Oakland Digital (ODALC) encourages local commerce and technological advancements with civic responsibilities by developing the skills of the underserved in the growing Internet & mobile marketplace.

Oakland Digital has earned the respect and admiration of many leaders in educational and civic affairs for its high degree of community involvement.

Through Inspiration Awards 2011, Oakland Digital recognizes and honors prominent local Bay Area pioneers who have made substantial contributions to the community at large through their innovation and dedication in their chosen fields of:

1) business, 2) artistic creativity, and 3) technology.

HONOREES:

MC Hammer: Known primarily for his music career some years ago, MC Hammer is the driving force behind DanceJam – a dance-centric social media site. We are honoring MC Hammer for his inspiring work in the community but also his business-centric re-invention.

Goapele: A current Billboard 200 artist from Oakland, we’re honoring Goapele for artistic contribution to the community and the inspiration she provides through her music.

Alex Bernstein: Former NFL player, and Co-Founder of NorthSocial, Alex is being honored for his technological contribution to the community.

MISTRESS OF CEREMONIES:

Barbara Rodgers: Seven time Emmy award winner and Bay Area broadcasting legend.

WHEN:

Thursday, December 1st, 2011 from 6pm – 9pm

WHERE:

Preservation Park (Nile Hall)

668 13th St. Oakland, CA

PAYMENT OPTIONS:

1. Credit Card through Eventbrite or phone, (510) 435-2945

2. PayPal sent to PayPal Email ID ”donate@odalc.org”

3. Check made payable to ”Oakland Digital” sent to:

Oakland Digital (ODALC)
1224 Harrison Street
Oakland, CA 94612

OTHER SPONSORSHIP OPPORTUNITIES:

Please contact Shaun Tai at (510) 435-2945 or shaun@odalc.org.

Your generous contribution is tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law. Oakland Digital is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization.

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About Oakland Digital (ODALC – Oakland Digital Arts & Literacy Center):

Oakland Digital is a 3-year old, volunteer-run, 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization with the mission to educate, inspire and empower low-income communities to participate in the digital economy. We do this through our quarterly programs, as well as through other opportunities we’re able to provide throughout the year. For more,  Watch >> a short interview of our Executive Director, Shaun Tai, as seen on CNN Headlines News and see below for specific information on our programs.

Small Business Symposium (Q1):

This year Oakland Digital held their first annual Social Media for Small Business Symposium with great success. A wildly successful event – the first of its kind held at City of Oakland’s City Hall, Council Chambers - SMfSB introduced the importance of digital marketing tools available to the small business community at little to no cost. Corporate support included Yahoo! Small Business, Constant Contact, YP.com, GetSatisfaction, and Social Data Lab. Read more >>

Inspire Oakland (Q2):

Inspire Oakland is a 6-week community-driven, design program for aspiring graphic artists and designers. It provides underserved students and young artists with an opportunity to produce work for their portfolios; to have their work judged by industry professionals; and to have their work displayed prominently in their community. Through generous support from the AT&T and CBS Outdoor, Inspire Oakland students push themselves to design billboard artwork answering the question, “What about Oakland inspires you?” The top 4 designs are featured on both static and digital billboards from East Oakland to Berkeley. For pictures and more information, Read more >> or Watch >>

Digital Equity (Q3):

Oakland Digital’s Digital Equity for Small Businesses program addresses a community-wide need for low-cost, accessible education in today’s online business tools. From social media, online directories, recommendation sites, email, mobile, and more – the Digital Equity program is a platform for the underserved small business community to connect with, and be taught by, industry experts.  Read more >>

Inspiration Awards (Q4):

The Inspiration Awards ceremony is Oakland Digital’s annual fundraising event. We strive to honor members of the business, technology and artistic community whom have contributed to the community with their work. In 2010 we honored Joe Kennedy (CEO at Pandora); Donald Tamaki (Partner at Minami Tamaki LLP); and Andreas Weigend (Former Chief Scientist at Amazon.com). Sponsors have included Whole Foods Market and Cisco Systems.  Read more >>

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Oakland Digital’s Board of Directors and Volunteer Staff look forward to seeing you on December 1st, 2011, 6-9pm at Preservation Park!

