| Oct 05, 2011 |
| Nov 10, 2010 |
Random Hacks of Kindness is a community of developers, geeks and tech-savvy do-gooders from around the world working to develop software for the challenges facing humanity today. RHoK brings geeks together with disaster relief gurus to identify critical global challenges and develop software to respond to them. They do this via RHoK Hackathon events that bring together the best and the brightest hackers from around the world, who volunteer their time to solve real-world problems. The founding partners include Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!, three companies that don't always get along but have come together for the cause.
On December 4th and 5th RHoK is hosting its third hackathon in many locations around the world. The Georgia Tech Research Institute is a RHoK partner and will be hosting RHoK in Atlanta.
There are winners and prizes up for grabs. Each RHoK hackathon is structured as a code challenge where software developers have a set amount of time to solve the challenges they are given. At the end of the two-day marathon of hacking, a panel will review each hack, and the winners will walk away with prizes, as well as the right to call themselves “RHoKstars” ever after.
You can learn more about joining other hackers in hacking for humanity at RHoK and register to participate.
Cross posted to atdc.org.
Comments and Reactions Tweet| Jun 08, 2010 |
Here in the heart of the New South folks don't talk about Pepsi much. When I first moved to Atlanta from the NYC area I walked into Stone Soup and much to my surprise they did not even stock the stuff. Over on North Ave our KO friends will not mention the company by name. But the good folks from Purchase have put together a program called PepsiCo10 that is worth talking about.
PepsiCo10 is an opportunity for startups to share ideas and gain access to PepsiCo brand experts, media specialists, and venture capital mentors. The program is focused on businesses in one of four subject categories: social media & marketing; mobile marketing; place-based and retail experiential marketing and digital video and gaming. The PepsiCo10 is open to
small media and technology companies with product in market.
Startups may have already publicly launched a solution or may
have a
beta ready for launch, but the product has to have been in market for less than two years. Applicants must have minimum
annual revenue of $250,000 or total funding ranging from $250,000 to $10
million. They will make exceptions companies that have participated in accelerator or
incubator programs (like ATDC).
Out of the field of applicants up to 40 companies will
be invited to present a formal RFP and five minute introduction
video to
PepsiCo and its partners. From there, up
to 20 companies will be selected to present at a two day PepsiCo10
| Apr 01, 2010 |
As announced back in February, tonight at Cypress Street (817 West Peachtree Street) we are having a little gathering to take advantage of a Scoutmob 50% off deal and a beautiful spring evening. The Cypress Street Pale Ale (house beer by Flying Dog Brewery) which is normally $3 will be a steal at $1.50 per pint with the Scoutmob deal. I'm heading over to an open house of Damballa's new digs and then to Cypress around 6:30. I'll see you there.
Comments and Reactions Tweet| Nov 19, 2009 |
Yesterday afternoon a friend of mine checked in to The Commerce Club on foursquare. I had never heard of the place so I two tapped down to learn more.
Note the green special nearby call out. It led to this loyalty/promotional offer from the Red Moon Cafe.
Interesting.
Comments and Reactions Tweet| Mar 11, 2009 |
On March 2 I announced the Build My Timbuk2 Bag contest and promised to announce the winner by midnight. Twenty four people joined in the fun and one person was even inspired to go get a Bag In A Box Gift Card for their wife's birthday. Thanks to everyone that participated and special thanks to Erika Brookes and SJ for helping me judge the entries. There were some tough calls.
Andy Macdonald, a 23 year old Graphic Communications student at Clemson University, earned honorable mention with his subtle semi-monochromatic design. It matches my car nicely, and if this was going to be my use all the time bag it would have won. But I have a standard issue Tumi that I use when things get serious, so while a valiant effort Andy did not take home the grand prize.
Ajai Karthikeyan, a second year College of Computing student at Georgia Tech, went bold with a design that mixed the FoG color palette with a tribute to my MindSpring heritage. Very nicely done. Another worthy mention.
Ultimately the judges landed on Clark Griffiths' design as the winner. Clark is an urban designer/planner and aspiring professional photographer out of Tampa Bay. The bag's blue/white/spinach scheme is both bold and fresh. It builds upon the equity that I have built in my FoG color palette. It is just smoking hot. A great bag for when I am hanging with the up and coming Atlanta startup crowd.
Congratulations to Clark for the winning design! And thanks again for everyone that played and helped out.
Comments and Reactions Tweet| Mar 02, 2009 |
Team Skribit gave me a Timbuk2 Bag In A Box gift card for the work I have been doing with them. And what I am going to do with it is build my own bag. I have selected the medium laptop messenger as my bag of choice. Now I need to design it.
Issue is I am not much of a designer. I can provide design direction. I can even tweak design. But I am not much good at design itself. So I am going to have a little contest and have you design my bag for me. Winner gets the choice of a $20 iTunes or Amazon gift certificate. Spend 15 minutes. About $80 an hour. Seems fair.
Here are the rules.
That's it.
Make something beautiful.
Comments and Reactions Tweet| Feb 24, 2009 |
It all started innocently enough when I read this tweet.
What's that all about I wondered? Well it turns out that a pack of Web celebs created charity auctions on eBay to benefit charity: water (a worthy cause). Julia Roy was offering a 6 hour dinner and drinks outing. Being a semi experienced Ebayer, I decided to have a little fun.
It seemed to work.
Emboldened, I went too far.
Too far, as in putting in a bid for $1,200. It was a too much for d***e. He dropped out at $1,101. I was currently the winning bidder at $1,126. I sent Julia a direct message.
I am indeed happily married with a great wife and two great kids. And I was mortified, absolutely mortified, that no one was going to outbid me. Julia sent me back this nice message.
Which sounded all well and good. I have a personal slush fund that I can do whatever I want with. Abby, my wife, is an understanding lady that let's me do lots of things. But I was having a real hard time figuring out how I was going to explain spending $1,200 on a charity in conjunction with dinner and drinks with a twenty something blonde in NYC that had been referred to as "the world’s hottest geek". It would be a cold spring in Atlanta if that came to pass.
Eight days went by. No other bids. Deepening distress.
Julia and my $1,126 bid made its way to the front page of eBay.
I started scheming up some ways that I might be able to get a little value out of my donation. Julia seems smart. Understands social media. Perhaps I could use some of those six hours included in the auction as social media consulting time. If the bid stood that was my plan. See if Julia would agree to do some consulting work when I went off to do my next big thing.
I was explaining all this to Calvin Yu and Paul Stamatiou during our bi-weekly Skribit meeting . Paul got pretty excited. He knows Josh Spear who founded Undercurrent. Julia works there as a Senior Agent. He offered to go in half. I told him he did not need to do that. But I was more than a bit relieved when I saw this.
Paul went on to win the auction at the price of $1,549. He published his thoughts on winning.
My thoughts. All's well that ends well. In a roundabout way I helped raise money and awareness for charity: water. Paul is going to NYC to hang with his friend and meet a new one. Increased exposure for Skribit and him are sure to result. And I learned a lesson.
Natasha Wescoat also has an auction on eBay to benefit charity: water. I am currently winning.
The auction is for a painting.
Update: I won the painting auction.
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