New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: How can I use my time outside of work to improve the world?

Ask HN: How can I use my time outside of work to improve the world?
8 by howtousethetime | 4 comments on Hacker News.
I've been working as a software engineer at big tech companies for about ten years, and while I've made a lot of money, when I look back on what I've built during that decade I don't see a lot that I feel has improved the world. I see a lot of products that have been shuttered and features that cause people to spend more time looking at ads. This doesn't make me feel very proud of how I've spent that decade. In the meantime, I look around and see a lot of 'real' problems that need solving. And it occurs to me that the skills I've chosen to develop, while lucrative, aren't positioning me to make the kind of impacts I'm itching to make. (As I write this I see this post bubbling upwards https://ift.tt/3sP0gH1 so perhaps I'm not alone in this sentiment) I'm not ready to leave my job, or perhaps I just don't know where I'd go if I did, so I make a point of donating extra income. In the process I've learned there are organizations like givewell that provide guidance on how to maximize the impact of a donation. And it got me wondering, have there have been similar attempts at providing guidance for people who would like to maximize the impact of their time? This is probably an orders of magnitude harder challenge, because money is fungible and skilled labor is not, but if such a service was available it would be exactly what I'm looking for. If there is no such thing, I'd love to hear what ideas HN'ers have on ways to spend spare labor in ways that makes them feel like they're contributing to important problems. (Improving their community, fighting climate change, supporting the underprivileged, ect) Givewell has a feature where some of its suggested donation targets list approximately how much money they need to save a human life. Wouldn't it be fascinating if there was a volunteer opportunity, that anyone could participate in, that could promise a human life saved after a certain number of hours of labor? For those that don't feel this itch, I'm curious what skillsets you've developed and where you've taken your career?