Shitty wi-fi. No cell service. Waiting lists for beta trials.
In all of the apps and gizmos and gadgets and tech of the South by Southwest Interactive Conference, it's all too easy to fall into the trap of über First World Problems.
But there's one official event that looks to reconnect the conference with humanity: the ceremony held for the 2014 Dewey Winburne Community Service honorees.
The award was named after on of the early co-founders of the Interactive Festival – "a teacher who spent much of his energy training at-risk youth to make use of digital technology," according to a press release from SXSW.
There are 10 honorees this year, hailing from everywhere from Austin to Uganda. Read a little about them and their work here, or check out their full bios on the SXSW site, where you can also learn more about the award and its history.
• Tony Carr (Cape Town, South Africa) founded e/merge Africa in order for educational technologists in higher education in Africa to be able to share technologies and practices across the continent.
• Stephanie Downs (Cleveland, Ohio) co-founded FiXiT, which seeks to apply creative problem solving to the nation's pet overpopulation problem.
• Marie Duffy (Dublin, Ireland) edits SpunOut.ie, a site that aims to give 16-to-25-year-olds information for making informed decisions about themselves and their societies.
• Gwendolyn Floyd (Brooklyn, N.Y.) specializes in "equitable models of international trade" at Soko, a women-owned marketplace for artisans who may lack access to the Internet – or even a bank account.
• Raymar Hampshire (Chicago, Ill.) is the CEO of SponsorChange, which gives college students the ability to pay down student loans with nonprofit service.
• Mark Horvath (New York, N.Y.) films the stories of America's homeless population to share on on InvisiblePeople.tv.
• Noeline Kirabo (Kampala, Uganda) is the executive director of Kyusa which provides alternative education for 18-to-25-year-old dropouts.
• George Luc (Austin) is the co-founder of GivePulse, "a civic marketplace that matches people to causes and enables nonprofits, festivals, runs, companies and groups to manage volunteers & donors, list opportunities, and track engagement."
• Alejandro Maza (Mexico City, Mexico) is the director of OPI: Open Intelligence, which attempts to motivate the disengaged and marginalized of the political spectrum and revolutionize the relationship between a government and its citizens.
• Clara Tsao (Los Angeles) founded Travel Angel, which allows folks to crowdsource airline miles to send social entrepreneurs where they need to be.
The awards ceremony will be held Thursday, March 6, 2014, at 7pm in St. David's Bethell Hall. The event is free and open to the public. Keep up with all our SXSW coverage as the event draws near at austinchronicle.com/sxsw.
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