Application Process Now Open for the Social Innovators Fast Pitch
Get the boost you need to make a difference in the world
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Great people of Austin, the time has come to make your voice heard. It’s time for our second annual Social Innovators Fast Pitch and Social Innovators Crowd Fund.
Austin+Social Good needs your help finding the best and most innovative ideas for making our community even better. What do you think could be improved? It could be education, health care, homelessness, unemployment, or any other troubling social issue.
We are looking for 5 great ideas to compete for our completely crowd-funded prize. We want the best idea that has the ability to show progress within this next year and truly delivers innovative value to the world. The winner will also have an opportunity to present with us at SXSW 2015.
If you already have your plan, get started with the steps below OR join the discussions we're having on Facebook & Twitter to find ways to team up with one another. Maybe two ideas can join forces!
Here are the detailed instructions for entering:
1) Fill out the Online Application (HERE) with ALL of the needed information, especially ways to contact you.
2) Post your innovative idea on an issue that you would like to conquer in your community AND how you think you can solve it ... MORE importantly, your PLAN to get the community support behind you.
3) Link a YouTube video (created by you) with your submission to help us see exactly what you envision. Please no more than 1 minute long.
4) Post your idea and video to FB with the hashtag #SocialInnovatorsPitch to begin community conversation and get early followers to your idea. Include us (www.fb.com/austinplussocialgood) if you want to tap into our network as well.
5) Applications will be accepted beginning now, and submissions will close on 8/8/14. We will notify the five finalists on 8/9/14.
6) The finalists will be notified and go through coaching sessions during the month of September to get ready to pitch their idea LIVE to our audience of innovators, activists and crowd-funders.
7) The five finalists will pitch their idea at our Social Good Summit on 10/8/14 where our audience will vote on which idea deserves our crowd-funded investment.
8) The winner will become our next big campaign for Austin+Social Good during 2014 – 2015. The winner will use the awarded money to show progress in the community with our help our help and guidance.
9) The winner will have an opportunity to present at SXSW 2015 at the next Innovators+Social Good Summit.
For questions EMAIL us at [email protected] or TWEET at us @socialgoodatx.
The 3rd annual Social Good Summit, held during UN Week, celebrated the innovative power of social media and technology to solve our world’s most challenging problems.
This year, with The Global Conversation, the summit went worldwide. Here's a look at the summit by the numbers....
Social Good Summit infographic by ernestoolivares.
This September at the Social Good Summit, we launched The Global Conversation—a record-setting worldwide dialogue about the change-making potential of new media and technology.
Now, we hope you'll help us shape the dialogue again.
Over the next several weeks, we’ll be working with our community to co-create a special report.
Our report will be centered on the big themes we heard coming out of the summit. We’ve outlined our top picks here, but want to hear from you:
Do these themes resonate with you and your community?
What themes and topics arose in your Meetup that others should be aware of? What are we missing?
What’s happening now in your community? Do you have any examples of new collaborations, projects, or connections you can share?
We also want your help as we think about what’s next for 2013. How can we continue to come together as a global community to take on big challenges, celebrate new solutions, and share what we’re learning.
He Thinks He A Revolutionary... (its a work in progress)
Written By Kelli Merritz
There a boy,
Who was born,
After the time of Vietnam.
He was raised,
Witnessing the long stay in Granada...
He would've fought in Kuwait,
If only the US had stayed longer!
(For after all he was just twelve.)
He did live in the US of A,
Through the horrors of the Gulf War,
He once heard, first hand,
About the bloodshed that happens.
(Its their own damn fault...)
He's watched his television,
All biased coverage of the wars.
He's heard talk radio.
He's watched film after film,
And he thinks he understands
(About the whole world...)
Knowledge of everything
Has come quickly to him,
He sees the big picture
Does not matter if he's blind...
He doesn't hear the opposing sides.
He doesn't think on what he hears.
(He doesn't think on what he hears...)
He thinks hes a revolutionary;
He's going to change the world,
He saved up his allowance,
He bought a 'pre-made' sign...
And it says that you are all wrong.
