social-change

I wanted to share one of our producer's amazing idea: a $25 Infant Incubator design called Embrace. http://www.embraceglobal.org/

This Incubator is designed for extreme affordability to help serve the over 20 million babies born premature each year that can not afford $20,000 conventional incubators. Embrace does all the critical stuff for a fraction of the cost.

The basic design of the product is a "sleeping bag". Heat is provided by a pouch containing phase change material (PCM,) placed in a safe compartment within the sleeping bag. To heat the PCM, the user simply pours hot water into compartment, upon indication by a thermal strip. This device uses no electricity, has no moving parts, and works for over 4 hours without needing to be reheated.

The product could save millions of babies. The design was awarded the Echoing Green Fellowship and is currently one of 25 Finalists for the American Express Members Project.

We have just started to make all kind testing movies.

Woke up at 6am for some reason. That means the blood in the brain isn't sleeping. Started workin on the puter. emailing ideablob links and coding. Day passed. kept forgetting to eat, lost in pixel dust. Checked twitter, and saw a tweet from Mickipedia about DIY Days. I'd completely forgot! Grabbed some Ideablob flier strips, hopped on bike, and peddled to the cornfield gallery. Wandered into a large garage space full of steamy air and filmmakers dripping with ideas. This free event was put together by a bunch of really smart filmmakers who have explored the new nooks and crannies of self distribution, self- funding, and just getting things done. every story was unique, organic to their films personaliy, and their own. i missed most of the day, workin away in my cave. but really enjoyed what i saw. one of the organizers, Lance Weiller really was amazing. i had not heard of or seen his films, but his ideas (and execution of) for getting his work out there was absolutely brilliant. Head Trauma. I need to watch and explore it when i get time. Watch for video of his talk on DIY Days.

As I donated another small amount today, I had an interesting thought. What is the right amount to donate? I recently donated to the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research. Personally, I believe it is a better group to donate to; however, I fully support the 1 Second Film and other art projects. I also plan on donating more to the 1SF before the project is complete.

So, my question to anyone who may read this is how do YOU decide how much to donate and who to give it to? There are many "worthy" charities working to find cures for countless diseases. There are other causes, such as this, that I also feel are worthy. There are websites I frequent that run exclusively on donations. Unfortunately, I cannot give everything I have to each of them. What do you do? How do you do it? Most importantly, why do you do it?

For anyone in the LA area, come to the LA-IP (formerly TED>LA) this Sunday. The Los Angeles Idea Project is a single-day event designed to catalyze Angelenos' imaginations toward action. www.la-ip.com

I presented at this event last year, which was really cool. This year's event looks to be even better, with 17 world class speakers and doers presenting topics such as human trafficking, sustainable land use, and the sacred geography of Los Angeles.

Many of the speakers have presented at TED, like Joshua Klein who taught Crows to use a vending machine.

Juli came by the office today and created an account for us on DooGooder.tv, a new platform for non-profits that are using video and technology to reach out to supporters. DoGooder TV is currently featuring our intro video on their homepage, which is really awesome! Check it out on DoGooder.TV

And check out some of the other cool videos, like this one from Witness:

I've been researching for grant writing for the Collaboration Foundation.

One of the first tasks is to define the social need the organization will address. Juli, Dana and I were discussing this the other day, and defined the need as a response to the challenges of globalization; globalization creates a world were we are all connected, whether we realize it or not. The connections may seem invisible, but they are very tangible. while this creates a host of challenges, i.e. climate change and conflict, it also offers new opportunities for people to exchange ideas and work together in ways that have never been possible. The potential solutions to the issues will come from the same collective actions that create the problems.

Incredibly, Kieffer is pushing the 1 second film promotion envelope in ways not previously thought possible.

I just saw The 11th Hour yesterday and it was incredible. The only disappointing thing, for me, is that neither The 11th Hour nor An Inconvenient Truth really got into the tremendous impact that factory farming has on the environment, deforestation, etc.