Everything need not be a business
Every problem does not have a solution
Government cannot be a monopoly
For tasks of Nation Building.
These were the paradigms on which the Open Source movement started in IT. Linux was the first really big success. It led to a crowdsourced operating system which is today more prevalent than the incumbent Windows.
Linux forms the foundation for Android which drives most of the worlds smartphones. It also powers more data centre servers than window does.
Can we not use this concept to open source healthcare or education or research or …. Nation Building.
It has already created the greatest IT product in history. The USD 2 Trillion Bitcoin. It has also created the foundation for a self governed world. By combining open source with crypto, a whole new world can be enabled. One with no central authority, full transparency and zero commercial bias. Taken forward, it can hit the very foundation of the commercial world. It can empower frugal innovation. It can end the role of institutions and companies – and allow the direct participation of meritorious individuals.
It may not have a conventional business model. But that doesn’t mean it cannot be business.
The place to start is healthcare. Insurance companies sell death and sickness insurance. They call it life and health insurance which it is not. Life insurance payoff gets triggered when you die. How can it be called life insurance. It is wrong nomenclature.
The preventive health model is broken. Doctors are paid to cure – not to prevent sickness. No one has an incentive to prevent sickness because the model is based on monetising sickness.
The healthcare industry wants to have you alive and sick – and buying medicines. To create paying capacity, they invented insurance. Idea is to spread the cost over the population so some can afford really expensive treatments – even if they are not required.
The end result is that we live longer – and get sick faster. Lifespan is not as important as healthspan. It is better to be well when dying. Palliative care doesn’t help.
But then who will bell the cat. Who will seed the reaction ? Who will fight the might of big pharma. No one will.
And so an Indian non profit decided to do it. Allopathy has windows (or its equivalent). Can we create a Linux.
It seems we can. And clearly India will lead the world in doing so. The first step in the open sourcing of human health has now been taken:
Now we need to figure out the missing pieces to make it all happen. It is finally about the pursuit for healthy longevity. And it cannot be a business.
So how do you create incentives for the crowdsourced open source platform to work.
It is impossible
But only till it is done