SI Young Leaders Visitors Program 2010 Connecting Leaders for Positive Change The Swedish Institute Young Leaders Visitors Program (YLVP) is an intercultural leadership program that focuses on social media as a tool for positive change. The program invites young opinion-makers from Sweden and selected countries in the MENA region who are actively working for social change in their respective contexts. This year the program will have an extensive focus on social entrepreneurship and applications from Yemen will also be considered.
The YLVP promotes exchange of knowledge and creativity and helps strengthen young opinion-makers leadership and ability to work actively for social change on issues related to democracy and human rights.
The Swedish institute is now reaching out to young determined visionaries who are covering social developments and working for a positive change in the following countries; Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, Yemen and Sweden.
Application deadline is February 28th 2010. Application forms can be obtained by following the link below:
http://www.si.se/English/Navigation/Scholarships-and-exchanges/Lead...
Application instructions and more information about the program can be found at:
www.si.se/ylvp
Enquiries should be addressed to ylvp@si.se
Tuesday, January 12
Thursday, December 31
b e a u t i f u l l
COP15 - Generative Identity Software
Generative identity software for COP15 the United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Copenhagen in 2009.
I joined long-time friends and all-time superstars shiftcontrol to help them add real-time movement to the COP15 logo designed by nr2154. Our approach was to generate the logo based on dynamic, generative patterns governed by rules like flocking and force fields. We wanted to express the complex decisions and negotiations going on at the conference.
The animation software is customizable to render out a large variety of styles and moods in formats useable for broadcast HD-TV and vector-graphics for printed media.
okdeluxe is a London-based design studio with a foundation in interaction design and the design of media experiences, services and products. okdeluxe conceptualizes, designs and executes:
- generative graphics software & visualisation tools
- user interface concepting, design and prototyping
- interactive media installations & responsive environments
- bespoke installations and products
Wednesday, December 30
Three Dimensional City: Future China
Three Dimensional City: Future China
With collective efforts from world's leading architects and artists, national and international experts and scholars on urban planning, city ecology and environment, decision makers from government and enterprises, "Three Dimensional City" is poised to envision an ideal living environment and future urban ecology.
The project addresses the depletion of land and energy resources.
Not only will it be an enlightening project from which our future urban planning programs can draw inspiration, but also hopes to involve an exhilarating social reformation.
For the first time in 2008, the world's urban population has exceeded that of rural.
As the pattern of urban sprawl hits its peak, urban development is facing a bottleneck, putting a strain on natural resources, and pressure on sustainability.
With attempts to curb global warming by maximizing its reduction of energy consumption and carbon emission, and efforts to reclaim land that has been invaded and occupied in the chaos of horizontally spreading cities, humanity is looking for ideal future cities of high-density residences living in harmony with nature.
"Three Dimensional City: Future China" aims to analyze the subject of how to build a dream city in an area of 1-2 square kilometers with limited material and energy resources to accommodate 100,000 - 300,000 residences.
http://www.dexigner.com/architecture/news-g19692.html
With collective efforts from world's leading architects and artists, national and international experts and scholars on urban planning, city ecology and environment, decision makers from government and enterprises, "Three Dimensional City" is poised to envision an ideal living environment and future urban ecology.
The project addresses the depletion of land and energy resources.
Not only will it be an enlightening project from which our future urban planning programs can draw inspiration, but also hopes to involve an exhilarating social reformation.
For the first time in 2008, the world's urban population has exceeded that of rural.
As the pattern of urban sprawl hits its peak, urban development is facing a bottleneck, putting a strain on natural resources, and pressure on sustainability.
With attempts to curb global warming by maximizing its reduction of energy consumption and carbon emission, and efforts to reclaim land that has been invaded and occupied in the chaos of horizontally spreading cities, humanity is looking for ideal future cities of high-density residences living in harmony with nature.
"Three Dimensional City: Future China" aims to analyze the subject of how to build a dream city in an area of 1-2 square kilometers with limited material and energy resources to accommodate 100,000 - 300,000 residences.
http://www.dexigner.com/architecture/news-g19692.html
Smart Walls, Morphing Chairs, and the Living Environments of Neri Oxman [Architecture]
Neri Oxman
Ever wanted to stand on a floor that fine-tunes its own thickness? Or ride an elevator powered by the same peristaltic mechanisms found in the human intestine? Neri Oxman is way ahead of you.
