The rolling corn fields of the mid-west provided the visual entertainment needed for the GWOB Borg to make the five hour drive from Chicago to Louisville for the next leg on Phase II of the 101010 Hackathon tour, LVL 1 in Kentucky, and then another epic car ride down to Georgia to visit Freeside Atlanta.

We found this little gem on Route 2600:

Seemed appropriate to stop and snap a picture at the intersection since we’re touring hacker spaces!

Stopping in at LVL 1 in Louisville, Kentucky

First up was LVL 1; the space was hopping with activity when we arrived because of their own Software Freedom Day – the tables were filled with people, laptops decorated the surface of every available space like confetti at a birthday party and the LVL 1-ers milled around discussing a huge gamut of projects. The heat outside indicated we had made it into the south and the hospitality at LVL 1 followed suit with every convention of warm, southern-style hospitality.

This space represented our 8^th space and 5^th formal presentation – and we’re getting better at articulating and sharing GWOBorg’s goals and hopes! LVL 1’s support for the upcoming hackathon, and the whole concept was immediate and we were pleasantly overwhelmed by all of the ideas and enthusiasm.

As far as the space is concerned, LVL 1 just may edge out on the award for largest space – they’re a newer space and still developing and changing the physical space but the basement areas are cavernous and ideal for expansion as the space continues to grow. LVL 1 noted that they’ll be broadcasting live from their space during the hackathon (the 24 hours leading up to 101010) and we really look forward to supporting the space and interacting in the coming weeks and months!

Visiting Freeside Atlanta in Georgia

With the success at LVL 1 in Louisville we headed even further south to Freeside Atlanta in Georgia for the last stop on Phase II of the 101010 tour (the northeast is Phase III, next week!) and some more southern hospitality. After rounding up the group of Freesiders wielding power tools in the metalshop we gathered in the cozy common area and successfully shared our presentations and ideas with the group.

Where is GWOBorg Headed Next?

Freeside’s hospitality was a great way to end Phase II and Diggz and Shannon head back to Florida and Willow back to Seattle while we re-group and prepare for New York, Boston, DC, and other stops…check out the tour schedule for specifics!

The 101010 tour of hacker and maker spaces around the US is in full swing and after a successful (and fun) stop at i3 Detroit in Michigan GWOBorg headed over the state border with sights set on Pumping Station: One in Chicago.

The spaces on this tour are each so very, very unique – like a person they have their own flare and attitude – PS: One did not disappoint. Walking into the space our eyes were immediately drawn to a huge Neslon Mandela quote proudly and loudly (and artfully) graffiti-ed across one of the main walls:

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

Agreed. Whole heartedly.

Presenting at Pumping Station: One

James (from Bucketworks) and Willow started out the presentation once the room was full of PS: One-ers happily munching on the surprisingly tasty Thai food (courtesy of Tropo) and the duo really connected their message with this space; this initial part of the presentation goes into ways that spaces like PS: One, i3 Detroit, Noisebridge, Crashspace LA, and the others we’ve visited can all band together and share resources and knowledge.

Diggz followed up with information about our mission, the upcoming 101010 hackathon and ways that GWOBorg hopes to unite these types of spaces – connecting the dots in a way so that the collective geek power can effect change.

Once again the breakout discussions proved really helpful and we’re seeing a trend now – there are dozens of groups and organizations doing great work. Amazing work. They’re all over the US…all over the world, in fact. But they’re not necessarily wholly united; communication between groups is limited – an opportunity? We think so.

Pumping Station: One, a hearty thanks for sharing the evening with us and all of your collective brainstorming powers!   And also, a very special thanks to Rain and Adam for opening their beautiful home to us for the night in Aurora!

Stop five on the 101010 tour landed us in Detroit; industrial and gritty we flew in on a wet and overcast Michigan day…par for the course in this neck of the woods.  i3 Detroit, is one of the largest spaces we’ve yet seen – the warehouse size structure is divvied off into sections and they have a truly impressive collection of tools (word-woking, metal working, power tools, oh my!), a lounge area and just a great open community feel.

Best moment of the night at i3 Detroit?

