Rice-through? Rice-per-click? Neat idea!

Posted under A Geek Dad's Life, Blog Posts, Software Design

This is an incredibly simple and powerful idea: Test your vocabulary, and advertisers donate 10 grains of rice for each word you get correct.  Here are some snippets of explanation from the FreeRice Project:

[FreeRice helps you and the sponsors donate rice] 10 grains at a time. Here is how it works. When you play the game, advertisements appear on the bottom of your screen. The money generated by these advertisements is then used to buy the rice. So by playing, you generate the money that pays for the rice donated to hungry people.

FreeRice automatically adjusts to your level of vocabulary. It starts by giving you words at different levels of difficulty and then, based on how you do, assigns you an approximate starting level.

There are 50 levels in all, but it is rare for people to get above level 48.

The rice is paid for by the advertisers whose names you see on the bottom of your vocabulary screen.

The rice is distributed by the United Nations World Food Program (WFP).

This is a stellar example of geeks at work for the betterment of humanity.  The technology is on par with a high school computer programming class, but the business execution obviously required some expertise. 

I  donated 330 grains of rice and hovered around level 40.  How well will you and your friends do?