Ignite Charlotte

1st Charitable Gift – The Sandbox

Ignite Charlotte April 3, 2012 Blog and News 0 Comments

Ignite Charlotte, in partnership with eval.me, offers its first charitable gift to a local charity that was chosen by Ignite Charlotte 4 attendees.

Ignite Charlotte Facebook fans were the first to recommend their favorite charities and the top three were showcased during Ignite Charlotte 4, held at the Neighborhood Theatre on March 20^th. Attendees placed a checkmark, an element used in eval.me’s logo design, on a large post-it that corresponded with their favorite charity. Votes were tallied after intermission and The Sandbox was announced as the winning recipient of Ignite Charlotte’s first charitable gift.

About The Sandbox

An Authorized Partner of Levine Children’s Hospital, The Sandbox helps patients and their families through a wide spectrum of offerings and services, so they can focus on the two most important factors – Believing and Healing! They restore belief and positivity, and walk alongside the families to give them support, both emotionally and financially, during the most tumultuous times of their lives. Find them on Facebook and Twitter.

“Everything we do as Ignite Charlotte is designed to provide a platform for ideas to take flight while supporting other community members. With the generous sponsorship support of eval.me, we were able to turn survey responses into dollars that served as our first charitable gift,” said Bridget B. Sullivan, founder and executive producer of Ignite Charlotte. 118 surveys were completed and that dollar amount will be donated to The Sandbox.

About eval.me

After creating and administering surveys for University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Flaviu Simihaian started eval.me to add a humanitarian face to the online survey industry. eval.me provides an online tool that allows you to create a survey, email it to your customers, collect the responses, and make the charity contribution.

Companies need their customers’ opinion, but customers are often bothered by survey emails. eval.me has partnered with charities around the world to allow companies to donate $1 to charity for every customer that completes their survey. This charitable act improves response rates, quality of responses, and the company’s image in their customers’ eyes.

As a former Ignite Charlotte 2 speaker, Flaviu said, “I too share the same passion in regards to awareness, involvement and the development of new and fresh ideas that benefit our community. Ignite Charlotte is one of the best “Critical Thinking” events in Charlotte and this charitable giving partnership was an obvious choice.”

About Ignite Charlotte

Ignite Charlotte is an evening of networking with the main feature being a series of 5 minute talks by community members who have the guts to get on stage to tell those in attendance about their personal or professional passion. Talks are selected from a large pool of submissions and each selected speaker uses 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds making the rapid delivery of ideas more exciting to attendees while challenging the presentation skills of the speaker.

Brady Forrest, Technology Evangelist for O’Reilly Media, and Bre Pettis of Makerbot.com, formerly of MAKE Magazine, started Ignite inSeattle,WAcirca 2006. The Charlotte edition of Ignite was co-founded by Bridget B. Sullivan in 2010 and joins 150 other cities around the world.

“Enlighten us, but make it quick,” is the mantra and key to Ignite talks. This truly fun, exciting, and unique presentation format brings together community members involved in technology, arts, communications, education, non-profit, the government sector, and more.

Admission to Ignite Charlotte is FREE due to sponsorship support. Ignite Charlotte 5 will be held in six months at the Neighborhood Theatre in the North Davidson neighborhood of Charlotte. Follow Ignite Charlotte on Facebook and Twitter to receive the latest information.

Ignite Charlotte 4 – Part 2 Recap

Ignite Charlotte March 22, 2012 Blog and News 0 Comments

Ignite Charlotte 4 Press Corp – Part 2 Recap

During the intermission, everyone had a chance to meet and greet the speakers. There was also plenty of great networking taking place in a laidback environment. After intermission, Part 2 of Ignite Charlotte 4 kicked off and speakers took the stage for their time to shine.

J. Richard Byrd, delivered his talk “Lessons from My Grandfather”. He went over the four or five life lessons his grandfather taught him before passing; work hard, smile, keep singing and if you don’t know the words to the song, just say watermelon, watermelon, watermelon. We heard some enlightening and inspiring words, including “You have to pay your way, and you have to contribute.” His grandfather taught him that “you should contribute and make sure you’re doing something with your life.” The key message shared by Richard shows how we can turn the most trying times into golden opportunities. So, “get off the sidelines and jump in.”

Next we heard enlightening words from Raquel Vélez. Her talk was titled, “Engineering for the Masses”. “She helped us understand that engineering isn’t a science; it’s an art. It’s not a major; it’s a way of thinking and more importantly when you have an idea and need to get to a final solution, the Engineering Design Process (EDP) helps us get there in just a few easy steps that “anyone” can do.” It’s important to identify your problem, do your research, design, build, and then test. For encouraging words on how we could move forward with our own engineering endeavors, we heard “it’s impossible to fail unless you give up.”

Redvers Davies was the third speaker in Part 2 of Ignite Charlotte 4 and he offered some useful advice on “How to Build Everything”. An example given was of the ease required to build an Android smartphone in the 21st century. “Red” stressed that “the roadblocks to build something are in our heads not our hands. “If you can think it you can build it.” It was his call to arms to the inner creator inside us all. He went on to emphasize that “the technology is there for the taking. If you can’t build something then build something that will build it for you! It is time for you to step up, shake off the shackles of consumerism that the world has spent billions of dollars convincing you that you were destined for. It is time for you to create!”

Technology is only relevant when it’s personal. The next speaker, Antoine RJ Wright, expressed the idea that what’s in your hands is enough to create, similar to what the previous speaker stated. “The Big Wheel Effect of Digital Finger Painting” was the title of his talk and one of the points he made was that “there’s more to tech than communications.” Antoine stressed the need to shift our way of thinking in order to bring more color and excitement back into our everyday life. One of the highlights of his talk was how he created designs using an iPad that expressed the colors of images he was surrounded by at the time. He observed how most people around him were living their lives with their heads down; looking at their computers, phones, books, and even cups of coffee. Inspiration came by way of finger painting what was around him. As he did this, he began to discover the world in a whole new palette of color. It was clear that he wanted us to slow down and live in the moment.

Moving into a controversial space, Dan Roselli offered an alternative to the status quo of politics. His talk, “Web 3.0 – The Coming Death of Political Parties”, was accompanied by plenty of stats showing the historical data of American politics. “Who’s in charge? We are.” Dan highlighted how ” The web would change EVERYTHING for the next 250 years of US democracy and how roots are forming from the ”Social Media” spark of the Arab Spring to the grass roots mobilization of US voters. There is a movement called the ”National Popular Vote” which is about to change the face of US elections by guaranteeing that everyone’s vote counts in every state.” Through a very well organized talk, Dan shared with us all the current evolution of American politics.

Our last speaker, Nick Breaux, inspired us to, “Give a Little”. He expressed how “your ability to serve others does not rely on sacrificing who you are. It means sharing yourself and your abilities to make things happen. As a leader and responsible members of society, it’s our responsibility to empower every person we meet to be the best they can be. Don’t serve others because you should. Do it because it brings joy.” He used a metaphor of a Sunflower and bumble bee as an example of how pollination and multiplicity go hand and hand. As YOU give a little, others will be inspired to give as well.

Everyone in attendance left feeling inspired to take on their world in a different way. The energy flowing through the Neighborhood Theatre throughout the evening was nothing short of magnificent. Thanks to the speakers, volunteers, and sponsors, Ignite Charlotte 4 was a huge success. Ignite Charlotte 5 is in 6 months, so get ready with your idea…NOW!

Contributor: Lewis Banks (@lbanksvo), Ignite Charlotte 4 Volunteer