Welcome to the Kick-Off

Day 366: The Millennials

Alex Hoekstra — Tue, 01 Jan 2013 01:03:44 +0000

I have…too much to say about the 366 days that we’ve just lived through. Too much for a single post. Too much has happened in my life, and in the lives my life has touched, or even looked upon, heard of, admired and been fortunate enough to make even the briefest contact with – too much to summarize or capture in a single day. These days have been remarkable and important and great. Some were better than others; others less memorable than some, but each one important, both alone an together with the days that came before and those that followed. Every day was made a little better by The Kick-Off. Every day had a new adventure, each and every one of which was unique and good and important. Every one of them made a difference in the world, even if apparently small, and I’m proud to think that I have made even a small difference in every one of them. It has been a remarkable and great year – a full year; one that will overflow into the next. The Kick-Off officially ends here, but the journey is anything but finished. Today is worth more than a single project. Today is worth more than 10, or 100, or 1,000. But I’m giving today 10 as a tribute and a testament to the unfinished work we are collaborating on together – all of us – simply by being alive, awake, and actively participating in this world we’re building for one another. It’s a world full of amazing things, too many of which remain secret; too few of which thrive in the daylight, supported by the millions of hands and hearts and minds that they merit. The Kick-Off has been an attempt to lend one more hand and one more heart and one more mind to 366 projects. I suppose an extra ten wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

Here are ten projects I admire, each one for their own reasons, and in no particular order at all. Here are ten projects I hope to see build momentum and take flight and circle the world, turning heads all along the way. Here are ten projects that I’m now a part of, and that I hope you’ll join me in being a part of too.

For an amazing year, full of amazing new things and places and people; to my new friends and old; to everyone and everything and everywhere that has brought me here and helped me become who I am, thank you.

Day 365: Express Line

Alex Hoekstra — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 03:25:16 +0000

Public transit: good. Crowdsourced, crowdfunded public transit in the developing world, where infrastructure is critical and vulnerable: better. Let’s make a difference. Let’s do everything that makes crowdfunding so powerful and so important by backing Dhaka’s first public bus map before January 11.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/urbanlaunchpad/first-bus-map-of-dhaka

Since the alternatives like public transport are often much worse, when a family has enough money, the first thing they do is buy a car. In the US, there are 3 cars for every 4 people. This trend of motorisation is already underway in many places that can least afford it (dense megacities of the developing world), bringing with it not just gridlock (see traffic in Bangkok and Jakarta) but also pollution and a city where cars get more preference than people.

Day 364: New Growth

Alex Hoekstra — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 00:22:19 +0000

Yeah, that’s right, it’s time for another vertical farm. Why? Because I won’t stop wanting more sensible, sustainable, efficient, productive, innovative, safe, clean and productive ways to feed the world until we can put fresh food on every table. Maybe that means a farm in every town and village; maybe it means one in every home. Whatever the case may be, I look forward to watching the dominoes fall as smarter farms take root in the concrete and steel, and thrive above sidewalks and between skyscrapers. Help feed the future by backing the forward-thinking vertical farm installation of Jackson Hole, Wyoming before January 12.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2056017617/vertical-harvest-of-jh-a-growing-system-for-change

Vertical Harvest will be the first of its kind: A three story vertical farm built on an infill piece of land that will grow fresh, local produce in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, extending its four month growing season to all year round. What makes this project truly unique is that we will develop an innovative hydroponic growing system that can be used in vertical greenhouses of all configurations. This innovative mechanism will maximize efficiency by dramatically increasing the amount of produce that can be grown in the greenhouse and will also use less energy to grow produce. In addition, this growing carousel is also specifically designed to provide a safe and meaningful work environment for adults with developmental disabilities, the employee base of Vertical Harvest. With this technology, Vertical Harvest will wrap agricultural, architectural and social innovation into one project that will be a critical milestone in urban agriculture.

Day 363: Make Noise

Alex Hoekstra — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 00:01:17 +0000

No big secret: I like to ride my bicycle. I like to ride my bike. I’ll run the risk of hyperbolizing by saying that I think riding a bike is one of the best things a person can do. Think about it – it is cheaper and less wasteful than a car, it’s great for your body, it exposes you to the outdoors (for better or worse), and it forces you to consider whether you actually want to buy that second gargantuan computer monitor when you’re going to have to lug it home on two wheels. Yes, yes, cars have numerous advantages over bikes – climate-control and cargo space among them – but I feel like most non-bikers don’t truly appreciate the joys of biking. Bikers, though, get it, and are happy to peddle every day they get to peddle to and from work, school, home, the market and anywhere else two wheels will take them. From a very biased, but objectively defensible position, I think more should be done to make the world bike-friendlier. Frankly, it still isn’t; not entirely. The mentality of a car-driver sharing the road with a bike-rider is often a frustrated and off-guard one, which makes street cycling more dangerous than it ought to be. Today’s project wants to change by making a little noise.

