Re:Awesome Foundation gives no-strings cash to great ideas [...
by paraschopra on Monday July 29, 2013 @08:18AM
(#6120549)
Not related, but keen on becoming a chapter. Not sure if there are official requirements or it is organic such as BarCamp. (Hoping and assuming it is the latter)
Re:Awesome Foundation gives no-strings cash to great ideas [...
by tibbon on Monday July 29, 2013 @09:48AM
(#6121067)
Please do get in touch via the website. We're super flexible on chapters running themselves largely as they'd like (quite similar to Barcamp), but we'd like to officially have you in the loop to be able to provide you with resources and connections to the rest of us.
Re:Awesome Foundation gives no-strings cash to great ideas [...
by fpp on Monday July 29, 2013 @03:41AM
(#6119806)
To learn more about projects funded and the ideas behind the foundation have a look at their web site - community funding / support at its finest - http://www.awesomefoundation.org/
Re:Awesome Foundation gives no-strings cash to great ideas [...
by juretriglav on Monday July 29, 2013 @04:25AM
(#6119920)
This is great! How come I have not heard of this before? I have so many awesome side projects that would need a bit of help in order to pay for servers/continue development.
But seriously, I applied to the Knowledge chapter with http://sciencegist.com. Fingers crossed :)
It's also quite inspiring to see the different kinds of projects being funded by this foundation. It helps with the feeling of being alone in the world of projects which "will help people, but can't make money".
Re:Awesome Foundation gives no-strings cash to great ideas [...
by zacmartin on Monday July 29, 2013 @04:08AM
(#6119874)
I was lucky enough to receive the Melbourne Grant a few months back. It allowed me to prototype a product I eventually tried to get up on crowd-funding. Sadly no luck there, but great initiative and meant I could at least give it a go and learn something.
Re:Awesome Foundation gives no-strings cash to great ideas [...
by nekopa on Monday July 29, 2013 @06:41AM
(#6120223)
I think it's a great idea too, definitely need to work on beerend 2.0.
Couple of suggestions though:
Shipping: if you can analyse where backers are coming from, why not try to cut a deal with stores or brew shops/brew pubs which you could strategically locate where your biggest clusters of customers are. That way you could ship in bulk to single locations, and mail out certificates for backers to go and pick up their beerend. Explain why you're doing this to the backers, and for the stores, send extra they can sell, but they have to hold the reserve amount for backers. Plus you would be sending people to their stores that take their beer storage seriously, so they may turn out to be good customers.
Marketing:
Bottle end: maybe change the marketing focus of the product, as you said it can be used for wine bottles, cans whatever. Go all out, dev the 2.0 for glass shelves versions, patent it and sell it to fridge makers
Re:Awesome Foundation gives no-strings cash to great ideas [...
by X4 on Monday July 29, 2013 @05:41AM
(#6120083)
Did you consider using alternative materials?
If you switched to 3D Printed materials, I think the costs would be much less and you could have funded it with the amount of money you already collected.
Re:Awesome Foundation gives no-strings cash to great ideas [...
by cing on Monday July 29, 2013 @09:24AM
(#6120901)
I've given 3 oral pitches to my local Awesome Foundation over the years and wasn't selected each time. Not sure if that says something about my ideas, pitch skills, or what, but it's a bit of a bummer. FYI: The ideas were a completely solar/bike-powered LAN party, an electronics recycling drive where you get to smash computers with sledgehammers, and a student conference where all the research posters are wheatpasted onto the walls of a graffiti-filled alleyway and presented with paint markers.
Re:Awesome Foundation gives no-strings cash to great ideas [...
by aasarava on Monday July 29, 2013 @12:30PM
(#6122107)
Regarding smashing computers with sledgehammers, keep in mind that in doing so you are quite likely to release lead dust and other toxics. You shouldn't be breathing this in and you shouldn't let it get washed down the gutter and into the local stream.
Re:Awesome Foundation gives no-strings cash to great ideas [...
by cing on Monday July 29, 2013 @05:25PM
(#6123995)
Smashed computers can still be recycled, I had a partnership with a local e-waste recycling company. The idea was to give people incentive to recycle with a fun event. With regards to the toxic materials, it was my understanding that only monitors offered some risk. I could be wrong though.
Re:Awesome Foundation gives no-strings cash to great ideas [...
by tibbon on Monday July 29, 2013 @09:44AM
(#6121040)
Sorry to hear about that- and I encourage you to reapply (even with the same ideas again!). Sometimes it isn't that your idea wasn't awesome, but that there were just a lot of other awesome ideas coming in that month.
