New Needs for Sale go live tomorrow after 5PM. From left to right: Phone Calls for Our Troops for $250, A Place to Play for $250, Education for Girls for $500 and Research for a Cure $500.

My friend David is sailing from Los Angeles to Sydney on a boat he calls the Plastiki made entirely of recycled plastic bottles. What a nut case, right? I had agreed to go with him until I went on some sailing lessons and remembered how terribly (read: deathly) ill I get at sea.

Now I don’t even have to leave my bathtub to sail with this new toy Plastiki version though. Just in time for the holidays!

It’s made from cardboard approved by the Forest Stewardship council and printed with vegetable inks. Half the proceeds go to Sculpt the Future. The other half gets pooled into a life insurance fund for David. Only kidding.

Go read more about the Plastiki Expedition. And buy the toy. Awesome.

The 5 Year Plan is a collection of 32 screen-printed artworks by 32 contemporary artists. Contributors include Yoko Ono, Francesco Clemente, Donald Baechler, Chris Martin and Julie Doucet, as well as under known artists. All profits from sales of 5 Year Plan go to Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and to fund the next 5YP benefit project.

I just received maybe the best paper invitation for an industry benefit I’ve ever seen. Announcing a Non-Event Garden Party for the 25th anniversary of Design Industries Foundation Fighting Aids (DIFFA). The card says:

Feel good about not attending. No need to dress up, attend the party or listen to speeches. Just put on your most comfortable clothes and go about your day.

You do not have to attend yet another social function. You may plant the enclosed Seeds of Remembrance at your leisure on any day you choose. (Forget-me-nots included in the envelope), full invite inside below.  Well done!

“I'm working on a story that the world needs to know about. I wish for you to help me break it, in a way that provides spectacular proof of the power of news photography in the digital age.”

At the conference he couldn’t provide specifics and it took nearly two years to finally release the story, and it’s now public.  His mission is to create awareness about an extremely drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis which is killing one person every 20 seconds around the world, and it’s completely preventable.  Watch the gripping 3 minute video and help make a difference now, please spread the word.

Whether or not they’ve ever heard of the Spice Girls, adolescent females in developing nations have more or less served as the embodiment for the phrase “Girl Power”, displaying an unparalleled ability to foster drastic socio-economic change in not only their families, but also their communities and countries. Recognizing the power of these individuals and their importance on the global landscape, the Nike Foundation and the NoVo Foundation have donated $100 million and worked in conjunction with Norfolk based Grow Interactive (designers of this site) and Portland ad agency Wieden + Kennedy to bring the world’s attention to The Girl Effect. The organization and site aims at investing resources to ensure that young girls can grow into educated women and don’t fall victim to trappings such as poverty, disease, early marriage, and pregnancy, so that they may instead focus their energies on becoming the leaders of their community and making the world a better place. The site details some startling facts as to what happens when a girl gets a chance and what happens what she doesn’t. We recommend you check it out and help fix this messy world up a bit.

TED, the unbelievable once-yearly conference on spreading knowledge far and wide just launched a new, refreshing and incredibly pleasing web presence. The new website is built around their infamous tag line: “Ideas worth spreading”– so every aspect of the site is about spreading, networking, and sharing the power of TED with the rest of the world. There are more than 100 talks up there now as well as a great social networking tool for attendees, aspiring attendees and like minded folks. Be sure to check out the beautiful video-player with unique rating system, and poke around the network. Seriously, this is a site you could dive into and come out 4 hours later and 40 IQ points smarter. Congratulations to everyone involved! TED 2007 was amazing, I can’t wait for 2008!

The Open Architecture Network is an open source architecture community. It’s a network that aims to improve standards of living around the world through collaboration. They pose an interesting answer to an obvious question: How do you improve the living standards of five billion people? With 100 million solutions, your solutions. On the site you can share ideas, designs, plans and drawings– peruse other peoples drawings, manage design projects from concept through build and implementation and ultimately build a more sustainable future– They imagine that the site will not only help create, support and implement ideas, but also be a place that fosters sustainable, replicable, adaptable and scalable design solutions. I love the concept of open source architecture, last year Architecture for Humanity won the TED Prize– this was the result of their wish.

