Awesome Foundation - Проекти

Ann Arbor, MI – Upgrade Video Camera for Community Events

2012-05-06T00:00:00Z

I eased into (partial) retirement a couple of years ago after 40+ years of providing management consulting and integrated software for local governments and other public sector organizations while helping honcho our company through a continuous thread of spinoffs and mergers since starting there in college. Then with more free time, I began attending several meetup and networking groups in the Ann Arbor area and got acquainted with serial entrepreneur Dug Song, who has been advocating for more meetups to help build a vibrant startup community here. Since 2009, I've helped several networking groups kick it up a notch or two with event management, record keeping, and especially, video live streaming/recording/editing/posting so people can experience the events remotely or after the fact. The URL above links to dozens of videos I have produced for several groups... and these Google spreadsheets provide a more detailed summary: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AknN2a_xojvPdGVaTk82ZnhqeldicjNTY1pPelMtelE As the summary sheets show, I currently produce an average of about two hours of videos a week ... nearly all as a volunteer ... for about 10 groups on an ongoing basis (shaded lines on the Google Spreadsheets) and other groups as time allows. My specialty is live video streaming and recording, but I also do video editing where warranted, e.g. for Ignite Ann Arbor talks, etc. My goal is to continue doing community videos while picking up an occasional paid gig to pay the bills. (It's really invigorating to participate in all of the various networking groups and help mentor others.) Another volunteer activity I've been involved with since 1993 is as a citizen advocate watching over the Pall/Gelman 1,4-Dioxane Groundwater Contamination Site expanding in Scio Township and through the City of Ann Arbor. I helped set up and manage the non-profit, grass-roots, citizen group Scio Residents for Safe Water (SRSW) and helped formalize the local government involvement with the establishment of the Coalition for Action on Remediation of Dioxane (CARD). I video nearly all public meetings regarding the site, attend CARD & SRSW review sessions, analyze available cleanup data, and produce comprehensive 4-D Google Earth mashups to allow stakeholders readily see the reality of the contamination and cleanup. In summary, what I do is effectively aggregate information and share it visually to churn ideas.

Montreal, QC (Неактивен) – A Smashing Time

2012-05-05T00:00:00Z

Recently, the caregivers have expressed an interest in creating a volleyball team. Unfortunately, AAFQ`s funding is limited and the registration fee is $10 per season with a $3 per person playing fee. The interested participants do not have the money to afford the registration fee or team uniforms. I have seen how the social activities at AAFQ offered thus far have truly proven beneficial and created a sense of cohesion amongst its members. As temporary workers in Montreal with limited familiarity with the language and culture, the live-in caregivers AAFQ services have a great deal of difficulty accessing resources. AAFQ provides these resources in an accessible manner. The volleyball team is a project I would like to organize for the live-in caregivers. The games will take place Saturday mornings at the Milton Park Recreation Association and run throughout the summer months. Caregivers have been identified as some of the most vulnerable and exploited categories of the workforce in Montreal. It is an added challenge for them to integrate and socialise within the community when they must live with their employers.

Boulder, CO (Неактивен) – Boulder County Timelapse Film

2012-05-01T00:00:00Z

I'm finishing up my Cinematography degree at Colorado Film School in Denver. The project is a three to five minute timelapse film. It will be publicly projected on the side of buildings along Pearl Street Mall on select evenings this summer. The film will contain imagery from the Caribou Ranch ghost town to Historic Landmarks in town; our blazing sunsets to the pink sunrises on the reservoir; the Valmont power plant to the windmills south of town. People will be able to stop a moment after dinner or on their way to grab a drink and reflect on Boulder's history, beauty and future from a perspective not usually seen. I'm the right person for this project because I have a lot of experience shooting timelapses and shooting and editing films. I am also a native and love this town so much, that I want to show people Boulder through my own eyes.

Austin, TX – Children of Bagbanistan

2012-04-30T00:00:00Z

Lenell Ripley had recently wrapped up a season of mentoring with the Chula League's Little Artist Big Artist program and was left wanting more mentoring time with kids. She had recently learned that Allan Elementary was loosing their art program. "There are a handful of very underfunded schools in East Austin that could use the extra boost to the arts programs (that little nudge to spark the young creative mind). One of the last projects I made with my little artist (Karina, age 10) was a T-shirt tote. Lined with duct tape, this upcycled t-shirt that was previously hand-screened easily evolved into one of the sturdiest totes around. Karina even uses it for her books now." Lenell wrote, "I want to make more of these now that there's a bag-ban coming. I want to soften the blow for those stubborn plastic users by handing out totes made by kids in the community FOR their community!" With her $1,000 grant in hand, Lenell bought colorful duct tape, staples, silk screening supplies, thread and upcycled t-shirts. Lenell and a classroom students gathered at Allan Elementary on May 23 and made the first batch of bags. Lenell said that the children were so excited that they asked their parents to stay after school and continue making bags. She plans on going to three to four more East Side schools to give this workshop and help the communities in need. That's a lot of upcycling!

Toronto – The Love Lettering Project

2012-04-30T00:00:00Z

The Love Lettering Project is a community arts project that brings love letters to strangers, and what’s more awesome than receiving an anonymous love letter? I have been writing love poems, turning them into one-of-a-kind paper and thread collages, slipping them into vintage air mail envelopes marked ‘love’ and leaving them for strangers to find each year for the past seven. The objective of The Love Lettering Project is to transform strangers’ relationship to public spaces, through anonymous love letters to those very spaces. It offers an unexpected chance to stop and see places familiar or strange without any pressure to respond. After my biggest summer of love lettering yet in 2011, I began developing The Love Lettering Project as a community-generated project through the Toronto Public Library system during Culture Days and at the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Family Learning Centre. It was wonderful to see what people from all ages and different corners of the city love about Toronto – ravines, the CN Tower, the cherry trees in High Park and so on. The first two 2012 events will take place on May 27 and July 29 as part of Pedestrian Sundays in Kensington Market, where I will engage people in creating their own love letters by inviting them to reflect on what they love about Toronto and write them love letters. I (along with a group of volunteers) will photograph and document these community art pieces and words and post them on a love lettering website. Participants will then take their airmail-enveloped love letters out to the very places they love to leave for others to discover. The second phase of this 2012 project (slated for Culture Days) will be a cartographic installation where a group of visual artists will create and interpret different neighbourhoods of Toronto, incorporating the love letters the public has written.

New York City, NY – 596 Acres

2012-04-27T00:00:00Z

596 Acres distributes information about publicly owned vacant land in Brooklyn by publishing print maps, creating and hosting an interactive map, holding land use visioning sessions (see http://596acres.org/news/2011/12/14/request-vacant-public-land-visioning-session-your-/), and providing advocacy and support for community-based groups all over Brooklyn as they negotiate with city agencies for permission to use currently vacant and fenced-off lots for community-determined projects. Since we tested our tactics in a pilot project in June 2011, fifteen communities have begun the process of organizing for control of their physical space (http://596acres.org/lot/organizing/). Eric is the programmer and amateur cartographer behind the interactive map at 596acres.org. He works on other food and data projects in the city, including Farming Concrete (a research experiment in measuring the amount of food grown in NYC's community gardens: farmingconcrete.org) and Food Census (a community-driven attempt to map food retail stores in Brooklyn: foodcensus.org). He tries to use the internet as a way to get people together in real life. We'd like to fund a dramatic extension to our current project by adding the publicly owned vacant lots in the other four boroughs to our site. This will give the communities in the rest of the city an idea of which vacant lots are owned by the city. It will also give these communities an opportunity to take advantage of this land using the knowledge and tactics that we have developed over the past eight months in Brooklyn. The phase of the project that we are seeking funding for will help us get the data online. Once we do that, we plan on creating posters for each borough, printing them, and posting them on fenced lots as we have done in Brooklyn. From there, we will work with interested groups in each borough to help communities get control of the land near them. If the residents of the Bronx, Queens, Manhattan, and Staten Island are as receptive to this data as those in Brooklyn have been, we expect to see a number of new community gardens and community-determined spaces created as a direct result of the publication of this data. Funding from the Awesome Foundation would help us grow!

