Invisible Children + La Blogotheque + You

What child soldiers in Uganda have to do with good music and your hands.

UPDATE: Thanks to everyone who helped, Invisible Children met their goal and are now bringing three fantastic artists to Uganda. They’ve just revealed the third, another epic favorite of ours: Lykke Li. You can follow the project’s progress here.

It’s a special occasion when three things we love are coming together for a world-changing cause. Case in point: Invisible Children, the fantastic social and political global movement using storytelling to empower and change lives, is partnering with La Blogotheque to take The Polyphonic Spree and Yeasayer (two of our favorite bands, so that technically takes it up to five favorites) to Uganda.

And they’re using the brilliant Kickstarter platform to crowdsource funds for it.

The project will only be funded if it raises $20,000 by 11:59PM EST on March 11. Right now, it’s at a little over halfway. Please — and we say this with our biggest, most hopeful optimism — help this absolutely life-changing cause by pledging a donation. Even if it’s as little as $10.

You know what they say, many hands make light work. And it’s a heavy burden Invisible Children is fighting. Lend a hand today.

via BOOOOOOOM

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The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind: Innovation Against All Odds

What a 14-year-old African boy can teach the world about ingenuity and innovation.

In July, we had the pleasure of meeting inventor and TEDFellow William Kamkwamba. Today, the world welcomes his brilliant new book, The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope — a wildly inspiring recount of how, at the age of 14, he built an electricity-generating windmill from spare parts and scrap.

To truly get a sense of how incredible this young man is, and how big he dreams, be sure to watch his fantastic talk from TEDGlobal.

We couldn’t recommend The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope more strongly — so grab yourself a copy and generate some mental electricity from this powerfully inspirational story.

And, speaking of book recommendations, we’ve launched a little spin-off project — follow @GreatReadFeed on Twitter for a curated stream of book recommendations spanning the entire spectrum of culture with must-read classics and hidden gems across subjects you didn’t know you were interested in until, well, you are.

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Book Spotlight: Design Revolution

What soccer balls have to do with blind children and water transportation in Africa.

In 2008, in the midst of the “going green” craze, San-Francisco-based product designer and activist Emily Pilloton came to the restless realization that design can be so much more than pure aesthetics, and certainly more than a mere fad — it could, with a completely nonpageantry sentiment, really change the world.

So she launched, with $1,000 from her desk at Architecture for Humanity, Project H Design — a radical nonprofit supporting initiatives for “Humanity, Habitats, Health and Happiness.”

With hundreds of international volunteer designers and 9 global chapters, Project H crusades for industrial design as a potent solution for social issues. From education in Uganda to homelessness in L.A., the project’s global-to-local model offers a tangible, truly transformational implementation of design as a change agent.

This fall, Project H is releasing Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People — a fascinating anthology of 100 contemporary design products and systems that change lives in brilliantly elegant ways.

From a high-tech waterless washing machine, to low-cost prosthetics for landmine victims, to Braille-based Lego-style building blocks for blind children, to a DIY soccer ball, the book reads like a manual, thinks like a manifesto, and feels like a powerful jolt of fire-in-your-belly inspiration.

Pilloton was recently awarded a $15,000 Adobe Foundation grant to support work on the book. Here, she talks — passionately and candidly — about the Project H mission and the very real, practical ways in which design matters.

Get yourself a copy of Design Revolution: 100 Products That Empower People — we couldn’t recommend it more.

via TrackerNews

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