pi Foundation – a desire to make sure that later generations have the technical skills needed for a successful future, and a desire to see the price of computing and commercial electronic devices fall until they’re accessible to absolutely everyone – is something we’re very proud of.
So please vote Pi. Thank you!
39 comments
nixpifan
I voted for Raspberry Pi and I hope RPi will win! Good luck developers and community!
brigo
Me too!
Raphael
Voted ! Thx for this adventure !
Scot
Voted for pi. Good luck!
nairetep
And I voted for ‘Riders for Health’, a little more meaningful in the scheme of things.
nixpifan
Its a good vote, too. I hope the things on sub-Saharan Africa will be better and more lifes will be saved!
Brian
It depends what you understand by “meaningful”. Riders for Health is a fine initiative, but without technology-based infrastructures and logistics it couldn’t have even have got past the ideas stage.
If initiatives like this are to come from the developing countries themselves in future (instead of a G8 charity) then those countries need access to cheap computers and educational resources. Teach a man a fish and all that….
Dutch_Master
It seems CNN employs a non-W3C compliant webserver back-end, as I can’t vote from a Gecko engined browser. (Iceape, FYI) Too bad :(
nixpifan
I wonder if I can vote from Tor or other anonymizer net? Have anyone tried?
The Raspberry Pi Guy
Most likely you can… Kind of defeats the point of it though, doesn’t it?
The Raspberry Pi Guy
Mr Floppy
I don’t know but you can vote from different browsers on the same computer. Just tried a few …
Brandon Z
I voted for the pi. This is a very good idea. It can do much more than teach kids to program. It is a $35 dollar computer that can do many things. It can bring computers to schools, it can help new companies get computers, etc.
The Raspberry Pi Guy
I voted for Pi! Best of luck!
The Raspberry Pi Guy
AdrianBevan
Pi got my vote too ! Good luck…
Billy F. Garcia
No doubt about what my vote will be: Raspberry Pi. They should create multiple categories for this.
Cleoqc
Wow, so many to choose from! The write-up for Pi is pretty bad, it can do so much more than teach programming to the next generation, although that in itself is pretty good. But some of the others are fantastic too. The lighting for slums, the de-mining tumbleweed, the dolls for training midwives. My heart is definitely with Pi, but my head says designs that save lives are worthy too.
I have to think about it before I cast my vote
Justin Forder
I agree, and I voted for the Solar Bottle Bulb. People need the light to be able to read indoors before they move on to programming! The Pi is great, but it is aimed at people a few rungs up the ladder.
Jim Manley
Justin – there have been a number of projects that have brought solar-powered computing to some of the most remote people on Earth, and the displays double as light sources at night. They replace what are usually something like kerosene-fueled lamps that belch soot and other pollutants and particulates to the level that people routinely die in their 40s due to lung diseases such as emphysema after lives spent in enclosed spaces with the lamps at night. Kids are teaching their parents what they learn in school during the day, including basic reading and writing skills that parents working long hours during daylight would otherwise never have time to learn.
Even farmers in remote areas have experienced multi-fold income increases just by having access to market prices so that they can time sales of their goods at peak prices. Access to satellite weather and remote-sensing data for their agricultural areas has revolutionized farmers’ ability to plant, fertilize, water, and reap harvests of their crops to maximize yields and minimize losses.
We in the developed world can’t imagine how life-changing something as simple as a Pi can be to someone with no other alternative access to information, even if it’s delivered by SD card by a runner from another area.
Cleoqc
I ended up voting for the light bulb too. The Pi was a close second. The simplicity of the light bulb is what convinced me. This contest is about design that is life altering. The design of the lightbulb is perfect. Simple, low cost, easy to maintain, re-uses material that’s already there, and answers a concrete problem right now. It’s pure genious.
Pi has enormous potential which is not fully realized yet. Things like Khan Academy on a Pi will happen more and more, but until those projects are here in full, I have to wait before voting Pi.
Hans Lepoeter
Funny to realise that the pi can be so important for the “free university for millions” project, Enabling the project for people who don’t own a “real” computer, where it countś the most. Note the quotes :-).
Overviewing all these projects I think they all earn a medal… so I didn’t vote. Sorry :-).
