Aim for 2017: Change the World

Have you already made your New Year’s resolutions? How would you feel if one of those was to change the world?

Three nights ago millions of people had 12 grapes (as the Spanish custom dictates) with the hope of a better 2017. Using Figure 1 we can get an idea about the proportion of men and women who attended to one of the most emblematic places of Madrid for New Years: Puerta del Sol. We can also identify their normal place of residence the rest of the year and their age.

Figure 2: Breakdown of those who celebrated New Year´s Eve in Puerta del Sol (Madrid) by age, gender and place of residence.

The most popular age group that celebrated New Year´s Eve in Puerta del Sol was that of the 40+ age group, followed by 30+ then by 20+. The youngest age group (less than 20 years old) also have a slight representation followed by the oldest age group (more than 70 years old). Places of origin echo those highlighted in this blogpost: Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante, Toledo etc. Nevertheless we also have included the Canary Islands, which perhaps just wanted to add an extra hour to the end of their year. Incidentally, a large part of the 70+ group actually came from said islands.

All of them, as the rest of us, celebrated the change of the year with our bests wishes and New Year’s Resolutions. UN proposes us their concrete resolutions: end extreme poverty, fight against inequality and injustice and finally stop climate change. This post and a previous one, highlight what Telefónica wants to do in order to collaborate and help with these compromises. Maybe this is a good time to include them in our personal resolutions. Just ask yourself “what can I do?”. Take a look at “The Lazy´s Persons guide to saving the World” which provides us with a lot of simple actions we can do to contribute to the three problems below.

Figure 3: UN objectives for the development of sustainability: end extreme poverty, fight against inequality and injustice and finally stop climate change.

With some of these suggestions you don´t even have to move from the sofa, others only demand a simple change in your daily routine: reasonable and efficient use of energy (light, electric appliances, heating etc.) water, paper, transport, awareness of instances of injustice and inequality in our daily lives in our inner circle etc. We also need to take advantage of food that’s at our disposal, recycle, reuse (donate what we aren´t using), and finally spread this information (e.g. social media).

From this moment on we are now equipped and aware of how to positively impact these issues. Starting with those in 70+ age group who had the energy to come to Sol to celebrate New Year, followed by fun proposals like this one for the youngest.

From the LUCA team we wish you a happy New Year and an exciting 2017!

LUCA’s first 70 daysLUCA and the UN World Data Forum: 7 ways mobile data is being used to change the world