Announcing October's AF-Calgary Top4 Finalists

Another tough month, but somehow we were able to whittle down the list of this month's submissions to four.

So without further ado, here are October's Top4 Finalists and Honourable Mentions, in no particular order:

Top4 Finalists:

1. Bee-autiful City by Nick Oswald: "Set up Bee Hives in the city to help pollinate all the flowers that are planted by both residences and businesses."
   
2. L.E.G.A.C.Y. by Shana Ng: "Lift, Empower, Guide, and Advocate for Calgary Youth – passing on the skills and knowledge to generations of high risk youth so they can make healthier and safer choices."
   
3. SoJo by Trevor Gair: "SoJo will be the foremost online destination to inspire and empower youth to dream big and engage in social entrepreneurship."
4. BJ Gym Show - Honoring 40 Years of Calgary's Community and Artists by Angie Annis: "To bring together Calgary finest artists to honour 40 years of arts and community in Calgary."

Honourable Mentions:

• The Accelerator Calgary: "To create a startup accelerator in Inglewood."
  

October's Thousand Dollar Thursday will be held at the Kasian Gallery (room 2145) in the Professional Faculties building at the University of Calgary on Thursday, October 27 starting at 6 p.m.

Hope to see you there!

And remember: We're now taking submissions for the November prize. The deadline is 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, November 10. To apply, fill out this handy-dandy web form!

Someone's gonna get a thousand dollars!

Well folks, it's that time again!

Tonight, the AF-Calgary Trustees will meet to pick October's Top4 Finalists (as well as the Honourable Mentions) from the list of submissions we've received this month, who will then be invited to pitch at next week's Thousand Dollar Thursday.

This month, we'll be hosting the festivities at the Kasian Gallery (room 2145) in the Professional Faculties building at the University of Calgary on Thursday, October 27 starting at 6 p.m.

Further parking, transit, and other details will be provided as we get closer to next Thursday, but make sure to hold the date, and we hope to see you there!

And just a reminder: We're currently taking submissions for the November prize. The deadline is 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, November 10. To apply, fill out this handy-dandy web form!

Hope to see you all there, and stay tuned tomorrow for the announcement of AF-Calgary's October Top4 Finalists.

Play it again, Sam!

In other news, Matt Hamel's YYC Mobile Movie project, winner of the August 2011 AF-Calgary award, will debut tomorrow night (September 24) at the RiverWalk Plaza in the East Village.

You're invited to a movie night under the stars, where family-friendly Casablanca will be projected onto the side of the Simmons Mattress Building for all to see for free!

Open to the public, feel free to bring a lawn chair and your friends (along with their lawn chairs) and enjoy a beloved movie classic under the stars.

The movie starts at 8 p.m., but feel free to come down earlier as Fiasco Gelato and Los Compadres (food stars of last night's AF-Calgary Thousand Dollar Thursday) will be bringing their food trucks down for the event. Also, for all you coffee aficionados, Phil & Sebastian Coffee Roasters will have a booth as well.

To RSVP, you can do that through their official Facebook page or Yelp. For more details, see here.

And speaking of playing things again, if you were worried that you missed our radio interview with Edmonton's AM930 CJCA's ONE with Kara Murray last week, well good news: You didn't actually miss anything! Due to a scheduling conflict at the radio station, those episodes didn't air (hey, we've all been there, right?).

The good news is that they will air starting this Saturday (September 24). So if you're in the Edmonton area, tune into AM930 or check out their live stream online at CJCA.ca starting at 11 a.m. and hear myself (Reg Tiangha) speak about AF-Calgary, as well as AF-Calgary's May 2011 Fellow Kiran Somanchi speak about his Audio Mob YYC project.

Next Saturday (October 1), tune in again at 11 a.m. to hear myself as well as AF-Calgary's July 2011 Fellows Claudia Bustos and Vlad Amiot speak about their project, Calgary's Illuminated Landscapes.

