Mittwoch, 24. September 2014

XPRIZE Global Learning Prize - A Bold Next Step

Just this Monday Peter Diamandis, founder and CEO of XPRIZE has announced the XPRIZE Global Learning Prize in New York City. The bold challenge for teams to enter this most ambitious, and broad XPRIZE competition is to develop a mobile solution that makes it possible for kids (and other age groups as well) to get literate in reading, writing and mathematics within 18 months through self-learning. 

A more than ambitious plan to fulfill. Peter's past success list of starting (impossible seeming bold projects) include: 

SEDS Students for the Exploration and Development of Space

ISUNET International Space University (based in Strasbourg, France)

SU Singularity University (based at NASA Ames Research Center, California)

"Abundance - The Future is Better Than You Think" co-written with Steven Kotler


..... and now it is #LearningPrize



 Amazing how the development of Peter's ventures since 1981 (when he founded SEDS together with two classmates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge) has evolved. One of the forces certainly PASSION, and second but not less important the right TEAM, and #ScalingUp Excellence since then (step by step).

To make the #LearningPrize a success beyond imagination please consider supporting their Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign, which has per 2014-09-24 raised already 26% of the $500k funding goal.

Donnerstag, 7. August 2014

A Mission to Bring World Changing Ideas from Singularity University to the World

We are grateful to our supporters from Eventifier (Eventifier got acquired in 2015 and so the website is not in existence any longer), and especially Jazeel (co-founder of Eventifier) and Ty, who not only made an interview possible with us on why, and how the idea with the #GSP14 Twitter conversation capturing emerged. Additionally touching the field in which way this might have a further positive impact on bringing new technologies and approaches to tackle present challenges of humanity to use, and the role technology hubs will play in the future.



.... here you'll find the  interview (Eventifier has been acquired in 2015, and so the link is not valid any longer)

A Mission to Bring World Changing Ideas from Singularity University to the World

Taking on humanity’s grand challenges in education, energy, environment, food, health, poverty, security, space, and water is larger than life mission. Launched in 2008, in the heart of Silicon Valley, Singularity University (@singularityu) has an audacious mission of fostering local innovation through technology on a global scale. Singularity University’s start-up accelerator has empowered entrepreneurs from more than 85 countries to apply exponentially growing technologies, generating more than 100 startups, and numerous patents.


Equally challenging is the goal of helping individuals, businesses, institutions, investors, NGOs, and governments understand these cutting-edge technologies, and how to utilize them to positively impact billions of people. This is the goal of Dresden, Germany, based technology advocates Ralf Lippold and Angela Incampo.

We happily stumbled across Mr Lippold’s and Ms Incampo’s fascinating efforts when they launched a crowdfunding campaign to use Eventifier to bring the innovative ideas discussed at Singularity University’s recent graduate studies event #GSP14 to the world. They were kind enough to grant us an interview so that we could learn more about the story behind their campaign.

Please Tell Us About Yourselves

Ralf Lippold: I have studied economics and my work background is in logistics, and applying digital technology to production processes as done at BMW Plant Leipzig. I am passionate about social media and how it can be used effectively, and value-adding in a business context. Generally, I am appealed by technology and consider myself to be a global, connected citizen. I am running a blog specifically about the developments around Singularity University called Blue Future 2012. There is so much potential if ignited by the right cause. This is what drives me.

Angela Incampo: I am a Customer Advisor Professional from Italy. Ralf is my partner, on a professional and private level. I enjoy tweeting, but Ralf is better with tweeting. I’m more of a blogger.

What is Your Goal for The Singularity University Campaign?

Ralf Lippold: First of all, I have to say that I was not able to attend the event. The intent of this project is to document the social media conversation from the 2014 Graduate Studies Program#GSP14 at Singularity University on Twitter using Eventifier for interested audiences, the participants and supporters of #GSP14, and me of course. I’m deeply convinced that the information and knowledge flowing during the 10 weeks at #GSP14 is of interest to many people.

Why Should Anyone Follow What is Going On At This Singularity University Event (#GSP14)?

Angela Incampo: We strongly believe that it is a shame when information is closely held or disappears. We want more people to be able to participate in the (online) conversation coming out of Singularity University as not everyone can be accepted to attend. Through social media, people can know what is going on and are able to participate in the conversation themselves.

Ralf Lippold: Some of the founders of Singularity University, and its faculty members are tweeting during the sessions. Participants of #GSP14 are tweeting about what they are listening to, share additional information and connect with people from the specific field. There’s an opportunity for you to learn about the people and innovative topics discussed. Also, this makes it easy for anyone to connect with the people there. Some of the attendees are start-ups,  and they have an interest in getting exposure to relevant stakeholders. Also, it is -from our point of view- important for politicians and people to connect with these ideas and be exposed to them. Technology is a hot topic in our fast-paced world, and this event will be a conversation enabler.