Oxman, a Ph.D. candidate in design computation at MIT, specializes in reactive architecture: surfaces, furnishings, and structures that change their own properties according to different stimuli.
Her resin floors grow thicker where they need to support more weight; her composite walls rearrange their windows and stress lines based on local weather conditions. One of her best-known works, a chaise longue called Beast, can adjust its shape, flexibility, and softness to fit each person who sits in it.
The language that Oxman uses to discuss her work is provocative — she talks as much about the "behavior" of a piece as its appearance or function — and nearly everything she's done evokes biology in some way, whether it recalls the composition of human bone, the veinwork of a butterfly wing, or the helical polymer chains that comprise our DNA.
She's remarked that "the biological world is displacing the machine as a general model of design."
It's an approach at once oddly specific and not particularly limiting, if the portfolio of Material Ecology, Oxman's design initiative, is anything to go by. Household items like carpal-tunnel therapy gloves — with zones of varying rigidity patterned after the spots of a cheetah — share space with designs for entire skylines.
About those skylines: some of Oxman's most ambitious work has to do with what buildings could look like in the twenty-first century. A proposal for "PeristalCity," an urban design plan based on a re-imagining of Manhattan's elevators, features slumped skyscrapers that look less like buildings than melted candles. "[T]he vast space… which the elevator shaft occupies is, temporally speaking, useless," the proposal reads.
"Should the elevator, of all things, persist as the non-negotiable limit of our vertical habits?… What if circulation was to become the actual living and/or working space?"
Rather than having a conventional elevator traverse an inflexible vertical column to deliver people to stationary rooms, Oxman proposes "[a]n inhabitable pocket (living and working unit)… contained within a flexible element." These bubbles of space would travel throughout the larger body of the building by the same principles of expansion and contraction that move muscle tissue around.
A selection of Oxman's work is currently on display at Boston's Museum of Science. The full Material Ecology oeuvre can be found online, though much of the language seems like it would be opaque to anyone who hasn't taken several high-level design courses. Still, the projects are worth a look; it's not clear whether Oxman's materials and designs will become a thing of the mainstream, but it might be wise to get acquainted with them just in case.
http://www.dexigner.com/jump/news/19693
http://web.media.mit.edu/~neri/site/index.html
http://materialecology.blogspot.com/
http://www.blogger.com/profile/11673180451719135443
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/oxman.html
http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/neri-oxman/
http://sap.mit.edu/resources/portfolio/oxman_student_profile/
Ever wanted to stand on a floor that fine-tunes its own thickness? Or ride an elevator powered by the same peristaltic mechanisms found in the human intestine? Neri Oxman is way ahead of you.
Oxman, a Ph.D. candidate in design computation at MIT, specializes in reactive architecture: surfaces, furnishings, and structures that change their own properties according to different stimuli.
Her resin floors grow thicker where they need to support more weight; her composite walls rearrange their windows and stress lines based on local weather conditions. One of her best-known works, a chaise longue called Beast, can adjust its shape, flexibility, and softness to fit each person who sits in it.
The language that Oxman uses to discuss her work is provocative — she talks as much about the "behavior" of a piece as its appearance or function — and nearly everything she's done evokes biology in some way, whether it recalls the composition of human bone, the veinwork of a butterfly wing, or the helical polymer chains that comprise our DNA.
She's remarked that "the biological world is displacing the machine as a general model of design."
It's an approach at once oddly specific and not particularly limiting, if the portfolio of Material Ecology, Oxman's design initiative, is anything to go by. Household items like carpal-tunnel therapy gloves — with zones of varying rigidity patterned after the spots of a cheetah — share space with designs for entire skylines.
About those skylines: some of Oxman's most ambitious work has to do with what buildings could look like in the twenty-first century. A proposal for "PeristalCity," an urban design plan based on a re-imagining of Manhattan's elevators, features slumped skyscrapers that look less like buildings than melted candles. "[T]he vast space… which the elevator shaft occupies is, temporally speaking, useless," the proposal reads.
