A few weeks back I put my intention out to open a Beacon Collaboratory, or what I called in the blog post a “Superhero School.” As I look around me, I’m seeing a pattern of convergence towards these kinds of live/work/play spaces. As “living labs,” these spaces bring together elements of a tech incubator, an R&D facility, a hackerspace/fablab, a sustainability demonstration site, and it’s all tied to place – with the projects / prototypes / experiments being done there carried out and implemented in the local area, stimulating the economy, creating jobs, and building resilient communities throughout the area and the region.

I’ll be giving a presentation on ‘the future of money’ in a few months, and am trying to wrap my head around all the emerging disruptive tools and services that are shaking up the financial industry. I plan to do a few posts covering these areas, and hope we can have some interesting discussion about what it means and where we’re going. In the meantime, here’s a general resource of social lending platforms/marketplaces across the globe. If you’re aware of any I’ve missed, please let me know! Thanks.

Social Lending

Social Lending, or peer-to-peer lending, essentially brings individuals together to lend and borrow money directly from each other, cutting out the middle man (the bank). Borrowers are able to get low cost loans, lenders are able to get great returns while helping their fellow man, and both parties win. Continue reading →

I’ve been meaning to pull together a post to highlight a few sites out there that I think do a nice job informing, inspiring, questioning reality, pushing the envelope, and calling for a brighter, better, more sustainable future. Hope they’re useful for you too, and please share your list with me!

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1. GOOD (@GOOD)

“GOOD is a collaboration of individuals, businesses, and nonprofits pushing the world forward. Since 2006 we’ve been making a magazine, videos, and events for people who give a damn.”

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I hope this post will be a handy reference guide, especially for those teachers new to social media technologies and how to integrate them into the classroom. This resource is by no means exhaustive, but it’s a good starting point for finding the information and people that will help you make the transition into a ’21st century learning environment’. I intend for this to be a wikipost (I will update resources as they are shared with me by others), so feel free to bookmark the page and check in periodically for new material. Enjoy. Continue reading →

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

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