A2Awesome, the Ann Arbor chapter of the Boston-based Awesome Foundation, has awarded its first grant worth $1,000.
A2Awesome gave the thousand dollars cash in a brown paper bag to Ann Arbor-resident Nathan Ayers. He will use the money to build two bike-powered vegetable grow racks that will be used in a science class he teaches in Ann Arbor and Detroit. The idea is to create a closed-loop system to demonstrate the principles of permaculture -- a design and engineering philosophy based on ecology, which has as its objective the creation of sustainable food, energy and community infrastructure systems.
Ayers' proposal was the winner of 20 applications submitted for the first round of funding. A2Awesome aims to provide streamlined seed funding for creative projects that will bring surprise, delight and joy to the Ann Arbor-Ypsilanti community. A2Awesome plans to make one $1,000 grant a month for the foreseeable future.
"We anticipate the applications to go way up," says Mark Maynard, dean of awesome for
A2Awesome. "With this award we have set the tone for what we want to do."
While the Ayers bicycle-grow project is creative and helps push the envelope, A2Awesome isn't limiting itself to those types of projects. It is open to more traditional ideas as long as they result in the same thing, awesomeness.
"We're open to everything," Maynard says. "The project just needs to be awesome."
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here.
(
Full disclosure: Jeff Meyers, Concentrate's managing editor, is on the board of A2Awesome)
Source: Mark Maynard, dean of awesome for A2Awesome
Writer: Jon Zemke
Read more about Metro Detroit's growing entrepreneurial ecosystem at SEMichiganStartup.com.
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