And finally, while we're still on the topic of Edmonton, did you know that Edmonton's starting up their own AF chapter? Their Pitch Night is coming up pretty quickly; 6 p.m. on September 29 at Latitude 53. For all the details, check out their website at EdmontonAwesome.com.

...and, That's a Wrap!

You know, we've only been at it for about six months or so, but the submissions and pitches seem to get stronger and stronger, and the decisions tougher and tougher every month.

This month was no different as we had four strong ideas to choose from, and with only 90 seconds to 'wow' the Trustees and the audience, it made for an interesting night.

This time, taking place in the beautiful showroom of Smart Home Systems, a local Calgary company dedicated to home automation solutions (and if you're ever in the area, you should check out their sexy home theatres and nifty golf simulator!), finalists, spectators and Trustees were treated to some wonderful food fare from two of Calgary's hottest food trucks, Los Compadres and Fiasco Gelato.

Hosted this month by our very own Trustee of Awesome Brian Singh, he started off with something new: a 90 second pitch of his own, talking about himself and why he joined AF-Calgary. We'll be doing this every month from now on (because we really should be eating our own dog food ;-) ), and over the period of a year or so, you'll be able to meet and get to know all of the Trustees (and all of our dirty secrets).


Pitch 1: Gumsphere 300

First up was John Frosst speaking on behalf of Gumsphere 300. Inspired by Gumball 3000, an endurance checkpoint rally for the world's richest drivers with the most expensive cars, and described as "Cannonball Run meets Fringe Fest," John gave us a glimpse of his vision what a travelling road-show should be, which should be done with nothing but artists driving Ford Fiestas rather than expensive cars.

One thing you should know is that John arrived really early for the evening and even volunteered to help us set up the venue. His passion for the night and his project really shined through, and everyone was able to see that. Thanks John!


Pitch 2: Junior Jokers

Next up was local funnyman and self-professed fool Derek Wilken talking about taking his Junior Jokers program to the next level by creating comic books to teach children aged 6-16 basic comedic training.

With characters based on five elements of stand-up comedy and taking place in a land called "Laugh-a-lot," educational comic books would be created and given away to children to teach them the skills they need to make other people laugh.

The interesting thing about Derek's pitch was that the audience (Trustees included) was so entranced in his presentation that when the 90 second alarm had sounded, the audience let out a perceptible "aww" as they wanted to hear more. While it's true that a lot can be said in 90 seconds, keep in mind that 90 seconds isn't much time either!


Pitch 3: Green Bikes Initiative

Third up was Victorio Tacio with his Green Bikes Initiative where he would organize groups of temporary foreign workers and newcomers to Canada based in Calgary and Airdrie and repair and recycle bicycles and give them out to communities for free.

While there may be some other programs in town that do similar things already, Victorio's project would teach potential new Canadians useful skills that could help them later on when they gain their citizenship and make them more productive members of society. From watching his presentation, you could see that he was passionate about the idea and thought it through well, mentioning that he's already consulted with RCMP and the University of Calgary in regards to logistics and legal issues.


Pitch 4: Reel World Documentaries (a.k.a. Vids for Kids)


The final pitch of the night went to Chris Hsuing and Kate McKenzie with their Reel World Youth Documentaries idea (a.k.a. Vids for Kids) where they proposed teaching school children documentary film making in order for them to learn analytical, investigative, and team building skills, and to help expose them to issues facing the community by allowing them to work on interesting local documentary projects. They would use the money to build video/audio kits that could be loaned out to students to assist them with their projects, add a bit of pro panache to the children's films, and intend to screen all the films created this year some time in December 2011.

In what could be considered as a down-right dirty move by some, and an absolutely brilliant move by others, Chris and Kate had one of their Grade 8 students speak on how the project could impact them and what they hoped to gain from it if it were to go forward. The amazing thing was that they were able to squeeze in three speakers in 90 seconds. It was a fast-paced yet well prepared pitch that captured people's attention.

In the end, it was another deliberation that went through multiple rounds of voting and debate, and while everyone will agree wholeheartedly that all the ideas were worthy, as they say, there can be only one (mainly because we ain't rich).

