CC licensed off-the-grid weaving cooperatives up for $1.5M prize

Cameron sez,

The non-profit Architecture for Humanity and Lulan Artisans are vying for $1.5M worth of funding to build weaving cooperatives in Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and India. These centers will be designed through the Open Architecture Network with the Creative Commons Developing Nations License.

These funds will allow 6000 women access to a stable income and create an alternative to the human trafficking going on in many of these rural villages.

Voting for the AmEx Members Prize is on September 1st and the top 25 go through. This project is currently in 27th place out of 1190.

Vote for Architecture for Humanity and Lulan at Amex Members Project (Thanks, Cameron!)

[#1 posted by Anonymous , August 29, 2008 1:49 AM]

There are lots other good projects to choose from too. My vote goes for "Undergrads Fighting Age Related Disease".

[#2 posted by mcclendon1963875 , August 29, 2008 3:26 AM]

Very interesting.

[#3 posted by zikzak , August 29, 2008 6:35 AM]

I was going to suggest they include some kind of scalable community micro-credit framework in the design of these cooperatives, since that's something that's needed all over the developing world and even in many places in the first world, and is really important for the sustainability of local business projects like this.

Then I saw who the sponsor was. Weaving coops I can see, but American Express might not be a big fan of having community micro-credit go viral :)

[#4 posted by zikzak , August 29, 2008 9:10 AM]

I think a post I made previously on this page vanished, not sure if that was intentional or a bug.

Then again maybe I'm just dense and didn't post it right.

Anyway, I wonder if an increase in exchange of design plans will lead to rapid transformation of the techniques used in low-tech textile work. It's interesting that their objective is to preserve hand-weaving, because at the same time their open source approach to weaving technology could possibly alter the trade radically. Not necessarily in a bad way, though.

[#5 posted by Anonymous , August 29, 2008 12:52 PM]

ZIKZAK,

Lulan Artisans, our partner, have been working with the artisans for close to a decade and have built up a sustainable business model with 600+ weavers. Micro-credit banking is something that has been on the cards but the main focus is local ownership through micro-ownership. This is similar to projects we've done in India (with another organization, LEAD).

Given the voting I don't think we will make it especially given that most others are also pulling in an equal amount of votes.

If your interested in other work of our you can check out this link to a piece on Frontline that aired a few months back.

Cheers
Cameron

[#6 posted by Bluraven , August 30, 2008 1:19 AM]

Hey, I went and voted (thanks for the heads-up Cory). I really wish ya'll success!

[#7 posted by Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator , August 30, 2008 10:45 PM]

Zikzak, I think your missing comment didn't post correctly. I don't see any evidence of it being removed.

[#8 posted by Anonymous , September 11, 2008 10:45 AM]

Zikzak,

WE are open sourcing all the building designs. Perhaps that wasn't clear enough in the text.

Check out the Open Architecture Network or my talk on TED.com for more information on how we work.

Cheers
Cameron

ps. We made it to the final round! 18 days till the winners are announced. The voting tally was reset to zero so if you voted in the first round you will have to do it all over again....