Innovation Toronto » organizers

When Tech Innovation Has a Social Mission

innovation2 — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:16:31 +0000

Palo Alto, Calif.

STEVE WOZNIAK built the original Apple I to share with his friends at the Homebrew Computer Club, but it was his business partner Steve Jobs who had the insight that there might be a market for such a contraption. Indeed, for decades, Silicon Valley has been defined by the tension between the technologist’s urge to share information and the industrialist’s incentive to profit.

Now a new style of “hybrid” technology organization is emerging that is trying to define a path between the nonprofit world and traditional for-profit ventures.

They’re often referred to as “social enterprises” because they pursue social missions instead of profits. But unlike most nonprofit groups, these organizations generate a sustainable source of revenue and do not rely on philanthropy. Earnings are retained and reinvested rather than being distributed to shareholders.

The new companies, like thousands of Silicon Valley start-ups before them, typically begin as small groups of intensely motivated people dedicated to the goal of building a product or service.

Read more . . .

PLAYING WITH BRAIN-COMPUTER INTERFACES

innovation2 — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:58:58 +0000

Operating machines or playing videogames just with our thoughts is not science fiction anymore. And Anton Nijholt (see photo on the left), full professor of computer science at the University of Twente, is one of the researchers working at building so called brain-computer interfaces for these purposes.
At CHI 2008, he is one of the organizers of the workshop on Brain-Computer Interfaces for HCI and Games

What is Mobile Weekend?

ron — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 16:43:41 +0000

That’s a great question. Mobile weekend follows in the tradition of Startup Weekend. I was lucky enough to have participated in Startup Weekend Toronto and Facebook Weekend Beta (and to have been one of the organizers). We’ve thought for a long time that Mobile would be a great forum for such an event. Here, in point form, is what the weekend is about. We will be putting up more details later tonight.

The idea behind Mobile Weekend is this:

Get a bunch of brilliant, passionate and motivated individuals together over a weekend
Have that group come up with and select an idea for a mobile application (most likely Java based or web based)
Build the application over the weekend with the goal of launching a fully functional prototype by Sunday night
Maybe, just maybe end up with a company to carry forward the idea. If nothing comes of it, we will probably release all code to the open-source community (assuming the participants all agree)
The key is, this is community driven. The participants are the ones that make it happen (we’re just helping organize the event)

Mobile Weekend hopes to be able to provide the following to the participants

A great event where we can all have lots of fun and learn
To grow awareness of the tech community locally and beyond
A great opportunity for networking within our tech community
Provide all needed infrastructure for the weekend (servers, wireless, source control)
Feed and water the participants (we hope to be able to provide all food and drink for the event through sponsorship, might also raise some money by selling tickets to the event)
Swag (You know you want it)

More to come… Dan