Drumroll...


And with that, the winner of the AF-Calgary September 2011 $1,000 grant went to Reel World Documentaries by Chris and Kate. They intend to start right away this semester in getting the school kids to create their films, and want to screen them by the end of the year. Congratulations, and we look forward to seeing what gets created!

Thanks to everyone who submitted an idea for consideration this month, as well as to this month's Top4 Finalists and Honourable Mentions. If you'd like to learn more about those projects and ideas, hit up the Idea Incubator of our site. And if you'd like to submit an idea for consideration for the October 2011 prize, simply fill out this handy-dandy web form! The deadline for submissions is October 10 at 11:59 p.m.

Thanks again to Smart Home Systems for hosting our event this month. If you ever get a chance, drop by their venue and check it out; the funky things you can do with an iPad in controlling your home will blow your mind. And as we're always looking for awesome places in Calgary to highlight, if you're interested in hosting one of our awards nights in the future, give Lisa or myself (Reg!) a shout!

Also, a BIG Thank You to the YYC Food Trucks, specifically Los Compadres and Fiasco Gelato for sending their food trucks our way. The audience definitely appreciated it (and we really appreciated that you guys took the time to come down). You guys are another quintessential example of what makes Calgary awesome!

Finally, thanks to everyone who took time out of their busy day to make the trek down. We hope to see you again next month, and stay tuned for the announcement of our October venue!

September Top4 Finalists

September might signal the end of summer but it also means a new season of awesome ideas coming to life in Calgary.    We're excited to announce our Back-to-School edition of Awesome Foundation, Calgary.  The line-up is fabulous. 

Top 4 Finalists: 

Reel World Youth Documentaries  - Chris Hsuing
Engaging junior high kids with community by teaching them how to seek out, storyboard, shoot, edit and produce short documentary films (aka - Vids for Kids)

Green Bikes Initiative  - Victorio Tacio
A group of temporary Foreign Workers and newcomers to Canada based in Calgary and Airdrie who  repair and recycle “green” bikes, then give them out to communities for free.

Junior Jokers - Derek Wilken 
Comedy training for kids ages 6-16 -  by creating comic book to teach skills.

Gumsphere 300 - Shawn Petsche, John Frosst, Andrew Frosst
Cannonball Run Meets Fringe Fest - a three week multi-disciplinary traveling road show across North America by Alberta's best punk rock bands, visual artists and documentarians...in 8 Ford Festivas.

 Honourable Mentions 

• Easy Ace - provide free peer tutoring sessions to students on campus who need help in any of their university courses. (Easy Ace in its first semester of activity was awarded an honorable mention for "Education Club of the Year". - awesome, eh??)  Kim Lee 
• Animated City - a series of outdoor large-scale projections on the sides of buildings
   in downtown Calgary, and a collection of super awesome interior rear
  projections in storefront windows. Caitlind Brown 

Thanks to everyone for another fun month of reviewing submissions - keep those great ideas rolling in and be sure to catch the added fun as Calgary Food Trucks join us at $1000 Thursday!   


Venue: Smart Home Systems awesome Showroom (http://www.smarthomesystems.com/showroom.htm)  7130 Fisher Road SE (south of Glenmore, 1 block behind Campers Village)
Time: arrive at 6pm ... pitches start promptly at 6:30 
Food Trucks: Fiasco Gelato and Los Campadres  - grab a taco and a gelato in the parking lot and then come see 4 great teams pitch their exciting ideas ... someone is going home $1000 richer! 

Awesomeness keeps spreading and spreading!

It's been a great summer throughout the Awesome Foundation as more projects have been funded and more chapters are starting to pop up around the world!

