We'd love to invite you to attend "The Feast" on October 16th in NYC which will gather 150 of the world's leading creative mavericks, entrepreneurs, revolutionaries, radicals, and innovators together to inspire action to change the world.

Our mothers always told us "there's good in everything" so we've curated a series of inspiring, mind-expanding, and innovative talks that will showcase a look at social innovation from all angles. From design to business to science, our speakers will share a deep look at changing the DNA of their respective industries by harnessing the power of creativity to propel social change. Some confirmed speakers include Dale Jones of PlayPumps International and Tom Szaky of TerraCycle.

Being progressively minded, we felt you would value the experience and relationships to be garnered from this event and wanted to offer you the first of the few 130 seats available before we begin larger marketing efforts.

Whether you're a social entrepreneur or socially conscious at heart, "The Feast" will provide you with an excellent platform for inspiration, connection, and action. Our hope is to leave you high on possibilities with a new menu of connections to get it all done. We hope you will support us in bringing the best and brightest minds together to make the world a better place. For more information and tickets, visit http://www.thefeastconference.com

Welcome Designers! The Spark Design Awards 2008 Competition is a go! Spark is the exciting new competition created to promote great design and designers. We invite everyone to participate--designers, art directors, architects, design firms, manufacturers, institutions, ad agencies, students and novices may enter and enjoy the Spark Design Awards.

Spark is about Change—designed change. Change for the better: studied, researched, cognizant of criteria like sustainability, suitability, context, inventiveness, process, universality—and yes, beauty.

Ultimately, one must ask why this is important. Commerce is important, but it is a means to an end. We might call the real goal "betterment." Better lives, better health, better water, better air. Great design can help us get there. Do your part—make designs that make a difference.

Get Them While they're Green Hot!

Spark is the innovation and design competition for all types of design, from architecture to digital, product to transportation, systems to green and world-changing. If you believe that good design can be an effective tool to help our stressed-out world, enter your work and be seen and heard. All types of design and all levels of designer, from student to novice and pro, are welcome and encouraged to enter.

If you need help or have questions--don't worry--we're here. Contact: info @ sparkawards.com (remove spaces) or toll-free: 866-846-6715 (International: +1-914-481-6106). Spark is a work in progress and a work of the heart. Please do contact us with good ideas and constructive criticism. And tell your friends about the SparkAwards!

You may register on the website now--click here.  The first phase (virtual jury) deadline is August 1.  (A late deadline of August 25 is available with an additional $50 surcharge.) A jury will carefully review the entries throughout August. Phase I entrants chosen by the Jury will then be notified and have the option to participate in Phase II. Phase II deadline is September 1, 2008.  (A late deadline of September 5 is available with an additional $50 surcharge.) Jurists will judge the actual, physical works of design (when feasible. Otherwise, send the best representation possible), so you'll need to ship your design to the Jury site by September 5.

Be sure to explore the Spark site and review the Spark Categories and Spark Criteria for important information that the Jury will take into consideration. Also, check out last year's entry list and winner's gallery for ideas.

French magazine 'L'argus de l'automobile' has launched the 7th edition of its Design Competition, open to students of European design colleges. The theme is 'Invent a vehicle that is useful for society' and the deadline for submission is 21 December 2008.

For this 7th edition, the competition extends its scope to the broader sense of “vehicles”. The goal is to come up with original, innovative and useful concepts for the movement of goods and people with the theme:" “Invent a vehicle that is useful for society”.

The winner will receive a prize of 3,000 €, as well as an internship at Renault’s Design Centre. The prizes for the 2nd and 3rd places are respectively 1,500 € and 500 €.

The competition is open to students attending design colleges within the European Union and Switzerland (automotive and industrial design, fine arts, architecture…).

For information and submission you can contact: concoursdesign@argusauto.com.

To keep up with economic, political and social developments on the automobile markets in the West, manufacturers are trying to come up with new offers. At a time where the movement of individuals is fundamental, niche segments are diversifying, using more and more innovative materials, energy sources and technologies, and new travel systems, vehicles or services are appearing to benefit society as a whole.

The student should first of all draw up a list of requirements in terms of the movement of goods, services and people on Western markets. The student shall specify those that are “socially useful” (proven or potential), depending on his or her interpretation of this notion.

On this basis, he or she will put forward an innovative and useful vehicle concept to be manufactured and sold on Western markets. Students shall explain their choices at every step of the project (interest of the concept, selection of materials, production method, functionalities, design, etc.).

• 1) Visit the site in Google Earth. Download the kmz file (you must have Google Earth downloaded).
• 2) Design a home in Google SketchUp (download at sketchup.google.com).
• 3) Upload your completed SketchUp model to the Google 3D Warehouse. Be sure to include the tag "designyourdwelling2008" when you upload the model.
• 4) Complete the Entry Form and submit up to (6) jpeg images of your model.

• 1) We have selected a site for your "dwelling" in Google Earth. (hint: it is in the shadow of an iconic bridge!) The floor area of the home may not exceed 2500 square feet (232 square meters).
• 2) This site has special features to consider in the design which will be evaluated in the judging including: climate, public access, waterfront, etc…
• 3) The designs will be judged on basic principles such as overall design, carbon-footprint reduction, sustainability, cost-efficiency, and authenticity.
• 4) The designs will be evaluated based on exterior and interior design.
• 5) Submissions should be created using Google SketchUp. Submissions created in other applications will not be considered in the judging.
• 6) Submissions: Each entry must contain up to 6 jpeg images/views of the home, a link to the uploaded model in the Google 3D Warehouse, and a personal 250 word description of how your design makes you feel "at home in the modern world." Please read the contest rules for details.

