A Mexican restaurant, a new 10th member, tacos and more tacos. $1,000 to give away. This month we gave our grant to the boys at Free Love magazine, a free monthly mag that features one photographer, one writer, and one designer, plus a CD full of goodness. Each month this magazine costs dollars to print, to which the boys did not have said dollars for edition 3. So we got behind them and sent some dollars their way. Enjoy. You should also almost definitely like them on Facebook, here.
The Melbourne Awesome Foundation was featured as a segment on the popular Australian morning show, The Circle on 26 June along with Awesome Melbourne grant winner, Tram Sessions. Click here to watch The Circle’s Awesome Foundation feature.
Do you ride a bike? Some of us do and some of us don’t. Either way we are all for social change and creating a greener environment. That’s why we gave this month’s grant to Roll-Up bike valet for free Park(ing) day, submitted by the lovely Joyce Watts. We got together last night at South Yarra Trattoria thanks to Morgan’s recommendation. The place was filled with elderly citizens – we’re hoping this was a compliment to our level of intelligence. Luckily we were given a (sound proof) glass room to ourselves; Kristian’s voice alone would have cleared the restaurant. We ate pasta. Lots of it. Except for Kristian who is on a juice diet (go figure). So Joyce has an awesome idea. September 21 is International Parking Day. Individuals from around the world get together and take over parking spaces for the public to do… whatever they want. Joyce, working with the ever wicked Roll-Up wants to offer three car spaces up as Valet parking for bikes. She’ll be able to fit ten bikes in one car space. The aim? Joyce is trying to encourage more people to ride their bikes as a mode of transport – which we think is… read more →
A new Melbourne project, Poo Power!, which uses discarded dog waste from parks as a renewable energy source is the latest recipient of the Awesome Foundation, Melbourne Chapter. The grant was awarded to Duncan Chew who developed the project after watching people readily scoop their dog’s poo in plastic bags only to send it to landfill but wanting to find a more sustainable way. Duncan Chew discovered there is over 1,350 tonnes of dog waste to be disposed of every day in Australia – nearly half a million tonnes per year. Using this un-tapped resource, the project involves building a digester to convert the dog waste into a biogas. It will then be used in a Melbourne park in a public lighting installation as a community meeting place for use by dog owners and other visitors. “In researching the scope of the project we were intrigued by the strong sense of community amongst dog owners that congregate at these parks,” says Duncan Chew. “We want to nurture this relationship and build a biogas fueled ‘campfire’ where people can come together at this unique meeting space.” The $1000 grant will be used to contribute towards the cost of building the poo-powered… read more →
Last night Awesome Squared headed to Kanapai, a wonderfully dirty Japanese den in South Yarra. We were out for two reasons: 1. Have a sake bomb: Asahi, chop sticks and Sake. We’re not sure how much of the contents made it to our mouths, as opposed to the table, floor or Erika’s jeans. 2. It was our second grant giveaway. After mountains of sushi, not enough fried chicken, and much debate, we came to a decision as to who we would swing 1K across to. httpmote. Mitch Denny is a dad, a husband, and also a dabbler in many visual & tech things. According to his application he thinks of 100 new ideas a week. This one in particular took our fancy: Mitch hates remote controls. Funnily enough, so do we. Mitch wants to build a system where he can use his iPhone to buzz open his garage door. He also wants to share that buzzer with his friends and family, and even when he gets Jim’s Mowing to mow his lawn. This would work by ‘sharing’ the remote via a text or URL, with a time limit so that when ‘Jim’ comes to mow his lawn, he can buzz… read more →