School Tour

So you may have been missing me lately. I know I have missed posting! Well I was on a school tour for work throughout Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto and area. In total we visited 20 schools and made 22 presentations in two weeks. It was an intense 10 workdays! I was working from 5am to midnight some nights as I tried to keep up with everything. However, even with all this whining, it was an incredible experience. The tour was a presentation entitled “Girls Rights are Human Rights too” and just like it sounds it was about girls rights. The interactive, multimedia presentation included live performances by Masia One and Eternia, two female MC’s, and George, Toronto’s own music sensation. It was a mind blowing educational experience. It also included interviews that were done with three of the female MTV VJ’s (Nicole, AJ, and Diane). Plan Canada, my employer, took them to Haiti, Sudan, and Colombia to raise awareness about different issues affecting girls and what is being done.

The combination of artists and television personalities managed to keep the interest of the students for nearly an hour and a half, and many lingered around well afterwards to speak with the performers about the issues raised. It really showed the disconnect between regular educational presentations and one designed with young people in mind. There is no doubt that young people are bubbling with enthusiasm and passion for making a difference in the world. I think the issue is that not enough is done to stoke their fires. What I witnessed from young people during this presentation was deep feelings about these issues and that they were really just waiting for a reason to let it show. I can’t wait to see what will come of this new and renewed enthusiasm.

Pop!Tech Hub

A friend sent me this link the other day and I am just now getting around to looking at it. The tag line for Pop!Tech Hub is "a digital home base, where people come together to make change." Sounds like a very interesting site! On the Hub, you can:

- Establish a personal profile, including a bio and photo, with complete and detailed privacy controls, and browse for new friends
- Join or start a new social group, post messages and share your thoughts with other members of the group
- Create, find, vote on, or join a collaborative project, or track it by its RSS feed
- Participate in a Resource marketplace, where you can offer resources to projects, or browse resources being offered by other members

There is also this to say about it:

The Pop!Tech Hub is a social network and collaboration platform for people interested in vanguard-edge emerging ideas, trends, tools, and technologies, and their application to significant social challenges. It’s open to everyone: past Pop!Tech participants, members of the online Pop!Tech community or anyone with an interest in social innovation. Here you will find people of many different disciplines and perspectives meeting, creating, tracking and evaluating projects; exchanging ideas; and working together on change initiatives of every scale.

Another online world for people to link into. Check it out and let me know what you think. If you have previously written a post about this or are currently a member link back here and let me know what you think about it. I have joined but don't have much time currently to surf around and get any idea what it is like.

Designing for the other 90%

A friend turned me on to this art exhibit currently showing here in Toronto. If you are in the city or plan on coming through check it out. Here is what is available on the website:

Design for the Other 90%
Professional Gallery
Saturday October 4, 2008 to Sunday January 25, 2009
Opening Reception: October 4, 2008, 6:52 pm (coinciding with Scotiabank Nuit Blanche)

A touring exhibition organized by the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum
The OCAD Professional Gallery will host Design for the Other 90%, a collection of design solutions addressing the basic needs of poor and marginalized populations not traditionally serviced by professional designers.

The exhibition, organized by the New York-based Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and curated by Cynthia E. Smith, explores a growing movement among designers to design low-cost solutions for the “other 90%” — that is, the 5.8 billion people (out of the world’s total population of 6.5 billion people) who have little or no access to most of the products and services many of us take for granted. Design for the Other 90% looks at how individuals and organizations are finding unique ways to address the basic challenges of survival and progress — for example, nearly half of the other 90% do not have regular access to food, clean water, or shelter.

"Unconventionally, this exhibition highlights products that are economically self-sustaining, yet affordable to people living on a dollar a day — inexpensive irrigation systems for farming, for instance," says Charles Reeve, Curator of the Professional Gallery. "The new forms of ingenuity here focus on pressing issues like poverty relief and environmental sustainability, both of which are key themes in what we teach and research here at OCAD."

Launching as part of OCAD’s Scotiabank Nuit Blanche programming, Toronto is the only Canadian stop for the touring exhibition, which is currently showing at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. An extensive website, including a blog, discussion forum and additional resources is available at http://other90.cooperhewitt.org/.

In addition to the exhibition at the OCAD Professional Gallery, the Design Exchange will present a complementary program of exhibits and events as part of Design for the Other 90%.
Gallery hours: Wed. to Fri., 1 to 7 p.m; Sat. and Sun., 12 to 6 p.m.

Why Water?

I was put on to this initiative called Why Water? By answering 3 questions correct CIGNA, a US insurance and health care provider, will donate the equivalent of one day of water to Water For People. Water for People "helps people in developing countries improve their quality of life by supporting the development of locally sustainable drinking water resources, sanitation facilities and health and hygiene education programs. Check out the game and let me know what you think. It is not dissimilar to the freerice.com game that provides rice for every question answered correctly. While I have not seen any statistics of how much money has been made by these games, or the impact those funds have made, at the very least a few minutes of your time, time probably spent not doing anything productive, could make a real difference. Again, let me know what you think about these sorts of games.

***UPDATE***
I emailed someone in the know on this game and they had this to say about where the money is going:

"CIGNA has provided $50,000 to Water for People to administer the clean water program through the end of 2008, and to ensure the funding reaches school children in India. CIGNA can provide up to one million days of clean water"

This is a little more information than I was able to easily dig up on my own, but I think if these games are the future of philanthropic activity there needs to be a movement towards openness and transparency. Put it in the FAQs or even create a page that exposes the relationship and the flow of funds. Is it making a difference? - then show how, do not just tell us it is! I am not picking on this game in particular, but I think this is an excellent opportunity to raise my concern. Changing the world has to be internalized. The world does not change by playing a video game, it changes when you understand why you are playing and are conscious and connected to the change that occurs from playing it. The impact has to be mutual for it to be absorbed. This game asks questions related to water, which is an opportunity to learn some important facts, but does it change the player? Ask yourself when you play the game - has anything for me changed? Lasting change and improvement happens when we manage to change our frame of reference, when we start to look at things in terms of the global benefit. Don't just play the game, learn about why you are playing the game and what else you can do in your own life to change the underlying cause or reason for the games existence.

Blogging to Save the World

Change.org recently launched a new section to their site with 13 bloggers each talking about a specific set of global issues. A great article was written on the Newsweek website about the impact and implications this could have if it continues to grow. If you have not yet taken a look at Change.org I think it is a fantastic site so please check it out. And the article is here.

Everyday Hero Awards

GlobalTV has posted video segments of the recipients of their Everyday Hero awards. There are some great little quick clips you can check out and pass along to others. Educators are using them in class curriculum to discuss global citizenship but they can be used for any purpose you come up with. They are posted here for your perusal.

CGI U 2009

I got an email the other day mentioning that applications are now being accepted for CGI U 2009. I had an incredible time last year and while I have yet to fulfill my commitment I am diligently working on it. I encourage everyone to check out the CGI U website and think about attending. I have posted pictures on my facebook page (feel free to add me) and if you go through the blog archives there is a roundup and detailed transcripts of the sessions I attended.