When the Awesome LA Chapter sat down to consider who to give the next grant to we were, per usual, faced with a very difficult decision. After much debate and soul-searching for what The Awesome Foundation truly stands for, we picked a project that we felt truly embodied our mission – to find and sponsor unique, grassroots, homegrown ideas for making the world a more fun, happy, and dare we say, awesome place to be in. The project we ultimately chose to support is one that developed over a coffee table discussion between Jeffrey Waldman and his friends, debating what vehicle would elicit a pure sense of joy. Photos from his journey across Los Angeles to hang swings can be found here: http://on.fb.me/ipXGtN. Better yet – here is an awesome video that documents the team’s work hanging swings throughout Los Angeles. Awesome Swings Now, Jeff is now taking his beautiful idea to a whole new level: “The easy answers to finding pure joy were from our childhood and the most common was swings. From there it was a simple endeavor but we had no idea how well it would be received or the exponential impact it would have on people’s lives and their interactions…. read more →
Come celebrate our newest grant award winner at First Fridays on Abbot Kinney! Mingle and learn about Awesome projects going on! Drinks and good cheer provided. Friday, June 3 · 7:00pm – 9:00pm Animal West Studio – 1212A Abbot Kinney Blvd. Venice, CA Parking is available on streets nearby. Thanks to our talented visual effects friends at Animal West for donating their beautiful space for our event!
Saturday night the Awesome Foundation Melbourne met at Veludo in St Kilda. A few micro trustees were away and we had a visiting guest economist Nicholas Gruen. We discussed and named our final selection, and the grant recipient was Melbourne Macarons. However as Xavier Shay is a vegan, Xavier decided to give his $100 to the Animal Liberation Front. Today I met Linda from Melbourne Macarons. She was very happy to received the $900 towards her secret macaron project. All the best Linda, and we look forward to hearing more once the secret project is unveiled!
Awesome Foundation NYC’s next party will be at Babycastles in Brooklyn (285 Kent Avenue) on June 27th, 8 pm. Details coming soon! RSVP on Facebook to get updates
At the end of April the Melbourne Awesome Foundation met for dinner, and chose the Melbourne HackerSpace ArduinoLab as the grant recipient. I have to admit I didn’t totally understand their project, but the energy for their project from all the other micro-trustees was so awesome, I trusted that and gave them my vote too. We called the guys immediately, and they were thrilled to receive the grant. They were working on their project while we were eating dinner on Saturday night! Here’s their blog to explain what they do – I certainly can’t. 🙂 http://tinyurl.com/arduinolab And here’s their submission: Who: Founder of the Melbourne HackerSpace (not-for-profit community technology group) Project: High-school science portable electronics laboratory-in-a-box Awesomeness: Promotes science experimentation in schools with an affordable device that is open and customisable/extensible by teachers and students. How: The Melbourne HackerSpace has completed the initial design/prototype and has the members and track record in completing several previous projects of this complexity. We work closely with Freetronics (http://freetronics.com), a local Melbourne company that can manufacture/distribute open-source hardware designs on behalf of others. Overview: The ArduinoLab is a portable unit consisting of a graphics screen, buttons/knobs for user interface … as well as several… read more →