PrairieCast: Andy Stoll discusses social entrepreneurship & World Tri
Photo from Andy Stoll's website, noboundaries.org.
Our guest this week on PrairieCast is Iowa City's Andy Stoll, co-founder of social entrepreneurship incubator The James Gang and world traveler. Andy, who is an Omaha native, talks about his experiences with The James Gang, his recently completed 3.5 year adventure around the world and his upcoming project The World Tri.
The World Tri is a unique endurance event being undertaken over the next 11 months by Des Moines attorney and adventurer Charlie Wittmack. It will start with Charlie swimming the length of the River Thames in England, then across the English Channel to France. Charlie will then ride a bicycle across Europe and Asia to Nepal where he will climb Mount Everest.
Andy, also a filmmaker, will be along to document the project and communicate the progress to people all over the world. The entire group will also be working with the people they meet in each country on educational and social issues, such as a global health initiative to reduce maternal mortality, which is being supported by Des Moines University and the World Heath Organization.
In the interview, Andy issued a challenge to the Silicon Prairie News community: How should they use Foursquare as part of this adventure? Leave your ideas in the comments below.
Each week on PrairieCast, we start with a Week in Review segment where we catch up on highlighted posts from the past week as well as discuss Silicon Prairie News events and features within the site.
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PrairieCast is recorded weekly at the 48Web Studios in Des Moines and is a co-production of Silicon Prairie News and 48Web.
ARCHIVED COMMENTS
Thanks Geoff, Andy B and the SPN crew for the interview and posting. I truly love what you guys are doing and am humbled to be included on such a sweet site.
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Without trying to take over this post, let me extent out my creative Four Square challenge to your readers....
I am about to drive 12,000 miles from England to Mt Everest, through 12 countries on two continents over the next 11 months.
The goal of the expedition is connect the world through this unprecedented triathlon that Charlie Wittmack is attempting.
More commonly used social media in Facebook and Twitter are going to be great tool for this, but after hearing FourSquare Founder Dennis Crowley talk about 'Life as a game,' at Big Omaha this past year, I got to thinking, "How could we use Four Square on this expedition? Is there a cool, innovative way to use this location based service (or others) to connect people through out the world (other than trying to claiming mayorship badges at every coffee shop along The Silk Route?)
I would love to hear your ideas and am definitely looking for people, programmers, designers, creatives, entrepreneurs, etc. who want to join us virtually experiment with new online tools on this unique endeavor.
I wonder who has the Mayorship of The Summit of Mt Everest?
More on The World Tri:
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20100330/NEWS/33...
Our full, media rich website launches when the expedition sets off July 29th from Des Moines at www.theworldtri.com (check it out starting next Tuesday at 9:30am) and Charlie hits the water July 1st in England.