Today we are heading South!

We've looked at N2Y2 project proposals that originated from the Northeast and the Midwest, and today we'll look at ones in the South.

Obviously, you can offer support to any of these innovators, wherever you live, but I'm dividing them up by location just 'cause I think it is nice to give back to your local community and to be able to meet with an innovator face-to-face.

If you have hands-on expertise, products or services that you would like to donate to a project as part of the Innovator Support Network, contact Billy Bicket at: bbicket@compumentor.org.

NOMINATED PROJECTS IN THE SOUTHERN US
Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia (1), Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland (2), Mississippi, North Carolina (4), Oklahoma (1), South Carolina, Tennessee (2), Texas (4), Virginia (3), Washington, DC (7) and West Virginia.

Georgia

Virtual Virtuous Circle
Elevator Pitch: Through its website, SPF will showcase leaders transforming rural communities using community organizing to break through isolation, improve economic infrastructure, clean up environments and overcome racial inequities endemic to the region.

Maryland

Grassroots.org Toolbox (N2Y2 Featured Project)
Elevator Pitch: The Grassroots.org Toolbox will empower nonprofit organizations by granting free access to a suite of fully configured & hosted online tools, including content management, online event registration software, and CRM.

SixDegrees.org
Elevator Pitch: SixDegrees.org taps into the small world phenomenon made popular by Kevin Bacon that we are all connected. The vision is for www.SixDegrees.org to be more than a game or a gimmick; it's social networking with a social conscience.

North Carolina

Buttons of Hope "Putting a Face on Fundraising"
Elevator Pitch: A place where you can personalize your fundraising by making a single photo button to honor a loved one or support a friend. Photo buttons inspire people to share and spread their powerful stories helping with the hardest part of giving…the asking!

iLoveMountains.org - an online campaign to end mountaintop removal mining
Elevator Pitch: www.iLoveMountains.org is an online campaign to end mountaintop removal mining. Using innovative new technologies, the site tells the story of more than 470 mountains destroyed and 1000 miles of streams buried to meet our demand for cheap energy.

Professionals In Transition CyberChapter Development
Elevator Pitch: Nearly 15 million US workers are un-, under-, or unhappily employed at any given time. PIT CyberChapters will use the internet’s networking capabilities to help members find employment faster and reduce personal and family trauma.

The People, Yes
Elevator Pitch: The People, Yes is about hitting the streets (shelters, jails and other avenues found on the other side of the digital divide) to find new voices to add flavor to a local community blogosphere.

Oklahoma

FelonResources
Elevator Pitch: To provide information and resources to formerly incarcerated people to help them become productive, tax-paying members of the community and deflate their burden to society.

Tennessee

CoolPeopleCare.org
Elevator Pitch: Want to change the world, but you don't (think) you have enough time? Visit CoolPeopleCare for ideas on how to make a difference in less than 5 minutes a day. While you're there, connect with like-minded people at nearby nonprofit events.

SONGFISH.com
Elevator Pitch: SONGFISH, a unique collaboration portal brings artists, writers, specialists, affiliates, professionals and buyers together in an open exchange of products and ideas. It's the entertainment business re-imagined for the age of digital delivery.

Texas

ATSTAR - Assistive Technology: Strategies, Tools, Accommodations and Resources
Elevator Pitch: Our program is aimed at helping K-12 children with disabilities level the playing field in school using assistive technology within the classroom. We empower teachers and parents with a process to help implement AT and keep kids included.

CommunityGoals - The Online Goal Marketplace
Elevator Pitch: CommunityGoals is a goal marketplace. Post a goal, even if you don't know the solution! Small individual contributions are transformed into funded community projects.

kindbeauty.org
Project Summary: We believe that while basic needs are the primary priority for a functioning society, higher needs must be met in order to have a thriving society. People must feel loved, worthy, connected and healthy in mind, body and spirit in order to be contributing members of society. We hope to provide services that focus on these higher needs to the poor and working poor.

Upper Kirby Citizen Participation Portal
Elevator Pitch: The Upper Kirby Citizen Participation Platform promotes transparency and accountability in local government by utilizing new technologies to allow constituents to directly participate in the decision making process.

Virginia

The Second Road - an online support community for those in recovery from addiction Elevator Pitch: Substance abuse in our country is destroying families and taking lives. The Second Road is an online support community that encourages millions of recovering addicts to stay clean through the use of customizable tools and support from peers.

WHETHEReport: A Global Surprise Anticipation Center
Elevator Pitch: Before every major global event, people around the world begin having explicit dreams and intuitions about it. WHETHEReport will be a web portal that will aggregate and analyze these dreams to generate maps/scenarios of these potential events.

World's Biggest Problems
Elevator Pitch: The WBP web portal aggregates, sorts, and classifies information about Climate Change, Water Crisis, Peak Oil, Species Extinction, and Economic Collapse. It also creates a space where people can collectively generate solutions to these issues.

Washington, DC

An Anti-Genocide Community: Building the Political Will to End Genocide (N2Y2 Featured Project)
Elevator Pitch: Empowering anti-genocide activists with the tools for community-based education, user-generated content and strong shared connections, the anti-genocide community will pool the collective knowledge of a growing movement for change.

Kabissa 2.0: Strengthening the Social Web in Africa (N2Y2 Featured Project)
Also has an office in Seattle, WA
Elevator Pitch: Marries power of Web 2.0 with passion of 950+ African orgs in our network. Savvy Web 2.0 Ambassadors will collaborate through the Kabissa site and face-to-face to develop and promote homegrown strategies for employing Web 2.0 for social change.

MicroMentor 2.0 - Social capital for microentrepreneurs.
Also has an office in Portland, OR
Elevator Pitch: MicroMentor 2.0 is an online community connecting microentrepreneurs (low-income entrepreneurs growing very small businesses) with a network of volunteer business experts to help them build their businesses (think LinkedIn for the little guy).

Point K Learning Center Community Features
Elevator Pitch: Point K, a free tool for measuring effectiveness in the social sector, serves an online community of 9000 people and 1800 organizations. Net2 support would accelerate the power of our community to collaborate and communicate the impact of their work.

Prevent Human Trafficking using technology to tell stories of empowerment and successful micro philanthropy
Elevator Pitch: Everyday people can prevent human trafficking! We use digital media to educate and empower by making human-to-human connections, & showcasing amazing, sustainable solutions that anyone can be part of as a new micro-philanthropist or activist.

Prevention Communities
Project Summary (partial): The National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC), the nonprofit organization behind McGruff the Crime Dog®, has mobilized citizens to prevent crime and keep their communities safe for more than 25 years. To further these efforts, NCPC will offer collaboration tools (calendar and event planning, blog and commenting tools, and a tagging system) and web space on NCPC.ORG for selected communities to exchange information, coordinate neighborhood watch, national night out, and other crime prevention activities.

THRONGZ: The Online Discussion Space That Comes and Gets You
Elevator Pitch: Throngz is a tool that calls people together for discussion from different parts of the Internet in real time. Once you’re brought together into a single cyber-salon, you can discuss topics of mutual interest. Throngz comes and gets you.

Photo Credit: Outer Banks by ruwensable.