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Awesome Foundation gives no-strings cash to great ideas [video]
- jtchang 13y agoOne of the events they funded was called Balloonacy: https://www.facebook.com/events/277093279051184/ https://www.facebook.com/events/277093279051184/ I helped solder like a bazillion motion sensor LEDs to a board to stick in all the balloons.
- karcass 13y agoVenture communism?
- jfarmer 13y agoI'd say it's more like "venture anarchy" or "venture lololololol". There's no central organization and each chapter is self-organizing. I was a trustee of the SF chapter for about two years. :)
- X4 13y agoThis woman has balls, totally awesome, luv her idea to embetter ones surrounding just by empowering people to DO it. There's a lot Mill-/Billionaires can learn from her. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the concept of self-organization! Writing a thesis+project on it :)
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- goatforce5 13y agoI know some Awesome trustees, and they're not millionaires or even close to it. Just regular Joes who think it's worth $100 a month to meet some interesting people and to be part of something cool. $100 is not 'nothing', but plenty of people would spend that on other hobbies.
- tibbon 13y agoTim Hwang's (guy who pulled us all together at first) blog is... http://brosephstalin.com/ http://brosephstalin.com/ ;)
- fpp 13y agoTo learn more about projects funded and the ideas behind the foundation have a look at their web site - community funding / support at its finest - http://www.awesomefoundation.org/ http://www.awesomefoundation.org/
- zacmartin 13y agoI was lucky enough to receive the Melbourne Grant a few months back. It allowed me to prototype a product I eventually tried to get up on crowd-funding. Sadly no luck there, but great initiative and meant I could at least give it a go and learn something.
- X4 13y agoWhat was it about? Why did you have no success?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- zacmartin 13y ago* Here was my crowd-funding campaign: http://www.pozible.com/project/11432 http://www.pozible.com/project/11432 And here's a blog post I wrote about why I think it didn't work: http://www.pigsdontfly.com/2013/05/7-things-i-learned-from-unsuccessful.html http://www.pigsdontfly.com/2013/05/7-things-i-learned-from-u...
- markdown 13y agoHey that's a great idea. I have a feeling it would have had a better chance of success in the US.
- sethberg 13y agoAs nice as the machined metal looks, they'd cost pennies to produce as injection molded parts and would be just as functional.
- X4 13y agoDid you consider using alternative materials? If you switched to 3D Printed materials, I think the costs would be much less and you could have funded it with the amount of money you already collected.
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- juretriglav 13y agoThis is great! How come I have not heard of this before? I have so many awesome side projects that would need a bit of help in order to pay for servers/continue development. But seriously, I applied to the Knowledge chapter with http://sciencegist.com http://sciencegist.com. Fingers crossed :) It's also quite inspiring to see the different kinds of projects being funded by this foundation. It helps with the feeling of being alone in the world of projects which "will help people, but can't make money".
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- melling 13y agoAnother interesting method for crowd funding. While cool, I'm still hopeful that we'll soon have the crowd funding/crowd sourcing sites that tackle bigger problems. A site that funds the next Mars Lunar Rover in an X-Prize manner, for instance. Another site that provides crowd-funded medical grants like the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Perhaps another to help fund some of Bill Gates' ambitious projects. He's got big ideas and even he's gonna need a little more cash. :-)
- paraschopra 13y agoThis is FANTASTIC! I am quite excited about the whole proposition. Wish it were there when I was in college... So I quickly contacted several of my friends here in Delhi, India and got them many of them interested. Now we have: http://awesomefoundation.in/ http://awesomefoundation.in/ Anyone in India/Delhi, who is interested in joining this, hit me up at paras1987@gmail.com
- bencollier49 13y agoAre you related to the original Awesome Foundation, or have you just taken the same name?
- paraschopra 13y agoNot related, but keen on becoming a chapter. Not sure if there are official requirements or it is organic such as BarCamp. (Hoping and assuming it is the latter)
- goatforce5 13y agohttp://www.awesomefoundation.org/en/about_us http://www.awesomefoundation.org/en/about_us has details on what to do if you want to be affiliated with them.
- tibbon 13y agoPlease do get in touch via the website. We're super flexible on chapters running themselves largely as they'd like (quite similar to Barcamp), but we'd like to officially have you in the loop to be able to provide you with resources and connections to the rest of us. - David Fisher (AF-trustee & co-founder)
- nodata 13y agoSo you're not connected to them at all, you're not a foundation, and you straight up copied their name?
- cing 13y agoI've given 3 oral pitches to my local Awesome Foundation over the years and wasn't selected each time. Not sure if that says something about my ideas, pitch skills, or what, but it's a bit of a bummer. FYI: The ideas were a completely solar/bike-powered LAN party, an electronics recycling drive where you get to smash computers with sledgehammers, and a student conference where all the research posters are wheatpasted onto the walls of a graffiti-filled alleyway and presented with paint markers.
- tibbon 13y agoSorry to hear about that- and I encourage you to reapply (even with the same ideas again!). Sometimes it isn't that your idea wasn't awesome, but that there were just a lot of other awesome ideas coming in that month. - David Fisher (AF trustee/co-founder)
- 1337biz 13y agoan electronics recycling drive where you get to smash computers with sledgehammers, Would be super interested in these. I am sitting on all the HDs I ever had and would love to get them destroyed in front of my eyes but am to lazy to do it myself.
- aasarava 13y agoRegarding smashing computers with sledgehammers, keep in mind that in doing so you are quite likely to release lead dust and other toxics. You shouldn't be breathing this in and you shouldn't let it get washed down the gutter and into the local stream.
- samstave 13y agoSorry, I just don't see the appeal of any of those ideas -- though clearly I am not your target interest group. The smashing of computers as a recycling effort seems ridiculous to me in that computers are filled with tons of toxic materials. I don't see how smashing them with hammers is good for anything...
- cing 13y agoSmashed computers can still be recycled, I had a partnership with a local e-waste recycling company. The idea was to give people incentive to recycle with a fun event. With regards to the toxic materials, it was my understanding that only monitors offered some risk. I could be wrong though.
- lo_fye 13y agoWe have a chapter in London Ontario Canada, too! http://awesomelondon.ca http://awesomelondon.ca
- rpicard 13y agoThis looks wonderful! I went ahead and applied for my Thread Hero project: http://threadhero.com http://threadhero.com
- paigalhaes 13y agoseems interesting... but there's no detail info about how it works - neither for charity side or shirt buyers side... you force me to have another sign up not knowing the details... Edit: and after entering the e-mail already you ask to share!? I'm not going to share until I know more about it!
- rpicard 13y agoIt's just a "coming soon" page right now. I'm currently talking with some organizations to figure out the details.