Sunday, April 29, 2007

Waging Peace

Before the post proper, I want to bring your attention to the left column of this blog--designed to hold much valuable information!

Now...

{{{ This image is from an office I've created in the Virtual World, Second Life.

That Second Life link will take you to the Hyde Park Hotel (enter the lobby, teleport, and enter room C) in a re-created section of London called Knightsbridge.

This office space and the activities planned for it are cousins of my Social Network, Waging Peace.

Why build an office to facilitate Waging Peace in a Virtual World?

Mostly because the concept of Virtuality is actually "coming of age" and this Space offers methods of contacting people that Real Life lacks.

Check out these organizations that have placed a Presence in SL (Second Life):

~~~The official Tech Soup SL Non-Profit Directory~~~

The nonprofits listed here are those that have a presence in SL or are currently building a presence in SL.

Breast Cancer Action
Key Contact people:
RL:
Angela Carrier
Email: info@bcaction.org

SupportForHealing
http://supportforhealing.com
Key Contact people
:
SL: Zafu Diamond ???

Activities:
http://secondtense.blogspot.com/2006/06/educators-as-innovators.html
There is the supportforhealing island, which is a sort of 3D extention of their website. From the site, it appears they'll be on UK's Channel 4 as part of the 'Second Lives' series of short films.
Also InnerLife and related Mandala Games sites, which have been working to integrate biofeedback devices with SL (quite successfully too) for varying purposes.
Support for Healing:
http://www.supportforhealing.com/
InnerLife:
http://gaeacoop.org/cgi-bin/InnerLife/index.cgi
Mandala Games:
http://www.mandalaweb.net/english/secondlife/secondlife-a.htm
InnerLife Tavarua SLURL (active as of 6/16/06):
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Tavarua/245/231/24/

911 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows
http://www.121contact.typepad.com
http://www.peacefultomorrows.org

Key Contact People:
SL:Zeke Poutine
Activities: Found a kiosk/notecard on Democracy Island - Raising awareness of their work in RL

SLURL/SL Location
Democracy Island, Democracy Island (153, 170, 26)http://slurl.com/secondlife/Democracy%20Island/153/170/26/

Acceleration Studies Foundation
http://accelerating.org
Key Contact people:

Jerry Paffendorf - Research Director
SL: SNOOPYbrown Zamboni
jerrypaffendorf@accelerating.org
Timothy Moenk - Future Salon Network Director
SL: Lyre Calliope
timothymoenk@accelerating.org
Activities:
The ASF has been running the Second Life Future Salon (the longest running educational event of its kind) since April of '05. THe ASF is also responsible for causing trouble in the video game, IT, GIS, Acadamia, and other related industries and fields through the Metaverse Roadmap project.

http://slfuturesalon.blogs.com

Alliance Library System
http://www.alliancelibraries.info/secondlife.htm
Key Contact People:
Lori Bell, Director of Innovation
SL: Loreli Junot
Activities:
The ALS Alliance Library System is working with librarians all over the country to create a library in Second Life on Information Island.
They have set up a blog to report on events/activities
http://secondlifelibrary.blogspot.com/
Promoted in Second Life newspaper
http://www.metaversemessenger.com/PDF/MM-2006-04-25.pdf

American Cancer Society
http://cancer.org
Key Contact people:

Randy Moss - Futuring and Innovations Center
SL: RC Mars
randal.moss@cancer.org
Keith Morris - Lead volunteer for the slrfs
SL: Jade Lily
Activities:
The Second Life Relay For Life is having its' second run this July, and the ACS is looking into bringing some of their community programs into SL.
A description can be found here:
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/GI/content/GI_1_8_Second_Life_Relay.asp
They are blogging about their work here:
http://www.fispace.org/home/

Amoration
http://www.omidyar.net/group/amo/ - discussion thread
Key Contact people:
Evonne Heyning
SL: In Kenzo
Activities:
Art activities on Better World Island. Has offered help to newbies.
Other nonprofits on Better World Island include Camp Darfur (an independent partnership working with the Save Darfur Coalition, GI-Net and Stop Genocide Now), PeaceTiles, 911 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, and Peace Games/Chandi Chess.
See http://www.omidyar.net/group/secondlife/news/16/

Boomer Esiason Foundation
http://www.esiason.org
Key Contact People:
SL:
Dave Radio
RL: Dave Rimington
drimington@esiason.org
Activities: The Boomer Esiason Foundation is a partnership of leaders in the medical and business communities joining with a committed core of volunteers to provide financial support to research aimed at finding a cure for cystic fibrosis. They are planning to set up a CF University in SL.

Camp Darfur

http://www.campdarfur.org
Activities:
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2006/03/new_world_slurl_8.html

Creative Commons
http://creativecommons.org/
SLURL/SL Location: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Kula%204/75/75
Kula 4 (74, 75, 25)
Key Contact people:
Joi Ito
SL: Joi Ito
SL: Liana Linden
Activities:
http://joi.ito.com/archives/2006/01/31/second_life_party_yesterday.html

Eyebeam

http://www.eyebeam.org/

http://research.eyebeam.org/

