I really dig Fred Hollows

There was always something cool about the late and great Professor Fred Hollows. So I was delighted to see his 90 second television ad has been named the world’s best not for profit television advertisement at an awards ceremony held in The Netherlands.

The Fred Hollows Foundation’s award winning advertisement has been showing on Australian television since June this year.

It features archival footage of Fred Hollows, combined with stories of people from around the world who have had their sight restored by The Fred Hollows Foundation.

It also includes music by Australian band Jet, who provided their song Shine On as a soundtrack.

To view The Fred Hollows Foundation’s winning advertisement see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2opo45uPzk

Remember 3 out of 4 people who are blind don’t have to be.

For more information go to The Fred Hollows Foundation.

National Computer Science School for Australian students

What is NCSS?

The National Computer Science School (NCSS) is a week long summer school for students going into years 11 and 12. NCSS brings together talented young people from around Australia for an intensive course of computer programming and website development in the School of IT at the University of Sydney.

NCSS 2010 will run from Saturday 2 January to Monday 11 January, 2010 (inclusive).

NCSS has been offered in various formats since 1996, when it was initiated by the University’s Foundation for Information Technology. This makes 2010 the 15th year of the program.

NCSS is organised by academic staff, alumni and students of the School of Information Technologies. The school is completely residential, with all students staying with NCSS staff in full-board accommodation provided by The Women’s College, within the main Camperdown campus of The University of Sydney.

It’s definitely worth supporting this initiative especially if you have the skills to be a tutor. Applications for http://www.ncss.edu.au/ are now open.  They put some effort into attracting applications from girls and from students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The Cunningham Dax Collection presents Out of the Dark the Emotional Legacy of the Holocaust

Out of the Dark: the Emotional Legacy of the Holocaust
The Cunningham Dax Collection
Presented in association with the Jewish Holocaust Centre
Opening 22 October 2009

Out of the Dark brings together a selection of artworks made by child survivors and children of survivors of the Holocaust. The exhibition explores the continuing psychological effects that the Holocaust has had throughout these generations. Out of the Dark considers the trans-generational emotional legacy of the Holocaust, viewed through the creative lens of its survivors and subsequent generations.

VISIT > Gallery hours: Wed – Fri 10am to 4pm, Saturday 1 to 5pm, Admission FREE
MAP > http://tiny.cc/FSKdV

The Cunningham Dax Collection
35 Poplar Road
Parkville, Melbourne 3052
Victoria
T 61 3 9342 2394
F 61 3 9381 2008
www.daxcollection.org.au

Grit Media. Shamelessly Disabled is on the lookout for Media Mentors

GRIT MEDIA is looking for volunteers to mentor or train people with disabilities in media, design, video or radio.

Deadline: ongoing

Check out www.gritmedia.org.au and contact director@gritmedia.org.au for more information.

For those interested in the participating in the Media mentorships…

Grit Media currently offers the disabled community the opportunity to reach beyond the parameters of its own imagination. For the next six months we are offering Mentored Placements in all types of creative media environments and for varying lengths of times. These placements can range from anywhere between four hours to up to a week depending on the individuals needs and the companies idiosyncrasies.

Organizations renowned for their cutting edge supremacy will now open their own doors of perception to allow anyone from the “allability” community to sample their cerebral smorgasbord of creatively inventive delights.

If you have ever desired to examine the realms of film, television, stills photography, print media, event management, video installation and beyond, or have ever wanted to see a director, producer or sound engineer (to name a few) at work, then please download an information/application form here.

The only stipulations for eligibility are that you are over eighteen, become a member of Grit Media (its free and without strings) and dare to dream big.

Grit Media Mentoring… be a part of it and be a part of history.

A Victorian, not-for-profit organisation with the purpose of producing media with, for and by people with disabilities.

Robogals, engaging girls in robotics.

