UN Presented With First Ever Crowdsourced AIDS Recommendations

The spread of HIV and AIDS continues to spread amongst young people (aged 15-24 years) with an estimated five million living with HIV as well as 3000 newly infected each day.  Youth leaders from around the world have presented a set of crowdsourced recommendations for AIDS response to UNAIDS, the United Nation's joint program for tackling HIV and AIDS. The strategy is designed to help better prevent and contain the spread of AIDS amongst young people through 2015, and on 24th April 2012 the findings were presented to Michel Sidibé, Executive Director for UNAIDS. 

Recent surveys carried out in low and middle income nations that on 24% of young women and 36% of young men demonstrated accurate knowledge of HIV/AIDS prevention and transmission. These results combined with continued rate of infection amongst the young prompted UNAIDS to launch CrowdOutAIDS, an innovative youth-led policy project. Using crowdsourcing and social media techniques the project gathered voices and views from over 5000 young people in over 79 countries, and produced the first every crowdsourced AIDS related report in UN history.

“I am so impressed by the dedication, energy and enthusiasm that young people have shown through theCrowdOutAIDS initiative. The recommendations they have presented to UNAIDS will help us mobilize a new generation of young leaders and we will work together to stop new HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths.” - Michel Sidibé, Executive Director UNAIDS

The project spent five months gathering and collating views and information, culminating in the   Strategy recommendations for collaborating with a new generation of leaders in the AIDS response, and will help UNAIDS Secretariat as part of its New Generation Leadership Strategy. The report presents six key recommendations which include strengthening young people's leadership skills at all levels of AIDS response, diversifying and enhancing strategic networks between UNAIDS and youth networks, and increasing the active roles of young people in AIDS response at regional, national and global levels. 

Image Credits; Julian Rotela Rosow

Danish Initiative Hosts Co-Creation Conference

The continued interest and use of crowdsourcing by organisations has in turn generated equal interest in co-creation with big name brands such as Unilever reaping the cost effective benefits tapping the wisdom of a smaller specialised crowd. Yet there remains many questions about just how co-creation can be utilised, questions to be explored at this year's Co-Creation Conference in Copenhagen. The event will be held on 25th May 2012 featuring prominent speakers as well as a series of workshops examining the use of co-creation.

Organising the event is a joint initiative made up of the Copenhagen Business School and the Danish Design Association, trade association for Danish design companies. Featuring at the conference will be keynote speaker Banny Banerjee. A leading scholar from Stanford University,California, Banny is a prominent leader and practitioner in co-creation, and the founder of the university's "Design for change lab". Also speaking at the event is Rex Degenegaard, an assistant professor at the Copenhagen Business School specialising in organisational design and change management, with focus on co-creation. 

Much of the conference will consist of interactive workshops introducing participants to co-creation, exploring how it works and examining its potential  to tackle some of societies' most demanding challenges. Participants will also gain hands on experience with various co-creation methods as well as networking opportunities with other participants with co-creation challenges, and experts. For more information and to sign up for the event visit the Co-creation Conference website. 

Image Credits; University Hospitals Birmingham

New Crowdfunding Platform For Aspiring Authors

For aspiring writers with great ideas but frustrated by the traditional methods of the publishing industry, crowdfunding continues to offer a lifeline to publishing utopia. Joining the ranks of sites like Unbound and Emphas.is is Authrs.com  a new crowdfunding platform dedicated to helping aspiring authors on  the path to publication. The new platform promises to focus purely on crowdfunding the works of authors and writers with features to rival other platforms.

Authr.com was founded in 2011 by Erik Bowman, serial entrepreneur, consultant and author. With over 20 years experience of business startups, Erik brings his knowledge and skills of various aspects of multimedia, finance, and technology to this latest venture. Based in Redondo Beach California, Authr.com was established by Eric to help break the funding barriers that prevent aspiring authors from getting their works published. Whilst many authors have used crowdfunding to take them up to publishing glory, Authr.com differs from other platforms by promising to support the authors beyond fundraising and into pre-order and sales as their books move closer to publication.

"I’ve come across so many clients and friends who have always wanted to achieve their dream of writing a book one day. The biggest obstacle they seem to run into is funding." - Erik Bowman, Founder Authr.com

In addition to pre and post funding support, Authr.com differs from other platforms by refusing to take any percentage of funds raised. Users, instead pay a monthly fee and can test their first use of the service for free. The platform also enables authors to promote their projects through social media to encourage support and generate sales, as well as a QR codes service to add bonus interactive features to the authors' publications. 

Authr.com is all about supporting authors so those with projects in need of funding who have publishers already signed up can still use the service. The platform also features a dedicated publisher's co-branded author's page through which authors can be referred, and invites ghost writers, publishing and marketing professions to become the site's business partners.  

Image Credits; Joe Ross