Kiva’s mission is to connect people through lending for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world.

The facebook Kiva application lets a user grow their funds by using the facebook platform as a means of soliciting friends for monetary contributions.

I read a lot. Copious amounts really. So when a really good friend of mine and Invoke’s wrote a book I couldn’t wait till it came out. I’ve still got to wait a bit to get the copy in my hands, but they have just started presales of the book – Amielle has assured me that she will sign my copy.

Posted by Jenn Lowther

Last week was an absolutely crazy busy week in Vancouver for Social Media and technology. The week started off with TechVibe’s Startup Career Fair and ended with the PopVox People’s Choice Awards – with VIGS/Vidfest Opening Ceremony, Launch Party 4, Cossette Convergence 2008, and VidFest in between. I will have a post on these events soon, but I want to tell everyone about our exciting news from the Awards.

Invoke was nominated for the New Media BC’s People’s Choice 2008 Award for Best User Generated Content or Crowdsourced Content Site for memelabs.com. Nadia and I had an incredible time at the Awards Ceremony and Gala. We were extremely honoured to be nominated for this award and ecstatic that we won.

Photo Credit: Dustin Sacks SillySoft Games

Invoke was up against some excellent competition and want to congratulate the following teams for the excellent work they have done. We were honoured to be competing against you.

• BussPass: Travels in Urbanity
• Changeeverything.ca
• Dare to be Digital: The Online Learning Challenge
• NowPublic.com
• Planetwide Media: Speed Racer Comic Book
• Protagonize: Story Writing Community
• Strutta
• Zeros 2 Heros: The Peoples Publisher

Invoke would also like to congratulate all of the other nominees and winners at the awards.

• Best Digital Animated Short: PSYOP, for Coca-Cola “Happiness Factory, the Movie”
• Best Digital VFX: Ubisoft, for Assassin’s Creed
• Best Game (Console/PC): Metanet Software and Slick Entertainment, for N+ on Xbox 360 / XBLA
• Best Game (Casual): Acronym Games, for Rocketmen: Axis of Evil
• Best Mobile (Game): The Saints, for NavBall
• Best Mobile (Application): CellMap Inc, for CellMap
• Best Digital Campaign: Rainmaker Entertainment and Zeros2Heroes Media, for A ReBoot ReLaunch
• Best Digital Score: Clicktoy Interactive Inc., for The Meadow
• Best Do-Gooder site (Social Change Initiative): smashLAB, for DesignCanChange.org
• Homegrown Award (Best BC-based Venture): smashLAB, for MakeFive.com

The evening was a smashing success and is an event Nadia and I will remember for quite some time.

Invoke Wins PopVox Award for memelabs.com

Posted by Jenn Lowther

Last week w

With the sun out, beach volleyball in full swing, and a bit of a sunburn on my shoulder…the only thing that it can mean is that summer is coming!! That means getting outside and having fun. With the advent of this beautiful weather, we also get our 2nd Annual Bike to Work Week. So dust of your bikes, get in shape, and help save the environment.

I have to state my displeasure with the Webby Awards and I will start by looking through the latest list of nominees.

Seeing companies like ‘The New York Times’ or the ‘The Guardian’ makes me think that the judges are completely mainstream oriented and as a result there are many good and deserving companies and websites that didn’t get nominated…