I dream of a Bottom Up Logistics software that would enable us to thoughtfully connect and eventually scale grassroots resource sharing efforts. If Farmer Bertha had unsold crops she could list them. Communities in need of certain resources would indicate this. People could commit the use of their time, equipment, etc. The software would do the work of calculating efficient routes and assignments to get everything where it was needed.

My inspiration is the various pet rescue consortiums I’ve found in every city I’ve lived in. People crossing the country to pick up a single dog from rural alabama to bring it to a shelter in california. People pooling money to buy trucks specifically so volunteers can cart needy dogs around. They don’t use fancy logistics but they make it clear to me there’s a lot of uncaptured goodwill out there, and I think that given an organized way to engage, people would jump at the chance to participate in scaling a sharing economy based on empathy for our fellow creatures.