A Bank That Needs No Bailout

An entrepreneur in Estonia, has come up with a a way for people to exchange a different kind of currency of sorts. This may not be exactly a business, but people in Estonia will have an opportunity to come up with creative ideas to help each other in these difficult economic times. People all across the country will be participating in a forum, brainstorming ideas, and selecting best practice ideas to implement.
Perhaps businesses that want to come up with creative ideas for doing good, could use this format of forums and brainstorming to come up with creative ideas also. Wonderful things can happen when people come together to share ideas and collaborate.

Here is the press story about what they are doing in Estonia.

Agence France-Presse - 2/28/2009 8:16 PM GMT
"Estonians plan virtual 'happiness bank' to fight recession
In times of economic woe, Estonians are banking on ideas to lift their spirits above the gloom and doom of recession with an online "happiness bank" and forums on better governance.
"The main aim of the project... is to use modern technology to create a 'democracy machine' that will help increase understanding among people, bring the state closer to citizens and force people to become actively involved in improving their lives instead of passively hoping that someone else will do it," Estonian Internet entrepreneur Rainer Nolvak, one of the main organizers of the project, told AFP.
In the virtual "happiness bank", people will be able to earn virtual money on their accounts by doing good deeds for those in need. Organisers hope it will give people the idea that doing good is as valuable as earning money.
"We think that especially when the entire world is facing recession we need a lot of thinking also at the grass-roots level to figure what we all can do to fight recession and make life better," Nolvak added.
Organisers hope that as many as 100,000 Estonians in the tiny 1.3-million-strong Baltic EU state will attend 400-1000 public 'brain-storming' forums across Estonia on better governance that will also be streamed live via the net on May 1.
Registration for the project is currently underway.
"The topics of the forums will tackle the most important problems at both local and national level. All forum group heads must select the topics from our website www.minueesti.ee (my Estonia) by April 20, 2009," Anneli Ohvril, head of the Communications Team for the "Let's do it - let's think" project, told AFP.
"The forum participants will select best practice ideas that they will then start to implement," Ohvril says.
Organisers expect to get at least one thousand ideas for best practices that can be applied in everyday life. Later in December, people will be asked to vote on all the local and national best ideas to select the ones they like most."

For the full story see: news.sg.msn.com/oddities/article.aspx?cp-documentid=2659875