(you're all wrong...)
Doesn't matter what you say
Doesn't matter who you are...
Doesn't matter what you know...
We all fight against something,
Then we find we're almost gone.
(Almost gone...)
So you think you're a revolutionary?
How are you going to change the world?
What does it take to make peace happen?
Because you seem to know your purpose here...
Though it changes?
(Every year...)
How do we all enact change
Within the world?
How do we create social good?
Maybe it starts in the mind...
And the heart within ourselves
(with in ourselves...)
You think the Man will try to stop you
You think your Brother is much to Big,
How do you plan to stop them?
How do you plan to stop yourselves?
(Stop yourselves...)
Who is it that controls you?
Who is it that decides...
Whether the battle is in your mind,
(Or against the world?)
He thinks hes a revolutionary;
He's going to change the world,
He bought a mega-phone
And he yells that you're all wrong,
(You're all wrong...)
Though clarity of our global situation,
Shines like headlights through the fog...
But when we persevere,
The Truth connects to all,
May our combined perception
(Connect us all...)
How will you stop the fighting?
How will you make a difference now?
You think you want peace
But it seems that all you do
Is shut us out,
We speak the Truths you don't want to hear,
You've predetermined we are wrong...
And you do is yell,
(My young, angry rebel...)
Reach out;
Hear us and see us,
We really do exist!!!
We aren't always wrong,
And we're waiting for you to realize,
A revolution of thought,
Confronting our comfortable blindness
Has started-
Montenegro reports on the rise of the citizen expert
When organizers in Montenegro asked their Meetup about how technology can help their community, the response was unanimous: open government data and tools empower everyday citizens to help improve democracy.
UNDP's Marija Novkic reports on the conversation and the rise of the citizen expert in her blog pos for Voices of Eurasia,
We've excerpted some of our favorite tweets here:
ME gov minister: informed citizenry is the single most important guarantee for freedom and democracy. gov must be transparent. #sgsME
— David Osimo (@osimod) September 24, 2012
The best transport expert is the lady who takes the bus to work every day. Mayor of Calgari via @gquaggiotto #SGSMe #SGSglobal
— Tasko Mujic (@Tasko_TaLe) September 24, 2012
"Government is like a parachute - it doesn't work unless it's open" - Frank Zappa (well,he said this about mind,not gov) #SGSME #SGSGlobal
— Vučić Popović (@vuchko89) September 24, 2012
A sneak preview of the budget visualization project in #Montenegro goo.gl/uM4IJ #sgsme #sgsglobal
— giulio quaggiotto (@gquaggiotto) September 24, 2012
Organizers Ruben Cantu, Stephen Vogelpohl, and their team planned their Austin Meetup just two weeks before the summit. They brought Texas-sized ambitions along with them. Here's their report back:
The most surprising thing we learned from this whole process is how many willing people are open to working towards change.
The biggest thing is they want to get around the big idea that encompasses them all. So they all feel like they give their part but not carrying the whole load.
We thought it would be hard to fill this venue... but we have a great turn out. They just wanted to be part of something big.
Even our internet viewers wanted to be part of the change.
The theme we chose was clean air. We came up with three resolutions.
Ride the bus more often, and implement wifi on the bus.
Encourage large and mid size companies in Austin to allow employees to work from home once every 2 weeks.
Social Good Mondays, where we will be tweeting out factoids about our clean air over the next six months and asking our audience/influencers to retweet to raise awareness to push change.
We want the world to know that there is this little pocket in Texas, called Austin, that really cares about making a difference and we will all come together to try to make this happen.
We are conscious about our world issues and we are going to do our part to be a model for regional and hopefully global change.
To track the Austin team's progress, visit http://socialgoodsummitaustin.tumblr.com/
We're incredibly proud of our Bhutan organizers, whose Meetup was broadcast on Bhutan National Television.
In this segment, speakers provide local perspective to some of the most global themes from New York, including youth empowerment through technology, citizen journalism, and the rise of new media.
They also take on a uniquely Bhutanese topic: how digital music and social media can help preserve Dzongkha, the local language.
