Our country is facing the Iraq War, the War on Terror, the Drug War, environmental policies, support for Africa, education, and health.

Our congressional representatives are supposed to represent our interest, but are under increasing pressure from lobbyist, corporations, and big money. 

Govit is a website that is inspired to help balance the power, and get your voice heard on the issues.

•  On Govit you can learn about popular legislation, and discuss it
• Vote on legislation and have your vote sent instantly to your representatives
• Compare your votes to your representative and other members
• Connect with other members and rally support for issues

Love Me Sexy is designed to be a one-stop place for teens and young adults to access comprehensive sexual health and relationship information. Currently a teen would need to spend considerable time doing online searches to locate information related to sexual health and relationships. We want to create a place where youth can find listings of local health clinics, ratings of contraceptives, hotlines, and other sexual health & relationship resources. This mashup would be searchable by topic, location, and gender. In addition to factual information, users will be able to rate products and services providing the crucial peer-to-peer aspect that young people relate to. We envision a site where you can find information on the best health clinics, places providing AIDS/STD testing, product ratings (sexual toys, pregnancy kits, contraceptives, etc), hotlines & resources. Accessible via mobile technology, Love Me Sexy will make it simple to access all-inclusive information about sexual health and relationships. We envision this as the first phase in constructing an expansive “personal health” site for young people with future areas devoted to nutrition & exercise, mental health, and other relevant health topics for youth.

The African Soul, American Heart humanitarian project, supporting Sudanese Lost Boy and war orphan Joseph Akol Makeer, will build a orphanage / orphan center in Duk Payuel, southern Sudan, to provide food, shelter, school supplies, and other basic life needs for the 2,000+ orphans of that village. A really successful fundraising campaign will allow us to build other orphanages / orphan centers for the 16,000+ orphans in Duk County, southern Sudan. The project team has 30 hours of video footage; we are working towards a 30-50 minute documentary about Joseph's life and his goal of building an orphanage in his home village. The documentary will be complete by fall 2008; a fundraising goal of $100,000 has been set for fall 2009, the orphanage / orphan center will be operational by fall 2010, although some aid can be delivered as funds are raised.

If successful, this project will give rise to the first complete, readily updated, and geographically presented portrait of Alaska's conservation issues. Conservation efforts across our state will be presented in their navigable context. People will be able to understand Alaska's conservation issues more readily than ever before possible, and through their own lens of importance, rather than digging through the many perspectives of individual, dispersed nonprofits.

The effort will raise awareness and support for conservation, as well as increase community spirt among the over 100 conservation groups across our state.

Those outside of Alaska often imagine Alaska as a pristine wilderness, with the Arctic Refuge being surrounded by oil developers poised and prepped for environmental disaster... while the rest of the state remains untouched and safe. But this isn't the case-- there are mining prospects across Alaska for gold, copper, zinc and more, plans to mine coal for shipment to Asia (a quarter of the Earth's coal reserves are here), shipping routes from the Pacific risking destroying the world's largest fisheries, and the last of the Earth's temperate rainforests, with more than half of them clearcut. Hundreds of thousands of Alaskans rely upon these resources for their livelihood.

By creating a platform for sharing information on the vast array of issues across our state, this project will change the way nonprofits work with each other, and greatly improve the way we communicate with the rest of the world. "Issue of the day" conservation trends can be muted in favor of greater transparency, public understanding, and cooperation.

Information like this has never been objectively collected and presented in one location because of the understandably inward focus of conservation nonprofits, which have a vested self-interest in presenting only their own issues. However, as the cost and means for presenting and revising content steadily decreases, and technological breakthroughs are provided by the Web, GoogleEarth, and GoogleMaps, we can create a truly groundbreaking website about an iconic place, offering a model for conservation cooperation applicable across the globe.

The conservation community has the willingness and data to make this happen. We need the expertise to design and market a winning approach.

Update for the DonateNow Mashup Challenge:

We are building a networking tool that uses a recommender system (similar to netflix.com or amazon.com) to help individuals and organizations understand which opportunities they are most likely to find interesting.

Communicating and collaborating online is no longer as simple as connecting with more people; the Internet is far too large and information overload can be as uninspiring as silence. Our solution is targeted information. When nonprofits use Squarepeg to build relationships and ask for donations, our recommender system will help them focus on individuals that are most likely to be inspired by their work. Individuals who use Squarepeg to find opportunities and organize people will have a more enjoyable user experience because we will mashup recommender data and social data, and filter out information that individuals are unlikely to act upon.

Utility: Squarepeg’s social networking features facilitate many tasks that are of daily concern for engaged individuals and organizations: finding or disseminating relevant opportunities, maintaining or building new relationships, and organizing and promoting events in a decentralized environment. We are quite ambitious about integrating online communication with tasks that occur offline, but Squarepeg’s recommender system is our most unique utility. A critical characteristic of this recommender system is that it is seamlessly integrated with social communication tools that will aid individuals and organizations in their everyday tasks. As a result, users will benefit from the efficiency and precision of this recommender system without significantly increasing their workload.

User Experience: Squarepeg cares deeply about removing noise, so that attractive opportunities for social change (such as donating to a particular campaign or initiative) are easier to find and are more actionable. Our commitment to targeted information, rather than just MORE information, is central to our theory of change. It also will have a huge impact on user experience. In addition to developing a user interface that is as simple, sensible, and as engaging as possible, our social action recommender system will help users identify and accomplish their online goals without sorting through loads and loads of information that they do not find interesting. Check out our progress: www.squarepegged.org

Since 1995, Green Map System has engaged communities worldwide in charting a sustainable future. Now, we’re taking the next step by merging local knowledge and our freshly updated iconography with a Google Map mashup to create an open interactive Green Mapmaking website that will inclusively help people worldwide quickly share their own selection of sustainability sites, pathways and resources online. The resulting interactive Green Maps will be viewable from our own and many other websites, starting in mid-2008. With open commentary, green ratings, multimedia elements, 'impacts index', mobile access, on-site markers and more, everyone will be able to get involved.

My Green Map (working name) will give a powerful voice to thousands and ensure that an enormous diversity of successful sustainability activities and critical issues are shared with the broadest audience possible. It will merge the booming ‘local first’ and green development movements with social networking and interactive mapping. It will draw from a rich data source: thousands of green living, nature, social and cultural resources already charted on 335 published Green Maps, used by millions both near home and while traveling.

Our network of 450 locally-led map projects in 50 countries will be the first to add sites to My Green Map. Each of their mashups will be linked to profiles and the locally-designed Green Maps already viewable at GreenMap.org. Once technical and financial barriers to participation have been overcome, we intend to phase in public mapmaking and behavior change assessment, mobile formats, thematic worldviews, and more. Thus, the N2Y3 Mashup Challenge can play a key role in promoting inclusive participation in sustainable community development around the world.