At Pop!Tech 2007, five-time Grammy award-winner John Legend moved and motivated Pop!Tech participants, weaving stories from his Show Me Campaign—a movement he launched to help eradicate extreme global poverty—in between each soulful song.

Now in a February 2 release, John joins ranks with Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas and director Jesse Dylan (son of Bob) in their new celeb-studded music video in support of Barack Obama. The video is a musical performance of Senator Obama’s Yes We Can speech, his “concession” speech following Senator Clinton’s win in the New Hampshire Democratic Primary.

In spite of the fact that we live in controversial times, today’s North American music scene increasingly emphasizes music that’s materialistic, sexually charged or violent, over and above music that’s politically controversial. This moving example of musicians coming together and speaking directly to their audience in order to have a positive influence, is a reversal of that trend, and regardless of one’s politics, this reversal is important.

Check out the video, and read about the backstory here.

John also recently shot and released a music video in Tanzania for the Show Me Campaign to introduce his fans to critical global issues. Watch this story of a young boy overwhelmed by the weight of the world who is asking questions and searching for answers.

The character in the video is inspired by the real life story of two young boys, Yaguine Koita (aged 14) and Fodé Tounkara (aged 15), stowaways who froze to death flying from Guinea to Belgium, on 28 July 1999. The boys were carrying plastic bags with birth certificates, school report cards, photographs and a letter to the world asking for solidarity and kindness in providing relief to Africa. Check out their letter on John’s site under the “music video & explanation” tab here.

While talk of AIDS has become nothing but white noise for many, Zinhle Thabethe, a counselor working on the frontlines of the South African HIV epidemic, is taking action. Through home visits, working with AIDS orphans, educating nurses and doctors, and singing in the internationally acclaimed HIV-positive Sinikithemba Choir, Zinny’s goal is to fight stigma by raising awareness, and to ensure that people with HIV get plugged into treatment and stay on treatment – all in one of the most resource-constrained environments in the world.

Now, National Geographic is recognizing Zinny’s extraordinary contributions by naming her one of the 2008 class of Emerging Explorers – individuals who represent the next generation of world-changing talent from many different fields.

We continue to work with Zinny and her colleague, Dr. Krista Dong of iTeach, on Project Masiluleke, a Pop!Tech Accelerator project focused on using mobile devices to improve HIV care in South Africa and beyond. And we join in congratulating Zinny on her National Geographic nomination.

Bill Shannon brought the house down at Pop!Tech 2007, reminding us that anything is possible. Armed with a set of rocker bottom crutches, at times a skateboard, and two legs compromised by remnants of Legg-Calvé-Perthes disease, Shannon danced, jumped and glided effortlessly across the stage. Now, after many years of performing his distinctive style of dance, Shannon, aka the Crutchmaster, has begun systematically cataloging the components of his style.

In a new YouTube video, Shannon demonstrates various grips of the crutches, transitions used to move about, and describes the position of the body in relation to the floor. Shannon seems to defy physics, which is exactly the point.

Superficially his performance could be seen as eye candy, but Shannon’s practice goes much deeper with roots in performance art and his explorations of popular perceptions of disability. For more about this, check out his amazing online project “what is what” commissioned by Creative Time in 2003.

by Peggy Shea Andrews

There is so much content out there on the internet now, however, less than 1/3 of the material is available in any given language. So we partnered with an amazing company called dotSUB, to translate the Pop!Tech Pop!Casts in eight highly-relevant languages in the hopes of removing language as a barrier to globalization. The eight target languages (Russian, Chinese, Portuguese, Swahili, Farsi, Arabic, French and Spanish) were picked because they represent vital areas of the developing world.

We’ve released a preliminary batch of subtitled Pop!Casts including:

Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist and best-selling author; Bunker Roy, one of India’s most successful social entrepreneurs; Jesse Sullivan and Dr. Todd Kuiken, the world’s first bionic man and the doctor who helped him become so; Carolyn Porco, who leads the imaging team on the Cassini missions to Saturn; Zinhle Thabete, a front-line warrior in the battle against HIV in South Africa; and Richard Alley, the renowned paleoclimatologist and climate change expert.

Don’t worry — more is on the way!

dotSUB was founded by Michael Smolens, who has a lifetime of experience doing business in high risk emerging economies. Recognizing the potential of global communication powered by the Internet, the founders went to work creating a web-based tool that enables video to be accessed in an open, collaborative, ‘wiki’ type environment. This tool gives both professional and amateur viewers the ability to translate video content into multiple languages via subtitles rendered over the video file. The same tool facilitates captioning video for the hearing-impaired. You should definitely check out dotsub.com to see the amazing array of videos that they have subtitled into more than 48 languages.

BusinessWeek has also written up an article about the Pop!Tech/dotSub Inititative which can be seen online.

To see the Pop!Casts, please visit www.poptech.org.

The World Wildlife Federation recently launched an awesome billboard campaign in Canada concerning changing ocean levels.

Using “celestial mechanics” similar to the way a sundial works, a scalloped awning over the billboard casts a shadow, creating a rising water effect over the course of the day.

Here’s an explanation:
“The board respects celestial mechanics (Kepler Rocks!). It’s perpendicular to the equator, with an unobstructed exposure to the west. The “waves” start at about 12:00. The challenge was not azimuth (the daily path of the sun), but altitude, which due to the Earth’s tilt, required the scalloped awning’s shape to be distorted to compensate for 43N latitude, during the life of the posting (about 8 weeks). Thanks to CBS Outdoor, and PLEASE support the WWF.” - YouTube user LowerC02

The video below really captures the elegance and cleverness of the advertisement.

via: TrendHunter

another very clever YouTube-inspired ad to promote blood donation: http://www.blographic.com/divers/thank-you

For this July 4th release, we have selected three amazing Pop!Casts that are celebrations of the human spirit, and feats of exploration, independence and civil rights.

