Here's the final installment in Draxtor Dupres's 3 part machinima series on public good in Second Life, focusing on the Public Good Challenge sponsored by the USC Network Culture Project. Great work, as always, Drax!

Here's another great machinima news report from my buddy Draxtor Dupres. This time he covers the USC Network Culture Project's Public Good Challenge in Second Life. It's a nice frame for looking at the potential of virtual worlds for more than just commerce and entertainment. I was honored to serve as one of the selection panel members for the Public Good Challenge. You can even see a bit of my avatar sitting besides my hero Howard Rheingold. Good stuff, Drax!

Techsoup Global -- Good News for Nonprofits Worldwide Submitted by matthew on Thu, 2008-09-25 23:30 compumentor drupal nonprofit NPSL NPT software techsoup Some years back I became acquainted with Techsoup while working for a nonprofit as the Technology Director.  At the time I was grateful for inexpensive licenses for software we needed.  By the time I left that position, we planned software purchases around the Techsoup cycles.  It has been a valuable program for nonprofits in the United

The screenshot here is kind of hard to parse so let me describe it. A young person (represented by the green furry) in Teen Second Life is composing a text message to send to another teen in Uganda that she will recieve on her cell phone as an SMS message. Meanwhile my avatar (the purple robot) sits atop the chat history represented by floating text and blue bubbles that rise higher as each new message is sent. This remarkable exchange from the virtual world to a regular cell phone is made p

For those that weren't able to be there, here's a quick rundown of what I spoke about at the Non-profit Commons mini-track at the Second Life Community Convention this past weekend in Tampa, Florida. While this year's non-profit track had less folks participating than last year, we had some great exchanges with non-profit innovators like Master Quatro, Sheva Nerad, folks from the American Library Association, USC's Network Culture Project, Native Lands, and several other groups in attendance

The three day Second Life Community Convention from September 5-7, 2008 in Tampa, Florida firmly made the case that some of the most vital and innovative work in the virtual world is being done by the education sector. With 400 some real world participants (plus others beaming in virtually) converging on the grand Marriott Waterside Hotel, the most organized constituency present was clearly the educators and academics. Breaking out from the track format, the education sector organized their

Through a confluence of several random occurences, it turns out that I am headed to the Second Life Community Convention in Tampa from September 4-7. I'm looking forward to seeing all my avatar friends in the non-digital flesh. Now where do I find a dragon furry costume?

I previously blogged about the interesting work that Gene Koo and Eric Gordon are doing in Boston using Second Life to empower local community leaders. Next Tuesday, August 19, Gene and Eric will present the progress of their project, called "Hub2", an initiative that "gives local neighborhoods a more powerful voice in urban planning and public design." Here's a fuller description: Residents engage in a process that employs 3D virtual tools and problem-solving techniques to articulate a co

Today I helped organize a pretty successful mixed-reality Global Kids event, featuring Dr. Francis Deng, the UN Special Representative on Genocide, speaking about Darfur and the UN's response to situations like these. The Online Leadership Program of Global Kids, which I'm a part of, is making concerted efforts to coordinate our work more closely with other Global Kids' programs that focus on New York teens. While Second Lifers know about Global Kids as being innovators in virtual world educ

Today at 12PM PST, the International Justice Center will be streaming into Second Life a conversation on the situation in Darfur with Dr. Francis Deng, the UN Secretary Generals’ Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide. Dr. Deng is a remarkable individual: a Sudanese national who has served as a human rights officer at the United Nations since the 1960s as well as his own country as Minister of Foreign Affairs and ambassador to several countries. After Dr. Deng's short speech, Global K