The Buzz builds for Africa Gathering

Africa Gathering Banner Logo

Africa Gathering is a bunch of innovators and enthusiasts for the development in Africa; Ed Scotcher and Mark Simpkins are leading lights. They kindly allowed me to present the ColaLife story at their first UK event back in April (2009) >>more. Ed and Mark have also been generous with their networks and I have made some great contacts and been able to generate good publicity as a result of my involvement in Africa Gathering. A couple who spring to mind are Jane Young of Scrmblr and Tim Unwin, UNESCO Chair in ICT4D and Professor of Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Anyway the buzz is building on Twitter (look out for #agathering) for this weekend’s event which kicks off this evening and runs all day tomorrow at The Hub, Kings Cross, London. Jane and I will be going along this evening and I will be there tomorrow too. My son and I are walking the Giant AidPod from NESTA to Kings Cross starting at around 4:30pm. Here’s our route. So if you’re in the Grays Inn Road area, give us a wave! Anyway, part of this buzz around Africa Gathering was a follow from @ideasforafrica which seems to be the Twitter face of Africa Rural Connect. Their follow of ColaLife drew me to their website where they are asking for ideas for the alleviation of poverty in Africa. This isn’t the core theme of ColaLife but I thought I would put it on anyway. You can see it, endorse and comment on it here.

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Giant AidPod seeks next display space

Giant AidPod at NESTA 001
The giant ColaLife AidPod in the NESTA reception

“The Colalife exhibition has been very successful – with lots of attention and positive comments from visitors to the NESTA offices. It’s a great example of a simple but very powerful idea – what innovation should be!”
Todd Somerville, Head of Corporate Communication, NESTA

The ColaLife giant aidpod has spent the whole summer in the reception area at NESTA where it has started lots of conversations and has inspired people. Craig Newmark (of Craig’s List fame) was moved to blog about it at The Huffington Post, at cnewmark.com and travellinggeeks.com!

The giant AidPod is now looking for its next home. If you’d like to host it for a few days, weeks or months and expose the campaign to a new set of people in the process, please let me know. My contact details are on the PRESS page. Thanks.

ColaLife headlines in NESTA guide

ColaLife on Social By Social
Yesterday (7/7/09), at Reboot Britain, NESTA launched ‘Social By Social – A practical guide to using new technologies to deliver social impact’. ColaLife is one of the case studies featured in the online guide and headlines on the website.
:-)

Innovation need not be complicated – giant aidpod installed at NESTA

After work today I popped along to NESTA as a little bird had told me that the giant aidpod had landed there. And here it is. I got quite emotional! NESTA’s strapline is ‘making innovation flourish’ so it will get attention it deserves here.

Thanks are due to many but allow me to give a special mention to Helen Milner of UK online centres, Mark Pearce from theWorkshop in Sheffield and Todd Somerville at NESTA as key to making this happen.

Giant AidPod installation at NESTA

ColaLife NESTA Exhibit
Isn’t this fabulous?! It looks like the giant ColaLife AidPod is off to spend some time on display at NESTA whose strapline is: ‘making innovation flourish’. This is a mock-up of the installation that I received last night from Mark at theWorkshop who have put a lot of time (and money) into the production of the giant aidpod which is destined to be paraded around London if we get through to the last 100 in Google’s Project 10 to the 100th competion for ideas that will change the world.

NESTA are working on a handbook as part of their Generating social innovation project and the ColaLife campaign is set to feature in that, so it is appropriate that the giant aidpod is to be displayed by NESTA as a conversation starter and smile inducer.

Thanks again to Mark and his team at theWorkshop for their support.