We’re excited to announce that we’re taking part in a pilot program from TEDx to take ideas from our community and catalyze them into action. We’ll be hosting a TEDxCity2.0 Action Pitch Session as part of our TEDxCity2.0 event on October 13th, 2012.
We’ve chosen 3 projects, and are giving each the chance to take the stage for 2 minutes to share their project with the TEDxDumbo community. Our speakers will provide live feedback, while the audience will be able to pledge their support through volunteer hours, online promotion, free/discounted services, and even donations/grants.*
*According to the TED Guidelines, we as organizers can not offer a monetary award, and the TEDxDumbo community cannot collectively raise money for an award. However, audience members can individually choose to support an Action financially.
The Selected Action Pitches
1) Gowanus Mud Balls!
The Project:
The Gowanus Mud Balls project is putting together a team to test whether EM-1, a particular combination of microorganisms, can improve water quality in the Gowanus Canal. As they decay, mud balls laced with EM-1 consume organic waste, reduce toxins and restore biodiversity. Follow-up tests conducted by a biochemist at Brooklyn College will determine their effectiveness. Through the conduct of this experiment we hope to teach the local community how microbes can be used to cleanse and revitalize the environment. We continually train up new mud ballers at farmer’s markets and other community events..
The Team:
The organizing team includes scientists and an EM specialist: DD Maucher, producer; Paul Mankiewicz, Director Gaia Institute NY, hypothesis framing, laboratory testing; Joshua Chang, Geo-chemist, environmental scientist, professor at Brooklyn College, laboratory testing; Shig Matsukawa, Em-1 specialist /teacher; Jennifer Kanter, Marine policy and media; Tim Paulson, Keat Foong, coordinators.
Type of Support sought:
- Join as an Organizer: Leaders who will help start new workshops
- A Social Media Leader: Facebook, newsletters with mail chimp, online mapping and community development.
- Some one to lead seeking of partners, and fund raise for mud ball production and canal testing.
- Coordinate your own mud ball making event to teach about the science of the microbes.
2) Made In Lower East Side (miLES)
The Project:
Made in Lower East Side is an initiative working with local communities to envision alternatives for 212 vacant lots and stores in the neighborhood and transform them with temporary activities, installations, and other programming. We are currently in the listening phase of our open process, studying the wants and needs of residents, community groups, business owners, and landlords. We want to include everyone’s perspective as we work together to create vibrant uses for these unused spaces. Read about us here!
The Team:
Made in Lower East Side is a multidisciplinary team of individuals and a coalition of 10 partners, numerous supporters, and most importantly the community of the Lower East Side. At the TEDxDUMBO stage, you will meet with three members of the founding team: Sarah Fathallah, Eric Ho and Chloe Tseung.
Type of Support sought:
- Promotion
- Ideas for Vacant Spaces
- Volunteer hours: Grant writing, Usability testing (online and offline)
- Expertise: Real estate legal advice (including permitting and insurance), commercial legal advice, branding, strategy on crowd-funding campaigns
- Connections with landlords, as well as cultural groups and entrepreneurs that can provide programming
3) Art Bar
The Project:
Art Bar is an attempt into introduce a new form of cultural infrastructure to New York City. It is the proposed reuse of an obsolete 30 car vehicle deck on one of the Staten Island Ferries. Art Bar imagines this space a platform for arts and cultural programming open to the five boroughs—a hybrid of transportation infrastructure and public venue for the arts. We have created a concept design for Art Bar, started a feasibility study, and have begun engaging stakeholders. We need the support of the DOT, the Mayor’s office, and most importantly the public to realize this project.
The Team:
The Art Bar team is a collaboration between Vincent Appel, Heather Pfister, and the many architects, designers, artists, and cultural tinkerers that have come through our studio over the past several years. The Staten Island Arts Council, New York State Council on the Arts, and Denham Wolf Real Estate are some of our strongest advocates so far.
Type of support sought:
- Help building and launching a social media campaign. Our largest current challenge is convincing the NYC Department of Transportation and some key “gate-keepers” to help us complete a detailed feasibility study.
- Website design and development. We imagine a website that is an open source platform for the public to participate in curating Art Bar’s venues. Even before Art Bar is realized, this website would help us gauge the public, artists, and cultural organizations’ interest in the idea and identify needs we have not yet responded to with the design.
- Graphic identity, and promotion throughout the five boroughs.
- Maritime technology sustainability expert: We have some ideas such as solar, heat recovery from the ferry’s engines and kitchen, and wind turbines suitable for maritime use. However, we’re not experts in passive energy systems on ferries and would love to find a specialist to help us with this project.
- Political meetings: A meeting with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Commissioner Janette Sadik-khan, and Chief Operations Officer for the Staten Island Ferry, Captain James DeSimone