Connecticut (Неактивен) – Main Street Storefront Murals Project

2012-04-26T00:00:00Z

I am an artist-resident of Read's ArtSpace;- the former department store located in downtown Bridgeport, CT., which was converted into affordable housing for artists in 2004. Since moving to Bridgeport in 2004, I have been active in arts-community development initiatives involving art and gardening and have created a butterfly garden on-site at Read's ArtSpace;- with materials assistance from The Bridgeport Land Trust. The Main Street Storefront Murals Project is an anti-blight public art project addressing the empty and derelict storefronts located along Main Street in downtown Bridgeport, CT;- a once thriving shopping district. Initiated in August, 2011, with funding and support from The City of Bridgeport's Office of Economic Planning and Development and The Downtown Special Services District, the first of the series of proposed storefront murals, 'Butterfly Dreaming' was completed as of September 5, 2011. The mural symbolically references the creative process and transformation of ideas into reality via the painted rendering of a woman's head, spilling open with a fluttering cloud of vividly colorful butterflies. What makes this project awesome are three things: (1. Witnessing first-hand theundeniable power of art 'in-your-face'/ in -a - public -place'; especially in a dark, dingy and blighted urban landscape; (2. This mural has generated a community dialog about creating a city-wide mural arts program and has sparked discussion about developing an after-school arts program for middle-school-high school students involving mural painting internships for 2012-2013;- (3. Me(!);- This project has proved to me that my vision and talent is appreciated, needed and supported by the community I live in and that my voice IS being heard! I feel a sense of mission or 'calling' about this project and feel gratified and encouraged to continue with my project-plan by dint of the support and encouragement I have already received by the local community.

Pittsburgh, PA – The Exquisite Machine

2012-04-26T00:00:00Z

I teach creative writing to high school students. I've been at it for about 4 1/2 years, and I love it. My favorite part of this job is coming up prompts to jumpstart creativity. This is a prompt for the city of Pittsburgh. My idea is this: The Story Machine. I'd like to set up a sentence station (or stations) somewhere in Pittsburgh that will involve a typewriter and a "machine." Participants will type the first line of a brand-new story or poem - just the first line, anything that comes to mind! - followed by their basic information. All of this will go into the "machine" which will do the rest of the work! Their completed story or poem will be mailed back to their home address in just a few weeks. The "machine" will actually be a craftily disguised box. Once enough first sentences are gathered, a series of writing parties will take place -- this is how the machine actually works. These will be open to whoever would like to attend - kids and adults alike - who will take the submitted sentences or lines and use them as writing prompts to create short-short stories or poems, which will then be sent back to the original writers for their enjoyment. Why this idea is awesome: - It will work! Typewriters are irresistible, even to those who gave up writing as a pleasure long ago. I hope to get the public engaged in a creative process, people who would probably not otherwise sit down and write for fun. - Pittsburgh is home to tons of writers and artists… as well as all those people who would be artists and writers if given a little push. The writing parties will give people both a reason to write and a prompt to build on. I am particularly interested in getting high school students (not just my own) involved. - Receiving mail from an actual person is such a great feeling! It's almost thrilling, in a weird way. I'd love to spread that feeling around a bit. - Community engagement! Anyone will be able to contribute sentences, and writing parties will ideally be held at a few different locations around the city (coffee shops, public spaces, maybe a museum or university). I would also love to save a copy of all the stories and poems generated through this project to compile into a website or a physical book. I run a small press (batcatpress.com) with my students who would certainly be up to such a task! Thanks for considering this!!

Halifax, NS (Неактивен) – Parking Ticket Paid!

2012-04-26T00:00:00Z

Me Hi! My name is Amber Phillips! I live in PEI but I am pitching an AWESOME idea to give back to Halifax. I consider myself to be the creative type and my New Years Resolution for 2012 was to give back and participate in and promote random acts of kindness. Background Two years ago April 6, our family had an unimaginable tragedy. My mom had to be airlifted from Charlottetown to the QEII in Halifax after a tragic accident. The amazing doctors at the QEII saved her life. We spent 2 weeks in the ICU, 2 weeks in Intermediate ICU and 2 weeks on Ortho floor before being transferred back to PEI. My brother and I moved to Halifax for a month. We spent 10 to 12 hours a day at the QEII by our Mom's side. We were lucky enough to have the support of our community back on PEI and received donations to help with our living and travel expenses. One of the biggest things that stood out for me was the price of parking at the hospital. $2.50 an hour I believe. When people are their most vunerable, tramautic events have happened to them, your brain is on autopilot, you spend hours holding the hand of someone in the ICU, you have to dig deep into your pockets and pay to park. I want to help others out with a great random act of kindness. I can't present my pitch in person (live in PEI) if I am selected for a finalist but I can send a video or SKYPE a pitch to the committee! I love the Awesome foundation!

Grand Rapids, MI (Неактивен) – Hand in Hand With Art

2012-04-26T00:00:00Z

I am a teacher for the Catholic Secondary Schools in Grand Rapids, Michigan. As the service learning coordinator (HOPE Coordinator) at the school, I am always looking for meaningful and substantive opportunities for my students to give back to the community through projects and experiences that both help the community, but also teach my students about leadership. One of my favorite collaborations each year is our work with Artists Creating Together “ACT” (formerly known as Very Special Arts). ACT is a non-profit agency that provides arts experiences to people with disabilities. For many of my students, our work with ACT is their first experience working alongside people with disabilities. They are so enriched by this exposure to our broader community. But our involvement goes further. In this project, my students are designing a large-scale activity area for ACT’s annual Festival Day on May 4. During the day, my students will work with over 1,000 children with disabilities from Kent ISD and together will create a variety of arts & textural experiences. Already, the student leadership team is researching ideas for projects during the day. The leadership team is designing projects that are accessible to children of all abilities & ages- from children who are blind who create by sound & touch to children with development disabilities or emotional impairments who use art as their language for communication. We will recruit over 100 volunteers from the Catholic Secondary Schools to run the activity area for the day. Today, we are requesting a grant of $1,000 to help pay for supplies & materials. With this money, my students can be creative & innovative in this project. For example, in a texture activity area, children can touch and create using a variety of creative materials: fabrics, beans, textured papers & metals. Logistics: The leadership team started meeting in January to begin planning and researching project ideas that are fun, creative, appropriate for all children. In April, we will begin ordering supplies (everything from paint to pasta noodles!) Students who are interested in volunteering for the day will also begin to sign-up, and I will take care of the administrative red tape like permission slips. Set-up will start after school on May 3. Festival Day officially begins at 9:00 am and ends at 1:30 pm. At the conclusion of the day, students will clean-up and reorganize any remaining supplies for future use by ACT.

Calgary, AB (Неактивен) – The Calgary Cookie Chase

2012-04-26T00:00:00Z

Imagine it is a Saturday morning. You're at your favourite trendy coffee shop in Marda Loop (with a friend) discussing your investments and stock portfolio. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice two giant cookies running down the street as fast as they can. Following them is a giant Cookie Monster trying to eat those cookies. And following all of this is a camera crew. Now imagine that on YouTube done by four 15 year-olds. Yeah. - This project is intended to launch a youth sketch comedy troupe. - An online video series featuring someone dressed as the Cookie Monster chasing 2 or 3 people dressed up as cookies down popular streets in Calgary (Kensington, Uptown, Marda Loop, etc). - The people dressed as cookies will be screaming in terror, crying, generally freaking out. The Cookie Monster will be yelling for cookies and doing whatever it takes for him to reach the cookies. They will make their way through the neighbourhood, going by landmarks and businesses in Calgary. - With these videos potentially being viral, it will show the rest of the world how creatively awesome Calgary is, and the fun/exciting stuff that goes on here. The breakdown of funds is: - Cookie Monster full costume suit: ~ $200 - Cookie costumes: ~ $400 - $600 - Rest of the funds (plus more) will be used for renting video production equipment. Follow this project on Twitter (@cookiechase_yyc), Facebook (facebook.com/CalgaryCookieChase) and at calgarycookiechase.ca.

Boston, MA – Mobile Farm Stand for Boston

2012-04-25T00:00:00Z

If people can’t get to fresh food, we want to bring it to them! Think Transformers-meets-food cart mashup with a modern design pedigree, and you’re starting to get an idea where we’re headed. BRACE is designing a mobile farm stand to reach underserved communities in Boston, and we don’t want to brag, but trust us, people are going to be excited when they see it. We’re talking about chasing-the-farm-stand-like-it’s-the-ice-cream-truck excited. You should see our sketchbook: it’s brimming over with cool ideas from a kinetically powered monowheel to a stand that pops up from a camping trailer. Sustainability and social justice are at the core of our design ethos, but after all, who’s going to use it if it’s not fun? BRACE: Building Research + Architecture + Community Exchange is a non-profit community design organization founded in 2010 by Boston architects Hansy Better and Anthony Piermarini. We have some of Boston and Providence’s freshest designers (and one super-fresh structural engineer) behind the project to make it edgy, instantly memorable, and feasible. BRACE was founded with the goal of realizing radical public spaces through a practice that unites different design fields and community members. With the help of the Awesome Foundation, we want to bring fresh fruit and veggies to those who need them most, and better still: we’re ready to do it in style.