Loud Bicycle is a car horn for bikes. Drivers respond to car noises more than to bike sounds (and who can blame them with “ding-ding” is the sound they hear before they drive over some poor cyclist?). Back this project for yourself or for the cyclist you love (like me, for instance) before January 13.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lansey/loud-bicycle-car-horns-for-cyclists

Drivers react to car horns before they even know where the sound is coming from. A driver that gets beeped at while backing out of a driveway for example, will immediately brake. These kinds of reflexive reactions are perfect to keep cyclists safe. Some motorists don’t realize that their driving habits can be dangerous for cyclists. Drivers will learn to be more aware of cyclists after a Loud Bicycle horn is honked at them.

Day 362: Remembered

Alex Hoekstra — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 03:50:05 +0000

We’re closing out the year…it’s amazing. It’s truly amazing. I hope you’re amazed. I am. I don’t want to get too deep into the reflection upon the year that was yet, because it’s not over – there are many days and hours left in 2012 – many more moment to remember this year by. I encourage you to spend the remaining days wisely; to find the moments they contain and savor them. Write them down or record them somehow – capture them so that your remembered self will stay true to your experiencing self. Don’t go to sleep and forget today, or yesterday, or last week, or last year. Take at least the best parts of them with you.

What does any of this (totally great) advice have to do with today’s project? Maybe nothing specific, but I happen to think it’s a project that will help people create and share memorable moments – moments worth saving for later. The Cinemafamily is a unique and uniquely fun theater that would very much like our help to make memorable moments for multitudes of movie-loving…..muggles? Mmm. (Alliteration can be arduous.) Check out their magical movie theater and back their journey into the future, and into the remembered lives of thousands of people now and forever more, before January 2.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cinefamily/cinefamily-digital-projection-and-theater-restorat

We need to make our location, the historic Silent Movie Theater, into a state-of-the-art, fully-functional, sound, stable home, that lives up to programming like the above and guests like the ones we’re so amazed to welcome. A foundation for growth, for our next 5 years and beyond.

Day 361: It Takes a Village

Alex Hoekstra — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 22:58:18 +0000

I’m new to the neighborhood. 2012 has been an amazing year for me – a year in which I finished a long task – college – and began an even longer one: life in the real world. This new project of mine has taken me places and introduced me to people and ideas and taught me things about myself that I hadn’t even imagined when the year began. I’m somewhere new, which hasn’t happened to me very much in my life, so it’s a rare opportunity that I’ve tried not to neglect. A new neighborhood with new streets and sidewalks, new stores and markets, restaurants, libraries, banks, busses and trains, parks and people, all there for me to get to know. Today’s project knows, however, that a neighborhood is not built around a map. There are no colorful lines on the ground, and neighbors are more than socio-economic, ethnic or employment statistics. Our Neighborhood Mapping Project is scaling up a pilot study of neighborhoods as defined by neighbors, rather than government cartographers. It’s a boots-on-the-ground, street-level point of view of what makes a town a community. Check it out and start looking around you for nooks and crannies and neighbors you might not yet know for yourself; back the project before January 3.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1343455561/our-neighborhood-mapping-project

Quick question for you: Do you know the census block you live in? Do you know its boundaries? Probably not. Yet, researchers of neighborhoods often use these census areas to study them. Or they use school districts. But if we want to understand neighborhoods – what makes them tick, why do neighbors help one another, why do they drift apart – we need to get it right. That’s what this project is about.

Day 360: To Impress

Alex Hoekstra — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 04:32:12 +0000

I’ve never given much credit to clothes. My wardrobe consists of basic and functional garments in colors that, yes, admittedly, I think look nice on me. But I’ve never spent more than 2 minutes caring about my clothes. I think part of the reason I give so little credit to clothes is that most people don’t have much say about the actual pieces of clothing they put on – clothes, much like television shows, magazine articles and breakfast cereals, are finished goods – purchased after the point of production, almost never to be remade or improved upon for the remainder of their existence. Until now, that’s usually been the case by default, simply because clothes are fairly difficult to modify by the end-user. Until now, only the bold (or the clumsy) could remove a pocket, and only the skilled and inclined could put it somewhere else. Until. Now.

