Monthly Archives

August 2017

Aug 29
0

Announcing the #Hack4Homelessness Prizes

By | Hack4Homelessness, Hackathing, Social Impact, The Feed

We’ve been working very hard behind the scenes to bring the right people, mentors, supporters and experts to help you build the most amazing solutions to the challenges of homelessness. But right now, we’d like to share information about the prize pool for the #Hack4Homelessness. Remember, you can register to participate here.

The prizes will help extend your project well beyond the weekend of the 15-17 September. They include:

1st Prize

  • $1500 in cash
  • 3 months co-working space at Vibewire for up to 6 members (valued at $3000)
  • 1 free part time AcademyXi course for one of the team members or ($1,250 credit for each member)
  • $100 AcademyXi Bootcamp ticket for each winning member
  • Premium membership to Social Change Central

2nd Prize

  • $500 in cash
  • A copy of ‘SPRINT: solve big problems and test new ideas in just 5 days’ by Jake Knapp for each member
  • $100 AcademyXi Bootcamp ticket for each winning member
  • $1,000 credit for each team member  (part-time courses)

3rd Prize

  • $100 AcademyXiBootcamp ticket for each winning member
  • $750 AcademyXi credit for each team member (part-time courses)

Conditions of AcademyXi credits:

  • 12 months expiry
  • Non-transferrable to others
  • Can’t be used with other offers

Check out the AcademyXi courses available including growth marketing, virtual reality design and product management!

Don’t forget to register!

If you have not registered as yet, you can do so as an individual or as a team.

Aug 29
0

Introducing SSE

By | Hack4Homelessness, Hackathing, The Feed
vibewire logo

With our social impact hackathon, #Hack4Homelessness scheduled for 15-17 September 2017, we thought we’d go behind the scenes to talk with our partners and sponsors. To kick off we spoke with Stephen Rutter, the Head of Experience with Sydney School for Entrepreneurship.

With more than 20 years in global business environments covering logistics, entertainment and education management under his belt, we wanted to understand what motivated him to become involved in our Hack4Homelessness hackathon next month.

“SSE is an unprecedented new partnership – with 11 NSW based universities and TAFE NSW”, explains Stephen. “This is our launch year thanks to cornerstone investment by the NSW Government.

Stephen is committed to cultivating and expanding the SSE community and noted the importance of “providing the voiceless a voice. Sydney School of Entrepreneurship is committed to building a community that not only serves the member institutions but our entrepreneurial partners for a wider social impact”.

The aim is reduce the amount of people in a state of homelessness and provide intervention methods to reduce people being forced onto the streets. Stephen believes we can make this difference by having the homeless ‘as a part of the community and looking at their needs as we would other stakeholders’.

Stephen is looking forward to action coming out of the hackathon with ‘new ideas that can be translated into solutions to solve homelessness’. With SSE having just launched as part of the entrepreneurial community we are excited to see them tackle many more social impact opportunities like #Hack4Homelessness in the future.

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Vibewire’s #Hack4Homelessness brings Australia’s leading technology, engineering and social impact students, social entrepreneurs and startups together to tackle the challenge of homelessness. Running from 15-17 September 2017, you can register as a participant here.

Aug 28
0

Good Vibes with Vibewire: Round 2

By | The Feed

Welcome to Good Vibes with Vibewire, your regular dose of the fresh and the fun. The entrepreneur world can be pretty ruthless at times so here are a few positive points to get behind.

vibewire logo

+ PRESSing news — Channel 10, which went into receivership in June, has been bought by US broadcaster CBS. The offer is still pending regulatory approval, but if successful, hopefully we’ll be seeing more creative stateside content coming to down under free-to-air. CBS is home to some great productions (looking at you The Good Wife), and it will be interesting to see how the future of free to air broadcast changes with the influence of foreign ownership. Fingers-crossed that Australian-made and locally produced content doesn’t get the cut! What will happen to our favourite-soap-that-nobody-watches, Neighbours??

+ Look What You Made Me Do, a shout-out to Taylor Swift! The famous songstress has released the first single for her upcoming album Reputation (release date Nov 10). It’s been getting some mixed reviews, but no doubt we’ll know the words in no time (whether we want to or not). With inspiring lines such as ‘I’ll be the actress starring in your bad dreams’, now we all have a new anthem to sing next time we’re bathing in a tub full of jewels or robbing a bank in a cat-mask.