For example, Kingston, Ontario is getting set to start up their own chapter, and AF Calgary has been assisting them as mentors, along with other cities such as Lethbridge, Alberta and Turin, Italy. In fact, another city we've been mentoring, *cough*Edmonton*cough* ;-) , is about to debut their inaugural prize this month and will be holding their Pitch Night at 6 p.m. on September 29 at Latitude 53, open to the public. If you're in the Edmonton, Alberta area, make sure to check it out! And if you're interested in applying for the Edmonton prize, you can do that here.

It's been especially exciting for us here at AF Calgary as not only are we starting to see some of the chapters that we've been mentoring start to take off, but some of the processes we've come up with here in Calgary are starting to be emulated, not only by the chapters that we're mentoring, but by some of the other AF chapters as well! For example, the very first chapter, AF Boston, is currently experimenting with the Pitch Night format, and their deadline for applications is tomorrow, September 7 (To apply for the Boston grant, you can use the main application form here).

We've only been around for five months or so, but it's really satisfying to all of us here in Calgary that we're making a worldwide impact on the whole Awesome movement. Guess we're doing something right! :-)

Here on the home front, we've been pretty busy as well. Most recently, we, along with two of our previous AF-funded projects, May 2011's Audio Mob YYC and July 2011's Calgary's Illuminated Landscapes, were invited to appear on Edmonton's AM930 CJCA's ONE with Kara Murray, a weekly radio talk show every Saturday morning at 11 a.m. that takes listeners inside the heart and soul of organizations and people who are making a difference in the community.

In the end, there was so much content that instead of cutting stuff out, they've decided to run two one-hour episodes back-to-back in the next couple of weeks instead!

First up, if you've had any questions about AF Calgary or how this whole "Awesome" thing works, then you'll want to tune into Episode 9 on Saturday, September 10 as you'll be able to learn more about the Awesome Foundation in general (and AF Calgary specifically), and hear and learn more from AF Calgary's May 2011 Fellow Kiran Somanchi about his Audio Mob YYC project.

The following week, tune into Episode 10 on Saturday, September 17 to learn more about AF Calgary and hear from AF Calgary's July 2011 Fellows Claudia Bustos and Vlad Amiot about their Calgary's Illuminated Landscapes project.

You can catch ONE with Kara Murray at 11 a.m. Saturday mornings on AM930 if you're in the Edmonton area, or live-streamed through their website at CJCA.ca. If you miss the show, you can catch episodes on-demand at ONEwithKara.com.

In other news, August 2011 AF Calgary Fellow Matt Hamel is hard at work bringing his YYC Mobile Movie concept to life and hopes to debut it in September; keep an eye out here for all the details as they become available.

We're currently finalizing the details on our September 22 pitch night as well, and we'll be announcing those details here very, very soon...

There may be a couple more announcements to make in the coming weeks also, so keep an eye on us here or on Twitter at @awesome_calgary or Facebook at facebook.com/awesomecalgary to make sure you're kept up-to-date on all the latest!

Finally, September's submission deadline for AF Calgary is getting close. This month, the deadline is Saturday, September 10 at 11:59 p.m. To apply, fill out this handy-dandy web form!

Guerrilla gatherings are afoot in Calgary!

It was another hard-fought battle with 4 VERY good pitches this month.

The evening started out with Darcy and Greg from Dade Gallery being the most gracious hosts and rearranging their incredible gallery displays (the Secret Life of Bicycles) around to accommodate our ever-growing crowd of Awesome spectators.   If you've never been to the Dade Design Lab in Inglewood - you simply MUST put in it on your top10 list of things to do in Calgary this year!

The 90 second pitches were superb again this month.  If you didn't know, the finalists have only 1 week notice to get their 90 second pitch together and, other than 4 basic bullet points of guidance,  we don't give them any coaching at all.  The pitches we see at Awesome rival some of the best I've witnessed in 100s of tech forums across North America!!  

Awesome Trustee Chris Salmon, our very own Simon Cowell (in accent only!), emcee'd the evening superbly and his family even traveled across the Atlantic and the entire country of Canada to attend this month's event.  Now, that is awesome!