Why Did You Decide to Crowdfund?

Ralf Lippold: I have done some experimenting with crowdfunding and have seen people be very successful here. This time it is an experiment whether digital communication has the ability to spread, and connect a “technology conference” with the interested public. The payback you’ll get with the contribution is that the event coverage of the upcoming 10 weeks will be presented to you (and others of course) and I will be writing articles on my blog BlueFuture2012. We are also open to other ideas on what we could give you back as a contributor.

Angela Incampo: Another idea that you can do with crowdfunding for the future is to help influencers who add value and are heavy tweeters attend events like Singularity University. Of course, that individual has to have a real need and personal passion about the topic and the drive to dig into the topic. By attending, they can accelerate the whole thing - especially if they are well recognized and willing to share from their own social media accounts.

How Do You See Eventifier’s Documentation of the Social Media From Singularity University Helping?

Ralf Lippold: Angela and I started taking more of a social media approach to online coverage for conferences. This brought me to use Eventifier last year for an event. We also used it to cover an event for the United Nations University. Eventifier helps with a multi-session conference for attendees and interested parties to keep up with the knowledge sharing with the use of social media. When you have more than one session to attend at a time, or when you have no money or are not able to make it, you can always go back to revisit the content. This has helped me get connections in real-time and get conversations going beyond the conference rooms.

Another example, when we followed the  26th International Cartographic Conference in Dresden last summer. With Eventifier, we are still in the conversation because we can reach out to people based on content captured in the social stream even though the conference is long over. It is a much more convenient way to connect with individual people, especially with time zone differences.

Angela Incampo: You may read something today that sparks an idea you may use in 6 months. Eventifier makes it possible to capture and store these ideas and go back in time when the time has come. Eventifier also allows you to see individual contributions to the conversation. This allows you to get more than just using the hashtag on Twitter.

People have a visual memory. With the visuals, you can easily go back to the person or to a video to bring it further. It is good to use hashtags on Twitter, but amongst 1,000 tweets one individual tweet can be buried or forgotten easily; it is harder to connect to meaningful information that way. With Eventifier it is easier to get back to the core of the information.

Thank you, Ralf and Angela, for telling us about your mission to bring the ideas from great events like Singularity University to the world.

Readers: Let us know what event you have coming up and why the world should know about it. If your organization wants to build awareness around ideas discussed at an upcoming event or conference, we’d love to hear from you!


2 notes  Jul 29th, 2014


Montag, 28. Juli 2014

Tension Rising - Team Projects Starting, Bold Idea for #GSP15

2/3 of #GSP14 are now over, and now team projects are on the way. Results, in best case startups that go on just like Getaround, or Matternet, will be presented at the end of the program in August.

What is not over is the live tweet following via Eventifier. Thanks to a quite international crowd spanning from New York City, Poland, Athens to Leipzig, Dresden and the UK a "mini"-crowdfunding ($99) has been successful.



Besides being able to follow the Twitter conversations from NASA Ames Research Center, where Singularity University is based, and not only offers this extensive 10-week course, but also executive trainings for exponential technologies, there is a next bold vision to go beyond the initial step of the crowdfunding:

RAISING $30K TO FUND A PARTICIPANT (FROM "SILICON SAXONY") - running a competition for it in early 2015

Which institution would be interested to host the funding/crowdfunding?

Which 10 (!) individuals would be be willing to invest $2,000 - $3,000 and earn the opportunity to get direct insights into the future as it is created in Silicon Valley?*

Who is interested to be on the design team to create a "SaxonyGSP15PRIZE" (a working title)?

*please get in direct contact via my LinkedIn profile




Mittwoch, 18. Juni 2014

Singularity University GSP14 - The Race is On

The race for the future has just begun, and we are in the 6th round since 2009 - the name of the game is #GSP14 (or Graduate Studies Program for the long lovers). The social space using Twitter and such is already filling up, and the questions comes up, "How to cope with it in an easy hassle-free fashion in order to avoid the "media singularity" turning us over?


Check it out and have a look a look at this crowdfunding experiment that just emerged while following the online-conversations yesterday around #GSP14 and #SingularityU

Mittwoch, 15. Januar 2014

Have You Prepared Yourself for the Runway Into the Future?

Dear reader,

perhaps you are just passionate about the future, and once in a while check what has been distilled from the vast activities of Singularity University, and its various faculty members amongst which Eric Ries, Peter Diamandis, John Hagel are just some.

Still interested in not just learning about the future, but actually shaping it together with an increasing number of SU alumni, and a growing global business network?

Get your fingers on the keyboard, create a short 2-minute promotion video about, and fill the application for Singularity University GSP14 (there are full scholarships available as well).


Good luck, and thumbs up!

PS.: More about activities to be found using the hashtag #GSP14 (Twitter, Google+ [not too much traffic there yet], Facebook [the search engine for hashtags seems not to be up to the standards yet]