Tireless advocate for free culture, enlightened intellectual property policies and an open internet, Dr. Lawrence Lessig will be speaking today at 11AM PST at the iCommons Summit in Dubrovnic, Croatia. You may know Larry as the CEO of the Creative Commons. For those who can’t jet over there, Larry’s talk will also be streamed into…
Category: Information Society
Microsoft announces global competition for youth to develop climate change game for XBOX360
On Saturday evening, the non-profit Games for Change and Microsoft announced at the G4C Festival at Parsons Design School that they were launching together a new initiative to around the theme of climate change. Entitled "The XBox360 Games for Change Challenge," this project will challenge college students around the world to come up with the…
Panel on Funding Perspectives at Games for Change
Connie Yowell, MacArthur Foundation Here are my notes from a panel on funding perspectives at the Games for Change festival today. Lucy Bernholz, Founder and President of Blueprint Research & Design, moderated a discussion with three large funders: Microsoft, the National Science Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation. My general conclusion is that this is such…
“My Virtual Model” — avatarized shopping, not so virtual
< My friend RubyMae turned me on to the site "My Virtual Model." The "virtual" part apparently is because you can create a custom avatar and have her try on different outfits from different clothing stores. This is the model "Ororo" I created. I know, looks just like me. It only takes a few seconds…
Photos from Games for Change Day 1 online
Today was a rush of incredibly interesting discussions and speakers for day one of the Games for Change Festival at the Parsons School of Design. I’m much too exhausted to do a recap, but you can at least see some pictures from the event here.
“Virtual Activism” mixed-reality event today at 10:15AM in Plush Non-profit Commons
Just a reminder that the 4th annual Games for Change conference will feature a mixed-reality panel TODAY on "virtual activism" at 10:15AM EST. Games for Change brings together game developers, industry experts, academics and non-profits to discuss how to use digital games to promote social change. The "virtual activism" panel will feature several experts on…
See indie flick “Four Eyed Monsters” for free on YouTube until June 15
Until the end of the week, you can see the entire film "Four Eyed Monsters" for free on YouTube. I saw the movie a couple of months ago during their Second Life release party, and can recommend it highly. If you like the flick, or just want to support the independent filmmakers Susan and Arin,…
Tell the FCC to keep the Net Neutral
The Save the Internet Coalition is asking folks from all over to tell the FCC to keep the Net Neutral. It only takes a few minutes to submit your story — here’s mine. I played up the virtual world angle, since I figured few others would be doing that. But if you are a business…
Learning from failure: NGOevents.org
A couple of years ago, while working for another non-profit at the United Nations, I proposed the creation of a community-based, multi-issue civil society calendar of events at the UN. This evolved into the website NGOevents.org. As of today, the domain name NGOevents.org has officially expired, marking the end of a mostly failed effort to…
Amnesty Intl webcast on Internet Repression today!
Amnesty International is broadcasting on the web today a global event entitled "Some People Think the Internet is a Bad Thing," as part of their Irrepressible Campaign. Scheduled to begin at 6:30PM UK time / 1:30PM EST, the webcast will bring together both experts and victims of cyber-repression including: Martha Lane Fox of lastminute.com, Clark…