Are you based in Boston and want to be involved the Awesome Foundation? Want to participate as a micro-trustee to the Awesome Foundation but don’t have the money? Want to serve the interest of promoting and protecting Awesomeness in the universe? Well, now you can! I’m glad to announce today that the Boston Awesome Foundation is seeking a Dean of Awesome to team up with our existing Boston board of 10 micro-trustees. The Dean will participate with the rest of the trustees in reading/voting/choosing a winner each month (and will undertake the same Oath of Service), but will be completely freed from the usual obligations of being a micro-trustee in contributing $100 a month to our monthly fellowship award. Instead, the Dean will take on the responsibility of managing and creatively expanding our monthly award event logistics, the chapter’s online presence (blog/twitter/etc), community building with our past fellows, and other scheduling for Awesome Foundation Boston. If you’re interested in participating as the Dean, please drop a message describing your interest and what awesome things you’re involved in to tim@awesomefoundation.org by January 8th. We’ll be doing interviews then. Let us know if you have any questions!

I’m happy to announce that Awesome Foundation Boston has chosen its December Fellow! This month’s grant goes to Lauren McCarthy, who specializes in the development of Tools for Improved Social Interacting. What does that imply? Lauren writes, she’s working on a series of “various wearable devices that use simple technologies to condition the behavior of the wearer to fit better with expected social behaviors” These include: A Happiness Hat (built) – which drives a metal spike into the head at a pressure inversely proportional to how much you’re smiling (seeing it in action is out of control – check out the video) An Anti-Daydreaming Device (to be built) – a scarf that contains a heat radiation sensor that detects if the wearer is engaged in conversation with another person. While the wearer is engaged in conversation, the scarf will vibrate periodically to remind the wearer to pay attention and stop daydreaming. And A Body Contact Training Suit (to be built) – a suit that requires the wearer to maintain frequent body contact with another person in order to hear the world around her. If the wearer stops touching someone for too long, all the surrounding sound will fade to static. We’re glad to announce that… read more →