Boston, MA – 'Knowing the Trees of Cambridge' Tour Guide

2012-04-25T00:00:00Z

For the past 2 years, we have been working with other tree-loving community members to get trees labeled around the Cambridge Main Library (Joan Lorentz park). With help from the city arborist, these labels (with scannable bar-code for further information) are finally going up in the next month. The City is so impressed with this initiative, they are considering designating the area as the Cambridge Arboretum. We have created a map and self-guided tour of these 26 trees. The purpose of this project is to raise awareness of the vital role of urban trees by helping people who pass them every day get to know them, somewhat like neighbors or people at a party with name-tags. Because of the library and Cambridge High School which share the property, this area gets a lot of foot traffic. Though simple, this project is also profound: trees are vital contributors to the health of the city, but easy to ignore. Having a guide available at the library will enable many community members to learn a little more and be a source of inspiration to residents of all ages. We are the right people to do this task because we are self-motivated, have already invested many, many hours in this project over a couple of years, show clear progress in enlisting the City's help, but prefer to broaden the base of support beyond the city's funding.

Detroit, MI – Strong&Beautiful

2012-04-25T00:00:00Z

Strong&Beautiful is a teen girls support group that meets every Friday at the Conner Capuchin Soup Kitchen. There are 7 girls ages 11-17 involved and 2 adult coordinators, Clara Hardie & Parina Davis-Usher. Although it's members change, "Girls Group" has existed for 9 years within the Rosa Parks Youth Program at the soup kitchen. Strong&Beautiful girls are in the process of gathering interviews from the soup kitchen community about their experiences with violence as well as their ideas for solutions. We may also create a series of screen-printed posters featuring the various ideas we have gathered for stoping violence in Detroit through the interviews. The girls are currently developing a workshop that will: 1) get youth to think about their concepts of violence through facilitated group discussion 2) watch our film of interviews 3) learn to use flip cams to interview each other, gathering more solutions to the problem of violence in Detroit. 4) We would also like to give the participating group some of our posters that offer alternatives to violence. Strong&Beautiful will prioritize sharing our workshop and posters with other youth organizations and schools in Detroit as well as with our own soup kitchen community. After that, we will consider sharing the workshop and posters with adult organizations as well, depending on our capacity. In addition to sharing the film through our workshops, the girls would like to post our film on youtube, our facebook page and other internet-based DIY media-sources. We will use twitter and texting to spread the word about our film. Strong&Beautiful will wheat paste and staple our posters around the soup kitchen community in addition to giving them as gifts to those who participate in our workshops.

San Francisco, CA – Come Out and Play San Francisco

2012-04-24T00:00:00Z

Come Out and Play (COaP) is a completely free, annual games festival in San Francisco that emphasizes active play in city streets, parks, and other public spaces. Our mission is to provide a forum for new types of games and play, and to bring together a public eager to rediscover their neighborhoods with designers interested in producing innovative games and experiences. While COaP started in New York in 2005, COaP San Francisco is still relatively new, and we're hoping to make 2012 the first year we are able to offer stipends to game designers for their work. We already have a fantastic community partner in SOMArts, who will be hosting our festival and exhibition for an entire month as a part of their Curatorial Commons program. We have big plans, which include: -Call for Submissions-We will encourage independent street game designers to apply, and hope to offer stipends of $200-$500. -An attendance goal of 5,000 for the month (we had 2,500 over a week in 2011). -Field Games Weekend–For one weekend, COaP will take over Victoria Manalo Draves Park in SOMA to showcase an array of new playground games. -Game Design for Kids Workshop–COaP game designers will host a workshop for kids under 11 to design their own playground games, with the best design given a public debut at the Field Games Weekend. -Pick Up and Go Games–These no-host games can be played at any time throughout the festival, and will begin at the SOMArts exhibition hall. Confirmed games include Wanted!, a cowgirl-themed scavenger hunt, and Ran Some, Ransom, a crime-solving game involving clues hidden throughout the neighborhood. -Street Game Events–In addition to Field and Pick Up and Go games, COaP will also present numerous hosted street games that take place throughout the city. These will include Journey to the End of the Night, a favorite from 2011; Jericho, a live-action spy game using Nerf guns; and Undercover Capture the Flag, in which a game of capture the flag is held in public spaces, without the knowledge of passers-by. -Exhibition Games–Our indoor exhibition games will include the centerpiece Sixteen Tons, a physical game in which participants attempt to move large game pieces to the matching spaces on the life-size game board. -Game Design Lab with ZERO1–COaP is partnering with the San Jose-based arts and technology festival ZERO1 to host a game design lab. The best design integrating real-world play and technology features will win a place in both ZERO1 and COaP festival.

Melbourne (Неактивен) – Poo Power!

2012-04-23T00:00:00Z

*Me?* Some call me the "ideas man". The last few years I've been working in the vocational education sector in Melbourne, lately in the area of sustainability and carbon management. In 2008 when I was working at William Angliss Institute in the CBD, I was awarded the annual Innovation Award for an online tool I developed for international students which carried a prize of $2500. I used the money to go back to university and put towards a Graduate Certificate in Sustainability at Swinburne University (coincidentally where I now work). However, in 2010 I was diagnosed with a rare cancer - tibial chondrosarcoma - when I resigned from my full-time job and my life appeared to fall apart quite quickly. In my final semester in completing my qualification the assessment required to be applied to a workplace context. As I wasn't working at the time, I was provided to work on a topic that I was interested in. As the owner of two boxers (Sally and Diesel) I have been perplexed by the the dog owner population who scoop their dogs' poo in plastic bags to be sent to landfill. Surely, there must be a better way? And so the dog poo power project was born! (Update: I'm 18 months in the clear!) *The Project?* (aka "Closing the Poop Loop") Following in the footsteps of community-owned energy projects such as the Hepburn Wind Farm, the central idea of the project is around distributed energy and energy diversity. Australia has one of the highest incidences of pet ownership in the world with latest data (from 2006) showing that 63% of the 7.5 million households own a pet. As the dog population in Australia continues to grow, so will the issue of dog ‘waste’ disposal in a waste management system of increasing urbanisation, a limited amount of suitable park spaces and shrinking landfill sites. On average, a dog produces 0.34 kilograms (kg) of feces per day. Consequently, there is approximately 1, 350.48 tonnes (t) of dog waste to be disposed of every day in Australia; 492, 925 tonnes (t) per year. Therefore the aim is to build an anaerobic methane digester to process the dog waste (and potentially other appropriate wastes) to create a biogas that can serve as renewable energy source (end use yet to be determined). *How I'l pull it off* I've pitched the idea to the Yarra Energy Foundation (www.yef.org.au) who are keen to support me through the process. I've also recruited the assistance of Liam Fennessy (RMIT Industrial Design) and his technical expertise.

Ottawa – The Capital Reading Garden

2012-04-23T00:00:00Z

April’s Awesome grant goes to Mary Beth Baker and her proposal for the Capital Reading Garden. Mary Beth is a librarian here in Ottawa and along with organizing numerous events, helped found the great initiative Open Data Ottawa. The Capital Reading Garden has been in the works since the spring of 2009, when she traveled to New York City and happened upon the Reading Room at Bryant Park, an extremely successful open-air library and park that also hosts literary events. Coming home to Ottawa from New York, she began research on different spaces in Ottawa to use as a public reading spot as part of a course on design and user behaviour. She was specifically curious about spaces that had existing multipurpose usage and wanted to encourage something awesome beyond normal playing, walking, and biking. She will use the funds to run the pop-up reading garden for five weekends starting in May and ending in September and hopes to run the project from May 2012 until September 2015. The space will be available to visitors Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. weather permitting. Funds will also go towards furniture; stackable chairs, tables, umbrellas, and outdoor signage. We are excited to see Mary Beth’s progress on this and hope to soon partake in literary pleasures in fun outdoor spaces.

Melbourne (Неактивен) – httpmote

2012-04-23T00:00:00Z

I'm a software developer and I have about 100 new ideas a week. I hate remote controls, in particular I hate remote controls for garage doors both at home at work. At home I never seem to have the remote control in my car - at work the draconian building managers limit how many people can have a remote. I want to build a system where I can use my mobile phone to buzz open a garage door, and share that buzzer with people I want to. At home I get Jims Mowing to come and mow my lawn. I would love to be able to "share" my remote control with him via text message (with a URL) with a time limit so that he could get into my backyard on Tuesday morning between 9am and 12am. At work, it would be great to have an allocation of "two spaces" and give multiple remotes to various team members and have the system tell me when there are no car spaces left. I'm the right person to build this because I know how to build web applications and I have enough basic skills to produce a working prototype of the hardware interface. I started working on this idea last night. I repaired an old busted remote control and then figured out what circuit I need to short to trigger the garage door to open. I'm going to hotwire the remote with an Arduino/Netduino and then connect with a home PC via USB. That will then listen via a socket to a message coming in over the web which is connected to a mobile web-site/mobile app.

