bigsight

Digital Divide Data is an innovative nonprofit in SE Asia which aims to break the cycle of poverty by empowering the region’s poorest citizens to deliver world-class IT services to global clients. They have four positions available that start January 2008 in Cambodia and Loas. The positions are General Management, Project Management, Sales Team Mentor, and Technology Trainer. Applications are due mid November, so contact Sophy Yem directly at sophy @ digitaldividedata.org for more information if you are interested. Portman Wills and Gordon Peters of bigsight have both spent time working with DDD>

Peace Corps veteran, chef, and Zen monk Josh Swiller recently published The Unheard: A Memoir of Deafness and Africa, which documents his time in Zambia, where he struggled to reconcile his deafness amid harsh conditions in a remote African village. “I was never planning to write a memoir. I scribbled a lot of notes but that was mainly because there was tons of time and the stuff that was happening was so strange. After I came back to the states, I actually didn’t write for 3-4 years.” Josh eventually joined a local writers circle and began to put his stories on paper. “Work on your book for awhile. Once it’s started to gain altitude, write a kick-ass cover letter and send it to some agents. One of them replied to me, and asked to see what I had. She then spent a year working with me on the manuscript before we submitted it to publishers.” Josh also wanted to share that for would-be writers, it’s less important to find a big name agent; instead, “you’re probably best finding someone who will work closely with you, functioning as an editor/cheerleader.” You can find out more about Josh at JoshSwiller.com or read the prologue to his book here.

Vanderbilt Senior, Alex Feinberg has brought a new trend to Vandy’s campus and athletic teams across the country. This second baseman for the nationally ranked Commodores recently introduced the “Saturday Soldier” battle band as a means to help the families of wounded and deceased soldiers in Iraq. This 21 year old economics major has successfully branded his idea and the bands can be found on players from about 25 major conference football teams. Feinberg states that, “When I started it, I wanted to create a product that college athletes would be really excited to wear. From what I’ve seen it is working out very well because college athletes want to wear everything with the Saturday Soldier brand name on it.” The proceeds from the bands go to two charities, Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund and the Fisher House Foundation (www.fisherhouse.org). For more information, or to order a Saturday Soldier battle band, visit saturdaysoldier.com

Dan Birdwhistell and Ben Sinclair, the two guys behind bigsight, on Tuesday launched a new application called FriendCSV that allows Facebook users to do a large-scale data export from their friends’ profile pages. The application has since received widespread media attention and sparked intense debate about privacy and social networks. “On Monday evening, I desperately needed a way to better visualize friend data from Facebook, and given that we have launched a few apps recently, Ben was quite familiar with the API. I was surprised when he said that he could actually do a full export of data from my entire friend group. So after spending an hour or two with all of the TOS, Privacy, and Developer Documentation, I realized that not only was this possible, but almost encouraged by Facebook, despite much of the discussion that the site is a ‘walled garden’,” shared Birdwhistell.

By early Tuesday morning, Ben had hacked together a functional app, and not more than a few hours later, Techcrunch, the leading tech blog on the net, picked the story up and ran with it. “The Facebook Developer Platform allows developers to do pretty extraordinary things inside the network, but until we launched this app, no one had really pushed on the outward edges of what could be done with friend data. People were shocked to realize how much could be done.” By 5pm on Tuesday, the application had received over 800 exports and attention on over 1,000 blogs and tech news sites. “This really appears to be the start of a much larger discussion that we’ll be having in the coming months. Ben and I were happy to throw something into the fire that sparked it, but we’re looking forward to getting back to growing bigsight.org in the next few weeks.” In addition to the CSV app, Ben and Dan also recently launched an app called Backstory which allows users to show and share the things that have influenced them in life.

Writer and producer Colin Spoelman recently teamed up with former classmate and colleague James Ponsoldt to create a 14 minute short for Safe Horizon, a domestic violence nonprofit based in New York. “The idea was to draw attention to the issue of how domestic violence affects the workplace, so it’s a little narrative movie about a woman who struggles to cope at home and in the office,” shares Spoelman. To view a trailer of the short, click here. Also, to see more of Colin’s work, check out colinspoelman.com. He recently completed Underground, his first feature film, which will be showing at film festivals around the US in the coming year.

The CPL, a political training institute developing new progressive political leaders, is seeking a Program Manager to run its New Leaders Program. The program aims to recruit and support outstanding young people from underserved populations. The ideal candidate will have 3+ years experience working with and mobilizing youth. Click for more info or contact Joan Javier at jjavier @ progressiveleaders.org

International aid and advocacy organization, Save the Children, is seeking an entry-level Finance Coordinator to work with the Director of the Newborn Health Initiative in the Finance & Grants Division. Requirements include a BA degree if Finance or Accounting and 1-2 years of experience as a financial assistant. View the full posting here or get in touch with Alicia Antayhua at AAntayhua @ savechildren.org with specific questions.

Topic Magazine Founder and Editor, David Haskell, earlier this week accepted the Deputy Culture Editor job at New York Magazine, starting October 1. In a note to colleagues, Haskell shared, “I’m very excited, and looking forward to telling you about it in person as details emerge. Meantime, Topic’s plans for the next few months–finish, print and launch Topic 11: Escape–hold steady, and a December escape party is on the calendar.” In addition to his magazine work, David has been actively involved in promoting a bike-sharing program in Manhattan.

26 y/o actor and singer Laura Bell Bundy has been receiving wide acclaim this year for her starring role as Elle Woods in the Broadway adaptation of Legally Blonde. The Hairspray and Wicked alum and her supporting cast also recently recorded a private performance for MTV, which will air on September 29 to over 15mm viewers worldwide. The Broadway production will go through March of 2008. Click here to learn more or grab a few tickets.

Ruby on Rails developer, Carter Parks, recently teamed up with a few colleagues to plan and host the first annual Rails Rumble, a 48-hour, web-based hacking challenge. RoR is a leading-edge programming tool that has attracted a passionate following: “The Rails community is incredible. We’re all bound by a common love for a great language, Ruby, and the great framework, Rails. You’d be hard pressed to find a Ruby on Rails coder who dreads their work.” It was perhaps not surprising that Carter’s event quickly attracted a good bit of attention from both developers and sponsors.

“There’s been events like this in the past for Rails during the summer, but for whatever reason nothing was happening this year. We analyzed the weak points of the past Rails Day events and we made some pretty big changes such as hosting the participants, adding another 24 hours to the length and letting the public judge the winners.” Ultimately 94 teams signed up to participate. “The Rumble produced a number of web applications that are not only innovative but useful and beautiful as well.” Click here to see the winning teams and applications.