Hi I'm Ben,

I am from New Haven, CT and am one of the Co-Founders of SeeClickFix.com. SeeClickFix is a platform that allows a citizen to report anything that is broken or needs improvement in the public space to anyone else who can help fix it including but not limited to governments anywhere in the world. 

I am interested in meeting others active on the ground in community and civic projects. I am also interested in meeting anbody who has a local blog or news site as SeeClickFix has a free widget that is widely deployed around the world.  I'm also interested in meeting existing users or anyone who has felt helpless when they wanted to get a pothole fixed.

OpenKollab is developing infrastructure and processes to support its larger mission of Connecting Projects To Solve Massive Social Problems. In service of this larger end, we are developing the Ecosystem Pooled Fund initiative, the objective of which is to develop a model to provide financing to early stage social entrepreneurs (those that are developing projects that delivery both social value and financial return). As you likely know, there is a gap in the funding landscape that makes it very hard for social entrepreneurs to raise seed funds. The gap exists due to the fact that social ventures typically carry high risk but don't necessarily carry high enough financial return to offset this risk since they are not solely focused on financial return.

Sarah Pullman of Web of Change asked me to let you all know about the upcoming Open Everything Retreat September 3-6 at Hollyhock on Cortes Island in British Columbia.

She writes:

At NetSquared 3, Thomas and Wendy of Green Map System got to know more about the OpenStreetMap project and parties from Mikel Maron & Andrew Turner. This is a kind of wikipedia for maps - a free editable map of the world, and anyone can add roads, bike paths and other geographic data to it. What a useful resource! We thought, let's participate, parties like this could also become a good way to get people involved in our forthcoming Open Green Map, the social mapping website for sustainable communities (preview at http://OpenGreenMap.org).  So we are pleased to provide the venue for NYC's first open mapping party, hosted by OpenStreetMap's initiator, Steve Coast, at our global office this weekend! Steve says:

I'd like to announce a new website that I'm starting up called The Open Municipal Geodata Standard Organization Website, or OMG Standard for short, at www.omgstandard.com. The idea behind it is to have an open forum to discuss and collaborate on how to involve governments to effectively release their public data to communities.

The goals at the moment are to:
1 create an open standard for the structuring of municipal data
2 convince governments it's in their best interest to make the data easily available
3 provide tools to let this happen efficiently

Hi, Evonne Heyning here liveblogging from the Social Impact room at N2Y2.  

Second Track of the Social Impact Section Panel

Micah Sifry, Personal Democracy Forum

Diana Scearce, Monitor Institute

Alexandra Samuel, Social Signal

Projects Presenting

Genocide Intervention Network: to build out the idea (or brand) of the anti-genocide movement. Give people the idea and space to come together for resources. Content available to everyone regardless of organizational affiliation, use these tools to speak with your own voice: GINet facilitates this dialogue.

Ivan Boothe, Genocide Intervention Network

A moment of personal exoterica before we launch into the N2Y2 events in San Jose; tonight I'm packing and now all of you are privy to my sundries:

* Laptop w/bag (liveblogging from San Jose)
* Camera (to remember what you beautiful people look like)
* Shoes (never forget the good shoes for dancing)
* Clothes (magenta and red, a fiery feeling)
* Books (any suggestions?)
* AMO Game (always connecting the dots)
* Chocolate (the raw cacao powder this time)
* Hand Cream (see Beth Kanter's tips for liveblogging post)
* I heard I love you! card (ask Jean Russell for more info)
* Virtually Delicious (our Second Life design team cards)
* Saving Grace (a gift for a friend)
* Go Green Guide (playa planning 101)
* Delight (for manifesting good cheer)

Location