Chicago, IL – Learnapalooza Chicago

2012-04-21T00:00:00Z

If I had realized how much time and effort I would put into a festival that offers free learning to the community (a bunch of strangers) I might have thought twice about it, but I know my co-chair, Brian would still have excitedly jumped on board. In 2010, five strangers dedicated a lot of time and effort to make a brand new summer event, Learnapalooza, a free learning festival. We had no idea what we were doing, or what would happen but with the support (read donations) of friends and family and a lot of trial and error, we were able to make something big happen. That first year 350 strangers showed at 17 places across Wicker Park and between them learned 77 new things all day! Now we want to help others across the city bring this awesome experience to their neighborhood. This is where you, Awesome Foundation, come in. Let’s get into the details; Learnapalooza invites amateur and professional teachers businesses and local organizations to host free workshops on a topic of their choosing. Anyone who has something to share – and basically we all do – can offer a class during the day-long festival. These classes take place in spaces all around a neighborhood, soaking the community in exciting learning. We take care of all of the class logistics. All we ask from our teachers is to plan and teach a fun, free class. The festival brings neighbors together in comfortable situations, and brings them in the doors of local businesses and organizations. Our success comes in many quotes: “I’ve always wanted to try this,” “I didn’t know this place existed,” “We met at Learnapalooza.” Now that we know what we are doing (2 years in Wicker Park and over a 1,000 attendees later), it is time for us to share the awesomeness, to take our torch and light the torch of other neighborhoods who can do just as good of a job (or even better) than us. Our goal is to host Learnapalooza in three neighborhoods this year, and the Awesome grant is pivotal to making that happen. How are we going to make it happen? We are going to find neighborhood leads, people who light up at the idea of Learnapalooza, and immediately say, "I want to do that", to manage the project in their community while we provide the support, the know-how, and the boundless enthusiasm. Support will be in the form of best practices, help with teacher, volunteer and marketing outreach, support with the registration system, and the model set by our continuing Flagship festival in Wicker Park.

Kingston – 26 Shorts

2012-04-19T00:00:00Z

26shorts is a project to help creative people in Kingston make films. Starting in late summer 2012, a team of Kingston artists will spend 6 months releasing one short film a week for 26 weeks. All of the films will be shot in and around Kingston during the 6 month period of the project, using Kingston film makers, actors, musicians and crew. Some of the films will be simple and quick to create, some will be ambitious and produced over several months. Some will be spur-of-the-moment individual projects, some of them meticulously planned collaborations. Every week, one new film will be released online. The 26shorts project gets its inspiration from a popular type of photographic study called a "365 project", during which photographers commit to producing one photo a day that is outside their normal type of work. The focus of a 365 project isn't necessarily to produce outstanding new portfolio pieces every day, but to challenge the photographer to take risks and to expand her body of work. We've also been inspired by the idea of a "48 hour film festival" where random teams of film-makers collaborate to write, shoot, edit and submit a narrative film for judging in just two days. 26shorts retains that focus on networking and spontaneity but adds more time for for more ambitious projects, the opportunity to participate in more than one film, and the creation of a network of artists that can grow over time. The project will encourage artists to benefit from the process of making the films, always striving to achieve the best possible product and often choosing to take creative and technical risks where possible.

Montreal, QC (Неактивен) – Community Songwriting on Demand

2012-04-18T00:00:00Z

For the past month I have been working on a project called Charlotte on Demand, where I have invited people to submit their song ideas in any capacity (lyrics, fragments, general ideas) and I have been using them to write a song a week and film and post a video online. You can see some results at http://facebook.com/cornfieldmusic and http://youtube.com/charlottecornfield. Now I would like to take this to a local level and invite people to submit their thoughts, ideas and lyrics inspired by the city of Montreal. This project is about the music community (all aspects of it) coming together around their city and expressing the nuances about what they love about this place and how it inspires them.

San Francisco, CA – The Balloon-Powered Dance Party!

2012-04-17T00:00:00Z

Our goal is to create the world's first ever immersive, balloon-powered dance party!We will design and build units made up of a micro radio receiver, a micro speaker, and a colored LED light, and insert them into balloons. The receivers will be tuned to the same frequency and will simultaneously broadcast tunes while the LEDs flash in time with the music. The captured air inside the balloons will create a resonating chamber, producing deep, rich sound despite the small speakers inside. We will also include several thousand unlit helium and air-filled balloons, and several hundred balloons with only LED lights inside. The final result will immerse visitors in a sea of floating, pulsating orbs of music and light. A dance party emanating from all around you! The installation will last over an entire weekend in the massive 22,000 cubic ft main gallery of the "Million Fishes" artists collective in the Mission. It will be fully advertised and open to the public for all to enjoy. We have, strangely enough, extensive balloon related experience. Our first adventure involved turning a squash court into a balloon ocean, using 6,000 blue balloons, and an array of colorful undersea balloon creatures. The response to this project was overwhelming - several hundred normally overstressed college students spent a whole day cavorting among the balloons. We marvel balloons' ability to create childlike wonder and expect this project to achieve even more of that same effect. http://goo.gl/yQ2EM Most recently, we launched a fully decorated Christmas tree into the stratosphere using several hundred helium balloons. http://goo.gl/9GCmq Will is the balloon specialist; Isaac, with a degree in Astrophysics, is our electronics guru; George is the party planner, DJ extraordinaire, and resident of the "Million Fishes" artists collective. Together with support from the Awesome Foundation, we are ready and eager to make this awesome dance party dream come true!

Oahu, HI – Dream Boxes for Homeless Kids

2012-04-16T00:00:00Z

My name is Grace Furuta and I am 6 years old. I made my own plan after I heard about you on the radio (KHPR). "My idea is to help the community by doing an art project. We want to pass around DREAM BOXES that have art supplies like glue, markers, crayons, scissors, cray-pas, colored pencils and paper to homeless kids. The purpose of my DREAM BOX idea is to make homeless kids happy so when they are lonely they can go to their DREAM BOX and find everything they want to do. My mom will drive me to homeless shelters on the weekend and if possible, I will bring an art teacher with me to share the importance of art." Thank you for your time. (Typed by Grace's mom, Lisa) Homeless shelters: Kaka’ako Next Step Shelter Pai’olu Kaiaulu Shelter Onelau’ena and Onemalu Shelters (Open to other suggestions)

Seattle, WA – The Pollinator Pathway

2012-04-10T00:00:00Z

Hi! I'm an artist and designer, and several years ago I started a project called the Pollinator Pathway. Its a mile long, twelve foot wide corridor of pollinator friendly gardens being built in planting strips along Seattle’s Columbia Street, between Seattle University’s campus (at 12th), and Nora’s woods, a pocket park on 29th. Spanning one third of the city’s width, the project draws a line of plant life between these two larger public green spaces, connecting otherwise disconnected urban land patches. A third of our food supply depends on pollination, and we have come to rely heavily on one species, the honeybee, to pollinate our major crops. Dependence on one species makes ecological systems fragile, as has become clear with recent massive honeybee declines due to Colony Collapse Disorder. Honeybees, a Eurasian species brought to America by European settlers, are one of the most well-known pollinators, but they are not the only ones. There are hundreds of thousands of native pollinators in the world, pollinating not only many of our crops, but 90% of the planet’s plants. The Pollinator Pathway’s goal is to support native pollinators by learning about and choosing plants that they utilize, with the understanding that healthy native pollinators and connected landscapes support the stability and health of our food supply and ecological systems. In a broad sense, the project looks at the larger systems that make up our world, investigates how they work, and creates a real-life platform to share information about these systems and their importance. While pollinators are the namesake of the pathway, it is plant life that binds this project together – the history of plants and historical biodiversity of the region, the relationships of plants and pollinators in farming, and the rise of cities and shifting land use patterns that have accompanied the spread of humanity on the planet. Part renegade park and part educational platform, the Pollinator Pathway merges science, art, systems-thinking, urban planning and landscape design and has worked with hundreds of volunteers and students in building the gardens so far. We've successfully built 12 gardens, and have raised funds for another 12 to be built this year. And, I'm applying to the Awesome Foundation for help building one new garden on the mile!

Sydney – Australian National Qualifier for breakdancing

2012-04-10T00:00:00Z

Krosswerdz (community programs) is a non profit group that uses hip hop to make a positive difference in the lives of young people. We provide personal development programs in breakdancing, aerosol art, emceeing and DJing. We run a free breakdancing program for 50 young people in Liverpool each week, on a voluntary basis. R16 is the pre-eminent world event for breakdancing. It is prestigous, highly respected and represents the pinnacle of performance for bboys and bgirls around the globe. This year 20 countries will participate, and our organisation has been invited to host the first ever Australian comp. We expect 800 people to attend this free event, and we need your support to make this dream a reality. More than 200 people have registered for the event, we have a venue and leading Australian judges, we have raised money for this event. The winning crew of 8 young people will fly to Taiwan to represent Australia. The event is not only a positive community event, but a once in a life time opportunity for the crew who win the battle to represent their country on the world stage.

