Awesome Foundation – Calgary’s final $1,000 micro-grant before the Mayan Apocalypse went to Shannon Hoover and MakeFashion, a collaboration of great minds who want to demonstrate that the convergence of Technology and Art can result in a form, fashion and community brand new to Calgary.

According to Shannon, Calgary has an image problem. To much of the world, we’re considered to be a city of oil barons and cowboys but to those of us who live here, we know that it simply isn’t true. We’re a young city of highly-educated entrepreneurs with a culture of getting things done and we’re starting to come into our own, culturally speaking. This leads to opportunity.

The MakeFashion initiative seeks to merge technology and fashion, utilizing our city’s technical strengths by bringing together tech-savvy programers, engineers and fashion designers with the goals of showcasing the true innovative spirit and creativity that Calgary has to the world.

Artists and designers often find that they have to leave Calgary to find work. MakeFashion is working to change that by creating a project that will encourage emerging youth to find inspiring work right here in our city.

MakeFashion wants to give Calgary a leg-up and the people working in this market a head start in the next evolution of computing, wearable technology. Within the initiative, all of the time spent by the engineers and designers is donated, so 100% of AF-Calgary’s $1,000 no-strings-attached micro-grant would be used to purchase the raw materials and electronics for the designers to use in their amazing creations.

MakeFashion is holding a kick-off event on Friday, January 25, 2013 at Endeavor Arts and Event Space and all are invited to attend. For more details, see here.

Love padlocks and an End of the World bash were a couple of the other ideas vying for November’s $1,000 micro-grant at Awesome Calgary’s Thousand Dollar Thursday. To relive the night’s event, keep an eye on our blog or read about it on https://ed-ljekarna.com