Animalia Visionary Animal Magazine

Visionary Animal Magazine

WHO WE ARE:

Animalia is the first magazine to capture the positive spirit of the world of animal advocacy: profiling the people and places that are redefining our relationships with animals, and bringing stories of greater peace and congruence between our lives and theirs. Uniting pro-animal people everywhere, defining and strengthening a shift in our view of animals as sentient, autonomous beings deserving equal access to the earth's resources and a right to live free of pain and domination.

With profiles of the sanctuaries, groups and individuals advocating for animals today, the magazine will inspire greater awareness of and commitment to these issues. A forum for reflection and debate on all aspects of animal life today: The 'wind under the wings' of the animal rights and welfare movements, with illuminating and inspiring news and analysis that explores animals in arts and culture; science and history; conservation; sanctuaries; companion animals; and first person essay and commentary. Packaged with brilliant photography and illustrations and a clean, accessible design.

Animalia will help animals on two fronts:

1- firstly, the product itself will raise awareness of their issues and foster contribution to their causes.

2- secondly, Animalia will funnel 10% of its profits directly to those agencies impacting the lives of animals: from The Jane Goodall Institute to The Humane Society, the SPCA, Fund for Animals (legal advocacy), Farm Sanctuary, and many more.

The goal is to raise seed funds in the first three quarters of 2007, with the 1st issue launch in March 2008. We have a prototype, media kit, 2008 story list and rudimentary business plan. We are also developing strategic partnerships with large animal rights groups to help fund the magazine.

WHAT WE NEED:

We would like to enter the business plan in the Social Venture competition, as well as begin showing the plan to outside investors (affluent people in the world of animal advocacy, of which there are many, are likely to support this business - not banks or traditional VC's.) So we are seeking an MBA to help refine and fill in some of the market research, as well as contribute their own ideas. This could also be a ground floor opportunity for someone passionate about the idea to be on a partnership level as we move forward.

CONTACT
We are in the East Bay Area. Please email for more information: sfariel@sbcglobal.net

MILLEE: Mobile and Immersive Learning for LIteracy in Emerging Economies

Literacy in a global or national language (e.g. English, Mandarin Chinese, etc.) is a key to socioeconomic success in the developing world. Such literacy opens the doors to regional and international markets, careers in the formal economy, continuing education where the language of instruction is a majority language, as well as social services.

After more than two years of educational experiments in developing regions, a clear opportunity emerged: while the desktop computer is currently the platform of choice in practically any grassroots literacy program, mobile devices offer significantly more convenience due to inadequate building infrastructure and irregular electricity in rural areas. There is a more fundamental social argument: since a substantial fraction of children in developing regions have limited time to attend school regularly when they need to perform agricultural work, housework, etc., learning in out-of-school settings made possible by mobile technologies can potentially increase access to literacy by at least an order of magnitude.

We believe that educational games on cellphones can address the above challenges. In particular, we believe that game-like design can improve enjoyment of the learning experience and encourage spontaneous adoption. Informed by educational theories on language acquisition, we are designing a suite of mobile learning applications that target literacy and language learning. These applications will run on cellphones, the fastest growing technology platform in emerging economies.

The role of the MBA student(s):

Since our existing team is made up of people with backgrounds in computer science, education and economic development, we are seeking an MBA student to complement us. He/she will help us examine various community business models that leverage the above cellphone applications. He/she will also be responsible for taking the lead on the business plan for the GSVC.

Contact Matthew Kam, mattkam@cs.berkeley.edu

Mapping Knowledge for Community Call Center (Pucho Kyun)

Community Call Center:
Setup a community call center in India building an educational resource
database that can be queried and content that is interactive.

Role of graduate student:
Need graduates who have a working knowledge of GIS technology, developers to
build the database and any student in the education field who would like to
be involved in content development and interactive media.

Netika Raval
Fellow, Digital Vision Program
Stanford University
650-725-1499

Boulevard R

Boulevard R brings independent, personalized retirement advice to consumers in the mass affluent segment through a web-based service that leverages professional advice and user-generated content to address issues of increasing complexity and responsibility in retirement planning.

We are looking for students with marketing and business development backgrounds.Our educational personal finance tools empower consumers by providing independent and personalized retirement advice to the masses at no cost to users. Our social mission is to increase the success rate of consumers planning for retirement.

The founder's background is in human rights, as well as consumer rights. While at Cal he was the first undergrad to receive a summer fellowship from the Center for Human Rights (2000) .

The startup evolved out of a problem the founder's dad had with retirement planning and the realization that there are a growing number of people in his situation. We have brought together a team of programmers, designers and independent financial advisors who also feel passionately about delivering valuable tools to the marketplace.

Matt Iverson
matt.iverson@gmail.com
415.250.6727