First up, Ben Saunders will amaze you with tales and images of his expedition in the Arctic. He was the first person in the world to cross, solo and unsupported, the Arctic Ocean - that’s a 1,240 mile journey across one of the most challenging climates on the earth. After crossing areas of unprecedented thinning ice and open water - experiencing the effects of global climate change first hand - Ben has begun to raise international awareness on the changes. How does he do it? His answer is an inspiring one: “don’t underestimate what ‘man’ is capable of when we have a strong belief system about our goals and destiny.”

Next, political activist Ivan Marovic was one of the founders of the Serb student-resistance group Otpor, which helped remove former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic from power. Ivan continues to champion political and human rights with a video game he helped to create that teaches users the tactics of nonviolent resistance. Players control characters, groups and movements - building them into coalitions, sending them to carry out tactics, and dealing with government responses. Ivan walks us through a graffiti campaign, street rallies and a benefit rock concert that finally brings down the game government.

We finish this week’s Pop!Casts with a stirring presentation by orator Eloma Simpson Barnes. Eloma delivers a speech by Martin Luther King Jr. in what seems like a direct channeling of the great civil rights leader. Her transcendent performance will move you.

Is anyone else out there confused about what the heck RSS is?

This is the best explanation we have found so far by a social design consulting company called Common Craft. These guys produce short videos that explain prevalent but widely and wildly misunderstood tools and concepts on the internet. Using their trademark “Paperworks” technique, they create fun and extremely helpful introductions to social networking software, Wikis, and RSS. You can also commission your own Paperworks instructional.

With the words Wiki and RSS thrown around all the time now, these videos serve as a nice intro for the novice, or for “experts” who want to teach others about the benefits of these tools.

Click To Play

Click To Play

This is a great resource to go along with the recently added “New to Podcasts” feature on the Pop!Tech Pop!Casts page, which is a primer of sorts, for those who have some questions about what podcasts are, how to get them, and what you can do with them.

On the heels of Brian Eno’s Pop!Cast, we are releasing his session-mate Will Wright’s presentation. He discusses how we can understand the complexities of the world around us by understanding its underlying simplicity.

Also released today, Bob Freling, Executive Director of the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) explains how bringing solar energy to remote villages can be a key to promoting health, education and economic growth in developing worlds.

Will Wright

Bob Freling

You can watch more Pop!Tech Pop!Casts at www.poptech.org/popcasts.

We also encourage you to share these Creative Commons-licensed videos on
your website, blog or other video website. If you do, please let us know
at info@poptech.org.

It’s been about over a week since we have made our very first batch of Pop!Tech Pop!Casts available online and we’ve had some great movement since then.

We are featured on the homepage of iTunes, we’ve been linked around the web (Thanks to everyone who have been moved to write about the release of the Pop!Casts). All in all - not a bad start. And that was only with our first 22 podcasts.

We have two more to share with you today:

Brian Eno - Musician, producer and artist Brian Eno shows how simple things can give rise to complex things—in art and life. See how he uses Darwin’s ecological model of the world as a roadmap for human culture now and in the future.

(I still admire him for his lovely purple velvet jacket)

Rodrigo y Gabriela - The Mexican acoustic guitar duo sensation Rodrigo y Gabriela put fast fingers to strings for a performance that will put you on your feet and keep you moving. There’s no better way to say it: they rock!

(They inspired me to pick up my guitar again, but I quickly realized that my playing compared to theirs is like those of a monkey with socks on its hands)

There are also some new features on the Pop!Casts page to make it easier to share these amazing talks and performances with your friends. Now you can send an email, share a permalink or embed the Yahoo! Video player on your website or blog.

Enjoy! And there is PLENTY more to come.

Pop!Tech “Artifact” Project Nominated for Best of Design in New England.

Last year at the 2006 Pop!Tech, we defied time, conventions and perhaps logical thinking to produce The Artifact.

The Artifact was a full-length book documenting the three-day Pop!Tech 2006 conference. The theme, Dangerous Ideas, inspired our objective: capture the essence of the experience. Immediately. And do that on-site, in collaboration with graphic designers and a Pop!Tech guru, and, oh yeah, print and ship the book on a deadline that tailed the close of the conference by a day or two. Could we do it? Crazy, but why not put our talent to the test, work around the clock and deploy some state-of-the-art technology. Why not?

Throughout the conference, an army of contributors (drawn from the 500-plus truly creative and insightful Pop!Tech participants) invigorated us to pull 304 pages together in real time. Participants fed us a constant stream of raw content in the form of wiki comments, blogs, digital photos, scanned notes and tablet PC sketches. Professional photographs and illustrations added an extra wow factor. At last, the complete book was pointed toward the digital printer, an HP Indigo Press 5000 with the variable printing technology to make each copy unique. Then voila! Let’s get this baby shipped to our Pop!Tech attendees—if they take the scenic route home, the book will be there when they arrive.

That’s 600 one-of-a-kind books with content created almost neck-in-neck with the experience. Got a couple more days? Edit. Print. Ship. And make dust of a dangerous deadline. (from AHA’s website).

Well, all that hard work and dangerous thinking did not go unnoticed. Pop!Tech’s Artifact has been nominated for the BoNESHOW7, AIGA’s Best of New England design competition.

The Artifact, along with the other nominated projects will be showcased at a gallery opening on June 7 2007 at MassArts’ Bakalar Gallery in Boston.

Here is a look at the book that made its way to YouTube (thanks to Aaron from Designverb for posting it!)

Finger’s Crossed! and Congrats to everyone that worked on this project!