High tech camp with a heart of gold

Andrew Revkin recently reported a piece, Pop!Tech Boot Camp for Innovators, spotlighting some awesome upcoming collaboration.

Pop!Tech is an annual gathering, “a one-of-a-kind conference, a community of remarkable people, and an ongoing conversation about science, technology and the future of ideas.” The event is being held this year in Maine, in late October. Six hundred innovative thinkers from across the sciences, technology, business, design, the arts, education, government and culture, are going to swap ideas and expand each other’s horizons. This year’s topic is Scarcity and Abundance “in areas ranging from digital social networks to environmentalism, from biology to business, from peacemaking to politics.”

The 2008 conference is also, as reported by Revkin, “inaugurating a three-day boot camp of sorts for young entrepreneurs trying to make the world a better place.” Sixteen fellows chosen from an entry pool of over 100 have been selected to attend the conference and connect with professional mentors “who can help expand their tool kit for advancing education, prosperity and environmental and social quality.”

Projects the young entrepreneurs are working on include the Darfur Stove Project, Global Citizen Year, and Kiwanja.net, which is “pioneering new uses for mobile-phone technology that improves lives in poor places.”

Extremely cool execution of collaboration both at the main conference and in this pilot mentor program. Revkin also includes a Q&A with Abby Falik, of Global Citizen Year, which aims to get high school kids to take off a year before college to work on global poverty solutions.