Boulder, CO (Неактивен) – The MCAT Cooperative

2012-04-01T00:00:00Z

Now that I'm here at the Univ. of CO School of Medicine I've been trying to help other pre-meds become doctors by offering low-cost test prep for the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT), coaching, mentoring, and application assistance. The cost of the course is less than half of all other prep courses and it offers a lot more than all of them. What makes my program even more awesome is that the course is taught by actual medical students who do their best to offer friendship and support to the students. I'm able to keep it low-cost by partnering with other student organizations around campus with similar interest - hence the "Cooperative" in the name. I just started the program this spring at CU Denver and I have 8 students participating right now. I have received strong interest from the CU Boulder pre-meds that I start a course here also. I have high hopes that the program could grow and begin funding scholarships for students who are underrepresented in healthcare (low-income, first gen, or minorities). My highest aspiration is to one day make this a national program so that we can take eliminate the financial and cultural barriers that have been created by all the major corporate test prep companies who ask for over $2000 per student and don't provide the much needed extra support for students underrepresented in health care.

Ann Arbor, MI – Dome Sweet Dome

2012-04-01T00:00:00Z

I work in a lab with neural implants, and I love combining cool technology with enriching Ann Arbor's culture. I co-founded the local hackerspace (All Hands Active) and started a Burning Man inter-city theme camp (a little more on that, later). The latest project is to build a 16ft-radius GEODESIC DOME out of electrical conduit, 1.5inches thick. Why? Because these structures (designed by Buckminister Fuller) are architecturally unique in this town, remarkably sturdy, an awesome piece of DIY work, multi-purpose, transportable, and would be a great asset to any event in Ann Arbor that had the space to host it. More importantly, though, is HOW will it be used? I want to build and install this dome at: A2 Maker Faire, Detroit Maker Faire, Figment, and Lakes of Fire - all of which are local events that support creativity, community, celebrating the arts, and DIY building. At Lakes of Fire, it will be a space for Detroit DJs, decorative lighting, and dancing. At Figment or the Maker Faires, it can be a jungle gym -- fun to climb, and halfway up, we would rope cargo netting to protect from falls. What's more exciting is how people will want to use the dome - I want this to be readily available for others in or around Ann Arbor. My own plan for the next stage of this dome (if funded and built) is to turn it into a LARGE INSTRUMENT -- string bungee cords across the dome that will trigger sound (electronically and/or mechanically) when tugged and clambered upon. Other people may want to use it for parties, fundraisers, gatherings, performances, hanging hammocks or swings, cover it or leave it open. How will this thing get built? If sufficiently funded, we have a great crew who has A LOT of experience building big projects, including a 30' x 12' monkey hut (imagine a long archway) and a 10,000 sq ft maze. We initially banded together as a camp for Burning Man (a 1-week temporary city in the Nevada desert). However, this year we aren't going to that event and are instead focusing on ways to foster creativity in our home region. A very gracious man from A2MechShop has allowed us to use his band saw, hydraulic press, and drill press to cut, flatten, and drill the ends of our conduit. The flattened ends will be bolted together to construct the dome. We chose specs that make the dome stronger, easier to climb, and results in minimal waste when cutting the 10ft conduit lengths. We have space outside to do test builds and a bus to transport the disassembled dome.

Detroit, MI – The Detroit Journal

2012-03-30T00:00:00Z

The focus of our project is creating and publishing high-quality short films that tell true stories about real people in Detroit. We created a web site to show the videos on a monthly basis but we also provide Detroit-centric news and stories in between the film premiers. We premier the videos on our website and offline with a showing at some sort of Detroit space. The stories range anywhere from our latest episode about Lightshow Bob (a 15 year veteran lighting guy for bands in the Detroit area) to the night guard at the DIA. We take suggestions from viewers about people with interesting stories and we either devote a 10-15 minute long short film feature to that story or include their story in some way on our website.

Toronto – Guerilla Gardening: perennial plants

2012-03-29T00:00:00Z

We are a grassroots organization that reclaims public space. We use plants, flowers and seeds to beautify our city and encourage community participation. For the last decade we've been identifying neglected corners across Toronto and staging events to replace blight with beauty, gray with green. Our events typically include a seed bombing run in the spring (scattering native wildflower seeds into difficult to reach areas), followed by 2-5 plot-specific events. Our organization depends on donated plants and volunteer labor. We think it would be Awesome to spend $1000 to step up our efforts. With the help of the Awesome Foundation, our reach would also increase - more attention = more volunteers and more donations. I'm submitting this for Terry Aldebert, who is the key organizer. You can see a good interview with her here: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20080717/guerilla_gardening_AM_080717/

Boston, MA – Lorem Ipsum Store Front

2012-03-28T00:00:00Z

Thanks for taking the time to consider our proposal. We propose building an immersive installation in the Lorem Ipsum Store Front. As a Boston-based artist collective we’ve worked to invigorate spaces throughout the east coast and want to offer a permanent store front installation in our own community. Lorem Ipsum is a community oriented book store in Inman Square (Cambridge, MA) that hosts a variety of events from evening in-store concerts, free classes and workshops, gallery exhibits, and they also offer the largest Zine Libary in the New England. Lorem Ipsum asked us for help with their store front display and we would love to donate our installation prowess. As a collective we see the importance and power of collaboration to make amazing artistic endeavors come together. A one-of-a-kind store front installation would help bring attention to such a positive community center in Inman Square.

Grand Rapids, MI (Неактивен) – Classroom Freedom

2012-03-25T00:00:00Z

I am a high school Physical Science teacher at Calvin Christian High School. I have been teaching for 9 years and I love it. I am especially good at using technoloty in the classroom. I have a masters in Educational Technology form CMU. My problem is that in using technology I am often tied to my computer at the front of the classroom. I want to be able to wander throughout my classroom while I teach and give individual help, instead of being anchored to my computer. For this reason I am applying for this grant to purchase a tablet computer. By using a 7 inch tablet and the app called Pocket Cloud I will have the ability to control my desktop and projector remotely. This will allow me to be able to teach from anywhere in the classroom. I will be able to give individual help to students who need it while still being able to direct what is being presented and what is going on in the classroom. In addition to this I will be able to use the tablet while I am out of my classroom doing labs. We often do labs that require more space outdoors or in our gym.

Ottawa – Hidden Harvest Ottawa

2012-03-23T00:00:00Z

This month’s Awesome grant winner is Hidden Harvest Ottawa! Within the city limits of Ottawa there are 42,000+ fruit and nut trees which go unharvested every year. This adds up to thousands of pounds of food going to waste. Meanwhile community organizations and agencies like the Food Bank struggle to feed their communities with fresh produce and the owners of the trees throw away the excess. Hidden Harvest Ottawa seeks to bridge the gap: to pick fruit, share it, and then plant more trees. HHO will connect landowners with trees, tree owners with volunteer harvesters, and harvesters with community agencies. The harvest itself will follow a sustainable ¼ model: ¼ will go to the tree owner, ¼ to the volunteer harvesters, ¼ to the nearest community agency in need, and ¼ will return to HHO to generate funds to support the organization. Jason and Katrina, the founders of HHO, are friends that met through wild food salvaging adventures around Ottawa. Jason is on the Board of Directors for Just Food and a member of the Ottawa Forest and Greenspace Advisory Committee. Katrina was Outreach and Communications Director at The Otesha Project (a local sustainability non-profit) from 2009-2011. With the awesome grant they plan to invest in two bike trailers that will carry the weight they need to tote the fruit from the harvest to local food agencies. If you are interested in getting involved as a volunteer, landowner, or community group, please let us know or check out their Facebook page!

Calgary, AB (Неактивен) – SurroGART (Remote Robo-Art)

2012-03-22T00:00:00Z

The nerds & artists of Calgary are collaborating to create a remotely controllable art robot. Our project is awesome because it can only be completed through the collaborative & volunteer efforts of a few of the innovative communities of Calgary. This project will produce a robot that can be controlled by artists around the world through the mail-out of a simple, cheap control system. The automaton will have wheels/tracks to get around (whether it be down-town or at an art gallery) and a robotic arm that will interface with the mail-out control system over an internet connection. The movement of the remote artist's hands will be mimicked by the mechanical artist here in Calgary, bringing innovative art to our city in an innovative way. Finally, while having swappable art mediums (chalk, brush, spray), we will outfit the robot with 2 cameras to stream both the artwork and the audience response back to the contributing artist in real time. In addition to the volunteer efforts of independent artists and roboticists, the following organizations have made a commitment to support this project: - EZ-Robot - The Western Canadian Robotics Society - Protospace - Endeavor Arts & Events Space We have many of the expensive parts already being donated (computer, EZ-B, chassis), and all of the development, prototyping & building will be done by volunteers. The $1000 will be used to buy items we do not yet have, which consist of: - Sensors for the remote control mechanism (likely a wearable sleeve) - Materials to laser-cut for the chassis & robotic arm - IP Cameras - Servos - Battery packs To keep Calgarians up to date, we will blog, photograph & film the project as it progresses.