First Up:  Tony Grimes and "Music Everywhere" 

Tony had the most innovative and hauntingly beautiful pitch of the evening ... it started with Aaron playing the saxophone and ended with the entire audience enthused and intrigued by the prospect of having music - delivered by bicycle- to community gardens around the city.

Tony said he was inspired to submit his idea after attending July Awesome fellows Claudia & Vlad "Illuminating Calgary" events.  Now THAT is awesome!  





 Next Up:  Lisa and Maria - HSCA Garden Market

 The Hillhurst-Sunnyside Community Association runs an amazing farmers market and this awesome idea is to bring some focus and fun on the celebration of the harvest season.   Lisa and Maria spoke with such passion about the community aspects of growing food and our need to both share the fruits of those labours and to celebrate them!    

A celebration of Urban Agriculture... the first of an annual competition celebrating what can be grown within the city limits of Calgary.

There are many exciting and fun events planned for this event that takes place on Oct 5th (3:30pm to 7:00 pm) and if you're looking to help out - they could really use your help!  (P.S: shhhhhh ...rumour has it that they might have a beer garden!)

Lucky man Darcy (of Dade Gallery) won the giant zucchini they passed through the crowd! We were thankful they didn't pass around a 400lb pumpkin. 

Third Up:  Mary and "Word Powered Art"

 Mary gave us the most inspiring, quick-witted and bubbly pitch of the evening as she spoke passionately about peppering word art into world of commercialism on digital billboards around the city.  Associated with the 16th annual Wordfest event, Word Powered Art aims to bring a commercial break to ads on billboards with flashes of word art created by world-renowned word artist, Angela Silver.  

Check out Wordfest's exciting lineup for their Oct 11 -12 festival devoted entirely to sharing the power of words in new ways. 

http://www.wordfest.com/




Finally - and last but not least - Matthew Hamel and "YYC Mobile Movie" (aka Guerilla Drive-in)
Matt gave us a thorough and fast-paced pitch on the power of bringing people together in a free venue to share in the glory of old classic movies, free popcorn... and food trucks!  - all in an free-form outdoor venue.   Matt's idea is to show Casablanca on the side of the old Simmons Building in the fabulously evolving East Village in September (stayed tuned for the exact date and time). 

"Casablance is an undisputed masterpiece and perhaps Hollywood's quintessential statement on love and romance, Casablanca has only improved with age, boasting career-defining performances from Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman."

Casablanca scores an amazing 97% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and 94% from 319,000 user reviews!  It's a MUST-see for anyone who has never seen it and a must re-see for those who have!

Matt plans on spreading this concept around the city at various venues - any brick wall will do!

*****

After another very tough deliberation and decision by the 11 trustees in attendance  ... but in the end we all agreed that as much as all the ideas were more than worthy of our grant, YYCMobileMovies was the stand out!  Congratulations to Matt and we can't wait to see Casablanca with you on and warm September evening!

Follow @yycmobilemovie to get the scoop on a movie coming soon to a wall near you! 


* special thanks to our own "Administrator of Awesome" Lisa Crosby for working so hard with our venue sponsors and Elissa Lynn "Awesome Correspondence Leader and roving Photographer" for these photos.   Amy Darling wasn't with us for this event but as "Awesome Success Liaison" she was instrumental in helping "AudioMob" and "Illuminate Calgary" be the amazing events they were!  

Awesome is an all volunteer organization and the power of these amazing people can truly not be measured.  
 

August Pitch n'Party - Thousand Dollar Thursday

Come and see the Top4 finalists pitch for the $1000 C A S H. (yes, cash!  remember what that is?!) - Thursday, Aug 25th 6pm at DaDe Art & Design Lab in Inglewood - the COOLEST gallery space I've seen in Calgary! 

Sign up on our Facebook event or just show up ... the more, the awesomer! 

Click for more info about the event and DaDe awesome gallery.

• Top4 Finalists:
Music Everywhere! (Tony Grimes) 
Bringing music to where music is needed most - community gardens that are growing our food.


Word Powered Art (Jo Steffens) 
Text-based art to be displayed on digital billboards.


