Last year Avatar Action Center (AAC) was a fairly new project based in Second Life and dedicated to raising awareness about global sustainability issues when we entered the Netsquared competition, and I'm very pleased to say that we are still at it! In fact, we even recently received fiscal sponsorship from the Tides Center and have become the first group to form in Second Life that has gained 501(c)3 status (at least nobody has disputed this claim in the few months I've been asking around)>

When I first heard about the theme for this year's contest, it seemed a bit of a stretch to me to consider what we do eligible for a mashup competition, but at the last hour here, I have decided to jump in and give AAC another shot. After all, although our organization is based in Second Life, we have invested a great deal of time and vision into manifesting a web presence that can interact with our virtual-world space--that alone, many tell me, constitutes a mashup.

Our organization happens to be at a point where we are working to expand our reach well beyond the virtual world space in which audiences are limited to what the space can accommodate and to those with the mid- to high-end computers and internet access. This is why we created our wiki-based web site in the first place, so we could share our in-world experiences and materials with the real world. Now we are taking it a giant step further, with the creation of the Avatar Action Education Network.

This combination news and education network involves the production of weekly podcasts to be distributed via real-world channels, as well as the distribution of Education Stations inside Second Life that are fed content from a web-based source we hope to syndicate as a web service that other sites can tap into to offer their visitors educational content and quizzes that are designed to raise awareness about global sustainability issues. These stations will shepherd people through a program of interactive informational experiences that exposes them to the broad range of sustainability issues beyond just environmental and climate change issues and will award a Certificate of Sustainability Awareness to those who complete it.

One of the challenges we have had at AAC over its year-and-half of existence is the ability to measure our impact according to our mission, which states that we want to encourage people to take action in their real lives. Having a more web-based system gives us the opportunity to collect more accurate metrics about the numbers of people who engage with our materials.

We sincerely believe in the potential of the virtual world platform, which is why we've not only persisted but continue to strive for even broader reach through these tools. I hope you, too, will see the potential and support us if not stretch your skills and imagination to join us in manifesting this innovative vision!