"Should the elevator, of all things, persist as the non-negotiable limit of our vertical habits?… What if circulation was to become the actual living and/or working space?"
Rather than having a conventional elevator traverse an inflexible vertical column to deliver people to stationary rooms, Oxman proposes "[a]n inhabitable pocket (living and working unit)… contained within a flexible element." These bubbles of space would travel throughout the larger body of the building by the same principles of expansion and contraction that move muscle tissue around.
http://www.dexigner.com/jump/news/19693
http://web.media.mit.edu/~neri/site/index.html
http://materialecology.blogspot.com/
http://www.blogger.com/profile/11673180451719135443
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/oxman.html
http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/neri-oxman/
http://sap.mit.edu/resources/portfolio/oxman_student_profile/
Sunday, December 13
Put People First G20 Counter Conference report and audio
The Put People First G20 Counter Conference was one of two alternative G20 conferences held simultaneously in London and St Andrews on November 7th 2009 to coincide with the G20 finance ministers meeting on 7th-8th November.
Over three plenary sessions we invited academics, activists, campaigners, unions and policy makers to debate alternative policies to promote jobs, justice and a safe climate.
Smaller breakout sessions gave participants the opportunity to take part in more focused debates on the linkages between the economy, environment and international development and in addition, discuss how we can mobilize and turn our ideas into action.
You can listen to the conference audios here:
Plenary Session 1
Topic: The failure of a paradigm but has anything really changed?
Chair: Peter Chowla (Bretton Woods Project)
Speakers: Poul Nyrup Rasmussen (PES), Diane Elson (University of Essex), Lidy Nacpil (Jubilee South), Louise Plaatjes (UNI Africa)
Breakout session 2: How do we mobilise?
Discussion leader: Noel Hatch (Compass Youth)
Speakers: Jon Cruddas MP, Jessica Kennedy (Citizens:UK), Willie Sullivan (Vote for a Change)
Closing Plenary
http://ow.ly/HR9y
http://www.putpeoplefirst.org.uk/
Over three plenary sessions we invited academics, activists, campaigners, unions and policy makers to debate alternative policies to promote jobs, justice and a safe climate.
Smaller breakout sessions gave participants the opportunity to take part in more focused debates on the linkages between the economy, environment and international development and in addition, discuss how we can mobilize and turn our ideas into action.
You can listen to the conference audios here:
Plenary Session 1
Topic: The failure of a paradigm but has anything really changed?
Chair: Peter Chowla (Bretton Woods Project)
Speakers: Poul Nyrup Rasmussen (PES), Diane Elson (University of Essex), Lidy Nacpil (Jubilee South), Louise Plaatjes (UNI Africa)
Plenary Session 2
Topic: What are the alternatives that work for people and planet
Chair: Bhumika Muchhala (Third World Network)
Speakers: John Hilary (War on Want), Beatriz Souviron (Bolivian Ambassador to the UK), Andrew Simms (new economics foundation), Vimbai Mushongera (Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions) Breakout session 2: How do we mobilise?
Discussion leader: Noel Hatch (Compass Youth)
Speakers: Jon Cruddas MP, Jessica Kennedy (Citizens:UK), Willie Sullivan (Vote for a Change)
Closing Plenary
Topic: Taking alternatives forward
Chair: Owen Tudor (TUC)
Speakers: Billy Hayes (general secretary CWU), Deborah Doane (WDM), Asad Rehman (Friends of the Earth) http://ow.ly/HR9y
http://www.putpeoplefirst.org.uk/
YOU can influence the climate summit in Copenhagen from your home
From Dec 7 to 18, world leaders will meet in Copenhagen in order to come up with a new climate change agreement. This summit is considered one of our last chances to save life on earth from the impacts of climate change.
Will they have what it takes to make the right decisions?
Now YOU can make a difference.
From Dec 7 till 18, activists and internet users are invited to participate in the most crucial e-mobilization ever, by blogging, twittering, flickering and updating their status on Facebook about the progress in the climate negotiations in Copenhagen.
