If innovation is your thing, take a real life walkathon and execute it in a virtual world, just for the virtual residents. Raise money for research, increase cancer awareness, and educate participants and that is the Second Life Relay For Life!
The vision is to bring the power of Relay For Life to the virtual community of Second Life. The potential social impact is the ability to educate a world wide population about cancer, as well as deliver valuable health resources in multiple languages through this channel.
The event is sustainable as it is a fund raising and awareness event. The American Cancer Society supports the effort and rents the space on which the event is held each year. The volunteer base is the backbone of the event and the most critical item in this event is a strong and continuous volunteer committee.
The potential obstacles are that the population of Second Life continues to swell and there may be a point where the organizing committee is forced to consider having multiple distributed events because of technical and space limitations.
The resources being utilized are available to all Second Life residents. The volunteer committee relies on thousands of hours of volunteer design and development to make the Relay happen. Volunteers script and code donation tools as well as plan and design out the event environment months in advance.
The 90 day project plan includes a kick-off event at the end of February at which point the board released the donation kiosks to the public. From this point we encourage all of the teams to hold fund raising events and spread awareness in a word of mouth campaign. Other board members are consulting with volunteer designers and builders who will construct the actual event space one week before the walkathon takes place July 28th.
The Second Life Relay For Life is an extension of the American Cancer Socitey's signature fund raising event. It is a 24 hour walk-a-thon held in avirtual world. After 2 successive years of growth this year the evnt will span over 400 acres, and draw thousnds of virtual walkers, volunteers, and donors.
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Comments
Awesome Idea
Hey, this is a great idea- we'll make sure to e-mail our second life friends. I think the real potential of this is the press- I'd bet that the New York Times will write this up (they love Linden).
Nice work.
Phil (Cauzoo.com)