Awesome Foundation KW Meets Kwartzlab

This week we had yet another amazing pitch night for Awesome Foundation KW. It was a tough decision, but we decided to fund Kwartzlab’s “Hacky Halloween” project.

I’m really excited about this project, and I think this paragraph from their blog post shows why:

We live in a world of electronics. Learning a simple skill like soldering and seeing a bunch of parts turn into a working device is the first step to realizing that all those gadgets that everyone uses every day are made. They’re made by ordinary people. You can make them too. It gives you the courage to take things apart and see if you can put them back together again, or re-purpose them after they stop being useful. It opens up a door to understand the world around you a little bit better.

As an engineer, it worries me when humans see technology as a black box they mustn’t look inside. I don’t think people should be afraid – and I don’t think they should be content with terrible products. Knowing enough to demand better – even better, to make it better is important! I think this is becoming a necessary life skill.

We all have our different ideas of what awesome is, and we deliberately keep it vague because we don’t want to rule anything out. Awesome is often a surprise. It’s more than the sum of it’s parts.

I think bringing people joy and brightening their day is awesome. The Secret Gardener and the Food Love project both did this. I’m confident this project will too. I also think it will inspire people to take something apart that they were afraid to, to build something they weren’t sure they could – and that, sounds pretty freakin’ awesome to me.

Thanks to everyone who came out, and especially everyone who turned out to pitch! So many great projects and as ever, I left energized and inspired.