Oakland Digital (ODALC) presents:
“Social Media for Small Business”
an Online Marketing Symposium

When used properly, social media can be a great tool to help your small business reach untapped, potential customers and stay connected to current ones. But there are a few things you’ll need to know to help you get the most out of social media as well as your online presence in its entirety. “Social Media for Small Business” will help break social media down into easy-to-understand pieces, so you can make sense of and make use of this powerful resource in a way that grows your business.

You’ll receive information and educational demos full of ideas and tips you can start using right away to build your online brand using social media. This is a historic technology event you won’t want to miss!

Who Should Attend? Small business owners, non-profits, entrepreneurs, realtors, consultants, associations, social & community activists, neighborhood leaders, churches, and chambers of commerce (any organization that wants individual social media consultation).

Keynote speakers include:

• Social Data Revolution, Andreas Weigend, Ph.D.
• GetSatisfaction, Wendy Lea

Presentations and Educational Demos from:

• City of Oakland, Mayor Jean Quan [A New Oakland]
• Oakland Digital, Shaun Tai [Overview of Social Media]
• Constant Contact, Kelly Flint [Social Media & Email Marketing]
• YP.com, Stephen Perez [Online & Mobile Advertising]
• InOak, Patrick Hurley [Collaboration and Community]
• The B on Broadway, Zach Seal [Free Downtown Shuttle]

SPACE IS LIMITED. REGISTER EARLY!
www.oaklandsocialmedia.com

It was a night of culmination for Oakland Digital Arts & Literacy Center (ODALC). After more than a year of striving to establish itself in a time of economic downturn, the local technology nonprofit succeeded in hosting its first annual Inspiration Awards, which celebrated the City of Oakland and honored three influential people for their significant contributions to the community:

Andreas Weigend (former Chief Scientist of Amazon.com and world-renowned data expert),

Joe Kennedy (CEO of Pandora Radio), and

Donald Tamaki (known for successfully reopening the landmark Supreme Court cases of Fred Korematsu, Gordon Hirabayashi and Minoru Yasui).

Held in Oakland’s historic Preservation Park, the event sold out to approximately 130 guests: some came representing prominent tech companies (Cisco Systems, Pandora Radio, Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Amazon.com); others came from reputed financial institutions (Cathay Pacific Bank, Morgan Stanley); others still came from Oakland’s rich assortment of local businesses and organizations (Uptown Body and Fender, Rosewood House, Gente Bella Salon Spa, OneCalifornia, It’s a Grind Coffee House).

ODALC made a point of thanking its key partners at the event, namely East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation and Oakland Unwrapped. Executive Director Shaun Tai also announced plans to work closely with the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs of Cisco Systems. In addition to celebrating the Oakland community and all its assets, the event and its honorees looked to the city’s future, impressing the urgency of ODALC’s mission to make computer education more accessible to underserved communities.

“ODALC is teaching people to embrace, not fear technology,” said Norman Weekes, Strategic Advisor at ODALC. “To be a user of technology and not one of the used. To be a producer and not a consumer. To take your life experience and combine it with the infinite possibilities technology offers and to better yourself, your business and maybe even society.”

As ODALC celebrated a year of hard-earned accomplishment and looked ahead to 2011, so did Oakland’s recent Mayor-Elect Jean Quan. Within thirty minutes of announcing her victory at Oakland City Hall, Quan made her way to Preservation Park in support of ODALC and Inspiration Awards 2010.

“I’m particularly honored to be here because [ODALC] has had this vision of inspiring Oakland and looking at Oakland in new way,” said Quan. “[ODALC] is part of the new Oakland, the next generation. Let’s support them!” [see video below]

When she takes office on January 3rd, 2011, Quan will be the first Asian American woman mayor of a major U.S. city. ODALC considers her an invaluable ally in the effort to promote greater prosperity for Oakland and the Bay Area. After a year of struggle and hardship, Oakland hopefully awaits a new era of leadership and social change. Inspiration Awards 2010 exceeded its original scope and served as a platform for that change.