Stephen
Voted Pi
Of all the options it’s the one that’s improved my life the most in the present and foreseeable future. Perhaps that’s selfish and/or short-sighted, but I’d like my future kid(s) to have the same opportunity I had with my C=64 to learn to program or at least have a computer to play with without worrying about it costing £1000 and being scared to try anything
Alex Eames (RasPi.TV)
I’d go along with that. You summed it up very well for my circumstances too. It wasn’t an easy decision by any means, but I voted Pi because it’s had an amazing impact on my life. And I think the Raspberry Pi Foundation’s work will ripple through into the future, making the world a better place for all.
Of course, lots of people will think otherwise. That’s OK :)
Mac Rutan
The Raspberry Pi has the greatest potential of all of the entries due to it’s ability to empower people. It’s a technology platform that will have a long term effect, and will launch many individuals into new facets of their own creative and intellectual development.
hellonearthis
With this Voting system, it’s not a design award but a ‘how big is your community’ award.
Stephen
I think that’s how all awards work :) from serious tech awards to a pub Battle of the Bands of the competition that I was in (and didn’t win) obviously because we didn’t have a sufficient fan community, of course :)
Bill Stephenson
I had to vote for the Pi even though you have some tuff competition there. That’s a pretty cool group to be included with.
Jim
I voted for the Pi, I promote it every where I can. Jim
Hove
Voted for RPi, but there are some amazing ideas also. Locusts for breakfast anyone?
ramstrong
As much as I want to vote for Pi, I voted for Coursera. University for millions. This is because I have already found a perfect computer programming device: Petit Computer on Nintendo DSi/3DS. It’s cheap, portable, and popular. Most importantly, it does not come with headaches of setting it up. There’s no hardware incompatibility to speak of, no out-of-date SD card, no numerous packages to worry about.
It doesn’t do hardware like Pi, but we have Arduino for that. But most importantly, IMO, is the fact that Petit Computer is so barebones, that users are required to do everything from scratch, instead of relying upon black box libraries.
Sure kids can do miracles with Pi. But take away Python libraries, how many of them can still do it?
Therefore, I say a proper frame of education is more important than an enabler device. Sorry about that.
Congratulations on being nominated. That, itself, is an important achievement. And you’re still my number 2 choice. I like my Pi very, very much.
Nick Z
I briefly looked through Petit Computer project. Here are my random thoughts:
1) You should program BASIC on that thing? Sure, let’s teach kids outdated unflexible programming language. I’ve also hacked ZX-Spectrum a lot, but kill me if I’ll recommend to learn it as first programming language nowadays.
2) Looks like a project to hack on weekend for old-computer geeks. I would have fun with that thing, but will not buy it for a kid.
John-Paul
Although I think the RPi is a great choice product and worth my vote, I felt I needed to review all of the nominees before casting my vote.
That said, I think the RPi will have the greatest impact on our future. The engineers and programmers responsible for implementing those ideas will need the creativity and problem solving skills taught by the RPi and its competitors.
Grats on creating such a great product.
Krishna
After seeing other more urgent health needs, I am not able to vote for Pi, Sorry.
Jan
Where do you think the solutions to these ‘health needs’ come from? Revealed wisdom? No, they come from science. And modern medical science relies massively on computers (from DNA sequencing; to rational drug design; to MRI scans; to designing prosthetic limbs.
Brian’s reply to comment 5 above is very insightful. Going over to developing countries and digging wells (as we like to do in the UK, we “go over and help”) is very noble and useful. But far better to train generations of local civil engineers and microbiologists and environmental scientists and water technologists etc. And for that you need an education system that has access to technology and computers, the cheaper the better.
Marc
The Pi is first.
Community support is phenomenal.
Other platforms will/have followed(BeagleBoneBlack for example).
And the impact has/will be enduring.
The RasPi is a world changer.
Robert_M
It’s interesting to me that the R-Pi is being included in awards programs where the stakes get higher and higher. I think that’s a very good thing, and to simply be nominated is a huge feather to put in Babbage’s cap (he *does* have an awards vest, doesn’t he? If not, he should).
But, likewise, as the stakes get higher it takes more thought and consideration on my part for how I will vote.
So, I just wanted to say that, if I end up not voting for the R-Pi, I still wanted to extend my congratulations for the nomination – this is big league stuff you’re surrounded with in this award, and I’m very proud for the Foundation to see it happening.
Raspberry Nerd
I’m typing this on my raspberry pi, And let’s hope RASPBERRY PI WINS!
GadjetNut
Done – voted Pi!
enen92
Voted and shared with the Portuguese comunity at http://aminhacasadigital.blogspot.pt/2013/08/raspberry-pi-nomeada-para-o-premio.html
Good luck hope you win
goutbulgare
done.
good luck.