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There’s no limit to the number of good ideas out there that could help change the world. Many times, innovative solutions grow from previously existing ideas that are tweaked and customized for current needs. That said, below is a list of Idea Hubs from around the web to stimulate your mind, from conferences to user-submitted idea warehouses to resource centers. I’ve also included the twitter handles of those that have it. Enjoy!
Videos to Inspire
1. SpaceCollective: Where forward thinking terrestrials exchange ideas and information about the state of the species, their planet and the universe, living the lives of science fiction today.
2. Ideas Project: Created by Nokia, it brings together big thinkers to contemplate the big ideas that matter most to the future of communications, joining them up through video clips, links, articles, podcasts and dynamic maps to push the boundaries of Web navigation and the thought process itself.
twitter: @IdeasProject
3. Ideas for Change: This project aims at becoming the biggest video based platform for ideas on how we can build a better world.
4. Sputnik Observatory: Documenting, archiving, and disseminating ideas that are shaping modern thought by interviewing leading thinkers in the arts, sciences and technology from around the world.
5. FORA.tv: Videos on the People, Issues, and Ideas Changing the Planet
6. TED: Devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. More than 450 TEDTalks now available to view.
twitter: @TEDnews, @TEDtalks
7. Big Think: A global forum connecting people and ideas.
twitter: @big_think
8. BIL: An ad-hoc conference for people changing the world in big ways.
9. GEL: A conference and community exploring good experience in all its forms — in business, art, society, technology, and life.
10. Business Innovation Factory: Focuses on solving major problems in areas like healthcare, education and energy independence by creating a place where partners can design and test new solutions in a real-world environment.
twitter: @chrisflanagan
11. PopTech: An innovation network – a global community of cutting-edge leaders, thinkers, and doers from many different disciplines, who come together to explore the social impact of new technologies, the forces of change shaping our future, and new approaches to solving the world’s most significant challenges.
twitter: @poptech
12. All Things Digital: The D Conference creators and executive producers Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher put the industry’s top players to the test during informal but pointed conversations about the impact digital technology will have on our lives now and in the future.
13. AIGA: Hillman Curtis’ Artist Video Series allows us to experience leading designers through sound and motion, uncovering what it is about them that inspires him.
14. Cusp Conference: A conference about the ‘design of everything’, bringing together thinkers, innovators, skeptics, believers, visionaries and explorers from the arts, sciences, technology, business, design and government.
twitter: @CuspConference
15. AMPLIFY: Bi-annual Innovation & Thought Leadership Festival- a market for the exchange of ideas, knowledge and experiences.
twitter: @amplify09
16. Thinking Digital Conference: Annual conference where the world’s greatest thinkers and innovators gather to inspire, to entertain, and to discuss the latest ideas and technologies.
twitter: @ThinkingDigital
17. GetDocued: Links, reviews, searches and archives the best documentaries and lectures that can be found on the worldwide web.
twitter: @GetDocued
18. The World Lecture Project: A group of academics from Berlin compiling links to audio and video lectures of each faculty and from all over the world.
19. IdeaFestival: Event bringing together thinkers from around the globe to explore and celebrate innovation, imagination and cutting-edge ideas.
twitter: @ideafestival
20. RSA Vision Videos: A cradle of enlightenment thinking and a force for social progress.
21. ideaCity: An eclectic gathering of artists, adventurers, authors, cosmologists, doctors, designers, entertainers, filmmakers, inventors, magicians, musicians, scientists and technologists.
twitter: @ideaCityNews
Good Reading
22. Edge: To arrive at the edge of the world’s knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together, and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves.
twitter: @edge
23. ChangeThis: Facilitating the spread of thoughtful arguments via “manifestos”, 5-20 page PDF files thoughfully making a case.
24. Front End of Innovation: Collection of white papers on innovation, and links to many resources
twitter: @fei_innovation
User-Submitted Ideas Exchanges
25. YCombinator – Startup Ideas We’d Like to Fund: The venture firm put out this list last year, but it’s worth looking over as an exercise for framing ideas in terms of problems that need to be solved.
26. Springwise: Scanning the globe for the most promising business ventures, ideas and concepts that are ready for regional or international adaptation, expansion, partnering, investments or cooperation.
twitter: @springwise
27. Ideas4all: Sharing ideas and building the global brain
twitter: @ideas4all
28. Global : Ideas : Bank: Promoting and disseminating good creative ideas to improve society.
29. Ideablob: Entrepreneurs and small business owners can share and grow their business ideas – and have a chance to win $10,000 towards fulfilling them.
30. WhyNot?: Idea Exchange and sets of tools and resources to stimulate creative thinking.
31. the Idea Shower: A launchpad of new ideas for the web. Created to catalog the successes of those ideas, and sometimes more importantly, their failures.
twitter: @ideashower
32. idealist: A platform for designers and creators to publish and share their creativity, get feedback from the community and increase the popularity of their ideas.
33. Killerstartups.com: Internet entrepreneurs submit their startup to see what others think about it.
34. Knight Pulse: Focused on ideas for transforming the future of news and information.
35. Solutions for the Common Good: Explore 25 categories of problems, thousands of known solutions, and thousands of innovative solutions. Here, people are sharing problems and solutions that benefit all of us.
From Idea to Implementation
36. The 99 Percent – Behance’s think tank focuses on what happens after inspiration — researching the forces that truly push ideas to fruition.
twitter: @the99percent
Further Exploration:
Awesome list. So many of these out there nowadays! Some additional candidates: Twitter Lists, IEE/UN Humanitarian Tech Challenge powered by Spigit http://www.ieeehtc.org/ , http://www.makerfaire.com/ , http://www.mindshare.la/ , ASF’s Future Salons.
If you need inspiration for your home you could check out http://www.freshome.com !
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Vanessa,
Thanks so much for compiling this extraordinary list. You may be interested in the Buckminster Fuller Challenge – 2011 Call for Entries just announced: http://www.bfi.org/node/2125
Here’s the description:
“The Buckminster Fuller Challenge is an annual international design Challenge awarding $100,000 to support the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems. It attracts bold, visionary, tangible initiatives focused on a well-defined need of critical importance. Winning solutions are regionally specific yet globally applicable and present a truly comprehensive, anticipatory, integrated approach to solving the world’s complex problems.”
The submission process is enabling us to compile a database of projects designed to be comprehensive, anticipatory, and systemic in their approach: http://challenge.bfi.org/ideaindex
Thanks for this information david and vanessa for the list! I’ll just start to think which specific idea i could contribute to the wealth of nations…
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Great list. Always looking for new ideas. Thanks.
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