6- Herb Caudill, Founder and CTO of DevResults, a web tool for international humanitarian assistance & disaster relief programs

Mariana Pimenta

Herb Caudill, Founder and CTO of DevResults, a web tool for international humanitarian assistance & disaster relief programs.

When I asked the manager of my coworking in Barcelona, which member there he thought had the most exciting career, he immediately told me it was Herb Caudill

I checked his website and was impressed with how they were helping the world.

DevResults monitors, evaluates, maps, manages and collaborates w/ international development programs in the field, and has been used in 18 countries to manage over $2 billion in foreign assistance. Not only this software helps the humanitarian organizations, governments and donors get more clarity on their figures, it directly assists all of us, who also partially pay for it.

He reminds us that simple, smart solutions to big problems can generate some very exciting careers. A company aligned with the future, that lets their team of 11 people work remotely, from anywhere they want.

He grew up in Panama and Ecuador, then worked in Africa, US and then chose Barcelona, of course, to live with his family. 😃 Goes to work by bicycle, plays piano, speaks 6 to 7 languages. You know that saying “surround yourself with people you want to be like?”. That's how lucky some coworkers are to have doers like Herb around.

We talk about:

- what is a real world problem?

- how they help people who solve real world problems, do their jobs better

- how his software makes international development more accountable & more transparent

- the International Aid Transparency

- wishes to make the software more of a planning and management and less of a reporting tool, not completely US focused

- how his experience living in Panama, Ecuador and Africa helped him develop DevResults and work with International Development

- how they choose their staff (programmers and data scientists)

- how they got more name recognition and stability

- future plans

- the benefits of coworkings

Quotes:

“It pays off so much to create your own thing, to be your own boss. There is just nothing like that"

"just stop thinking about it and do it"

"famines don't happen because people don't know how to farm, famines happen because you have unstable government. Usually famines are political in nature"

"there's nothing like that feeling of working on something brand new and fresh.”

"you get so much more respect from customers than you do from bosses (…) They're respectful of your time in a way that you just don't see that much in an employee/employer relationships"

"could make a lot more money than they're making now and have complete freedom by just quitting their jobs and doing the exact same thing as a consultant, or as a freelancer just as an individual. "

Notes:

Joel Gaicoigne, from Buffer

d3 visualizations by Mike Bostock

remoteok.io

Nomadlist.com

Stack Overflow

International Aid Transparency Initiative

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