Re:Awesome Foundation gives no-strings cash to great ideas [...
by 1337biz on Monday July 29, 2013 @11:57AM
(#6121883)
an electronics recycling drive where you get to smash computers with sledgehammers,
Would be super interested in these. I am sitting on all the HDs I ever had and would love to get them destroyed in front of my eyes but am to lazy to do it myself.
Re:Awesome Foundation gives no-strings cash to great ideas [...
by melling on Monday July 29, 2013 @04:58AM
(#6120006)
Another interesting method for crowd funding. While cool, I'm still hopeful that we'll soon have the crowd funding/crowd sourcing sites that tackle bigger problems.
A site that funds the next Mars Lunar Rover in an X-Prize manner, for instance. Another site that provides crowd-funded medical grants like the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Perhaps another to help fund some of Bill Gates' ambitious projects. He's got big ideas and even he's gonna need a little more cash. :-)
Re:Awesome Foundation gives no-strings cash to great ideas [...
by X4 on Monday July 29, 2013 @04:25AM
(#6119924)
This woman has balls, totally awesome, luv her idea to embetter ones surrounding just by empowering people to DO it. There's a lot Mill-/Billionaires can learn from her.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE the concept of self-organization! Writing a thesis+project on it :)
Re:Awesome Foundation gives no-strings cash to great ideas [...
by goatforce5 on Monday July 29, 2013 @09:35AM
(#6120974)
I know some Awesome trustees, and they're not millionaires or even close to it. Just regular Joes who think it's worth $100 a month to meet some interesting people and to be part of something cool.
$100 is not 'nothing', but plenty of people would spend that on other hobbies.
Re:Awesome Foundation gives no-strings cash to great ideas [...
by paigalhaes on Thursday August 01, 2013 @09:34AM
(#6140166)
seems interesting... but there's no detail info about how it works - neither for charity side or shirt buyers side... you force me to have another sign up not knowing the details...
Edit: and after entering the e-mail already you ask to share!? I'm not going to share until I know more about it!
So I quickly contacted several of my friends here in Delhi, India and got them many of them interested. Now we have: http://awesomefoundation.in/
Anyone in India/Delhi, who is interested in joining this, hit me up at [email protected]
- David Fisher (AF-trustee & co-founder)
I helped solder like a bazillion motion sensor LEDs to a board to stick in all the balloons.
But seriously, I applied to the Knowledge chapter with http://sciencegist.com. Fingers crossed :)
It's also quite inspiring to see the different kinds of projects being funded by this foundation. It helps with the feeling of being alone in the world of projects which "will help people, but can't make money".
And here's a blog post I wrote about why I think it didn't work: http://www.pigsdontfly.com/2013/05/7-things-i-learned-from-u...
Couple of suggestions though: Shipping: if you can analyse where backers are coming from, why not try to cut a deal with stores or brew shops/brew pubs which you could strategically locate where your biggest clusters of customers are. That way you could ship in bulk to single locations, and mail out certificates for backers to go and pick up their beerend. Explain why you're doing this to the backers, and for the stores, send extra they can sell, but they have to hold the reserve amount for backers. Plus you would be sending people to their stores that take their beer storage seriously, so they may turn out to be good customers.
Marketing: Bottle end: maybe change the marketing focus of the product, as you said it can be used for wine bottles, cans whatever. Go all out, dev the 2.0 for glass shelves versions, patent it and sell it to fridge makers
Good luck!
Did you think of partnering with quirky?
P.s. I would love to try printing this on my replicator2
If you switched to 3D Printed materials, I think the costs would be much less and you could have funded it with the amount of money you already collected.
The smashing of computers as a recycling effort seems ridiculous to me in that computers are filled with tons of toxic materials.
I don't see how smashing them with hammers is good for anything...
- David Fisher (AF trustee/co-founder)
Would be super interested in these. I am sitting on all the HDs I ever had and would love to get them destroyed in front of my eyes but am to lazy to do it myself.
A site that funds the next Mars Lunar Rover in an X-Prize manner, for instance. Another site that provides crowd-funded medical grants like the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Perhaps another to help fund some of Bill Gates' ambitious projects. He's got big ideas and even he's gonna need a little more cash. :-)
There's no central organization and each chapter is self-organizing. I was a trustee of the SF chapter for about two years. :)
I LOVE LOVE LOVE the concept of self-organization! Writing a thesis+project on it :)
$100 is not 'nothing', but plenty of people would spend that on other hobbies.
;)
Edit: and after entering the e-mail already you ask to share!? I'm not going to share until I know more about it!