Social Week and IndieGoGo Announce Partnership

NEW YORK, Nov. 1, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Social Week, the in-gathering of the Internet social media industry and IndieGoGo, the world's leading crowdfunding platform, today announced a series of campaigns that will raise money for social good programs created by Social Week events and partners. The Contact Summit at Social Week chose 3 projects as winners of the Contact Bazaar Awards based on the potential for social impact and awarded each $10,000 through grants from Pepsi. These projects now have the opportunity to raise additional funds on IndieGoGo. Social Week and IndieGoGo will also partner on additional projects over the next 12 months.

The Social Week/ IndieGoGo projects awarded Contact Bazaar Awards are:

• Fayetteville Free Library Fab Lab: The Fayetteville Free Library in Fayetteville, NY aims to be the first library in the United States to build a free, public access Fab Lab, which will feature a MakerBot Thing-o-Matic 3D printer.
• Free Network Foundation: The Free Network Foundation is an organization whose purpose is to steward the creation of a censorship-proof, disruption-resistant, global peer-to-peer network which is fully owned and operated by its participants. The organization has two prototype FreedomTowers providing Internet access at Occupy Austin and Occupy Wall Street and will be used to establish an occupation-to-occupation Virtual Private Network.
• FreedomBox Foundation: FreedomBox is a personal server running a free software operating system and free applications, designed to create and preserve personal privacy by providing a secure platform upon which federated social networks can be constructed.

Additionally, Social Week is using IndieGoGo to create a "Collaborative Social Platform for Teachers Across Districts. "Collaborative curriculum is a resource the current school system has neglected to channel into, and our initiative is a forum for peer-sharing between teachers that is transparent and collaborative.  It is a free space that allows teachers to improve curriculum, debate teaching methods, and support each other regardless of the socioeconomic levels of their school or district.  We hope to narrow the achievement gap and promote teaching best practices for all. More information can be found at: http://www.indiegogo.com/Collaborate-on-the-teaching-experience-with-social-technologies.

"From problems bringing effective early education to inner cities, to dealing with high school dropout rates and the overwhelming cost of a college education, education is challenged as never before and is critical as never before," said Mike Edelhart, President of The Tomorrow Project, LLC, producers of Social Week. "The transformative power of social and crowd funding through IndieGoGo can serve as a game changer in this key aspect of society."

Slava Rubin, co-founder and CEO of IndieGoGo, said: "The amazing ideas that appear on IndieGoGo every day from creative and inspired people around the world are the direct result of education. We believe the ideas are out there to improve the way students learn and grow – they just need the funding to make an impact."

About Social Week

Social Week brought 27 events covering a wide range of social professional activities to New York City October 16-23, 2011 and was packed with best-of-breed Social media events. Social Week will become the central event experience for Social professionals, the one place and one time where companies, thought leaders, influential press and investors can all get the greatest amount of the most important work done, a nexus for influence, relationship building, information exchange and outreach.

About IndieGoGo

IndieGoGo is the world's leading funding platform. Since its founding in 2008, the site has distributed millions of dollars to over 45,000 campaigns in 200 countries. Anyone in the world with a dream to make their idea a reality can easily create a campaign to raise money, offer perks and maintain 100% ownership. The company has been featured on "Oprah," ABC's "Good Morning America," and the BBC, as well as in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and TechCrunch. IndieGoGo is headquartered in San Francisco, CA.

For more information, visit www.indiegogo.com and follow at www.twitter.com/indiegogo and www.facebook.com/indiegogo.

SOURCE Social Week