For 2011, ODALC plans to recruit more board members and raise $80,000 to support its program “Digital Equity for Local Commerce,” which helps struggling small business owners in Oakland compete with the rest of the market via online advertising. If Wednesday night was any indication, the Oakland community has the passion and the drive to make ODALC’s vision a reality.

[CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD PRESS RELEASE, .PDF FORMAT]

This video is Part 1 of 3, taken at the fbFund REV Demo Day on 9/1/09 that features an introduction by Cat Lee, Sheryl Sandberg, Dave McClure, Thread.com, Funki, Sociable, GeckoGo, DropPlay, Photos I Love, Vittana and Workstir.

This video is Part 2 of 3, taken at the fbFund REV Demo Day on 9/1/09 that features Backlight.org, NetworkedBlogs, Wildfire, NutshellMail, Cash.io, Gameyola, RunMyErrands and Samasource.

This video is Part 3 of 3, taken at the fbFund REV Demo Day on 9/1/09 that features MyChurch, RunThere, Zimride, Sortuv, Life360, RentMineOnline, and an outro/wrap-up from Enrique Allen and Dave McClure.

“fbFund is a fund focused on continuing to create incentives for the development of applications on Facebook Platform. Initially, the fund will make available $10 million in capital which may grow over time.

The fund is now accepting applications for $25,000-$250,000 non-recourse grants from anyone interested in building their business on Facebook Platform. Any individual or company, anywhere in the world can apply as long as they have not raised any formal venture funding.

We are forming this fund to help grow the Facebook application ecosystem. By decreasing the barrier to start a company, we hope to entice an even larger group of people to become entrepreneurs and build a compelling business on Facebook Platform. We hope this is also a funding model that other venture capitalists will follow.

fbFund will be administered by Facebook and funded by Accel Partners and The Founders Fund. The investment committee will be comprised of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO, and Chamath Palihapitiya, Facebook vice president of product marketing and operations. Facebook board members Jim Breyer (Accel Partners) and Peter Thiel (The Founders Fund) will also be part of the committee. Additionally, the fund will rely upon an advisory council that includes Reid Hoffman, founder and chairman of LinkedIn; Josh Kopelman, founder of First Round Capital; and Rajeev Motwani, professor of computer science at Stanford University and early advisor to Google.”

Please submit your application at http://www.facebook.com/developers/fbfund.php.

Video filmed and produced by Shaun Tai.

Byron Reeves - Professor in the Dept. of Communication at Stanford University

Byron Reeves (twitter: @byronreeves) on Gaming for Work. In this intriguing video (Part 2 of 2), Byron speaks on using games and virtual worlds to change the way people work and businesses compete. Presentation titled “Work Sucks – Games are great“. Filmed July 31st, 2009 in Palo Alto at the fbFund HQ by Shaun Tai of SHAUN TAI Films (ZTY MEDIA), ©2009.

ABOUT BYRON REEVES

Byron is the Paul C. Edwards Professor in the Department of Communication at Stanford University, and Co-Founder and Faculty Co-Director of the H-STAR Institute (Human Sciences and Technologies Advanced Research) and its industrial affiliate program, Media X. He is an expert on the psychological processing of media in the areas of attention, emotions, learning, and physiological responses, and has published over 100 scientific papers about media and psychology. His research has been the basis for a number of new media products for companies such as Microsoft, IBM, and Hewlett-Packard, in the areas of voice interfaces, automated dialogue systems, and business process simulations. He is currently working on the application of multi-player game technology to behavior change and the conduct of serious work, and is Co-Founder of Seriosity, Inc., a company building enterprise software inspired by game psychology.

ABOUT FBFUND REV

fbFund is a fund focused on continuing to create incentives for the development of applications on Facebook Platform. Initially, the fund will make available $10 million in capital which may grow over time.

We are forming this fund to help grow the Facebook application ecosystem. By decreasing the barrier to start a company, we hope to entice an even larger group of people to become entrepreneurs and build a compelling business on Facebook Platform. We hope this is also a funding model that other venture capitalists will follow.

For more information, please visit fbFund.com