Awesome Foundation Melbourne is excited to announce the second grant recipient of 2011, aMoment. aMoment’s project spreads awesome across our special city through art; leaving small reminders – teacups, baby hammocks, all with their own message – in the nooks and laneways of Melbourne, for locals and visitors to stumble upon. The message is simple – a reminder to take a moment and slow down, in a frenetic urban environment that can sometimes sweep us away. We’re looking forward to the next ‘drop’, a suprise for Melburnians and visitors around Easter. Read aMoment’s application below: Hello, I am aMoment. I am the street art name for a creative lady who doesn’t usually do street art. You see, I think we all get a little too busy too often. You know, walk around with blinkers on and such. You see, when things get too fast, I think we lose perspective a bit. We get flustered, make bad decisions, get our priorities a little mixed up. This makes me upset So. I wanted to do something to make people to stop for “aMoment”, take a breath and give their day just a little bit of space. And this was how aMoment came… read more →
Greetings, all! Just wanted to drop a line out if you happen to be headed to the SXSW Interactive Festival next week. The Institute on Higher Awesome Studies is officially hosting its second annual global meetup of Deans, micro-trustees, and friends of the Awesome Foundation for the Arts and Sciences at the festival. Currently, it looks like we’ll be having trustees hailing from the following chapters: AF-Boston AF-San Francisco AF-Berlin AF-Sydney AF-Austin Should be a fun time hanging out. We’ll be meeting up for drinks and food on Saturday, March 12 at The Ginger Man in Austin, TX at 2:30. Even if you’re not a current member of a chapter, definitely stop by! And, if you’re so Facebook inclined, the full invite is here.
It’s with awesome pleasure that we can announce the founding board of micro-trustees for the Awesome Foundation Sydney! As you all know, the Awesome Foundation has been spreading it’s seeds across the planet these last 12 months and it’s exciting to see chapters opening up in places like Sydney, Melbourne, Toronto, LA and many more! The Awesome Foundation Sydney has been brought together by founding members, Bruno Mattarollo and Steve Hopkins. Like all other chapters, it will provide a $1000 no-strings-attached grant once a month to a project which the board deems suitably awesome. The founding board for AF Sydney is: Bruno Mattarollo: Proud Dad of one amazing boy. Has a love of the web and sustainability. Interests include human rights and social innovation. Steve Hopkins: @trampolineday founder and coffee drinker. Working with an ecosystems approach to make good stuff happen. Jess Nichols: Cocktail-obsessed social media tragic who works on the web at @deloitteonline (part of @green_dot). James Martin: Generalising technologist and asker of questions. Greg Turner: Interaction designer and djangohead. Greg is an interaction designer and computer scientist who specialises in emerging forms of interaction, online and otherwise. Alan Rogers: Thingmaker. Suzie Graham: India, Vedic philosophy, Reiki II, Philanthropy, Indigenous… read more →
This is a post from Awesome Foundation Melbourne micro-trustee Jan Stewart. Tonight the Awesome Melbourne Foundation dinner took place for the second time. The thing that struck me about our meeting was the amazingly rapid development in social cohesion amongst the group and the creativity and transformation that occurred in each person’s life in the space of a month. The co-founders deliberately chose a very diverse group of individuals for the Melbourne chapter of Awesome. It can often take time for such diversity to find common ground. The element I underestimated in this whole situation is awesomeness itself. Each person in the group asked to be a part of this because we obviously love and value awesomeness immensely. It is this quality that we have in common, and it is this quality that was responsible for the massive development in social cohesion and creativity in a very short amount of time. In keeping our eye primarily on awesomeness, even though there was the temptation to be distracted by our differences, this aspect pulled us all together collectively and forward individually. Most people in the group also experienced a massive shift in their personal life circumstances within the last month, from choosing… read more →
Next month will mark the 1-year anniversary of the Awesome Foundation San Francisco, and we thought, “Close enough. Let’s have a party!” So on Sunday, February 13th, we held our first Awesome Foundation SF party (hopefully the first of many to come), and invited past recipients and friends to come celebrate with us. In true Awesome fashion, what started off as a just-for-fun get together turned into an inspiring look at how micro-financing of local innovators can encourage large-scale change. The party was produced on a modest budget with each trustee chipping in just enough to supply a little hummus, some wine, and perhaps 1 too many cases of beer (my bad). Hosted by the lovely people of PariSoma in downtown San Francisco, the spirited crowd was a diverse collection of go-getting artists, scientists, DIY makers, and general do-gooders. Jesse Taggert, our Dean of Awesome, kicked off the party with a few introductions to the trustees and a quick congrats to this year’s recipients. Then, since most of them have never met one another, each recipient got an opportunity to say a few words about their project and give thanks to their amazing partners in crime. And thanks to Rod… read more →