On Wednesday we spent money. On ourselves and on others. We ate pizza at Rita’s on Johnston Street. If you’re ever around and ever hungry, head there. We talked about many things, and finally we talked about All Of The Numbers. Kealey Nutt has a very cute dog. She also has an awesome idea: A Melburnian web based radio station. Think ‘RRR for geeks’ – as Kealey puts it. To sum it up as best as we can, think Broadsheet, Process Journal, and various blogs that discuss our interests, obsessions, and possibly aversions. Now take all that content and discuss it on radio – with comedians, designers, entrepreneurs, storytellers, musicians and more. The $1K will help with the funding of setting up and executing the station.We’re excited to see – and listen to – what’s next.

September’s Awesome Ottawa award goes to Remco Volmer and Britta Evans-Fenton to support a Mini Maker Faire in Ottawa. Maker Faires, they explain, “have been called everything from a digital quilting bee to the greatest show and tell on Earth. In the last six years, since the first Maker Faire was held in California, this futuristic arts and crafts fair has become a global phenomenon. The World Maker Faire in New York City draws over 100,000, while small, community driven “Mini” Maker Faires have moved from North American suburbs to Europe, Asia, and even as far as Cairo.” Their Mini Maker Faire, which will be held on the weekend of October 13-14, will brings together families and individuals who celebrate arts, crafts, engineering, food, music, sustainability, and science — and those who embrace the Do-It-Yourself or “DIY” spirit. “At Maker Faire,” explains Remco, “the focus is on the process of making — not just the finished product. The real story is the curiosity, vibrancy, and passion of the Makers themselves — individuals and communities drawn together by a common delight in the magic of tinkering, hacking, creating, and reusing materials and technologies.” Remco and Britta are organizing the Mini Maker Faire through Artengine,… read more →

Kingston, you’re all invited to come out to Awesome Hours at 7:00PM on Thursday, 20 September at Coffeeco Market Square! What are Awesome Hours, you ask? They’re like office hours, kicked up a notch – it’s a time when anyone can come out to sit down with Awesome Kingston trustees, potential pitchers, and creative minds to idea jam and chat awesomeness. Whether you have an awesome project already lined up for submission, or you just want to connect and network with others who do, or you’re just really curious about this whole Awesome Foundation thing, we encourage you to come out! We’ll be sitting down at the community table at Coffeeco’s Market Square location to stir up a whirlwind of brilliance. We’re coming off our summer break and the gears are in motion for an exciting October pitch party. This is the time to get excited and energized – start working on those flashes of brilliance you’ve been having and turn them into pitches that could win $1,000 to make the Limestone City more awesome! Awesome Hours are just the place to do that. If you’re interested in getting involved and volunteering with Awesome Kingston, or looking to become a… read more →

After holding an essay contest in the spring to determine the winner of our first Awesome Sukhbaatar grant, we finally awarded the winning students with the grant on September 7th in front of their classmates! The 14 year old students designed a dental education program that they will organize and teach with the help of local hospital workers for the two schools in our town. The students started off their program in style, presenting their idea to their classmates after they received the grant. When they finished presenting, they asked when the next deadline is so that they can try to submit another project this month! We’re looking forward to seeing what they and the other students come up with! Also, after this successful start we are excited to share that we have been invited to tell our story at TEDx Ulaanbaatar on September 22nd. It is our hope that we can inspire other Mongolians to start their own chapters to help Awesome Mongolia spread! We can’t wait to share the talk with you when it gets posted online, we are honored to be among the first to bring the Awesome Foundation to TEDx!

Whew! Been awhile since we posted up here. Tim Hwang reporting live from Awesome Foundation San Francisco. We’re thrilled to announce today that we’ve officially awarded September fellowships to not one, but two projects of a great deal of awesomeness. Both are performances, and both coming up in the next month or so. First, huge congratulations to Julie Crossman and her posse of Excellence for her project The Golden Hour, a brand-new branch of the wildly successful series of live late night talk shows Oakland Nights Live (and the obligatory Facebook page). The show will be held the third Saturday of every month in a venue to be determined in San Francisco — past performances have included skits, performances, interviews and Julie’s dad. So, we’re basically very much pumped for the whole thing – it’s looking like the first show will be sometime in mid-September. Our second award goes to Mike Lai and his proposal for a Sonic Kung Fu Battle. Which is…sort of tough to explain. But when you see the video, you’ll understand why we funded them. They’re planning on performing a substantially scaled up live version of their voice-powered sound effect street battle performance for the ZERO1 Biennial happening Sept 14-16th. Congratulations to… read more →