London (Неактивен) – Year Here

2012-03-21T00:00:00Z

Year Here is a new type of gap year opportunity for ambitious and entrepreneurial young people. We challenge school leavers to a year of tackling social issues in their own backyard. We aim to stimulate and nurture a new generation of young people who are not only fired up about social issues but also have the skills, insight and network to turn their passions into real social change. Our idea is an ambitious one. Rather than spending a year travelling overseas or working in a dead-end job, we want to inspire high-achieving young people to consider social entrepreneurship as a way of achieving their ambitions while changing society for the better. Young people will apply under a specific theme (e.g. ‘the ageing population’ or ‘social mobility’) and the most creative and entrepreneurial will be selected to become Year Here fellows. Fellows will undertake entrepreneurial work placements with charities and social enterprise; take part in training sessions to build up a range of relevant skills (from business planning to social impact measurement); and be immersed in residential ‘discovery weekends’ focussed on understanding specific social issues. Fellows will live together in shared accommodation and be paid a small stipend throughout the year to cover their expenses. Year Here has already gained public attention, winning the Ideas for London competition and being featured in the Evening Standard twice and on BBC London News. We plan to launch with 12 young people in January 2013 and scale rapidly thereafter. In 2001, I took a gap year teaching at a school in South Africa. Like many other idealistic British 18-year-olds, I wanted to be part of the fight against poverty. Having grown disillusioned with international development and now working on social issues in Britain, I wonder why, in the pursuit of a purpose for my life, I was drawn so far away from home. At the Young Foundation (my employer since 2008), I worked on the social venture funding programme Learning Launchpad, served as a trustee of the youth innovation consultancy, Space Unlimited, and co-wrote Growing Social Ventures (featured on the front page of the Financial Times). I was also part of the start-up team for The U, an initiative that creates volunteer-led training sessions on the high street in areas like first aid and conflict resolution, and managed the Faking It pilot, a programme that challenged young unemployed people to fake it as chefs in 2 weeks.

Chicago, IL – Free art hunts

2012-03-17T00:00:00Z

Hi my name is Patrick Skoff. I started some in Chicago that I call the free art hunts. What I do is create works of art and hide them all over. Then I give clues through twitter and facebook where to find the art. It has plenty of room for growth and the grant would really help. Thank you for your time. For more info on what I am doing you can find it if you google Patrick Skoff.

Kingston – Synchro-Cycle

2012-03-15T00:00:00Z

Synchronized swimming meets bike riding. That’s how Synchro-Cycle describes their mix of choreographed dance moves and bicycle riding. This Kingston-born sport was developed during the summer of 2011, is open to anyone who wants to join, and encourages bicycle riding in a fun and new sport. They look to growing the sport locally and outside of Kingston in 2012 and beyond with an Awesome Kingston Grant. In the summer of 2011 a few local Kingstonians rode to the beach with a transistor radio on their handlebars. Then sparked the brilliant idea of bike dancing while SYNCHRONIZED. Throughout the summer, the newly formed team started creating different moves and formations to demonstrate while riding their bikes. The choreographed moves have been put to much of the classic hits on radio, and the popular tempos these classic hits use. Later, when the team decided to research other cyclists who groove while riding none were found. This seemed preposterous because so many other Kingstonians while told the idea really wanted to participate or come watch our first "show". But being the first season and creation year of synchronized cycling only those randomly on our routes got to enjoy the spectacle. Syncro-Cycle would like to build on this idea with our community and for this coming season have a strong team or even two so we could compete! Our season will stretch from May-September, everyone is welcome, everyone is encouraged. We hope to grow Syncro-Cycle into a real sport, because they all have to start somewhere!

Seattle, WA – Hackademia

2012-03-13T00:00:00Z

For the past couple years I’ve been running a project at the UW a little bit under the radar. It’s not Official Research, or even Actual Teaching. It’s more of an exercise in inspiration. I’m giving undergrad and graduate students–regardless of their major–an opportunity to be innovative and build amazing stuff. I don’t care about their backgrounds, official expertise, or whether they’re a STEM major. Instead, I’m creating the conditions for people to get hands-on experience with technical tinkering, see themselves as builders of things and not just consumers of things–to see themselves as a technical person regardless of their career. I started doing this because I was convinced non-experts can have game-changing insights into difficult problems–precisely because they aren’t familiar with the constraints of the problem space. I’ve watched students make amazing contributions to global health, and I’ve been inspired and humbled by their fearlessness and imagination. So I started Hackademia to create a cohort of functional engineers (not accredited ones!) that have the vocabulary, understanding of basic concepts, and self-confidence to participate fully in creating innovative technologies. I’ve been a professor for many years. I’ve done a lot of official academic work (see bethkolko.com). I’ve also spent 10 years researching technology adoption in Central Asia, I helped start the field of Info and Comm Tech for International Development, I’ve led a team that built a usable, low-cost ultrasound system designed for midwives in Uganda, I’ve gone to Kenya and Kyrgyzstan to study SMS and post-election violence, and I’ve taken a PhD in English and turned it into a full professorship in Engineering. But Hackademia is definitely the most awesome thing I’ve tried to do, because when (not if!) we’re successful, and we’ve spread like a virus through the land, we’ll have convinced people that traditional conceptions of expertise aren’t what’s going to change the world. We’ll have created a scalable model for creating functional engineers who can bring fresh perspectives to solving problems and help make the world a better place. After 2 years & the help of amazing students, we now understand what it takes to scaffold people who come through the door, how to create early successes and spur people on to new ways of thinking and tinkering. It’s time to be vocal, recruit more vigorously, and build awesome things that will spread the word, But we need some help to do that.

Sydney – Chalk & Talk

2012-03-13T00:00:00Z

THE PROJECT: Me and my partner in crime(s of awesomeness) are incubating plans to hatch some interactive art onto the streets of Sydney. The application for this grant is part of a birthday present for the said partner :) Put pithily, our project will involve fixing a “sentence starter” (made from cheap purchased lettering) onto a wall frequented by pedestrians, followed by a blackboard and chalk for people to finish the sentence off in whichever way they choose. Users may even choose to respond in pictures rather than in words. Being dreamers, we envisage this project to eventuate in plural, but for now we are doing our best to play realists and would love a little kick start from your foundation to take our first instance of it out of our multidimensional daydreams and into everyday 3D life. Our first installation will make appropriate use of the “A” word, with the sentence starter being “You are awesome because…” Our sentence starters will in essence be based on “positive affirmations” . For example, “Smile because…” or “Today I will…” etc. But our street art will avoid the cheesefactor experienced in the viewing of motivational posters and the like by being cloaked in a kind of coolness deemed suitable to the tastes of the hipsters of our times. IT'S AWESOME BECAUSE: Even those that don’t put chalk to blackboard are more than likely to finish the sentence in their heads. In this way, the project has the potential to inspire positive thoughts in all passers by. But who doesn’t appreciate their walk towards the daily grind being made that little bit more interesting? The use of a blackboard links to ideas of old school teaching (see “chalk and talk” http://www.thefreedictionary.com/chalk+and+talk). We see anyone and everyone as a potential teacher who has important messages to share with others. Its temporary nature ~ we feel the element of transience, spontaneity, being “in the moment” and non-attachment adds appeal. But users could always photograph their masterpieces if they wish to hold onto them into the nether. Living in the iNfOrMaTiOnOvErLoAd age means we have so many choices of ways to communicate instantly with so many people... quantity vs quality, yadayadayada... but so much weighty stuff is still often left unsaid! Encouraging people to share their ideas, their creativity, and their kindness with each other is important, dontcha think?

Austin, TX – The Pay Phone Revival Project

2012-03-12T00:00:00Z

The Austin Chapter of the Awesome Foundation awarded its first grant to Bridget Quinn, an Austin-based “artist, organizer and explorer of the everyday landscape” to fund her labor of love, The Pay Phone Revival Project. With the mission of creating meaningful interactions between pedestrians and their everyday surroundings, Quinn commissioned teams of emerging artists to convert abandoned pay phone booths into temporary public art installations throughout Central and East Austin. An opening bike tour in April 2012 took urban explorers on a meandering trip to see all nine installations. Quinn explained her inspiration for the project in an interview with Austinist.com: "I have always loved pay phones. I began photographing them about 4 years ago for a school project. I was particularly interested in the way the photographs captured the sometimes awkward placement of payphones relative to their surroundings. Some of these photographs highlighted some pretty poignant and humorous expressions of our need to be connected to each other. As time progressed I began noticing more and more pay phone booths without phones in them. Many pay phone companies would de-install the phone and just leave the booth. For some reason these empty pay phone booths seemed invisible to everyone else... business owners wouldn't even be aware that there was an empty pay phone booth outside of their business. I tend to anthropomorphize objects, so I started to see them as sad little ghosts of an increasingly phased out technology. They looked like little empty frames, the phone booths needed a new function, a new reason to exist! Ideas flooded into me, so that's when I realized I needed to bring other artists and designers into the process of reclaiming and re-purposing these forgotten objects."

