I would like to develop and promote some sort of moneyless exchange of goods and services in the context of twenty-first century technology centered world.

Description

Idea

We can gather a group of interested people, each would list his or her skills and belongings that he can share or exchange with others and in another list would write down what he would need to get whether it was a service such as receiving training in something or a material thing such as a used digital camera. As the group of interested people grows by more people joining it and keeping their give and need lists current by updating them on a regular basis, exchanges can be made between members without any money transactions taking place.

Website

The idea may be implemented via a web site. But for a more personal and close knitted experience it can be done offline (perhaps using a computer still but not to be available on the Internet). People can just come to or even just make a phone call to a central person responsible for keeping the member lists, and dictate him their lists or updates to their lists. Matches can then be made through searching the database of lists on the computer to see who can offer something that someone else is in need of.

Expanding

Tertiary exchanges can also be made. In a regular binary exchange a person may give his digital camera to someone in exchange for receiving training in driving for instance. But what if that second person who is ready to provide driving lessons is not interested in a digital camera nor in any of the things that the first person has on his offering list? In this case, a more complex, yet interesting, kind of exchange called tertiary exchange can be made.

Let us suppose that this second person who is offering driving lessons is in need for a Siamese cat. Let us suppose that there is a third person who happens to have a Siamese cat on his offering list and at the same time this same third person happens to need a digital camera. In such a case a circular tertiary exchange would go on between the three parties. The first person will give the digital camera to the third person; the third person will give the Siamese cat to the second person and the second person will give driving lessons to the first person. Now everyone is happy.

We can think of it in a simpler way. The first person gets driving lessons from the second person. The second person gets the digital camera from the first person. The second person then gives the digital camera to the third person and gets the Siamese cat from him. This concept can be further expanded from having three parties involved to having four or more parties involved up to a theoretical unlimited number of members involved in a single multi-party transactional exchange. Of course in such multi-party exchanges a computer is needed to be able to carry out the search and match operation in a practical way.

Implementation

Obstacles

• Finding people to join.
• Establishing the database computer system (doing multi-party matching).

First Step

• Create a list of services and goods you are ready to exchange and services and goods you are in need of.
  

Progress

• Donated books to Resala.