TED was not only described to me as inspirational, passionate and unique, but also as mind boggling– sometimes almost exhaustively so. Today started early, I attended the pre-conference breakfast where TED Prize winners from last year updated attendees on their progress, issues and steps towards ultimate success– I encourage you to check out some of their wishes and how far they have come, it’s quite amazing. Not long after the breakfast, the real conference kicked off with one of the most passionate, heart-felt, and moving presentations I’ve seen in a very, very long time by none other than John Doerr, one of the, if not THE most well-known venture capitalist. His speech was about how scared he was for the future of the world– how his generation had put his children, and his children’s children in such jeopardy. He spoke about how despite all the positive work on eliminating CO2 and harmful emissions in places like Brazil, and around the world– it still was not enough, and the current efforts were not even close to what’s needed. I met him later in the afternoon to thank him and he said simply, we must do something now to change this or we’re not going to last much longer on the earth. I look forward to re-watching his presentation when it’s available online– it’s not to be missed.

Doerr was followed by Nogozi Okonjo-Iwela a surprise addition to the program for many. When she took the stage I had absolutely no idea who she was or what she was here to talk about– and that unexpectedness was greeted with a humbling look into Africa like I’d never seen before. Nogozi is the Former Nigerian Finance Minister, and her short 18 minute speech honestly left me with a different view of the financial situation in not only Nigeria, but Africa as a whole. Nigeria and much of Africa is further along in their economic growth than they’re given credit for. Her speech was packed full of interesting growth statistics and ended leaving me in thoughts about Africa as a place for entrepreneurs, and a place for immense positive change. She left saying Africa is Open For Business.

Other highlights from the first session included Zipcar founder Robin Chase talking about mesh networks, the poet Rives obsession with the phrase “4 in the morning” and how it repeats itself throughout history. The first session called ‘Open For Business’ ended with Lawrence Lessig– founder of the Creative Commons movement. His presentation was absolutely fantastic and really spoke to me. That’s going to be a fabulous TED talk when it’s up on the internet for everyone to view!

The second session of the day was much different, it was called Truth & Invention. Although Erin Mckean, Editor-in-Chief of the Oxford American Dictionary was fascinating, and Nano-technologist/author Ted Sargent equally so– A humble and passionate Artist and Designer by the name of Jonathan Harris stole the show for many. We covered his project WeFeelFine many moons ago and it’s not surprising he has been working full-force on his latest project called Universe, slated to be online sometime next week! Nathan Myhrvold, former CTO of Microsoft was also great. He spoke about penguins, photography, dinosaur hunting and much more– and in 18 minutes gave me both the realization and validation that knowing a little about a lot of things is okay, like becoming a mini-expert on everything that interests you.

The third session was called simplicity– presenters like designer John Maeda and illustrator/artist Maira Kalman spoke so passionately about what they do and why they do it. Alan Kay debuted new revelations about the $100 Laptop initiative. By this third session the mind-boggling feeling had fully kicked in for the day.

The final session was the most important of the whole conference, it’s the session called I Have a Dream, where three prize winners get to present their individual wishes. The three prize winners were photographer James Nachtwey, author and scientist EO Wilson, and former president Bill Clinton. What was so interesting to me was that on one hand each of these individuals do such drastically different work, while they’re very, very similar on the other. Nachtwey’s speech was very moving– the war time photographer in my eyes is likely the most important photographer of my lifetime, if not the entire 21st century. When he took the stage he admitted how difficult receiving this award in front of so many people would be, as he has spent a majority of his life being invisible–blending into crowds of people, troops, etc taking photographs on the front line. The best way to describe his speech is to give you a quote by him: “I have been a witness, and these pictures are my testimony. The events I have recorded should not be forgotten and must not be repeated.” His wish was for us to help him break a a story that the world needs to know about in a way that provides spectacular proof of the power of news photography in the digital age. He hasn’t yet shared the story he is working on– but I have my guesses. You can read more about his wish and what he needs to make it a reality here.

EO Wilson’s acceptance speech was very different, he said at first he stood on stage speaking on behalf of the ‘little things in the world’, the insects, bacteria, etc. His scientific studies have led him (and many other scholars) to believe that if we destroy the insects in the world, the rest of the world won’t function properly, and therefore will not continue and cease to exist. His wish was that we will work together to help create the key tool that we need to inspire preservation of Earth’s biodiversity: the Encyclopedia of Life. You can read more about his wish and what’s needed to make that happen here.

