I had the pleasure of meeting Alexandra Meis of Kinvolved. Kinvolved is a really cool app that "...allows teachers to inform parents and guardians of student absenteeism in real time and graphically follow attendance trends to identify and reverse patterns of tardiness and absenteeism. Through immediate communication of attendance information, attendance data analysis, and facilitation of community partnerships to minimize absenteeism, Kinvolved aims to increase student attendance and family engagement in education, especially in disadvantaged or underserved communities."

After doing years of ethnographic research in the South Bronx with teenagers (which often included hooky parties), and seeing first-hand not only the negative effects of school absenteeism, but also the absolute failure of current school-sponsored projects aimed at lowering attribution rates, I was thrilled to learn about Kinvolved. I was particularly impressed by the thoughtful and iterative process that went into creating it.

Have an idea to change the world? Check out this seed funding opportunity!

A colleague emailed me about a competition sponsored by GOOD. Here's what she wrote:

We're looking for five innovators from around the globe with creative and scalable projects that strengthen the social fabric of their communities. It doesn't have to be a massive project, but ideally, something that is well past the 'I have a cool idea' stage and is actually working in their own community. The end goal is to create a collaborative international meeting place where ideas are shared across borders to make them come to life both online and off.

The five global fellows will come to GOOD in Los Angeles (yes, FREE trip to LA) for a pop-up fellowship to elevate and expand their work in order to create more equitable and successful neighborhoods."

Here's a little video about it.

Here's the application link if you want to pass it along http://global.maker.good.is/
Posted in Public | 1 comment | read more »