Friends of the Urban Forest
http://www.fuf.net/

SLURL / SL Location: Siona (167, 95, 61)

Activities:

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2006/05/sl_events_of_th_1.html

Global Giving
http://www.globalgiving.org

Global Kids
http://globalkids.org/

Key Contact people:
Barry Joseph
SL: globalkids Bixby
Activities:
Blog: http://dmi.globalkids.org/

Global Kids, Inc. is a seventeen year-old organization with a mission to prepare urban youth to be global citizens and community leaders. Global Kids has embarked on a project studying the use of interactive tools to teach kids public diplomacy. Global Kids Island is a virtual space within Second Life where kids in the after school program facilitate their own workshops with teens across the globe. In this way, the students in the after school program are gaining leadership skills and kids across the globe are connecting to learn about cultural issues.

More info here: http://www.globalkids.org/AboutGK/PressCoverage/03282006.jsp

Global Kids Island, Chablis (139, 132, 59)

http://slurl.com/secondlife/global%20kids%20island%2C%20chablis/139/132/59/


International Space Flight Museum
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2006/06/to_the_stars.html

Landing Lights 3-D Wiki, part of Democracy Island,
sponsored by New York Law School's Do Tank.

http://secondtense.blogspot.com/2006/06/educators-as-innovators.html

It's a "Build your own park" for local people in a real location in Queens, NY, to have direct input into what they think should be done to improve their park. The 3-D Wiki will be used for actual feedback to the city's planning board, and the board has been aiding a great deal in providing feedback to allow us to meet their needs.

The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
http://www.lls.org/hm_lls

Key Contact people:
SL: Confucious Madonna

SL: Cram Doctorow
RL: Marc Sirkin

Marc's Blog: http://www.sirkin.com/nonprofit_emarketing/

marcsirkin@yahoo.com

Activities:
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society have started virtual chapter and built a cabin.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lls/166401313/

SLURL/SL Location

Pryeri (85, 189, 30)
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Pryeri/85/189/30/

Live2Give
http://braintalk.blogs.com/live2give

Key Contact People:
John Lester
SL: Pathfinder Linden We should ask John if someone else should be listed as the main contact person, or if he'd prefer one of his alts listed here

Activities:
To foster an online community helping people dealing with cerebral palsy and similar physical disabilities.
Wilde Cunningham is part of this program.

SLURL/SL Location

Live2Give (147, 183, 30)

Also see Project Brigadoon
http://braintalk.blogs.com/brigadoon/2005/01/about_brigadoon.html

Make-A-Wish Foundation

http://wish.org/

Key Contact people:

SL: Yonder Doesburg

Activities:
Collecting donations inworld: http://slurl.com/secondlife/mogwa/197/185/59/

Last checked (6/23/06) $14,000 L was donated or roughly $45 USD

IM from Yonder: "I am not affiliated with Make A Wish. I only ask for donations from citizen of Second Life, and at the end of each month I sell the donations on the Lindex, then donate the money to Make A Wish. Each of my donation boxes will give any one who touches them more information about how the donations are handled.

SLURL: Mogwa (197, 185, 59)

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Mogwa/197/185/59/

Frank Contacted 6/28

New Media Consortium

http://www.nmc.net/

Key Contact people:

RL: Alan Levine (CogdogBlog)
SL: CDB Barkley

Activities:

http://www.nmc.org/sl/
They had an event on blogging and vlogging in SL

Here's Alan Levine's (CogDogBlog) notes on it:

http://cogdogblog.com/2006/06/10/real-and-virtual/

Ourmedia

http://www.ourmedia.org

Key Contact people:

Pixels4SL

http://pixels4sl.blogspot.com/2006/05/welcome-to-pixels4sl-project-blog.html

Key Contact People: Xavier Potau (not sure whether this is SL or RL name)

Activities:

Pixels4SL is a NGO created in-world, a virtual NGO. The purpose isto raise funds inside Second Life by selling products and services. Benefits of those sales will go 100% to a donation pot which will be translated periodically into real US$ and donated to humanitarian projects in Africa. All the donations will be given through the website www.globalgiving.com to local project in Africa monitored by the World Bank.


San Jose Art Museum

http://www.sjmusart.org/

Key Contact People:
Activities:

Putting up a virtual Island for display of virtual art works being sought from SL
http://www.ludica.org.uk/NewWest/

The event will coincide with ZeroOne Festival http://isea2006.sjsu.edu/Grabbed from comments in blog post here:

SDForum


It is unclear where there will be an org. presence or just the exhibition

http://www.sdforum.org/SDForum/

2 comments:

Sophia said...

You are exploring the New Frontier, Alex! I think it is safe to say that you are a pilgrim of Virtual Reality. I think it's awesome that you've found these contact links with other organizations.

Alexander M Zoltai said...

Sophia!

Please do explore http://www.secondlife.com
Not only are there non-profits, there are universities plus businesses of all types--one can even make real money there.
Plus, it's way fun!!!