+ With the postal-vote plebiscite making its way to our mailboxes very shortly, there’s no time like the present for some great think-pieces about equality. Check out the upcoming Quarterly Essay by Benjamin Law, Moral Panic 101: equality, acceptance and the safe schools scandal, (release date Sep 9) for an insightful look into homophobia in contemporary Australian society and how we are failing vulnerable youth.

+ “To read every article the Australian has published on Safe Schools is to induce nausea. This isn’t even a comment on the content, just the sheer volume … And yet, across this entire period, the Australian – self-appointed guardian of the safety of children – spoke to not a single school-aged LGBTIQ youth. Not even one. Later, queer teenagers who followed the Safe Schools saga told me the dynamic felt familiar. At school, it’s known as bullying. In journalism, it’s called a beat-up” —Benjamin Law, Moral Panic 101.

Photograph: Picture courtesy of Taylor Swift/Big Machine 

Aug 09
0

Forget the Politics – Help Us #Hack4Homelessness

By | Hack4Homelessness, Hackathing, Social Impact, The Feed

Young changemakers step in to co-create a solution to homelessness

NSW has the highest rates of homelessness in the country. A third of homeless resulting from domestic violence and relationship issues, a third resulting from accommodation issues ( including people leaving care) and 22% resulting from financial difficulties.

Vibewire’s #Hack4Homelessness brings Australia’s leading technology, engineering, data and social impact students, social entrepreneurs and startups together to tackle the challenge of homelessness.

Into this mix, we bring:

  • Leading experts in the field of homelessness
  • People with the shared or lived experience of homelessness
  • Local and international leaders seeking to address the myriad challenges that face those dealing with homelessness.

“This is not just a political issue and it can’t be solved in isolation without speaking to people who are or have experienced homelessness. Our hack brings people and organisations together whether you’re in tech development, social policy, finance or architecture. We’re determined to drive change”, says Susan Shi, Executive Director of Vibewire.

“Young people are disproportionately represented in these figures.” explains Susan Shi. “It often starts as couch surfing away from a family conflict before falling into a cycle of homelessness and stressed mental health. We need to refocus on early intervention”.

Big names, real people

You can’t create real solutions at a distance. Vibewire has been co-creating innovative solutions to social challenges for almost two decades, and it has learned that co-creation – working with the people who experience the problem is the fastest way to a lasting solution.

Jewish House came on board early – helping us frame the challenges that we wanted to work on. Telstra Foundation, QBE Insurance and St George Community Housing are sponsoring and providing expertise and support. Our friends at the Minerva Collective will help with data analysis and expertise feeding into the hackathon teams.

Why a hackathon?

“Hackathons and innovation techniques solve massive international challenges every day. There is no reason we can’t take the same approach to the challenge of homelessness – after all, the current approaches are abject failures.”

Today we are calling out for Hackers, Hipsters, Hustlers and Humanitarians to join us for the weekend 15-17 September. People can sign up on our Eventbrite page. Those who register will receive more detailed information over the coming weeks.

Aug 08
2

Good Vibes with Vibewire: Round 1

By | The Feed

Welcome to Good Vibes with Vibewire, your regular dose of the fresh and the fun. The entrepreneur world can be pretty ruthless at times so here are a few positive points to get behind.

vibewire logo

+ Podcasts are all the rage right now and keep them coming we say; check out On Being with Krista Tippett and her June 23 episode with Martin Sheen, Spirituality of Imagination, for a thoughtful discussion on faith and his extensive artistic career. Did you know Martin Sheen’s real name is actually Ramon Estevez? Here’s a cute quote from the interview:

“…what we do for a living — that is, artists — is, we live on the energy of our imagination. Our imagination projects us to fulfil our work, and it is the one sure measure of authenticity, is to use your imagination to explore realities.”

+ Fresh film recc with The Big Sick (released in Aussie cinemas from August 3). This heart-warming, cross-cultural tale is already being hailed as one of the best rom-coms of the year and has a 98% ‘fresh’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes. With Kumail Nanjiani — who you might recognise from Silicon Valley — as leading man and co-writer, The Big Sick is making a big splash towards greater diversity on our screens.

 

+ A recently leaked internal Google memo has highlighted some of the glaring inequities that are part of the current tech environment — read this excellent August 6 write up by Ian Bogost on The Atlantic — while it’s a pretty heavy topic, let’s keep the good vibes coming by throwing support behind the women and people from minorities (some of whom are part of the Vibewire community) who are working hard to circumvent the traditional narrative and paving the way for change.

Photograph: Photo by Nicole Rivelli/StudioCanal