Archive for November, 2010

Awesome Foundation Melbourne

Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

Greetings Awesome People,
The wait is over.
The next stage in the birthing of Awesome Foundation Melbourne begins.

We have elected our founding board of 10 micro-trustees.

In the few weeks after we posted the initial search for micro-trustees we had a huge surge of interest with over 60 people showing interest. We thought it might be a stretch to find 10 people so this was really incredible! It was not easy deciding which individuals would lead to the best balance for the board, given how AWESOME everyone was – but we thought it was important to have as broad a mix as possible to reflect the fact that Melbourne has such a vibrant community for people who want to support good shit happening.

In deciding, we looked for diversity in professions, backgrounds and interests. For example we didn’t want more than two programmers, more than two doctors, more than two of the Deloitte mafia, or for the whole board to be guys. Also, we asked ourselves a few key questions: what mix of people on board could collectively given the most value to the grant winners? How can give the grantees support beyond simply just the 1000 grant?

Without any further ranting, here is The Founding 2011 Micro-Trustee Board:

Ross Hill -> Minimalist, explorer, blogger, kiteboarder, entrepreneur. Founder of @coverhunt, @thehive, @awesomemelb. Work with @deloittedigital at @green_dot.

Jason Smale – Creative Technologist running WhatWeWishFor. Creating & exploring things at Deloitte’s Online practice. Snowboarder, surfer, wakeboarder & volleyballer

Dan Peou – Birdwatching. The Internet. Long walks along the beach.

Jan Stewart – - interested in the evolution of consciousness and culture and building awesome customer service systems

Bryony Cole - Digital Strategist @ Department of Justice; likes hip hop, Fridays, lemonade. Writes @ social4social.com & theinsideoutblog.com

Xavier Shay – Coder, vegan, dancer, athlete. I blog and more, check my site.

Darren Rowse – “I blog about twitter and tweet about blogging. Sometimes I blog about tweeting about blogging and tweet about blogging about twitter.”

Amantha Imber - - Creativity & Innovation Psychologist, using science to increase idea generation capability

Derek Winter - – Helping people get out of (unproductive) ruts into (productive) grooves. See more at www.ergoconsulting.com.au and www.bsrt.com.au

Brad Krauskopf - – Co-founder and Executive Director of Hub Melbourne.

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Founding Dean of Awesome

Edward Harran - Futurist, Blogger, Philanthropist, (Know)mad. Passionate about seeding, spreading + sharing awesomeness. I like exploring the edge and connecting dots.

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For everyone who expressed interest in becoming a micro-trustee, we are really thankful for expressing your support. Again, it really says something about the vibrant nature of Melbourne. Moving forward, if you are still keen to become a micro-trustee, we will put you on the waiting list should any of the 10 need to leave. There is always the option of one of you organising another Awesome Foundation chapter too. Who said Melbourne is limited to one? We have also been talking on the AF backchannel about the topical chapters that have begun, Awesome Food is the first that isn’t limited to a single geographic location and focuses purely on Awesome stuff that happens with food. Feel free to let us know if you would like to be put in touch with them.

What’s next?

- The official Awesome Foundation blog announcement is at http://awesomefoundation.org/blog/2010/11/24/awesomemelb , Ross’s blog announcement is at http://rosshill.com.au/awesome-foundation/, Eddie’s blog announcement is at: http://edwardharran.posterous.com/awesome-foundation-melbourne

- We have built a twitter list of the micro-trustees at http://twitter.com/list/awesomemelb/awesome-foundation-melbourne-micro-trustees
- We are now on the hunt for AWESOME projects. If you know of any, let us or somebody on the board know.

- The Micro-Trustee board will award its first grant in Jan’ 2011.

- Keep updated on Twitter with @awesomemelb

Stay Awesome,

Eddie and Ross.
Awesome Foundation Melbourne

Posted by Edward Harran at 6:09 am Comments

Prints for Monsters

Thursday, November 18th, 2010

Monsters general supplies, and now prints too! (oh yes and some creative writing workshops)


We’re thrilled to give our November award to Lucy and Ben from the Ministry of Stories for their Monster Shop in Hoxton.  Inspired by the pirate store at 826 Valencia in San Francisco, as well as offering the best in monster supplies, the store also does a line in creative writing workshops for children, and has lots of volunteers and authors contributing their time and energy to the project.

Lucy and Ben applied for an AF award to print a run of very awesome screen prints of monsters done by some very fine illustrators in collaboration with local children who described their monsters to the illustrators.

While the Ministry of stories have been able to secure funding for the educational side of their initiative, before the opening they found it difficult to find funding for the products they wanted to develop for the shop in order to make it self-sustaining from revenues from the shop.  We were delighted to be able to contribute to this very awesome project!

Posted by Jane ni Dhulchaointigh at 11:13 am Comments

Invisible Instruments Rok!

Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

Awesome Foundation Boston is thrilled to announce our October Fellow, Tim Soo and his Invisible Instruments project! Tim amazed us with this video of an invisible violin he cooked up at school when he had forgotten to bring his real violin to practice. How cool is that? Make sure to watch the video through to when he starts playing.

Tim will use the grant funds to buy the equipment he needs to build more instrument prototypes and post instructions for how he’s done it. He’s already gone on to build an invisible guitar as part of Music Hack Day Boston with an iPod Touch.

Stay tuned for a fellowship awards party where we hope to see more of Tim’s work.

Posted by Keith Hopper at 3:58 pm Comments

Washington DC wants YOU to vote #1 for Awesome

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010

It is with great pleasure that we announce that the Awesome Foundation DC is open for business and ready to uphold your rights to awesomeness from the nations capital.

The board of the Awesome Foundation DC is staffed by some of the districts most committed civic innovators, ready to help turn your dreams of awesomeness into reality, $1000 at a time.


The Awesome Foundation DC is (L-R): Mark Drapeau / @Cheeky_Geeky, Shana Glickfield / @Dcconcierge, Frank Tobia / @Ftobes, Erica Williams / @Ericawilliamsdc, Philippa Hughes / @Pinklineproject, Garlin Gilcrist II / @Garlin, Charlie Bengel Jr, Peter Corbett / @Corbett3000, Eric Mill / @Klondike, Alexander Howard / @Digiphile, Bonnie Shaw  /@Bon_Zai (Dean of Awesome + contact for queries)

Each month (starting now!) we will award $1000 cash to a project that promotes awesomeness in the District and surrounds. Your idea/innovation/project can be sublime or ridiculous (or sublimely ridiculous!) as long as it meets the following criteria:

1.    It’s awesome.
2.    It’s got impact.
3.    It’s going to happen soon.

First round submissions close midnight Tues 30 November.  To enter, complete the Washington DC application form here.

For further inspiration, read more about the origins of Awesome here and check out what some of the other chapters have funded here, here, and here.
Stay in touch with us @AFdnDC and follow our collective exploits at Awesome Foundation DC.

Stand up and make your awesomeness heard. Be awesome now.

Posted by Bonnie Shaw at 10:30 pm Comments