Kitchener-Waterloo – It's My EcoPlace (Local Produce Blog + Directory)

2012-03-11T00:00:00Z

It's My EcoPlace is a planned website for the Kitchener-Waterloo region. Small-scale farmers don't necessarily have the time or resources to advertise or create a website. But consumers ARE looking for locally grown and organic produce. www.itsmyecoplace.ca connects these two groups by creating an online directory of local farms and growers. What makes this site unique, though, is that each directory listing is given a blog on the site, which allows the farmer to "have a website" without actually having one. They can update consumers as to which crops are ready, food prices, or photos. I think I am the right person to do this because I LOVE small-scale farms and CSA operations. I have been researching and working on the site for 8 months, even learning CSS and HTML! I have completed a business plan, which I submitted to the UWaterloo Nicol competition. This helped me identify potential clients in the area. Now I need to contact them. I will be making sure to contact the farmers face-to-face, since the local community is what the site is about. Overall, I am hoping for this site to help consumers find local produce, and to support local farmers.

Pittsburgh, PA – Dickson Elementary Outdoor Art Garden

2012-03-11T00:00:00Z

I am an art student teacher at the Woodland Hills School District. I am working with students from very low income households, very little resources and I want to make art an escape for them. I want to create an outdoor learning center for Dickson Elementary School where students can go outside and truly create in the atmosphere of down town Pittsburgh. We have already started clearing the small patch of land we have chosen for this garden but with no funds, this learning center will never be finished. These students need a safe and creative environment to express, explore and play. As an art teacher born and raised in Pittsburgh, I have never been so passionate to make the city a learning environment. The students at this elementary school are smart, imaginative and driven, they just need an area to learn that keeps them in the schools and off the streets.

Ann Arbor, MI – Bona Sera Above Ground

2012-03-04T00:00:00Z

We are Ann Arbor's underground supper club. We have been hosting underground dinners for the past 3 years. All dinners are charity fundraisers for various non-profits in and around Ann Arbor. We have raised over 10 thousand dollars within these 3 years. Diners make a donation for their ticket to dinner and all proceeds raised after the cost of the food go to the charity. We love doing the fundraisers but have been working full time jobs as well. Our goal is to become "above ground" and a legal food service business. This will enable us to continue to do charity fundraisers quarterly. An A2 Awesome grant will assist us with food licensing cost to get this project going. We have a commercial kitchen that we are renting and will be participating at the Mix Marketplace (Ypsilanti) once licensing occurs. Here are some of the organizations we have funded in the past: Growing Hope, Jazzistry, Alternative for Girls, Neutral Zone, Ozone House, HARC, The Ann Arbor Skatepark, LAAN, AIDS Partnership Michigan

Boulder, CO (Неактивен) – The world is a gallery.

2012-03-01T00:00:00Z

I'm a photographer living and working in Denver. I shoot mostly cityscapes, still life, and commercial. I LOVE sharing my work with people - in fact I'd love to share it with everyone possible. I firmly believe that people should be surrounded by art consistently. Life is art, after all. That's where this idea comes in. I'd like to print and frame 40 pieces of my work, and install them in random places around the city of Denver - and by random I mean RANDOM. Alleys, Buildings, Public Spaces, Establishments, Overpasses, Parks - anywhere that people exist. I would print and frame all of the works myself, and while for some spaces I would ask permission of the owners to hang the work, and some installations would be guerilla in style. Think of the effect it would have on you to be presented with a contrasting or complementary scene while waiting at a busstop, or while on your bike commuting to work - It could serve as a small respite from and otherwise chaotic day.

Halifax, NS (Неактивен) – Re-Plant Halifax

2012-03-01T00:00:00Z

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.” This greek proverb has been a common phrase and practice in my family - from my great-grandfather, to grandfather, father, mother, sister and now hopefully me! As a child my father always forced my Girl Guide group into community tree planting which I hated at the time, but as an adult I quite enjoy seeing the fruits of my labour line the streets of Wolfville! I grew up outside of Avonport on a hobby farm where my father grows trees in his arbourarium which is made up of hundreds of species and thousands of trees. Each spring he would partner with a non-profit group in a local community (Wolfville, Yarmouth, Windsor, Mahone Bay, London Ontario, to name a few). We would talk to the municipal government & community groups to get approval to plant trees on public land. I would like to host an "Awesome Halifax Re-plant"! We would recruit planters through social media and personal contacts. We would set a date in May that the trees will be delivered to pre-determined public spaces where supplies and instruction will be provided. We want to ensure that the trees planted live long healthy lives at hopefully at some point planters might be able to sit in their shade! For people to feel a sense of pride in the environment in their community they have to have a connection to it. My generation often wants to be involved in environmental change but rarely mobilizes themselves to do anything about it. By planting trees the volunteers will forever remember the one that they planted, watch it grow, take pride in their community and hopefully motivate them to make more positive changes! For example, my sister organized her graduating class at UWO to plant 500 trees on campus. Many of them planted their trees in locations that were special to them or with people who were special to them. My sister planted hers in front of the on-campus hospital where my uncle went through intensive surgery and became a paraplegic after a farm accident. She planted it with all of the family present and many of us go back to visit it and check in on its progress since!

Boston, MA – Holly Hill Farm Kitchen-mobile Classroom

2012-02-29T00:00:00Z

Childhood obesity is a huge problem in this country. We all know why this is so: if you ask elementary school kids to name their favorite snack, they'll most likely tell you it's something that comes in a plastic bag, low in nutritional value, loaded with chemicals, high fructose corn syrup and fat. If you ask where their favorite vegetable comes from, chances are they'll say, "from the grocery store." But something magical and truly awesome happens when take you kids to a vegetable garden behind their school. Suddenly they become less interested in those unhealthy packaged snacks and they are excited to see that the seeds they planted a few weeks ago have turned into something edible and delicious. I've seen this happen because I'm lucky enough to work for an organization that educates kids in school gardens, teaching them all about the importance of healthy rich soil, encourages them to eat their apples at lunch and compost the core, and to understand the life cycle of plants and the miracle that seeds produce things we can eat. I work for the Friends of Holly Hill Farm (FHHF), a non-profit education center based at Holly Hill Farm in Cohasset, MA that was established in 2002. Holly Hill Farm is a working certified organic vegetable farm. FHHF offers farm-based education programs where kids come to the farm for field trips, vacation and summer programs. We do programs for families and adults too - everything from compost "how to" to garlic planting workshops. We love to cook with kids at the farm and in the 18 school gardens we have helped to establish in 6 towns on the South Shore. These gardens are working outdoor classrooms. We've found that kids really love to eat vegetables they have helped to grow in the garden. We would like to expand our list of we can prepare with kids by doing some serious cooking! Salad parties are fun, but we really want to do more - sautéed chard and onions, carrot soup, garlic bread, kale chips. Why don't we use the school kitchen, you wonder? Well, sorry, rules are rules and kids are not allowed in the school kitchen (silly, huh?) So here's what we want to do, we want to build a mobile kitchen on the back of a trailer, hook it to a car and drive it to an area near the school garden and cook on site using produce harvested from the garden. We're hoping to change the way kids view food so they will see how delicious fresh vegetables can be and choose more healthy things to feed themselves and their families!