Today’s project is a customizable clothing line which offers hope for the end users to put on clothes that are truly, undeniably their own. Check out ThreadLab’s wares and back it before January 1.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stevenbwheeler/threadlab-open-source-diy-apparel-design-for-men

For the first time ever, people with no experience in fashion design or sewing can make their own custom shirts and get professional-level results, too. ThreadLab uses modular components that you select and then assemble in minutes using a simple home iron. The secret is a special heat-activated adhesive film developed for the high-end sportswear industry.

Day 359: Steel Dancer

Alex Hoekstra — Tue, 25 Dec 2012 00:37:12 +0000

I hope you had a joyous Festivus. One of the bestivus. One thing that I’ve always liked about “the holidays” (as if there was something extra special about these particular holidays against all of the numerous others littered across the calendar year) is the nostalgia that I get from old movies. It’s strange because, in my case, it’s not even one particular old movie that makes me feel nostalgic – I dig pretty much anything filmed in an era when Christmas on camera was a little more magical than what passes for a seasonal blockbuster these days (no offense, Tyler Perry….actually, I take that back. Stop it, Tyler Perry. Just stop).

There really was something special about the way films were once made – something that I’m afraid we might be losing as we move more toward the artificial and superficial. I’m not a Luddite - I appreciate mutation, adaptation, evolution, progress – but I think that there is an innate value to cinema that required exhaustive consideration on behalf of the producers. No project better captures this spirit than today’s.

ACTION! Master Class with Nicholas Ray explores the depth and breadth of one of cinema’s heroes – a director/producer/writer/creator/artist who helped define and refine the magic of 20th century movies. Check out the legacy and lessons of Ray by backing the film on Kickstarter before January 2.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nickray/action-master-class-with-nicholas-ray

In ACTION! you’ll encounter Nick’s charismatic presence as he shares his knowledge of what he called “the cathedral of the arts.” He’ll offer you, in his own words and voice, behind-the-scenes accounts from the sets of his classic films, along with insights as to how and why he did what he did in those memorable scenes—at the Planetarium in Rebel, for example.

Day 358: Home, Made

Alex Hoekstra — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 18:07:12 +0000

What can you say about another makerspace in the world, other than “Yes, please.”, “Here.” and “Now.”? I’m saying all of those things about today’s project, even though it’s not exactly here for me – I know that the Los Angeles Makerspace will be home for dozens of curious and creative tinkerers, hackers, citizen scientists and DIYers – and that’s enough to make me feel like I could call it a bit of a home, too. Back this project before January 2 and stop by anytime you find yourself in L.A., looking for something amazing to do.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tara/los-angeles-makerspace-a-family-friendly-innovatio

The Los Angeles Makerspace is a non-profit community space for makers and tinkerers of all ages to create and collaborate. Our mission is to provide a place where kids can learn alongside adults, maker parents can bring their children, and where people of all ages can join in making and learning through creating projects, participating in workshops and taking classes. Makers of all ages can take classes and receive mentorship in software, hardware, electronics, robotics, art, filmmaking, citizen science, bio-tech, eco-tech, wearable-tech, and more!

Day 357: Virtuality

Alex Hoekstra — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 16:49:57 +0000

Every once in a while, you’ll be lucky enough to have a new idea. Maybe the idea won’t start as your own – maybe you’ll meet someone, or overhear someone, and you’ll take some or all of what they had said and you’ll internalize it. The idea then becomes, at least in part, yours, and that can be a very exciting moment. It might change the way you look at the whole world and everyone in it; it might make you happy, or excited, or more curious. Whatever the case, I think there’s a direct correlation between the amount of new ideas a person experiences and their worth as a conscious being. With this in mind, I think searching for new ideas is a rationally selfish endeavor that I try to undertake daily. Some days are more productive than others, but with the networks I connect to, that’s really nobody’s fault but my own. More so now than ever before, I (we) float on an ocean of new ideas, and need only to open our sails and grip the wheel in order to journey through them, in whatever direction we choose. Today’s documentary is a remarkable new way to travel this sea.

CLOUDS is almost as much a video game as it is a documentary. Almost. I’ve heard of interactive documentaries before, but this new “film” is setting the bar about as high as I’ve ever seen. Filmed using some amazing and amazingly innovative technology, CLOUDS is pioneering a new way to explore and experience new ideas throughout the network at your fingertips and in front of your eyes.

Check out the project and join me in backing it before January 8.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1636630114/clouds-interactive-documentary

Over the last year we have captured interviews with over 30 new media artists, curators, designers, and critics, using a new 3D cinema format called RGBD. CLOUDS presents a generative portrait of this digital arts community in a videogame-like environment. The artists inhabit a shared space with their code-based creations, allowing you to follow your curiosity through a network of stories.