1. Spotlight of the Week

Sandboxer Bez Idakula performed at the Apple Store in Soho, NYC. Check out his latest album, Super Sun here.

Image via Fast Company

Congratulations, Maria Popova and Mike Karnjanaprakorn, for being named as one of Fast Company’s “100 most creative people in business in 2012“.

 

Virgilia Singh is featured as “Who’s Who in Business” in the state of Arizona.

Pierre Escobar

Pierre Escobar is a French architect, who was born in Spain and educated in Belgium and the Netherlands. He is the co-founder of DEVspace and the project leader at HHF architects. Pierre has worked with many highly-renowned offices and has also worked on amazing personal projects. Welcome to the Sandbox family, Pierre!

Christina Veldhoen

Christina Veldhoen turned a rather small, local student initiative into a network with 21 local branches across Germany with more than 2.500 people involved. Rock Your Life is a social enterprise focusing on broadening the educational chances of students living in socially marginalized situations. Welcome to the Sandbox family, Christina!

Micha Weinblatt

Micha Weinblatt is an entrepreneur from Washington DC. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from UMD, where he launched Crooked Monkey T- shirts. He’s received awards from the Washington Business Journal’s 40 under 40 and CNN’s top 10 Generation Next Entrepreneurs to watch. He is also a WEF Young Global Shaper. When he’s not entrepreneuring, he’s moonwalking across the globe. Welcome on board, Micha!

3. Events of the Week

Sandboxer Mathias Vestergaard bouldering at the weekly Sandbox Bouldering event in NYC.

Sandbox DC brainstorming the future of National Public Radio, with NPR +.

4. Weekly Inspiration

Berlin Sandboxer and opera singer Rainer Scheerer on creating your own open source religion.

Tony Pino is an Associate at Cue Ball. He brings a strong entrepreneurial spirit from his own prior ventures to Cue Ball and is responsible for the prospecting and evaluation of new investments, providing strategic support to Cue Ball’s portfolio companies, and leading internal projects at the firm.

1. Spotlight of the Week

Sandboxer and TED Fellow Bel Pesce just launched a book on entrepreneurship in Brazil. It’s available as a free download here.

Sandboxers and  Startup Genome founders Bjoern Herrmann and Max Marmer present their model and results on startup failures due to premature scaling.

Sandboxer Niamh Hughes‘ Folio - a platform for designers, illustrators, developers, and creators to market and sell their digital content - was featured on The Next Web!

Narkis Alon

Narkis Alon is the co-founder of “Ze-Ze”, which focuses on social activation among youth. She is also a mentor at the Junior Entrepreneurs Association, a member of the Steering Committee of the Tel Aviv Municipality Youth Center, studies psychology and film at Tel Aviv University and is a Global Shaper. Welcome on board, Narkis!

Thomas Hohenhau

Thomas Hohenhau has been living in Switzerland for the past eight years, but still keeps his original Bavarian spirit. After his studies at the Universities of Zurich and St. Gallen, as well as various entrepreneurial projects. He became the Head of PM Business Development at Julius Bär and the youngest team leader at the bank. Next to his work, he serves on various advisory boards and was elected as a Curator for the WEF Global Shapers Hub ZH. Welcome to the Sandbox family, Thomas!

Christian Vanizette

Christian Vanizette is a nomad from Tahiti, French Polynesia, who co-founded MakeSense.org. Through this, he connects social entrepreneurs with individuals who are ready to take up their challenges! This is done both online and offline, at specifically designed workshops – MakeSense Hold-ups. Welcome to the Sandbox family, Christian!

3. Events of the Week

Sandbox Dinner Party in NYC.

Ladies’ Breakfast in NYC.

4. Weekly Inspiration

Sandboxer Barry Pousman helps us thank some of the most important ladies.

Daniel Goldstein is a co-founder of CrowdPic – an app that integrates various media experiences from multiple users into one memorable album. She is also a co-founder of ZEZE community in Tel Aviv and is currently a student at the Zell Entrepreneurship program of the IDC Herzeliya. During her service in the IDF, Daniel served as film producer for the IAF training unit. She lived in New York for two years after the army and worked at Peter Som fashion house in the design and public relations departments.

Here the lines cross in a web-like manner, allowing paths to criss-cross, giving rise to companies, initiatives, and partnerships that are interconnected and overlapping. Sandbox is nothing but a representation of the modern world: messy, chaotic, and lateral. And their aim, as Co-Founder Christian Busch says, is to build a “family of extraordinary friends” who go beyond a social network, becoming more of a community that’s closely linked to each other’s success and growth.

Sandbox is illustrative of a growing trend of impact organizations that aspire to connect young, brash, and wildly creative do-gooders with each other. Each impact organization, be it Sandbox, Starting Bloc, or Impact organisations, has a different
blueprint but the ultimate goal is the same: incubating ‘generation Why.’ And incubating their ideas.

Sandboxer Kosta Grammatis, CEO and founder of ahumanright.org, is an acescientist who works with MIT Media Labs. But his real passion is in defining the Internet as a human right and extending it to communities that have been adversely affected by the digital divide. Passionate, inventive, and immensely driven, Grammatis says he finds solace in the Sandbox community, where everyone is just as imaginative and ambitious as him. “Within Sandbox, I don’t feel crazy and alone, as somehow everyone is a dreamer and a doer at once,” he says.

Sandbox reaches out to the under 30 crowd, a burgeoning group of young people who are fed up with the inequalities in the current economic and political systems. This is a group that doesn’t want to wait till 50 to do philanthropy. Rather, they want their job to be impacting now, transforming society as they age, not once they hit the pinnacle of their adult lives.

