Kavi

For the last several years, I have had the opportunity to vote on the short film submissions for the USA film festival. Last year, one short film really stood out to me and the other panelists. Kavi was actually still a work in progress, but the spark was already there. It was actually one of the least beautiful-looking films we saw that year. Technological advances have made it much easier to make a beautiful looking movie, but the story and the substance has to be there. The actors have to be good and you have to be interested in it. Kavi had all of those things. A story about a slave child in India, Kavi is filmed on location and is based on the actual life style of the brick-making slaves that still exist in India. The story was compelling and rang true. We passed it on to the next round.

Kavi ended up winning best short film in the 2009 USA film festival, which qualified it to be nominated for an Academy Award. Gregg, Helvey, hte writer/director of the film spoke at the festival and emphasized that his reason for making the film was to create awareness about the slave problem still alive in India today. In fact, 30% of profit for the movie benefit anti-slave non-profits. I hoped that the movie would make it to the next round.

Academy Awards nominations came out a few weeks ago, and we heard all about Avatar 's many nominations, but no one talks about the short films. Curiosity finally got the best of me, and when I checked the Academy Awards site today, this is what I saw:



Needless to say, I am excited, and I really really hope Kavi wins, not just because I had some part in voting its way to an Academy Award, but also because it's a good movie for a good cause. If you get a chance, I encourage you to check it out. You'll be glad you did.

Foursquare Widget for Capture the Market

For the last several months I have been playing Foursquare on my iPhone. It's a fun social media app where you can "check in" to places you visit to let your friends know where you are, if they want to come and join you. The app also has a game element in which the person who is at a location the most in a 60 day period becomes its "mayor." You also earn points for checking in and creating new venues. Checking in certain numbers of times and at certain places can also earn you "badges."

Foursquare has an open API, which allows people to use it to create other applications. One of the things that has been created is a widget that people can place on their websites or blogs. This is aimed mostly at venues that want to advertise their popularity and their mayor. Here it the widget for my office. And yes, of course I am the Mayor!!