• HSCA Harvest Market (Joe Vipond)
  A celebration of Urban Agriculture... the first of an annual competition celebrating what can be grown within the city limits of Calgary.
  
  
• Free Classic Movie - aka Guerrilla Drive-in (Matt Hamel) 
  Join like-minded Calgarians outside the Simmons Mattress Factory part of the new Riverwalk to watch Casablanca under the stars for free. 

August is an Awesome month!

By the time August rolls around, it seems that everyone is in high gear to squeeze as much out of our short summer as possible before it rapidly rolls into September.   Thus, we assumed Awesome submissions and interest would wane a little this month ... boy, were we wrong! 

15 incredible submissions this month made it another very tough month to narrow it down to just 4 awesome ideas.  Do you have any idea how tough it is to be surrounded by so much creativity, innovation, hope for the future and just all-around awesomeness and then be limited to selecting just 4 of those ideas to come and pitch to us??  It keeps me up at night wondering how we can find ways to reward more of these incredible people of Calgary and their inspiring ideas. 

• Top4 Finalists:
Music Everywhere! (Tony Grimes) 
Bringing music to where music is needed most - community gardens that are growing our food.


Word Powered Art (Jo Steffens) 
Text-based art to be displayed on digital billboards.


• HSCA Harvest Market (Joe Vipond)
  A celebration of Urban Agriculture... the first of an annual competition celebrating what can be grown within the city limits of Calgary.
  
  
• Free Classic Movie - aka Guerrilla Drive-in (Matt Hamel) 
  Join like-minded Calgarians outside the Simmons Mattress Factory part of the new Riverwalk to watch Casablanca under the stars for free.
   
• Honourable Mentions:
• Worldviews Film Project - Kate MacKenzie 
  create curriculum kit using videography to enable students to explore different worldviews of Calgarians highlighting leaders who are making their communities more awesome!
  
  
• SEGS (Sustainable Enclosed Garden Structures) - Alan Marston
  Create affordable, maintenance-free garden systems that simply requires a small amount
  of water each day until harvest. 
   
• artWALKwithART - Art Proctor
  A monthly free thrill ride of cultural discovery in Calgary - First Thursday Culture Crawl
  
  
• Winston Heights – Mountview Playground Party - Alex Reed 
  A kid-centric, family-oriented, neighbour-meeting inner-city community party celebrating the opening of this innovative, world class playground
  
  
• The House Project -Caitlind Brown & co
  
  Featuring 8 artists with a love for community,
  collaboration and a knack for ripping things apart.
   
• Superheroes For Kids - Gord Cohen
  Lifesize cardboard cutouts of your favorite superheroes to take to sick kids hospitals to empower kids to be their own superhero and help them get better
  

Now you see why this was so difficult??  Incredibly awesome ideas!

Looking forward to seeing you in Inglewood, DaDe ART & DESIGN LAB   |   1327 9 AVE SE to join in the fun with the Top4 finalists pitching for the $1000 CASH!   It's going to be another #awesome event!

~Lori

Awesomness in Calgary

Speaking as a Trustee today, I have to admit: Sometimes it's tough being a Trustee here at AF Calgary.

With how the Awesome Foundation is set up, at least 10 Trustees (here in Calgary, we have 13) pitch in $100 out of their own pockets each month to provide the monthly $1,000 prize. As such, the way things stand right now, we can only afford to fund one awesome idea each month.

Since there's so much awesomeness in Calgary, we want to highlight as much as we can, which is why we're currently the only AF chapter right now that chooses a Top4 each month from all the monthly submissions, in addition to Honourable Mentions. The intent is that even though only one idea can get the funding, we can at least hope to expose some of the other ideas to the public in case others would like to help them out. So Top4 choices, Honourable Mentions, and the Idea Incubator of the website is our attempt to address some of that.

But even then, sometimes it's heartbreaking, because there's just so many awesome ideas to spotlight, that to spotlight them all would be unfeasible.