Ottawa – University of Ottawa Quidditch Team

2012-02-29T00:00:00Z

The grant this month goes to Clare Hutchinson and the University of Ottawa Quidditch team! Clare helped start the team at uOttawa, which is based on the sport written by J.K. Rowling in the Harry Potter book series, a sport played by over 300 teams globally. The sport uses and adapts rules from the book to a Muggle (non-magical) context. Bringing people together from all backgrounds at uOttawa, from the athletic to the non-athletic and the engineering students to the arts students, playing Quidditch helps the students stay healthy and active all year long. The game was started by some students at Middlebury College in Vermont in 2005 as an alternative to their regular games of bocce. Alexander Manshel was the first Quidditch Commissioner and he was the one to adapt the rules from the stories to a real life game. Alex Benepe took over that role and really took the game from just being intramurals played at Middlebury to the international sport it is today (he is still the Commissioner of the International Quidditch Association). By 2008, teams travelled from across the United States to compete in the Quidditch World Cup, including a single Canadian team, McGill University. Last year 96 teams competed on Randall’s Island in New York City. The version of Quidditch played at uOttawa is extremely close to the version Harry Potter plays. Three Chasers on each side attempt to score on the opposing team’s hoops (of which there are 3) with the Quaffle (a slightly deflated volleyball). The hoops are guarded by a Keeper, who generally plays offensively as well. This part of the game is quite similar to rugby. The Beater position reflects the challenges a player would face on a broomstick. There are 2 Beaters on each side, and 3 Bludgers (dodgeballs); when a player gets hit by a Bludger, they must drop whatever they are holding and run back to their side of the field and touch the hoops before they remount their broom and rejoin the game; this is a time penalty that simulates falling off a broom. A goal is worth 10 points, and a Snitch Snatch is worth 30. The game is full contact and co-ed (current gender rules stipulate that there must be 2 players of the opposite gender on the pitch at all times; soon, it will change to a ratio of 3:4). There are rules against back-tackling and illegal tackles, but the game can still get rough, and injuries (known as “quinjuries”) are common, as no protective gear is worn during play. Because there are 4 balls and 4 positions with different rules for each, there is a lot going on, and goal referees and bludger referees are often used. In Clare’s words: “My favourite adaptation is by far the Snitch. In Muggle Quidditch, the Snitch is a person. And just like the Snitch in the game, they are playful, unpredictable, and extremely difficult to catch: Snitches have a ballsock on the back of their shorts that must be caught by either team’s Seeker to end the game. Snitches are released at the beginning of the game and have full run of the area, although they must return to the pitch at a certain time. Amid all the running and wrestling (Snitches cannot be tackled, although they can tackle other players), Snitches like to entertain the crowd with acrobatics, climbing trees, throwing snowballs or water balloons, bullfighting, and general tomfoolery. All players except the Snitch (who has no broom) must be on their brooms at all times.” There are about 600 registered Quidditch teams worldwide; uOttawa’s team plays year-round, although some teams have on- and off-seasons. While the World Cup is generally the only time that most Quidditch teams come together, there are numerous regional tournaments held throughout the year all over the world. uOttawa Quidditch is quite new in the scheme of things, at just over a year old, but they’ve already become well-known for their team spirit, gorgeous uniforms, and obnoxious cheering (accompanied by a signature snare drum and war dance). Clare and team hope to use the funds to help students who are financially disadvantaged to accompany them to away tournaments and to host more tournaments in Ottawa to spread Canadian Quidditch culture.

Boston, MA – LIFT Bike Project

2012-02-29T00:00:00Z

Hi! My name is Ben Sommer, and I'm the Director for the LIFT Bike Project, a non-profit organization founded by a Harvard undergrad in 2009 with the mission of addressing transportation issues among homeless and low-income residents in the Boston Area by donating refurbished bicycles to those in need. This year we are hoping to giveaway 100 bikes at the Green Streets Initiative's Walk/Ride Day on April 27! But we have a lot to do to get ready. Every Wednesday we hold "refurb nights" at Quad Bikes in Cambridge where volunteers can get a little greasy by helping to fix up donated bikes. We usually have a wide range of volunteers show up to help, from first time bike noobs, to professional mechanics, to local Cambridge characters. We drink a little beer, listen to a little music, and wield a little wrench. Most of our bikes come from the Cambridge DPW, which stores bikes that have been abandoned on the street. 50 of our bikes are donated by Roll It Forward, a similar program started by the City of Boston. Individuals also dredge up bikes from their basement as well to give them new life in the service of someone who needs it. I myself am a Cambridge native who moved back to the area after graduating from college in Minnesota. I have gained experience working with a tight budget since helping to found and manage the Dorchester Winter Farmers' Market, an awesome place to go for affordable healthy food this winter in Boston. I also am a community organizer for the Dorchester Community Food Coop, a start up organization that hopes to build a community-owned grocery store in the heart of Dorchester. An Awesome Foundation grant would go a long way in the LIFT Bike Project. We are a lighthearted and sometimes goofy, community-oriented organization that does a lot of good for a lot of people. Thank you for your consideration! Stay Awesome! Ben Sommer

Halifax, NS (Неактивен) – SPACE BAGPIPERS

2012-02-29T00:00:00Z

I am a NSCAD student and a member of Dudes and Ladies Arts Society, a band of like-minded artists and enthusiasts committed to using our creativity, ingenuity, and love of a good time to bring great collaborative public art to Halifax and the world. SPACE BAGPIPERS is a public event/ intervention that would unfold like this: It is a weekend afternoon. Inexplicably, twenty or so bagpipers, dressed in fabulous silver spacesuits of variable specifics, appear in downtown Halifax. They walk down Barrington Street, one stopping on each corner, until they are distributed throughout the downtown core. Then they play their bagpipes, and glorious, droning, Highland cacophony fills the city for 15-20 minutes. When they are finished, they leave, reuniting with each other as they walk back from whence they came and forming a climactic, raucous, SPACE BAGPIPER parade, never to be seen again. The bagpipers would be volunteers from the legions of bagpipers employed in Halifax during the tourist season, offered lunch and the chance to participate in an event that appreciates their substantial skill and brings it to the local population in a fun, unexpected way during the off-season. The costumes will be made by me and the other talented members of Dudes and Ladies Arts Society, adapted to the functional specifics necessary for bag piping. NSCAD University’s Granville campus could serve as our home base/mothership. SPACE BAGPIPERS would be a marvellous departure from the everyday, a half-hour for revelry in the nonsensical, and an opportunity for spirits to be lifted in the grungy Halifax spring.

Houston (Неактивен) – Evenings with Genetics

2012-02-29T00:00:00Z

Many families struggle to understand not only the genetic evaluation process and the medical care issues, but also the social and emotional component of this information. Several years ago I began organizing community outreach by working with our Baylor College of Medicine genetics faculty in offering seminars for the community. These are held at The Children’s Museum of Houston. The goals of our Evenings with Genetics series are to diminish the knowledge gaps, highlight local and national resources, and aid with family-to-family networking. Houston has a wonderful multicultural community and we are trying to reach out to Spanish-speaking families as well. We have offered simultaneous translation to Spanish at many of our seminars with the expertise of medical translators. The translation equipment to offer this service is rented and costly, which limits the number of times we can offer simultaneous translation. We strongly believe that families who understand their child’s genetic condition are better prepared to care and advocate for their child.

Montreal, QC (Неактивен) – Les débats de rue

2012-02-23T00:00:00Z

Le projet des débats de rue vise à stimuler l’intérêt des Montréalais pour les enjeux touchant leur ville en démocratisant le débat, en le rendant accessible au plus grand nombre et en sollicitant l’intérêt et la participation de tous. Pour ce faire, nous souhaitons ramener le débat dans la rue, en créant une sorte «d’agora» spontanée. À raison de quatre débats de rue par année (un par saison), nous convierons les citoyens à débattre, dans un lieu public (parc, place publique, landmark), d’un enjeu d’actualité à Montréal. Dans un climat convivial et respectueux, des débatteurs d’opinions diverses seraient invités à intervenir et à stimuler la discussion. Puisque le tout se déroulera dans un lieu public, les passants seront attirés par l’événement et se joindront aux participants, puis au débat, élargissant ainsi l’impact de l’événement. Enrobé d’une symbolique rappelant la démocratie athénienne, les débats de rues seront le flash mob des amoureux de Montréal.

Calgary, AB (Неактивен) – Gumsphere 300

2012-02-23T00:00:00Z

Gumsphere 300 is taking some very excellent musical and artistic talent from Calgary, mashing it all up into a crazy-awesome show and taking it on the road across North America in 8 tiny Ford Festivas. The audience is already pumped, the artists are primed, the itinerary is mostly locked in, and there's a lot of very good buzz about this. Everyone (and we mean EVERYONE – from radio to print to beer sponsors to online car forums) is behind this the second they hear about it! Did we mention the cars are customized? Did we mention that there'll be a full-length documentary made? Did we mention the young and talented Calgary bands are making tour contacts and career-enhancing moves all up in this festival? Car enthusiasts love it, music lovers love it, weirdo performing artists love it, and it's for all of them, and for you that Gumsphere 300 is happening. We're making it happen with a lot of their help, a lot of elbow grease and hopefully Awesome Calgary's $1000. Follow this project on Twitter (@Gumsphere300), Facebook (facebook.com/Gumsphere300) and at gumsphere300.com.

Calgary, AB (Неактивен) – Timmy's Only Delivery Service

2012-02-23T00:00:00Z

We deliver coffee, donuts, and food from downtown Calgary restaurants to downtown Calgary businesses. - It's awesome because it shows people that the entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well regardless of our personal situation. - Hire on other homeless people and give them a sense of accomplishment and self worth as well as an opportunity to make a positive impact on their environment (and some income). - Our customers benefit due to the convenience and low cost of our service. - This project is scalable and easily replicated in other cities. The money will be used towards: - Providing marketing materials (fliers, business cards etc...) - Transportation fees (either transit pass or vehicle) - Materials (insulated bags) - Updated phone to enable connection through social media Follow this project on Twitter (@TimmysOnly), Facebook (facebook.com/TimmysOnly) and at timmysonly.com.