Fresh Creation - Inspiration For Creative Minds

Wikimapa

2009-11-07T08:59:00+01:00

The story
Here’s the English version of the video above which is about Wikimapa, a project by Youth Net Program, a charity for Brazilian slum kids. It’s a Google Maps mashup where the charity’s kids try to map and describe favelas where they live, with the goal of “promoting local development and appreciation, widening perceptions and creating new cultural and geographical references.”

Why this story inspired me
The combination and use of widely used technology to provide services that I take for granted, in ignored spaces is exciting. The rapid growth in technology apparently has a good side.

What I hope sharing this story will lead to
I hope Brazil (Rio) does something amazing with the slums for the Olympics. Something that not only respects the people in the slums but by doing it, returns the potential the Olympics deserve as a great change agent.

Sixth Sense Technology

2009-11-05T11:18:01+01:00

The story
Basically, Sixth Sense is a mini-projector coupled with a camera and a cellphone - which acts as the computer and your connection to the Cloud, all the information stored on the web. Sixth Sense can also obey hand gestures, like in the movie Minority Report.

Why this story inspired me
Because a small team of people shows the whole world that interaction can be taken to a new level.

What I hope sharing this story will lead to
I hope that more people will see that efforts on a small scale can lead to big changes.

Window Farms

2009-11-05T06:05:00+01:00

The Story
Window Farms is a project by Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray, residents at Eyebeam. Basically, it’s a place to find and contribute to designs for a vertical garden.

Why this story inspired me
The focus on crowd sourced, research and development was refreshing. Why wait for government planning and expert research to achieve urban agriculture?

What I hope sharing this story will lead to
People see they have power. “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” (Margarete Mead)

John Gerzema - The Post-Crisis Consumer

2009-11-04T12:11:00+01:00

The story
John Gerzema says there’s an upside to the recent financial crisis - the opportunity for positive change. Speaking at TEDxKC, he identifies four major cultural shifts driving new consumer behavior and shows how businesses are evolving to connect with thoughtful spending.

Why this story inspired me
All the positive examples of shifts that are happening due to the financial crisis made me realize again that this financial crisis might just be the biggest opportunity the world has ever had to change for the better.

What I hope sharing this story will lead to
I hope that people will start to focus more on the opportunities that the crisis is bringing.

Fresh Creation Gets Personal

2009-11-04T10:28:00+01:00

Recently I, Martijn van Osch (Fresh Creation editor, blogger and founder), found it more and more difficult to find the true spirit of Fresh Creation in the posts that were published.

As you may know, Fresh Creation is run by 4 international bloggers since June this year. Before that I have been writing Fresh Creation posts by myself since 2005. Allowing others to post at Fresh Creation led to more diverse posts but it also started to mean a lack of focus. It didn’t feel as inspiring as it used to be. To regain inspiration something needed to change. So how do you make posts more inspiring?

I think this can be achieved by dividing posts in 3 parts:

1) The story
2) Why this story inspired me
3) What I hope sharing this story will lead to

The great thing about these 3 items is that each blogger will have to explain why they are sharing that story, why it inspired them and what he or she hopes it will lead to. This way all visitors get to know the people behind Fresh Creation and the posts become real sources of inspiration:
Expressing dreams.

Enjoy!

Intersection Repair

2009-11-01T07:48:06+01:00

Can you imagine that an intersection could be a community plaza? The annual Village Building Convergence event organized by City Repair proves that this is indeed possible. During these events, hundreds of people come together to take back their streets via a process labelled as Intersection Repair.

Top 5 Screen Tests

2009-10-30T11:02:01+01:00

The New York Times has an exclusive video series called Screen Tests. It’s a series of interviews, with mostly actors, only their responses to a series of similar questions. It’s in black and white, a very powerful format that you hardly see any more.

Fortune At The Bottom

2009-10-30T06:38:00+01:00

C. K. Prahalad, author of the book The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty through Profits, knows the future of innovation. The future of invention and profit is in providing for the poor.

PopTech 2009 Highlights

2009-10-29T11:35:00+01:00

Highlights from PopTech 2009. What’s Poptech? Poptech is “a global community of cutting-edge leaders, thinkers, and doers from many different disciplines, who come together to explore the social impact of new technologies, the forces of change shaping our future, and new approaches to solving the world’s most significant challenges.” (via worldchanging)

The Year I Was Homeless

2009-10-29T06:56:00+01:00

Becky Blanton’s Ted talk, The Year I Was Homeless, is the best Ted speech this year. Maybe ever.