Within minutes of setting up shop (computer time, email checking, etc) the i3-ers hoisted out a giant cardboard box of nerf guns and foam bullets – once everyone was suitably outfitted with nerf guns they lay in wait for the next person to enter the space for the GWOBorg presentation.

With the nerf gun attack executed perfectly on the next unsuspecting arrival, we buckled down and set up our presentation, the i3-ers gathered round in chairs to hear our pitch.

i3 gave us a really warm welcome (also par for the course in the hacker, maker and co-working space community!) and we free-styled the presentation a bit more than in the past.

What We’re Learning

One of the things we’re really finding comes out of these actual hands on events is that the collective knowledge of all of these communities is vast. As GWOBorg tours the spaces, the presentations are always followed up with at least 20 minutes of questions and discussions – a time where shared knowledge is presented and the individuals at each space help us massage the GWOBorg message and implementation goals.

As the i3-ers thought through our presentation they offered up organizations doing complimentary work and ideas of potential partners. A thanks to i3 for pointing us to the Sahana Foundation, a group doing free and open source disaster management – we will be investigating and reaching out to them.

We finished of the night with a bit of informal small group brainstorming over pizza and beer – as we walked out the door the entreaties to come back and stay longer next time were genuine and so appreciated. Although GWOBorg is still in the development stages, at this point the level of support from these hacker and maker space communities has really validated our current approach – go to the geek communities and find ways to empower the geeky for good.

Next up on the tour?

We hop the Michigan border and head into Chicago, Illinois to visit Pumping Station: One and perhaps some Chicago style pizza?!

We visited CrashSpace on 09.date.10, in Los Angeles. While in a storefront location, it would be difficult to notice but for the cheerful chalk drawings on the sidewalk and the tell-tale lighting of projects supporting LEDs in the windows. Diggz and I sat in on their standard structural meeting – how was membership going? What was the next big group project? (their last was building a way to musically play the building). Before they started building a collaborative game, we had our time to talk. As our first run, it was a wee bit rough, but got the point across. The main question was “how do we implement, what happens next?” So we learned we need to speak more clearly about the hack-a-thon.

(PS, I’m in love with their space layout, tool repository, and community. So great!)

A couple nights later, we were at NoiseBridge in San Francisco. This is one of (if not the) most established spaces in America. Even Mitch, one of the founding members, was there! (and thanks to Myles for helping with set-up). An anarchist collective, it can be a bit intimidating to interact in the space the first time, but members go out of their way to help you out.

Our conversations earlier in the day with Patrick M from Ushahidi, based out of Mission Social, had armed us better for what organizations existed who were doing things. We might be able to help them! They might be able to help us! Rad people like Inveneo (based out of the same space) still need to be reached out to, but people like Crisis Commons could maybe use more assistance. Brilliant! Our presentation at NoiseBridge was much more focused on actionable items and the timing for them (see again, the hack-a-thon).

Tonight we’re at i3 in Detroit, the first stop on our midwest stint. Hope to see you there at 7p tonight!

GWOBorg supporters are spreading the message around the world!

Participation is really quite simple, so get involved! Take a moment to whip together a quick and visual way to say any combination or variation of these three lines…

GWOB.org
10.10.10
! <3 +)

…then snap a  digital photo and upload it to our GWOBorg Flickr Group.  You can draw the message on yourself or even better, draw it on a friend! Shave 101010 into your hair or chalk it on the ground. Feeling ambitious? Then hire a plane and write it in the sky. Is video’ more your format? Make a digital short! Whatever message makes you happy inside. In addition to the GWOBorg Flickr Group well post the fun entries to the @GWOBorg Twitter feed and Facebook Page.

Interested in participating in the 101010 Hackathon Event or other ways to get involved? Explore the GWOBorg site for all of the ways that you can participate and share your geekiness to those in need all around the world.

Join GWOBorg in hosting a 24-hour hackathon on 10.10.10 for geeks around the globe! We’re building +) GWOBorg applications to help save the world!

+) GWOBorg is an international coalition of passionate problem solvers working together to assist people whose survival is threatened by lack of access to technology or communications due to violence, neglect, or catastrophe.

