Lightning Talks

For liveblogged transcripts of the lightning talks, see the MIT Center for Civic Media blog.

Adventures in New Giving

Nathanial James, founding dean of the Seattle Awesome Foundation, noticed that there were a lot of community giving projects in the Seattle area, but none of them were talking to each other. He is traveling across the US doing interviews and trying to start a dialogue about why people give this way and what it means to give together.

Good Maker

Rei Wang from Good Maker is helping to activate people to do good. Good maker is a way for organizations to start with the funds to connect to the public to get ideas. They are collaborating with Awesome Food to make food more Awesome.

One4One project

Deanna Zandt from the One4One project is focused on "change not charity" - change means we have to think about the structure, and why it isn't working for everyone. Thinking about philanthropy changing is thinking beyond just good ideas. How do we design for equity?

Stanford's Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society

Elizabeth works at the Stanford Center for Philanthropy/Civic Engagement and collaborates with the Aspen Institute (Impact Careers) on how we can help young people have more impactful careers.

WFMU

Ken Freedman is a Station Manager WFNU, an independent public radio station from the NY area. He talks about how radio and TV are legacy institutions and feel they are small monopolies, and they need to think about adapting how they do things.

Misfit Economies

Alexa Clay, may be talking later, if doing a Kickstarter funded book and documentary aimed at documenting black and grey market economic processes as our economy starts to Hindenberg.

SuperPACApp

Jennifer Hollet started SuperPACApp along with Dan Siegel as part of a journalism project. The app allows you to hold a phone up to political ads and get objective third party information about them.

The Knight Foundation

John Bracken of the Knight Foundation is our "funder ex machina". While the Knight Foundation is in some ways the antithesis of Awesome Foundation, they are also committed to making the world more Awesome. The Knight Foundation is announcing five new projects that they are supporting through their new Knight Prototype Fund.