Sourcing and Solutions: The Green Event Conference and Expo

Sharing ideas on how to develop, design and produce for an eco-conscious world.

Featured Discussions:

Creating Green

Green is the new.... fill in the blank, currency, trend or wave. How de retailers create green products that will improve their business? What has been successful? How do we keep green consumers interested?

Green Stamps

Confusion bounds regarding how to identify a “real” green product. Our panel discussion will help attendees learn about what is available in the market to support their green claims. It will answer the questions: what is the standard? How are products certified? And what are the differences?

Keynote Speaker:

Andrew Winston, founder of Winston Eco-Strategies—Green to Gold
Founder of Winston Eco-Strategies, Andrew Winston works with leading companies to use environmental thinking to drive growth. He is the co-author of the bestseller Green to Gold, which highlights what works—and what doesn’t—when companies go “green.” Andrew is a globally recognized expert on green business, and has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, BusinessWeek, Forbes, The New York Times, The Washington Post, ABC News, CNBS and National Public Radio.

The Green Event will feature an Expo Hall on Gallery 8 of the Millennium Hotel that will include “The GreenWay”, an educational photo and product presentation of green products in action highlighting supply chain initiatives from raw materials to end-use products.

September 18 - 19, 2008

The Millennium Broadway Hotel and Hudson Theatre, New York City

An international conference on the role and potential of design research in the transition towards sustainability

The conference Changing the Change seeks to make a significant contribution to a necessary transformation that involves changing the direction of current changes toward a sustainable future. It specifically intends to outline the state-of-the-art of design research in terms of visions, proposals and tools with which design can actively and positively take part in the wider social learning process that will have to take place.

CONFERENCE RESULTS

DESIGN RESEARCH AGENDA FOR SUSTAINABILITY
This document started out with the organization of the Conference and continued in the discussions and the co-creation activities that took place during this same conference.

INVITED SPEAKERS' PAPERS
are being placed on-line as these become available

HOW TO CONTACT US
contact@changingthechange.org
  
PROCEEDINGS
are now on-line

The focus of the global 2008-2010 exhibition is on the solutions and the opportunities for countries, companies and communities to "Kick the Carbon Habit" and de-carbonize their economies and life-styles.

Moving Towards a Balanced Earth:  Kick the (Carbon) Habit

The Natural World Museum (NWM), in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), present the 2008–2009 traveling exhibit entitled Moving Towards a Balanced Earth: Kick the Carbon Habit. The exhibit will debuted at the Te Papa Tongarewa Museum in Wellington to commemorate the celebration of UN World Environment Day (WED) on 5 June 2008. For the past 30 years a different country has hosted the WED celebration; this is the first year Wellington, New Zealand has been the official host city. As the host of WED 2008, on the theme of “Kick the Carbon Habit,” New  Zealand is one of the first countries to pledge a carbon-neutral future.
 
Moving Towards a Balanced Earth: Kick the Carbon Habit features the works of 27 artists representing 20 countries.  The contemporary art pieces all focus on climate change, with an emphasis on lowering carbon emissions. The thought-provoking exhibition includes photographs, paintings, sculpture, video, multimedia and conceptual installations. 
 
Each year, NWM and UNEP launch their annual flagship exhibit in honor of WED – a principal vehicle through which the United Nations stimulates awareness of the environment and enhances political action. Each exhibit focuses on a different environmental issue and utilizes the universal language of art as a catalyst to raise global awareness as it tours the world. After New Zealand, the exhibit is scheduled to tour through Latin America, North America, Asia, and Europe.

Wellington, New Zealand
4 June 2008 – 22 November 2008
Te Papa Museum

Brazil
January - June 2009

The 2007–2008 international exhibition, Melting Ice / A Hot Topic: Envisioning Change, focused on climate change, specifically melting ice caps, to coincide with last year’s WED theme. The exhibit will directly reach a projected one million viewers upon completion of the tour. It kicked off its tour in Oslo at the Nobel Peace Center during UN WED in June 2007, and then traveled to the BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, then moved to Monaco, and is now housed in the Field  Museum in Chicago, USA, where it will remain through September 1, 2008.

With 1% WATER arts centre Z33 again explores the boundaries between contemporary art and design. 1% WATER focuses on our relationship to water. The exhibition showcases works, concepts and experimental environments by designers, artists and scientists that are beginning to shape a new water consciousness. 



70% of the planet's surface is water, but only 3% of this is freshwater and only 1% is readily available for human consumption today. Factors such as the world's growing population and increasing consumption, climate change and pollution mean that even this relatively limited and unevenly distributed resource is under threat.

It goes without saying that water feeds the planet's ecosystem and flows through our bodies and our buildings. Water plays an important role in religion, spirituality and mythology in all cultures. Yet the bond that once connected humans with the source of life has been broken and the way we have used water in the last century is no longer appropriate for today. The challenge lies in creating new conditions for water's use that enhance rather than constrain our lives. 


The exhibition explores themes such as AbUse, Sacred Waters and Reconnect through works by artists, designers and graphic designers, as well as key historic pieces. Graphic designers Karlssonwilker were commissioned by Z33 to map and visualize water consumption worldwide.

The exhibition highlights the growing trend among designers to develop solutions that address basic needs for the vast majority of the world’s population - 90 percent - not traditionally serviced by professional designers.

On view at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, New York,  Design for the Other 90% features more than 30 works that demonstrate how design can be a dynamic force in transforming, and in many cases saving, lives.