A conversation with Julian Dobson
November 17, 2009 by Simon Berry · 1 Comment
I first met Julian when New Start Magazine was a twinkle in the eye around 10 years ago. Julian co-founded New Start Magazine with Kath Acres and Jamie Veitch. Kath was one of the first people I turned to when setting up the board of ruralnet|uk and she served as a trustee.
So it was great to meet up with Julian at Chain Reaction last week (12/11/09) and have this ColaLife conversation:
Below is an explanation of the AidPod mentioned in the interview.
ColaLife moves on the rest of Europe - Part 1
August 31, 2009 by Simon Berry · 1 Comment
I was interviewed in August for Germany’s on-3 radio over Skype. And here is what was broadcast on 18/8/09 (my bits are in English!):
Welcome to the ColaLife office
May 14, 2009 by Simon Berry · Leave a Comment
I am a total sucker for new technology and gadgets and I was starting to look like a bit of a nurd until this campaign started and has demonstrated just what you can do with this stuff.
Anyway, I met up last night with my friend David Wilcox who’s been a bit of a mentor of mine in this area and always has the next gadget that I wish I could have. We met upstairs in the Marquis of Granby on Dean Bradley Street. This is just opposite where I work and as become the ColaLife office. I have met so many amazing people in there since the campaign has started. Many schemes have been hatched in the Marquis of Granby.
Anyway David had his iPhone (which I wish I had) with him with the AudioBoo application (which I was I had) on it and he recorded this:
And took this picture:
And AudioBoo sorted out the mapping (so now you know where the ColaLife office is):
A conversation with Mark Ellis of sounddelivery
May 13, 2009 by Simon Berry · Leave a Comment
A big thank you to the folks at sounddelivery, Mark Ellis and Eric Whelan in particular, for the creativity that went into this audio feature which was recorded on the evening of 25/3/09 and summarised the ColaLife story so far. The feature mixes audio from various sources.
Since the interview Coca-Cola have confirmed that they plan to carry out trials of the ColaLife idea later this year in Tanzania.
Malaria No More - has the time for the single issue charity come?
May 6, 2009 by Simon Berry · 1 Comment
Community development is always more complex than it looks. ‘Quick fixes’ are ‘out’ and ‘holistic approaches’ are ‘in’. But I wonder if there are exceptions to this philosophy. I think there are some things that just need to be fixed and I also think that a less holistic approach might actually help in some circumstances.
I happened to catch this feature on Radio 4’s Today programme, 6:45am, 20 April 2009:
‘Malaria no more‘ is a recently established, single issue NGO that is just focussed on eliminating deaths from Malaria, no more, no less. And when it has done that it will disband (I understand). Around half the children that die before their fifth birthday, that ColaLife is so concerned about, die from Malaria. That’s 10% of children in Africa, or 2 a minute. Basically, that is not acceptable in 2009 and it has to stop. Full stop. That is what ‘Malaria no more’ is determined to do.
I wonder how they will distribute their bed nets and anti-malarial drugs?
The ColaLife story as told by the BBC’s iPM programme
May 4, 2009 by Simon Berry · 1 Comment
The BBC’s iPM programme, which goes out on a Saturday on Radio 4, has maintained a keen interest in the ColaLife story. For convenience, I have brought together the features they have created and broadcast in the last 12 months into this post (see below). In addition to these broadcasts, Jennifer Tracey, of iPM did a follow-up interview at the 2gether08 festival on 3/7/08. You can listen to the feature here or watch David Wilcox’s video of the interview here.
24/5/08
A big thank you everyone at iPM
Highlights: Includes an interview and song from Eve Graham, the original lead singer of the New Seekers hit ‘I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing’ which became a Coca-Cola commercial in the early 70s and a statement of interest from Coca-Cola
(the whole feature)
(Eve Graham’s song only)
27/12/08
ColaLife on BBC (UK) National Radio (27/12/08)
Highlights: Summarises the progress of the first 8 months of the campaign, the development of the idea and first reactions from the frontline in Tanzania.
