[pedrokost]

Think about the problems in your neighborhood and try to imagine creative solutions to them that you can implement with your skillset. It doesn't need to be a global problem to be worthwhile solving - sometimes helping our just a handful of people can feel extremely worthwhile.

This is how I got involved with a personal project. A few years ago I had trouble finding a listing of all Karate dojos in my vicinity. I compiled a list of such dojos in Excel, and later decided to put them online [0]. By putting this dataset online, and maintaining it up to date I am helping other people who are looking for a new place to train a sport.

This project not only helps the community (who can now easily find karate and other sports clubs easily through the project website) but also helped me learn new technologies and practice skill that I don't excel at, like design, writing, marketing, etc. Just yesterday I took the project to the next level and started doing same simple data analysis of the dataset [1].

While the project may not have a very large impact on the community, it does sufficiently so to feel worthwhile. Moreover, being able to play with different skills in a low stress environment makes is very enjoyable.

[0] http://www.klubi.si/ [1] https://medium.com/@pedro.kostelec/analyzing-the-market-size...