Free platforms are the best forms. Giving the world more opportunities to give is just the ticket our world is calling for. And Amazee, a philanthropic collaboration platform, knows that. Within the last weeks the Zurich, Switzerland-based internet start-up website has launched two free tools to help promote non-profits all around the globe: Amazee Camp and Amazee Bucket.
Founded in fall 2007 Amazee hopes to stand for social collaboration just as Google stands for online search and Facebook for social networking. Their mission is social collaboration for the greater good, and their method is online network geared at those willing to help, but without the opportunity to do so. By adding the Camp and Bucket features, where Camp offers courses n learning how to use the web to boost activity and results, and Bucket, which donates up to $5,000 to the Amazee project that has the most members come January 22, 2009 with the second and third place winners receiving $3,000 and $2,000 each. Read more...
Craig Venter wants to cure us of our oil addiction, and like all addictions this will be a hard one to break. Venter has hope that we can use microbes to create alternative fuels. He wants to create a designer microbe from scratch and add genes culled from the sea in order to turn crops such as switch grass and cornstalks into ethanol. Read more...
For millennia languages have evolved and changed, morphed into something completely different and some have even gone extinct, or practically, see root language: latin. There are over 7,000 languages spoken on earth today, but that number is rapidly decreasing. K. David Harrison, a professor of Linguistics at Swarthmore College and author of the book When Languages Die: The Extinction of the World's Languages and the Erosion of Human Knowledge
When Dickson Despommier, a Microbiologist and professor at Columbia University in New York, first thought up "vertical farming" the concept of indoor farming wasn't new. He'd been working on a rooftop gardening project, which over eight years spun into a full building venture. With the world's rapidly decreasing good farm soil on the horizon, Despommier and his crew took the statistic that 80 percent of the world by 2050 would be living in urban dwellings and turned it on its head by having the country come to the city. Vertical farming isn't just a play on words, the idea is to create skyscrapers that are literally farms of produce from strawberries to corn on each floor, and in the middle of town centers. According to the group's website, "If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming." Read more...
AIDS awareness is everywhere today. From the GAP's RED Campaign to news features about the epidemic, to numerous schools and conferences around the globe. And South Africa's Project Masiluleke, or Zulu for "lending a helping hand" and "give wise counsel," reads much the same way. Born out of a speech HIV campaigner Zinhle "Zinny" Thabethe gave at the 10th anniversary of Pop! Tech, an annual conference about science and technology can further future ideas, this project seeks to use mobile cell phone technology to remind South African's of AIDS and tuburculosis testing sessions, appointments and information on how to get help. Read more...
In my review of The Compassionate Carnivore, I mentioned that I enjoy a good steak.
That is not to say that every meal I eat has to contain some sort of meat product, and in fact, about a year ago I moved to cut back on the amount of meat my family and I eat to one meat meal a day (with smaller portions of meat) with two or three total vegetarian days each week. Read more...
Sharing is caring, especially when it comes to bikes - environmentally friendly and perfect for a quick pop to just about any shop in the 2,586 sq km Luxembourg. Recently the country's namesake capital, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, has shot for a unique way to bring two-wheelers to the streets with their new bike sharing system, vel'oh! With the options of a 7-day or a long-term pass, the company has 25 bike stations in place all over the city, about 300 to 400 meters apart, and has 250 bikes already hitting the roads. Read more...
13.23 million people joined the Stand Up And Take Action mobilization in Bangladesh by pledging to fight against poverty. The mobilization is in accordance with the Millennium Developmental Goals. Read more...
When Riccardo Tesi discovered the melodion (diatonic harmonica) more than thirty years ago, the only people playing it were folk musicians from Southern Italy and Sardinia. Being a sophisticated city dweller from Tuscany, Tesi couldn't care less about the simple dance tunes played in these rural areas, but the sound of the instrument haunted him. In order to use it to play the music he liked - contemporary chamber music and jazz - he had a special version of the melodion made which is chromatic rather than diatonic, which means one can play in any key, rathen than just one plus its parallel minor. De Castagnari brothers, renowned melodion builders from Italy, supplied him with exactly what he needed and he has used their instruments exclusively ever since. The three-row chromatic version designed especially for Tesi at first, is now part of their regular catalogue. Read more...
When Sanjit 'Bunker' Roy started working as an unskilled laborer in Bahar, India during a famine, his mother was a wreck. She viewed his drastic career change from architect to a "nobody" as a waste of time and talent. However, Roy claims it was his first real experience in education even after he attended the prestigious St. Stephen's College in Delhi. When the now 53-year-old created Barefoot College in 1972 his understanding of social service for the greater good was understood. The college operates under the notion that the solutions to rural problems, from natural disaster to lacking education, can be found in those same communities. After Roy's work as a laborer, he saw more clearly how to address the problems associated with finding and cleaning drinking water, educating girls, health and sanitation, unemployment, income generation, electricity and power, and the social awareness of these rural communities with the outside world. But the main purpose of the school is to benefit the poorest of the poor who truly have no where to turn at the end of the day. Read more...
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