Allied Media Conference Supercomputing Project
Call for involvement from Free Geek and similar projects
Hello, My name is Geoff Hing and I am coordinating a project at this summer's Allied Media Conference in Detroit, MI, July 16-19. For more information about the conference in general, please see http://alliedmediaconference.org/. I've been aware of your project for some time and am excited to finally get a chance to talk to all of you and hopefully collaborate this summer. I'm hoping that you can help provide expertise in-person (really important), consulting advice (important), or hardware donations (less important, but helpful) with a special project at this year's conference. I am seeking your help with a project in this year's Media Lab space at the conference. The conference organizers describe the Media Lab space as "an open, collaborative space where people can go to make media together, after being inspired by the things they learn in conference workshops. Youth are the main teachers and learners in this space, leading workshops in animation, beat-making and recording." An example of a media lab project from last year was the building of an FM transmitter by conference participants, with the guidance of folks from the Prometheus Radio Project, to be used by a grassroots organization in Detroit after the conference. This year, one of the projects will be to refurbish computer hardware and install Free/Libre/Opensource (FLOSS) software to make "supercomputers" that will form a permanent media lab in Detroit. This computer lab will be a training space to offer participants insight on how to make full use of common and new technologies. Participants from throughout the city will use the lab to learn skills for web 2.0 organizing strategies, media production, community radio, interactive communication techniques, technology design, and media policy. Since a big part of the project will be working with conference participants to refurbish PC hardware and install FLOSS software, your project immediately came to mind. I would love it if folks from your project could do some of the following: * Come to the conference and act as mentors for the supercomputing project You will share your expertise with conference participants as they piece together usable machines from donated hardware and then install a GNU/Linux operating system and multimedia software. As the machines get built, you will show folks how to use them for things like videoconferencing, beat making, image editing, graphic design, or audio/video editing. * Be available to for consultation Maybe you can't make it to the conference, but you have tons of experience in sharing tech skills with people. I want to know what you've found are the best ways to show people how to do this stuff. How do you break down the process into steps/tasks? What language or analogies do you use to make things clearer? How do you document the process so other folks can replicate your work? If you have ideas to share about these kinds of things, please let me know your contact information so we can chat. * Donate hardware We're looking for machines with these minimum hardware requirements: 1 GHz CPU 256 MB RAM 10 GB Hard Drive Sound and Video Cards Network Card The media lab is looking to build 5 machines, so the emphasis is definitely on quality rather than quantity. However, if you would be willing to donate one barebones machine, or one large-capacity hard drive, or one really great video or sound card, that would be so helpful. * Suggest a session for the conference's How To track If you have other skills you want to share outside of this project through a session, or there's just something that you feel has been missing at other media conferences, suggest a session at http://alliedmediaconference.org/propose Thanks for taking the time to read this. I think the work that you do is completely awesome and I would love to work with you on this project. Please share this with folks working within your group and with other people who might have similar expertise. I'm always happy to chat if you have any questions or ideas. You can reach me at Email: geoff@terrorware.com Mobile Phone: 812.340.8307 Jabber: ghing@indiana.edu Skype: geoffhing I look forward to hearing from you! Take care, Geoff