1. Spotlight of the Week

Sandboxer Walker Williams launched his new startup, Teespring.com, a zero-cost, zero-hassle way to design and sell custom apparel. All you do is design your perfect shirt, choose a sales goal (tipping point), and launch a campaign. Once you reach your goal, they organize the screen printing & shipping and you get a check for the profit!

Sandboxers in ΤΕΥΧΟΣ 63′s “The DOers Issue”

Sandboxers Christian Busch, Michael Radparvar, William McQuillan, Maeva Tordo, Rainer Scheerer, David Bizer, Logan McClure, and Sandbox Advisor Susan Kisch are featured in Greek Magazine ΤΕΥΧΟΣ 63′s “The DOers Issue”. Check out the magazine here.

2. New in the Sandbox

Rebecca Sweetman

Rebecca Sweetman has a passion for Africa. Her experiences have included working at a horse back safari in South Africa and driving from Johannesburg to Kilimanjaro. She is also passionate about youth education. Using her management consulting experience from McKinsey she is setting up a social enterprise, Tutudesk UK, that aims to get school desks, Tutudesks, to 20 million children in Sub-Saharan Africa. Welcome to the Sandbox family, Becca!

Javier Agüera

Javier Agüera is a 19-year-old entrepreneur and future engineer living in Madrid, Spain. By the age of 16, he had co-founded his third start-up: Geeksphone, the first European brand to launch an Android smartphone into the market. His goal is to show that, aside from the economic crisis, there are entrepreneurial opportunities in Spain for a young generation that is suffering from more than 45% unemployment. Welcome to the Sandbox family, Javier!

Kashuo Bennett

Kashuo Bennett is a digital craftsperson. He uses cutting edge technologies to make beautiful objects and experiences, be they high-performance buildings, oversized 3D versions of his friends’ heads, or all-night DJ parties. He works as an architect, plays as an artist, and learns as a teacher. He lives in Washington D.C. Welcome to the Sandbox family, Kash!

3. Events of the Week

NYC Lunch with Clay Shirky.

4. Weekly Inspiration

“Don’t be afraid, just try and take a chance for something you really believe in!”
- William McQuillan, Sandboxer

Dublin, Ireland

Every day, we search the Sandbox for projects, stories and ideas by Sandboxers. This week, Sandboxer JJ Tang tells us about Vantage Realized, LLC (VR), a Phoenix-based company that he co-founded in order to improve the life quality of people with disabilities, and their first product, the Mechaddy. Follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

To many people, walking downstairs to make yourself a cup of tea is something that doesn’t require a second thought. But what if you are in a wheelchair? How do you get down the stairs? How do you reach the mugs in the cabinet above your head?

Our team at Vantage Realized is committed to helping people with disabilities live their lives more effortlessly. We owe our humble beginnings to three visionary college students: JJ Tang, Gordon Freirich, and Nick Gough, who founded the company in 2011. Since then, we have received funding from many places who shared our vision for social change, including the Edson Student Entrepreneur Initiative and the Innovation Challenge at Arizona State University.

The first product that we are working on is the Mechaddy, an ergonomic lever attachment that can be retrofitted to the wheels of a mechanical wheelchair that reduces physical strain while increasing mobility.

The idea was inspired by Dana Gough, father of co-founder Nick Gough, a mechanical wheelchair user, who found that operating a wheelchair was causing him joint pain over time. Upon further investigation, they found that many other mechanical wheelchair users experienced this problem. The fundamental problem is that turning the wheels of a manual wheelchair requires the arms to be constantly bent in an unergonomic angle. Wheelchairs are also difficult to maneuver on uneven terrain, making it difficult for Dana to enjoy activities such as camping, one of the family’s favorite pastimes.

Following the release of the Mechaddy, we have plans to expand our offerings with more products that will improve the overall quality of life for those with disabilities. We think that everyone deserves to take some things for granted.

1. Spotlight of the Week

2. New in the Sandbox

Maria Parodi

Maria Parodi is currently the Deputy Lord Mayor of Dublin; at 27 she is the youngest woman to hold this prestigious position which makes her the second citizen of Dublin city. Maria is also the youngest elected member of Dublin City Council and is passionate about ensuring that Dublin is a vibrant, thriving, sustainable international city. Welcome to the Sandbox Dublin Class of 2012, Maria!

Ramy Nagy

Ramy Nagy is an Egyptian entrepreneur living between Cairo and New York. He studied filmmaking and has worked with film companies in Hollywood and NYC, mainly focusing on stories on the impact of non-profit organizations. Ramy started his own company, MADEO, a hybrid between an advertising agency, a consulting and a development firm operating in Cairo and NY. He also started “Beena” (“made by us” in colloquial Egyptian), a website featuring innovative initiatives by Egyptian youth during and following the revolution. Welcome to the Sandbox family, Ramy!

Sophie Morris

Sophie Morris is the co-founder of innovative and exciting Irish food company Kooky Dough, who have brought a totally unique product concept from farmers markets to multiple retailers in Ireland, the UK and France in 2 years. Sophie is extremely passionate about food and has recently written a cookbook, which is being published by Gill & Macmillan, Ireland’s leading publishers. Welcome to the Sandbox Dublin Class of 2012, Sophie!

3. Events of the Week

A product of creativity at the Sandboxer Retreat in Ireland.

Sandbox Beijing Dinner on Inequality in China and the Rights of Migrant Workers.

Sandbox Zurich Dinner with the founder of King’s Kurry, Ranjeet Guptara.

4. Weekly Inspiration

“Never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.”
- F. Scott Fitzgerald