Decision Time!

We’ve finally come to some decisions around XTK. The recipients are:

• Fee Plumley towards mapping global digital culture ($1200)
• Chloe Langford (Format) for random gifts that reinforce no logic during the Festival of Unpopular Culture in Adelaide ($300)
• Dr Will Grant to participate fly to Adelaide for the XTK panel on Thursday 13th October at 5pm and contribute expertise on why these types of ideas are hard to find. Will proposed a couple of ideas that he can’t reasonably do, there seemed like there was as much to learn from this as for funded projects ($450)

We also spoke with Simon Divecha and Joe Flynn about their idea on community scale protection and enhancement of the “commons”, but that’s a project that currently needs time more than funds. They will keep us up to date with progress and future needs.

Thanks also to Gerry Cawson from Minter Ellison who facilitated a very useful discussion about the legal grey areas of what we are doing, and Nick Crowther for providing support.

Will, Chloe and Simon will feature in our next XTK event, a panel during the Festival of Unpopular Culture in Adelaide at 5pm on Thursday 13th October. (Fee and Gerry to be confirmed depending on diaries)

You ‘ll observe we still have $1550 in funds remaining. We have opened a second round of voluntary fundraising for the XTK Panel to add to this with the specific aim of supporting a larger project – http://xtkfucpanel.eventbrite.com. We are hoping to support something in science and/or technology (and whatever else we can support depending on funds).

Next Steps: Funds -> Projects

It’s been a couple of weeks since we launched XTK at Tuxedo Cat.

We’d like to sincerely thank you for your Fund From Afar contributions and attendance on the night. As a group we raised $3,500 which will be a boost for the types of projects I’m hoping we can support. I also know from your emails that there were at least three new useful introductions on the night that have resulted in further connection on projects.

If you’ve contributed, you may want to have further involvement through setting guidelines, making project decisions or offerign access to equipment or mentoring. We have set up a Google group for contributers to continue these conversations.

If you weren’t able to attend the launch, you can still become involved by making a financial contribution (we recommend $100, but the amount can be varied on your personal circumstances). Part of this emergent process will be to design a process for ongoing contributions, but in the meantime, email us and we can send you contribution details.

The most important thing now is for us to submit and encourage others to submit ideas for potential funding. There is a form for submissions here. We’d like see see submissions close off for this round by 15th July so that we allow the recipients enough time to get something started before the report back the Festival of Unpopular Culture on 13th October.

Thank you again and we look forward to continuing the discussions and receiving project submissions!

XTK WTF?

Want to be part of something that sees new ideas come to fruition?
Are you sick of predictable innovation and mainstream arts? When commercialisation is difficult and the funding for innovation is scarce, surely existing guidelines fall in favour of those things that are known and safe?

Where’s the innovation in that?
If you’re ever railed against research funding, ineffectual commercialisation or mainstream culture, then you need to be part of XTK. XTK tends innovation in the space where the seed of an idea does not yet make sense, where the ideas pull people and ideas across diverse boundaries.

And does that with you, your funds and your ideas.
At each XTK event, we aim to attract 100 people each contributing $100 (or by donation) to fund cross-disciplinary ideas that don’t yet make sense – those ideas that are the forerunner to transformative innovation. You get to be the financial backer and part of a crowd interested in ideas and making a difference.

Instead of returning financial dividends there is a “pay it forward”. Projects that are funded will report back during the Festival of Unpopular Culture in October to share their progress. Successful projects are expected to pay it forward by funding something else. Unsuccessful projects pay it forward by failure in all its glory as a way to lower the barrier to entry for someone else.

If you have a concept for a project, you can apply to be supported. With the funds we raise at our events we’ll support you before you’re likely to get support from anywhere else.