Robogals Inc. is a not-for-profit organization, which aims to increase the number of girls undertaking science, engineering and technology courses at university. Robogals does this by engaging girls in robotics from a young age in a way that is fun and educational. The volunteer university students are trained in LEGO robotics and then visit schools to teach LEGO robotics to the students.

Robogals was founded in July 2008, and within three weeks, had enlisted the help of 80 university students. Within the next 2.5 months, Robogals taught over 120 girls from 7 schools in the state of Victoria, Australia. Since the founder moved to London, she has set it up in the United Kingdom, while the organisation has been successfully continued in Victoria, Australia, supported by the University of Melbourne and its students.

This organization has an international reach, operating in Australia and the United Kingdom.

Robogals

Introduction to free software by Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry does his take on understanding free software, and software freedom.

Saturday 19 September is International Software Freedom Day. Software Freedom Day aims to promote and inform about programs that are freely available to everyone to install and use.

For more information:

General information.    http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/
Information about the Canberra events http://softwarefreedomday.org/teams/Canberra
Information on some of the programs being given away http://www.theopendisc.com/programs/
Open Source as alternative      http://www.osalt.com/
One of the distributions of Linux available on the day http://www.ubuntu.com/
Another distribution of Linux available on the day http://fedoraproject.org/

Future shots, sustainability film challenge for young Victorians

Future Shots is a short film challenge to all young people living in Victoria.

Tackling one of the most important issues affecting the world today: SUSTAINABLITY

The challenge is to make a film of three minutes or less, of any type or genre that addresses the key question:

Sustainability: What’s it all about?

Future Shots is looking for creativity, inspiration, discussions and solutions.

You are encouraged to explore, interpret, and then commit to film your personal ideas about sustainability, what it means to you and your community and how you think it can be achieved.

Films entered into Future Shots by the 21 September, 2009 will be placed in the draw to win either a Sony HandyCam or an Ipod Touch.

If you have already completed a short film under three minutes on sustainability don’t miss this opportunity to be in the draw for another great prize.

Read the Future Shots guidelines to make sure your film meets the requirements, and enter.

More info at Future Shots. And yeah you should be under 21 years of age…;)

Inform: An Interactive Fiction Design System

Inform: An Interactive Fiction Design System

“Inform is a design system for interactive fiction based on natural language. It is a radical reinvention of the way interactive fiction is designed, guided by contemporary work in semantics and by the practical experience of some of the world’s best-known writers of IF.”

Kick Like a Girl. Women and AFL

Kick Like a Girl is a part of research project being undertaken by Lisa Gye at Swinburne University, which examines the roles that women play in the support, maintenance and advancement of AFL football in Australia. The high levels of participation by women in AFL football are well documented. As well as being passionate supporters of the game at every level, women now occupy roles which have, until recently, been dominated by men – as media commentators, umpires, coaches, club administrators and AFL commissioners.

Website: Kick Like a Girl

Software Freedom Day 2009

A world wide celebration of Free and Open Source Software and the community behind it.

Talks:
* Beginning programming with Python, Minh Nguyen
* GIMP, Andrew Thornton
*  How to move to open source, Daniel Jitnah
* OpenOffice, Jessica Smith
*  Introduction to distributed version control with Mercurial,
Duana Stanley
*  Demo/workshop: Installing Linux on your netbook, Wen Lin (BYO
netbook!)
*  How to back up using Clonezilla, Wen Lin
*  Build your own website with Drupal, Simon Hobbs

Workshops:
* Introduction to WordPress, Kathy Reid
* Advanced WordPress, Kathy Reid
* Hands-on hardware hacking (Arduinos), Andy Gelme (limited
places, may be a small cost for hardware)
* Inkscape, Donna Benjamin

–
Software Freedom Day 2009        http://www.softwarefreedomday.org/melb

11am – 4pm, Saturday 19 September
Melbourne PC Club Rooms, 2nd Floor, Chadstone Place, Chadstone
Shopping Centre. (See Map at http://luv.asn.au/sfd)