25/4/09
Coca-Cola confirm their commitment to ColaLife trials . . on BBC Radio 4
Highlights: This interview brought together Coca-Cola’s Euan Wilmshurst and Simon Berry to discuss Coca-Cola’s commitment to trials of the ColaLife idea before the end of 2009.
ColaLife - the story so far - 25/4/09
April 26, 2009 by Simon Berry · 3 Comments
Here’s the presentation I gave yesterday at the Africa Gathering event at Birkbeck College, London. The audio was added retrospectively. The ‘Live’ version was a lot more fun! But all the facts are here. The videos and audio mentioned in the presentation are here:
- Frontline video
- What Bob Geldof thinks of the ColaLife idea
- What Dame Barbara Stocking, CEO of Oxfam, thinks of the ColaLife idea
- Initial iPM feature
- ‘Best of year’ iPM feature
Big thanks are due to Ed Scotcher and friends for organising a great day and for inviting ColaLife.
*STOP PRESS*
An hour or so after this presentation, Coca-Cola confirmed their commitment to trials on the BBC’s iPM programme on Radio 4. You can listen again here.
PROGRESS REPORTS
The latest timeline (progress report) is always here.
ADDENDUM: 30/6/09
Here is a video of the African Gathering presentation. After a bit of a flaky start with the technology it’s OK! Thanks to Mark Simpkins for uploading this.
Simon Berry at Africa Gathering, London 2009 from Mark Simpkins on Vimeo.
Coca-Cola confirm their commitment to ColaLife trials . . on BBC Radio 4
April 25, 2009 by Simon Berry · 3 Comments
This is a great confirmation of Coca-Cola’s commitment to trials of the ColaLife idea this year in Tanzania. Listen again to the interview here:
Thanks are due to Euan of Coca-Cola and the iPM team who can do magic with audio. This feature includes audio from the flip video I took on the frontline in Dar Es Salam in November 2008. Nice mash-up guys!
You can listen again here.
ColaLife on BBC (UK) National Radio (27/12/08)
December 29, 2008 by Simon Berry · 2 Comments
On Saturday, 27/12/08 the BBC ran a 10 minute feature on ColaLife updating the initial interview back in June on the BBC Radio 4 programme, iPM. It includes bits from the original interview in June 2008, an update on progress and the vision from me and a clever audio cut from the frontline video filmed in Tanzania.
The item is no longer available on the BBC iPlayer but, thanks to the iPM Team, you can listen by clicking on one of the players below:
High quality (for broadband users)
Low quality but totally adequate (dial-up connections)
Eddie Mair finishes the feature saying “Simon Berry with his aidpod“. This is interesting because at the recent face-to-face meeting of ColaLife supporters there was lots a discussion about what the ‘ColaLife Pod’ should be called as the pod idea has applications beyond Coca-Cola, or Pepsi Cola for that matter. Terms like ‘healthpod’ and ‘lifepod’ are already in use for other things but ‘aidpod’ isn’t. So . . . . I’ve registered aidpod.org, aidpod.org.uk and aidpod.co.uk just in case we need them moving forward. For the moment I have re-directed these domain names to the ColaLife Blog.
If we adopted the term ‘aidpod’ then we would need to start talking in terms of ‘The ColaLife AidPod‘ which would leave space for the ‘Pepsi AidPod’ and the ‘Heineken AidPod’ etc etc
Any thoghts on the ‘aidpod’ name? What would it go down like on the frontline I wonder?
BBC World Service Interview - 13/7/08
July 13, 2008 by Simon Berry · 2 Comments
Here is today’s interview on the BBC World Service. I was expecting something much more linked up. During the week we’d talked about linking it to the WaterAid publication (Tackling the silent killer) that came out last week to coincide with the G8 Summit. In the end it was a standalone slot just 4 minutes long.
Thanks to The World Today weekend team for setting this opportunity up.
What others are saying about ColaLife- ColaLife on Flickr
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