+) What is the 10.10.10 Hackathon?

This hackathon unites geeks all over the planet who are interested in creating applications that help people communicate more easily in situations where human lives are threatened.

We’ve identified some excellent free and open-source crisis-management platforms as well as group collaborative platforms (“The Platforms”), and we want to challenge developers to extend these platforms across the globe.  You can set up your own, or use one of the  ”sandbox” versions we will have running.

• Ushahidi - Ushahidi (oo-sha-heetee) is a free and open source platform that any person or organization can use to set up their own way to collect and visualize information. The core platform allows for plug-in and extensions so that it can be customized for different locales and needs.
• Sahana - The Sahana project aims to provide an integrated set of pluggable, Web-based disaster management applications that provide solutions to large-scale humanitarian problems in the relief phase of a disaster.
• Open Atrium - Open Atrium is an Drupal-based “intranet in a box” that has group spaces to allow different teams to have their own conversations. It comes with six features – a blog, a wiki, a calendar, a to do list, a shoutbox, and a dashboard to manage it all.

+) Who Should Participate?

Web developers….Ruby, Python, PHP, Groovy, .NET, ColdFusion…anyone who has a passion to code, hack or kluge or solve problems.  We’ll show you some cool free tools to help build the first WW apps.  They can be OpenGov apps, communication apps, or anything that could help someone in a crisis situation.

Participation is free and open to anyone…but you must register on the Eventbrite in advance to qualify for prizes. You can register as an individual or a team.  (If you’re a member of a co-working, hacker or maker space, they have a chance to win a prize too if they’re registered!).

Even if you’re not a coder, you can still help!  Coders need help from graphic designers, project managers, IT support, and, perhaps most importantly…they need to know what to build!  We need visionaries and humanitarians…people who KNOW what WW apps can do the most good.  Even if you just have an idea or are not sure how you can help, just follow GWOBorg on Twitter or like GWOBorg on Facebook. Or post your thoughts an application ideas to the WW Facebook Discussion.  You can start participating immediately and help us start solving problems.

+) Prizes

THREE (3) $1010 CASH PRIZES will be awarded by Tropo.  Furthermore, if your app wins and you’re a member of a registered co-working, hacker or makerspace, they’ll get an ADDITIONAL $1010.

FIVE (5) Apple iPad PRIZES will be awarded by Tropo, each consisting of an Apple iPad (16GB WiFi + 3G).

ONE (1) $1000 CASH PRIZE will be awarded by Heroku.  At the winner’s request, this prize may be awarded to the co-working/hacker/makerspace (or other charity) of the winner’s choice.

One (1) $300 SERVICE CREDIT will be awarded by Heroku.

In order to qualify for a prize, you must REGISTER on Eventbrite NO LATER THAN 7:00:01 AM EST on 10.07.2010.  If you are affiliated with a co-working, hacker, or maker space, the space must register separately in order to qualify for the additional prize (same deadline applies).

The 101010 +) GWOBorg Hackathon officially begins 10:10am EST on 10.09.10.  All apps must be completed no later than 10:10am on 10.10.10.  At the end of the 24 hours, the HACKATHON SPONSORS will judge the REGISTERED WW apps and the winners will be announced during our LIVE GWOBorg BROADCAST starting at 01:10 PM EST on 10.10.10 on GWOB.org.  Sponsors shall award prizes based on Sponsors’ sole discretion.

+) GWOBorg Hackathon Sponsors

Tropo – Tropo is a powerful, yet simple API that adds Voice, SMS, Twitter, and IM support to the programming languages you already know.  TROPO will award prizes to those registered apps that use the TROPO API.

Heroku - Heroku is a cloud application platform for Ruby – a new way of building and deploying web apps.  Heroku will award prizes to those registered participants who build apps that use Heroku’s platform.

If your organization has tools or services that you think would be useful to the 101010 +) GWOBorg Hackathon and/or would be interested in becoming an sponsor, contact GWOB.org.

Chris Pirillo gave me a microphone and a really big screen and a room full of geeks. Here’s how it went (sorry about the ad):