Last but certainly not least was a speech and wish by President Bill Clinton. His speech was fairly casual and refreshing– Every other time I’ve ever seen the former president, let alone any president speak it has been with a teleprompter in a suit and tie with an American Flag pin on their jacket. I think he obviously hit his stride with his Clinton Global Initiative momentum. He spoke about, no surprise to many, Rwanda– but what was most interesting is that while solving the major issues in Rwanda he wants to create a foot print and system that can be deployed in thousands of other places around the world in need. His wish was for us to help create a better future for Rwanda by assisting his foundation, in partnership with the Rwandan Government, to build a sustainable, high quality rural health system for the whole country. Clinton’s words resonated with me because I recently saw an interview where he was asked what, if anything, did he regret about his time in office– and he said he felt like he could have and should have intervened and stopped the genocide in Rwanda– but he didn’t. You can see more details about his wish here.

Presentations like these really put life, and what we spend our time doing throughout it into a serious perspective…

More TED to come tomorrow!

Everyone is buzzing about the new Furni Artist Clock Auction– and they’re not alone. Furni rallied the participation of artists like James Kerr (left), Cody Hudson, and many more. All the proceeds of the auction go directly to Skate for Cancer. The auction begins Monday February 12th, at 8EST. Great artwork, great clocks, great cause.

The Wurstminster Dog Show is now live, a project where artists were invited to reserve a dog breed on a first come, first serve basis. Every artist attempted to capture the look and spirit of each breed in their own unique way. A portion of proceeds go to a DoveLewis, a Portland, OR emergency animal hospital. It’s hard to pick favorites, but I love Dan Funderburgh’s Briard ($400), a collage on wood, Scott Rench’s Golden Retriever ($125), a slip-cast earthenware with ceramic over-glaze decals, and of course, Cody Hudson’s Akita ($800), mixed media. Browse around and support a great cause!

The Darfur Wall project is taking an interesting approach at visualizing the devastating data around the mass genocide in Darfur. The site shows 400,000 numbers (from 1 to 400,000), one for each person killed in Darfur– donate one dollar or more to turn a number from dark gray to brilliant light and honor one lost life. At that time of writing this, 10343 numbers have been lit, or 2.59%– What’s probably more remarkable is that this was from only 716 donations, making the average donation $15. 100% of all proceeds go to four different independent Darfur relief organizations– what are you waiting for?

Although part of me agrees with what Ross Lovegrove wrote on his ‘plastic puppy,’ “When the world faces massive environmental issues, why are we making plastic dogs” (top right), I still thought the entire Puppy Love: Puppies Fight Cancer exhibit was absolutely fantastic. If you missed our earlier post on it, the quick background is pretty simple: Luminaire teamed up with Christies, they gave out plastic puppies to 35 world renowned artists, architects and designers, urging them to create unique (and auction-able creations). Puppies start at $5000 and all the proceed go directly towards cancer research. It was hard to pick favorites, and even harder to pull the tricker on a bid at that price, but Jose Parla’s puppy (bottom right) was easily one of the ‘best in show’– we look forward to seeing his exhibit, Cityscapes, later tonight. More pictures of the pups after the jump!
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“It’s extra virgin, great on salads and a lubricant for relationships in the Middle East.” Peace Oil, is olive oil produced in Northern Israel by a staff of Arabs, Jews, Bedouins and Druze working together– and as most of you know this is a rare occurence. The oil is pressed from organically grown Suria olives, and is produced by hand– in fact the olives are pressed in the mill only hours after they’re taken from the trees. Profit from sales of this product are used to support peace and reconciliation work in the Middle East. Hopefully with these kinds of projects barriers can be broken down and replaced with understanding and respect. A bottle of the good stuff runs at about 10 Pounds, and if you order yours now you’ll have it in time for the holidays. Via Treehugger

Miami based Luminaire teamed up with Christie’s to help ‘puppies fight cancer‘– that is, they had 36 world renowned artists, architects and designers to convert a plastic 3D puppy into a beautiful and unique creation. Artists like Elke Walter, Antonio Citterio, Marcel Wanders, Ryan McGuinness, Shigeru Uchida and many more donated their time and final product to the project. The results, as you can see here, are truly great– and we can’t wait to see these puppies in person during Art Basel in Miami at the Luminaire Showroom. Check out their site for full address and viewing times if you think you’ll be in the area. 100% of proceeds from the sale of these pups goes directly to cancer research at the University of Miami Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center.