When Tim Hwang started batting around the idea of the Awesome Foundation for the Arts and Sciences 4 months ago I really didn’t know what to expect. Assembling 10 friends together to give $1000 every month in an elaborate ceremony to fund the start of some absurd or largely irrelevant project seemed, well, a trifle self-indulgent. Being a fan of self-indulgence and needing no further motivation to promote and propagate joyous absurdity in the world, I joined.
What has happened in the last several months is fricking amazing.
This beast of inspiration has sliced and diced the red tape, endless hoops and halts people face when trying to fund ridiculous or atypical creations. It has also revealed to us the overwhelming amount of ingenuity out there and shamed me into working on my own gratuitous displays of public and private joy.
Not that the foundation was set up with the aim of wasting resources and mental space; we are all now at the point when reading through the grant applicants that it’s an automatic delete on apps that try to knock-off someone else’s project or augment something already in existence. Who doesn’t take the time to at least google search an idea to find out if ten spot-on matches are not already out there done? Non-winning applicants.
That said, I’ve heartedly enjoyed the ride. Since the applications have no expiration date, we haven’t collectively decided to showcase any yet in case we choose to fund an older one. I’ve been assembling some data on the criteria and trends that have emerged but that will be for later posts. For now, I’ll leave you with a raptor-proofed pirate ship of a home looking at the stars and wondering when the first Native American woman will walk on Mars. Foo!
P.S. I can’t use awesome anymore as a word. It’s been like eating pizza for breakfast, lunch and dinner.