Climate policy experts from the most active NGOs, including IndyACT, will provide you with the most critical issue of the day for you to focus communication on.
What country is doing bad?
Which issue is being left out?
Which country needs support?
By making everyone around the globe focusing on the key issue, we can move government positions. Thousands have already committed for those two weeks, and so should you.
It's time for climate action!
It's time for climate action!
Contact Informations:
- For Facebook users and activists, add IndyACT to your friends list: http://www.facebook.com/indyact.org
Invite your friends to the event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=187725014248&index=1
- For Twitterers: Retweet and get updates by Following IndyACT! : http://twitter.com/IndyACT
- For Bloggers: Enlist your blog by sending an email to: comms@indyact.org
For more information:
IndyACT - The League of Independent Activists
Address: Rmayl, Nahr Street, Jaara building, 4th floor
Phone: +961-1-447192
Website: www.indyact.org
Thursday, November 26
YOU can influence Copenhagen's climate summit from your home!
As Copenhagen draws closer, the stakes are becoming higher and more efforts are needed to urge the World Leaders to take decisive action against the most critical issue the world faces today: Climate change.
Activists from around the world are setting up their gear to mobilize global opinion and press their political leaders to come with an ambitious, fair and binding climate treaty this December.
The global League of activists IndyACT will be the NGO sending a delegation representing the Arab youth to pressure Arab Leaders, lobby with them, speak up for all of us and take action. But the action taken outside Copenhagen is equal in importance to the actions taken within. For that reason, IndyACT will be mobilizing the largest web-action ever in the Arab world in order to raise more pressure and make the Arab youth take their role in saving their nations and the planet.
Starting 7 December, internet activists from all around the Arab region will be blogging, twittering, flickering and updating their Facebook status about the crisis and the progress in the negotiations in Copenhagen.
Will the Leaders have what it takes to make the right decisions?
Now you can make a difference.
Climate policy experts from the most active NGOs in the world, including IndyACT, will be providing you with the most critical issues of the day to focus communications on.
What country is doing bad?
Which issue is being left out?
Which country needs support?
By making everyone around the globe focusing on the key issue, we can reach millions of people and move governments positions . Thousands have already committed for those two weeks, and so should you.
It’s time for climate action!
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=187725014248
http://www.facebook.com/indyact.org
Contact Informations:
- For Facebook users and activists, add IndyACT to your friends list: http://www.facebook.com/indyact.org
Invite your friends to the event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=187725014248&index=1
- For Twitterers: Retweet and get updates by Following IndyACT! : http://twitter.com/IndyACT
- For Bloggers: Enlist your blog by sending an email to: comms@indyact.org
Activists from around the world are setting up their gear to mobilize global opinion and press their political leaders to come with an ambitious, fair and binding climate treaty this December.
The global League of activists IndyACT will be the NGO sending a delegation representing the Arab youth to pressure Arab Leaders, lobby with them, speak up for all of us and take action. But the action taken outside Copenhagen is equal in importance to the actions taken within. For that reason, IndyACT will be mobilizing the largest web-action ever in the Arab world in order to raise more pressure and make the Arab youth take their role in saving their nations and the planet.
Starting 7 December, internet activists from all around the Arab region will be blogging, twittering, flickering and updating their Facebook status about the crisis and the progress in the negotiations in Copenhagen.
Will the Leaders have what it takes to make the right decisions?
Now you can make a difference.
Climate policy experts from the most active NGOs in the world, including IndyACT, will be providing you with the most critical issues of the day to focus communications on.
What country is doing bad?
Which issue is being left out?
Which country needs support?
By making everyone around the globe focusing on the key issue, we can reach millions of people and move governments positions . Thousands have already committed for those two weeks, and so should you.
It’s time for climate action!
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=187725014248
http://www.facebook.com/indyact.org
Contact Informations:
- For Facebook users and activists, add IndyACT to your friends list: http://www.facebook.com/indyact.org
Invite your friends to the event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=187725014248&index=1
- For Twitterers: Retweet and get updates by Following IndyACT! : http://twitter.com/IndyACT
- For Bloggers: Enlist your blog by sending an email to: comms@indyact.org
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