4 posts tagged “usc”

Imagine rebuilding the real world from the ground up, prim by prim.  What would you change and how would you create public good?

Five finalist projects are realizing their revisions with the Second Life and the Public Good Community Challenge.  Now through June 30th you can vote for your top three of these five amazing endeavors to be awarded a total of almost one million Linden dollars! 

On July 1st at 4PM the University of Southern California's Network Culture Project will award the top three with L$100,000 a month for three months to build their dream of public good from the virtual world.  Avatars can take a minute right now to determine who will win the big awards to be given out at the International Island amphitheater on Monday afternoon.

The projects currently up for awards:

Texas Obesity Research Center
Native Lands Cultural Outreach
Mauerkrankheit/Wallsickness
Interactive Accessible Home
Ability Commons

Any avatar can vote for their top three projects and offer resources to these endeavors; volunteer to help them build out a new community or reach out and partner with these projects to grow real world impact from Second Life.  Voting ends June 30th so send in your feedback today and visit these projects on the web or on International Island to explore new ways to rebuild the real world through virtual efforts.

This community challenge is part of ongoing philanthropic research by the USC Network Culture Project at the Annenberg School for Communication based in Los Angeles, provided with support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, cosponsors of the State of Play conference where awardees will present their new work in October 2008. 

Thank you for participating through your votes and feedback and by helping us build vibrant communities in virtual spaces.

For more information contact Resident Annenberg inworld or email networkculture@gmail.com. 

XKCD
Originally uploaded by .inKenzo. evonne@amo

For the last two months I have been testing many different worldbuilding platforms on my Mac, XO laptop and now on my returned PC laptop. A full writeup on the various platforms for kids and adults (from my 7 year old test associate) will be made available soon with a follow-up after September's Virtual Worlds Expo and SLCC. For now, here's a little reading to get you started on thinking about hundreds of worlds within worlds....

Association of Virtual Worlds publishes Blue Book, as Tateru Nino at Massively reports: http://www.massively.com/2008/04/27/association-of-virtual-worlds-publishes-blue-book/

Caleb Booker, aka Onder Skall: http://slgames.wordpress.com/2007/03/05/alternatives-to-second-life/

Sylvie Noel: http://www.sylvienoel.ca/blog/?p=421
Asks a great question: "Where is the customization in work-based virtual worlds?"

Network Culture Challenge

My friend the Gorilla seated behind me (aka Beyers Sellers from Metanomics and Cornell) knows a thing or two about customization...so does Howard Rheingold seated next to me here, author of SmartMobs and all-around brilliant creator. Howard's on our panel to determine which challenge proposals will move on to the community vote and winners will receive grants of L$100,000 a month for three months to build out their SL vision. More to come as we share details on the USC Network Culture Community Challenge for the Second Life avatars making real world change happen. We will be hosting two more community conversations next week: May 12th at 9PM PST (morning of May 13th for my friends in Asia/Australia) and May 15th at noon at the same theatre on International Island in SL.

Network Culture Challenge

Thanks to everyone who came out for our May 6th event on International Island in SL!  Most of all, thanks for playing....we wouldn't have philanthropy in virtual worlds if we didn't have millions of people looking to create somewhere new.