That said, just because a person or a group doesn't win the monthly prize, it doesn't have to prevent them from going forward with their awesome idea.

Case in point, in June 2011, we received many great submissions and had four super strong pitches that night. In the end, it was really close (Trustee deliberations went through four rounds, which never happened before), but ultimately, the Calgary Circus Studio won out, and they hope to build and debut their public circus apparatus in the coming months.

However, that hasn't stopped some of the other finalists from going forward with their plans anyways.

Last week, Nicky Dundas, one of our Top4 for June 2011, who gave a passionate and heartfelt pitch that really gave the Trustees for the night a lot to debate and discuss, rolled out one of the many ideas she had for spreading happiness in the city of Calgary (she calls it "Happy Sprinkles"), with 100 Roses, which was sprinkle #24. If you missed out, check out this video:



Another one of the finalists in June, the People's Poetry Festival, who had an innovative, anti-PowerPoint presentation which involved haikus, chart paper and awesome drawings, are going forward with their festival right now. It's happening all weekend long throughout and all over Kensington, so if you have a chance, drop by and take part in one of the many events and activities.

Speaking personally, sometimes this job is hard for me to take because we can only fund one idea a month and many times, I'd love it if we could fund more than one, but whenever a person or a group goes forward with their ideas anyways, it makes me feel inspired and proud to be a born-and-raised Calgarian.

So thanks to Nicky and her group, the organizing committee at the People's Poetry Festival, and to everyone who has ever, or is thinking of, submitting an idea for consideration here to AF Calgary. It's always exciting and inspiring to see what fellow Calgarians come up with, and makes me want to do better myself!

Hope to see you out at some of these events,
~Reg

Calgary's Illuminated Landscapes: Installation #2 - Play!

On Wednesday, August 17, 2011, AF Calgary July 2011 fellows Claudia Bustos and Vlad Amiot presented their second installation based on their project proposal "Calgary's Illuminated Landscapes."

Entitled "Play!" Calgarians of all ages were encouraged to bring their inner child and to come down to Prince's Island Park from 10 p.m. to 12 a.m. to create and to play with balloons with LEDs embedded in them.

Likened to a glow-in-the-dark ball pit, participants tossed, kicked and buried themselves in balloons, and fun was had by all.

Approximately 50 people came out in the middle of the week to play along (many despite having to work the next morning), and this video is a short montage of what happened that night:

To learn more about the Illuminated Landscapes project, check out http://collaborativeprojectsyyc.blogspot.com/

And if you've missed out on the previous two installations, there may be one more opportunity to take part in this AF Calgary funded project before the summer is up. Stay tuned!

Finally, don't forget that May 2011's AF Calgary winning project "MP3 Experiment" takes place this Sunday, August 21 at Sien Lok Park at 2 p.m. If you want to take part, check out Audio Mob YYC.

Come "Play!" at Illuminated Landscape's Second Installation!

Claudia Bustos and Vlad Amiot, AF Calgary's July 2011 winners, kicked off their "Illuminated Landscapes" project last Friday as part of the Choose Yer Own festival.

It was a HUGE success, with approximately 150 people attending throughout the night to create LED fireflies and help illuminate the shoreline of the beautiful Elbow Island Park. There was a soldering station set up to create some of the more complicated LED installations, and for many people who participated, it was their first time soldering anything ever (and for many, definitely the first time soldering something under a bridge)!

Here's a taste of what happened that night:



If you missed out, don't worry! Claudia and Vlad will be debuting the second installation of their project entitled "Play!" tonight where you can come out and not only help illuminate some more of Calgary's beautiful landscapes, but also feel free to play around with some of their cool equipment.

Tonight's event will take place from 10 p.m. to midnight (or until supplies run out) at Prince's Island Park in the "darkest spot near the playground" and don't forget to bring your inner child along with you!

Everyone's invited, and if you'd like to RSVP, check out their Facebook Event Page.

Hope to see you there!

July's winning proposal "Illuminated Landscapes" goes live tonight!

