OpenMikeAmerica

Submitted by oloren on October 31, 2009 - 00:04.
The Team
Whose name (s) should be listed as winner(s) if your entry is selected?: 
Loren Castleton
Application Questions
Summarize your proposal in 50 words or less: 

OpenMikeAmerica.com is a website designed to eliminate poverty worldwide, within just a few years. Much like a magnifying glass focusing the sun's rays to a single point, sparking a fire, OMA serves to focus the goodwill and generosity of all who would be benefactors of humanity into a single non-governmental organization capable of eliminating poverty by transferring money to all who need it.

Describe the critical need your solution addresses: 

The OpenMikeAmerica addresses the problem of global poverty. But as Fuller made clear, the persistence of the problem is due to a COMPLETELY MISTAKEN human mindset, the notion that there isn't enough for all... that humans must forever live in a world of scarcity.

Explain your initiative in more depth and its stage of development. ** See full questions below box: 

The premise behind OpenMikeAmerica is that the only thing powerful enough to save us now, ten years after the deadline which Buckminster Fuller assumed for humanity's passing of its Final Exam, is an idea. An idea capable of traveling through the computers of the internet to the minds of so large a number of people on planet earth that, once those people have informed the remainder of humanity that they are entitled to the money they need, there will in fact be an end of poverty on Spaceship Earth.

How does your strategy and approach respond creatively and comprehensively to key issues? **see full question below box: 

Implementation of this plan has four components: Website, Venues, Fund, and Performers.

First, OpenMikeAmerica.com is a website which, in trimtab fashion, "leverages" free hosting of video on the web provided by YouTube and others to provide access to OpenMikeAmerica performances worldwide. (I have already written a demo web application for the website in a web framework called Ruby on Rails).

Second, marketing a low-cost business franchise to suitable businesses capable of providing a performance stage and installing standardized video-capture equipment to record OpenMikeAmerica performances. This provides an opportunity for them to fill their establishment with potential customers, although the business cannot charge or restrict access to the OpenMikeAmerica stage.

Third, a Fund, which adheres to a strict charter, and works as follows:

(1) A global appeal is made for contributions to the Fund to all philanthropists, and to all who wish to help quickly eliminate poverty on the planet.

(2) All contributions to the Fund are to be used solely for the specific charitable purpose of compensating OpenMikeAmerica performers.

(3) The compensation to performers is distributed on a periodic basis (monthly) exclusively through electronic transfer of funds to financial institutions offering cash accounts to individual performers.

(4) Each month, a distribution pool is created from 50% of contributions for the month, together with 50% of the monthly interest accrued from the Fund. The remaining 50% of the month's contributions are added to the Fund.

(5) Each month each performer receives compensation for their OMA performance of an amount determined by dividing the monthly distribution pool by the number of performers requesting compensation.

Finally, the Performers, which means, Everyone on Spaceship Earth! In order to receive compensation for their OpenMikeAmerica performance, a person must do the following:

(1) Find and travel to an OpenMikeAmerica franchise venue, sign-up and do a 3 to 10 minute performance, with OpenMikeAmerica cameras running, of music, poetry, stories, rants, or anything else within the bounds of decency.
(2) Register with OpenMikeAmerica, choose the option to be compensated for the performance, and select an authorized bank or financial institution designated to receive the funds.

Compare and contrast your initiative. **see full question below box: 

In a speech of 1967, Martin Luther King, Jr, proclaimed his belief that a Guaranteed Income program would be the fastest way to end poverty in the United States. Fuller then proved beyond doubt that such an idea could really work, that the development of scientific know-how has made it possible for humans to produce so much with so few resources that in 1970 humanity crossed the threshold of being able to create a planet of "four billion billionaires". That proof has now been available to all for 40 years, yet the change has not come, and in the halls of power, income guarantees are not even discussed.

Here is sufficient proof that Bucky was right when he said that real change will never come through the politics, that is, through institutions changing themselves. Fuller believed that new artifacts would act as shunts, allowing people to accomplish what they wanted without confronting institutions holding them back. Can an institution be an artifact? OMA is a proposal which allows individuals of integrity to do what is necessary, on their own initiative, completely voluntarily and without compulsion, to end poverty.

What is necessary is a direct transfer of money to those who need it.

Everyone is an artist ... everyone has something to contribute, everyone has something to "show" for themselves, whether song, poem, story, drawing, painting or other "piece" to perform. And everyone deserves to be compensated for their performance.

Provide details regarding the team and/or partners you have assembled. **see full question below box: 

OpenMikeAmerica is designed to be a trimtab operation rather team effort. Consider its four components:

Website -- As already mentioned, the Website "leverages" the free hosting of video by Google's YouTube and others, in order to provide a portal where anyone with an internet connection can view any OpenMikeAmerica performance, regardless of when or where it was performed.

Venues -- OpenMikeAmerica is not designed to own any venues. Instead, we want to offer incentives to the business owners already operating successful enterprises capable of hosting open mike performances.

Fund -- The affiliations with banks and other financial institutions to handle the Performers' accounts should once again "leverage" the existing institutions, since the prospect of adding new clients should carry sufficient economic incentive to cover the costs.

Performers -- Here is the crown jewel of OpenMikeAmerica. From personal experience, I know that a thriving and enthusiastic base of open mike performers exists in many cities in the U.S., in spite of the fact that most performers currently go uncompensated, performing just for the joy of it, and providing audiences with great shows. So once again, in trimtab fashion, OpenMikeAmerica seeks to harness powerful forces already operating and turn them to solving the greatest problem facing humanity: the elimination of poverty.

Describe your implementation plan. **see full question below box: 

The OpenMikeAmerica strategy for ending poverty worldwide involves creating a social networking website that allows people to view the OpenMikeAmerica performances of anyone, anywhere, and at anytime. This in itself will be a great contribution to both the performers (providing them with an audience for their talents) and the audience (giving them a great show). OpenMikeAmerica proposes to pay the Performers for their performances, as described below, so it will contribute to the economic welfare of the Performers to whatever degree the plan is a success. But the real breakthrough of this approach is that it functions as a Fuller artifact, providing a shunt that allows money to be distributed to those who need it, thereby eliminating poverty, without becoming blocked by the mindset and institutional traps that perpetuate poverty within the larger economic system. Can there by any doubt that a world without poverty is THE preferred state model?

What are the critical success factors that must be in place to achieve success? ** See full question below box: 

The success of OpenMikeAmerica will depend on whether the great number of philanthropists and people of good will who are able to make contributions to the Fund can be convinced of the likelihood that their contribution will rapidly eliminating poverty on the planet. If Bill Gates were to contribute 10 billion to the fund at its inception, there is a good chance that others will follow his lead, so that the periodic distribution to the Performers will quickly become sizable. Without a superstar contribution, success will depend upon the gradual dissemination of the idea, which is helped enormously by the sheer number of Performers who will find it to be in their interest to become involved with OpenMikeAmerica, and to pitch it to family and friends, if only to have them view the videos of their performances.

What range of funding is needed to bring your project to fruition. **see full question below box: 

With the Challenge Prize of $100,000, there should be sufficient funds to (1) Create the website (2) create and market the Franchise and (3) set up the Fund. Thereafter, all funding will come from contributions to the Fund, and be distributed, according to a strict Fund charter, only to Performers of OpenMikeAmerica as described above.

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