After collaborating recently with a few CS grad students who are focused on music visualization software, I was excited to come home from the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts’ benefit to play around with a tool the organization shared, Seaquence. The “experiment in musical composition” reminds me of projects that use knitted sea life-themed sculpture to demonstrate the physical world, this time through sound. Synthesized personal orchestras are easily shared, and the visuals are a lot of fun to try. Go GAFFTA.
TeachAIDS Talks Knowledge, Expands to Botswana
This week was a big one for TeachAIDS, the Palo Alto-based non-profit that creates HIV prevention software that’s being used in more than 50 countries. On World AIDS Day it launched educational animations with characters and content specific to Botswana as founder Piya Sorcar (pictured left, with Lisa Ling) talked at TEDxWomen about the differences between awareness (knowing that the disease exists and kills) and knowledge (understanding ways to keep yourself from becoming infected). The organization has succeeded–and been culturally sensitive while doing so–where many large-scale campaigns haven’t: helping people get smart about their own health. Sorcar’s recent talk is well worth a look, and you’ll see why the work has received San Francisco AIDS Foundation kudos.
TEDxWomen: Learning & Instilling Resilience at an Early Age
At TEDxWomen at the Paley Center in LA this morning I was wowed–no easy feat for a presenter following a very early AM flight–by a presentation between 13-year-old Claire Sannini and Rachel Simmons about encouraging confidence in girls. (An audacious and important concept with cyberbullying, suicides, and teen pregnancy as rampant as they are.) The two talked about the Girls Leadership Institute, an organization Simmons co-founded to help girls discover their true and strong selves.
“[Our society] tells girls that they can be intelligent, but shouldn’t make others feel intimidated by their smarts,” Simmons said. “Yes, you can be active, but you better be sexy and skinny while you do it.” These messages don’t just impact girls social lives–they affect assertion and earnings in the workplace later in life.
Simmons stresses the importance of women helping girls strengthen their “inner resumes,” and Claire’s eloquence after participating in the teen leadership work is captivating. You can see their great collaborative talk in its entirety here. And while you’re at it, don’t dare miss V-Girl Busisiwe Mkhumbuzi’s reflections on raising girl consciousness and activism in South Africa.
V-Day’s Viva Vevolution
“When City of Joy officially opened Friday, hundreds of women, most of them rape victims, thumped on drums and sang at the top of their lungs…Some even danced with the shovels and cement-encrusted trowels that they used to build the City of Joy. It was an upbeat moment in a country that has had few.” - Jeffrey Gettleman in The New York Times in February
V-Day, the international non-profit that works to end violence against women and girls, released its annual interactive program update today, and the news is nothing if not inspiring. Between projects in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Haiti, and work with community activists ranging from teen girls to adult men, you can’t leave the experience and not feel activated about the contributions (and your own).
FELA!’s High Energy & Regrets
My beau and I saw FELA! at The Curran this week in its first week since being transplanted from Broadway and found ourselves largely agreeing on The New Yorker’s positive–but tempered–review from the original show. Our thoughts on the plusses: the costuming and dance scenes are perfection and the audience interaction (including derriere-shaking instructions) is a blast. The not-so-good: the show drags yet it omits key parts of the Nigerian musician/politician’s personal story, including the controversy over his death from AIDS-related infection. Shortcomings aside, the show still had us listening to “Zombie” for days.
On Data-Driven Wellness (& Other Things I Think about Too Much)
It’s ironic to consider inefficiency in healthcare at UCSF, but less so when the focus is how data-tracking might improve our experiences–and wellbeing–as people and patients. Today GigaOm’s Roadmap conference featured analyst Jody Ranck describing the need for more connectedness in the sector. The web-based “socialization of disease” (that is, the idea that lots of people want to share their experiences and literal pain points) isn’t the only evidence I need to agree.
And it’s encouraging to see SF-based companies that are running with this concept. At Rock Health’s demo day this afternoon, incubator company Genomera described the large-scale transition from “n=they” (when people waited for others to be studied for treatment) to “n=we” and “n=me” (when there’s a bias towards participation to improve outcomes). It’s being realized with platforms like SuperBetter from Social Chocolate and Eatery from Massive Health, both of which I’ve just starting trying. What other related services have you excited? Looking forward to hearing.
Mindfulness + Education
“Mindfulness in education.” Say it three times (slow).
This weekend The Association for Mindfulness in Education will host a workshop about mindfulness, teaching and education that sounds contemplative and fantastic. Starting with Mirabai Bush, co-creator of Google’s Search Inside Yourself course, and continuing onto the topics of classroom confidence, music, and the practice of being present, it would be a shame to miss. “A Guide for Anyone Who Teaches Anything” author Deborah Schoeberlein will start the Saturday session, which continues with a discussion of working with at-risk teen girls led by the Art of Yoga Project (an organization I work with and couldn’t be a bigger fan of).
Think the topics are of interest? You might also consider the Calming Technology Design Symposium that Stanford will host in early December (details to come and pre-registration here).
Women War & Peace (& What We Will No Longer Put Up With)
Upon this week’s premiere of Women War & Peace, PBS’ series examining the impact of war on those with the XX chromosome, producer Abigail Disney came to Stanford and the Clayman Institute to talk about the project’s genesis. The question of “what if you looked at war as though women mattered?” led Disney and her team to Liberia (where women stood up against Charles Taylor’s regime en masse, wearing white) and Bosnia (where 16 women boldly testified against army members who set up rape camps), not to mention Afghanistan, Israel, Pakistan, and Colombia. The result is striking, frightening, and…empowering. Watching it will make you refuse to allow women worldwide to continue to be erased from the record–and simultaneously demand more political power.
Countdown to Children’s Creativity Museum Unveiling
When you’ve secured the URL creativity.org, you’d best make great use of it. And the Children’s Creativity Museum (formerly Zeum in SOMA) plans to do so with its upcoming unveiling of a large-scale rebrand and Imagination Lab. Focused on multimedia learning, it will offer design, animation, music, and movie instruction and studios (which Bay Area-ites can participate in for free at next weekend’s re-opening celebration).
I love the imaginative branding that the firm Landor helped develop pro bono with my now-Stanford colleague Joy Wong Daniels. Que colorful.
Eve at Grace
It’s taken 24 hours to write about Eve Ensler’s speech at Grace Cathedral since it happened (bad blogger!), mostly because it’s taken as long to process the playwright’s words of wisdom. I could try to quote the V-Day founder and activist’s words from the night (among my favorites: “I’m only as good as the community I work with” and “the only salvation is kindness”) but would rather reflect on the fact that it happened at all. It’s surprising not just because the event was hosted at a Christian church or because Ensler’s life was nearly claimed by uterine cancer, but because more than 1,000 women and men were ready to really hear her message about personal accountability. A core theme–we’re obsessed with who we are, well the why and what we do is much more essential–has resonated with me all day. And made me wonder what we will do with it.
(Dancing as part of the One Billion Rising project to end violence against women and girls and participating in the play Emotional Creature when it opens at Berkeley Rep are two good places to start. And, until then?)
IMOW