If you haven't heard yet, the first of the four $1,000 micro-grants we've awarded to Awesome Projects thus far goes live tonight as part of the Choose Yer Own festival, a collaborative festival where you can "choose yer own" level of involvement!

The winning project, Calgary's Illuminated Landscapes, aims to invite Calgarians to illuminate overlooked city spaces using LED lights to create new and inviting landscapes. They've gotten great support from local Calgarian groups and companies like Protospace and Solarbotics, and what they've managed to come up with should be inspiring.

If you'd like to take part, meet up at the intersection of 4th St. and 26th Ave S.W. any time after 10 p.m., grab some LEDs and help decorate!

Claudia and Vlad did a great job at documenting their project, from proposal to pitch, on their blog. If you're looking for some inspiration for your pitches and proposals, you should see what they wrote:

• How to Write a Proposal: Claudia and Vlad include the one page project proposal they submitted to us in July.
• How to Plan a 90 Second Pitch: Claudia and Vlad detail some of the techniques they came up with to distill their project proposal into a 90 second pitch, upon learning that they were invited to present at July's Top4 Pitch 'n Party Night.
• How to Present an Idea: Claudia and Vlad walk us through the finished presentation they performed at the Top4 Pitch 'n Party Night.
  

If you'd like to see how they did on video the night of, you can view that here.

If you're looking to submit a proposal of your own, the next deadline for submissions is Saturday, September 10 at 11:59 p.m. for the September prize.

Hope to see you tonight!

$1000 to help "Illuminate Calgary" - spread the word!

Hi Lori (and everyone at Awesome Calgary)!

We just wanted to update you on our status for our first installation of Illuminated Landscapes.  The Fireflies version will be going up tomorrow:

Come join us for our first installation on Friday, August 12th. Start your adventure at the intersection of 4th St. and 26 Ave. SW anytime after 10 pm! 

Once visitors get to the intersection, they will follow a trail of lights to our location. 

We'll keep you updated for the next installations; also, check out our blog at http://collaborativeprojectsyyc.blogspot.com/ to track our process and progress through our projects!

Thanks again for Awesome Calgary's help.

Thanks, and hopefully we'll see you tomorrow!

Vlad & Claudia (Awesome Foundation Calgary's July 2011 grant fellow)

July was awesome, but August is going to be AWESOMER!

It's been a busy summer this year here at Awesome Foundation Calgary!

In July, AF Calgary along with some of the other existing chapters in Canada were featured nationally in a Postmedia News piece talking about how the AF movement is spreading across the country, and we held our fourth Pitch 'n Party night at the Calgary Drop-In Centre with local favorites and special guests The Heebee-Jeebees headlining the entertainment for the night.

If you missed out on the July festivities, here's a taste courtesy of Chris Hsiung from Hidden Story Productions:



August promises to be an even busier month here in Calgary, as two of the projects we've funded thus far are ready to come to fruition!

Here's what we have on tap this month:

• Wednesday, August 10: Deadline for submissions for the $1,000 August prize. To apply, fill out this handy-dandy web form! As always, submissions will be taken until 11:59 p.m.
  
• Friday, August 12: July AF Calgary Fellows Claudia Bustos and Vlad Amiot will debut their project Illuminating Calgary Landscapes in Calgary. The location is still a secret (for now), but expect more details as the big day approaches!
• Sunday, August 21: May AF Calgary Fellow Kiran Somanchi will debut his "MP3 Experiment" project, Audio Mob YYC at Sien Lok Park at 2 p.m. If you'd like to be "in the know" and help make this event a success by participating in it, or would like to learn more about the project in general, visit AudioMobYYC.com or read our press release.
• Thursday, August 25: The fifth AF Calgary Pitch 'n Party night! This month, it'll be held at the DaDe Art & Design Lab in the beautiful neighborhood of Inglewood. The fun starts at 6 p.m. and we hope to see you there!

As you can see, lots happening this month here on the home front, and we hope you'll be a part of it!