This week we announced our latest innovation challenge: the Cities Project by Heineken. a new initiative that aims to bring local projects to life that will make great cities even greater. Fans can submit 30-second pitch videos of interesting projects happening in New York, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles and Honolulu. Five will be selected to run campaigns on Indiegogo with $20,000 matched by Heineken. Plus, the press is still rolling in from our recent Arrow announcement, saying that “Indiegogo might be better than Kickstarter for crowdfunding your next hardware project.” I couldn’t agree more.

Tech News

We’ve all enjoyed playing with remote control cars, drones, etc, because we get to pretend to be super bad a** and good at tricks and/or flying. There’s now a way to control them with your hand movements. Ziro won’t make you flip controllers around or break knobs off. Plus you get to build a car or a robot or even an animal that responds to you like a wireless puppet. I didn’t mention that it was technically created for kids, but I don’t think that’s important.

Even if you use your phone for “worthwhile” activities like reading the news or learning French with Duolingo instead of endlessly scrolling through Instagram, you are probably still messing up your neck. Especially during commute time when you’re very sleepy, you’re all bent into “text neck” position which can cause long-term chronic pain. No bueno. A nifty little device called Alex wraps around the back of your neck like a pair of headphones and will buzz when you’ve been hunched over for too long. Quasimodo may have found a beautiful lady to love him, but don’t think you’ll be the next lucky hunchback.

Film Crowdfunding News

Celebrated 81-year-old filmmaker Jan Švankmajer (I’ll give you a treat if you know how to pronounce that with no help) has given Indiegogo the honor of being the platform where he raises funds for his final project: “Insects,” which has been in development for five years but hasn’t found sufficient funds. The film is meant to be a deep examination of society by following a group of actors as they rehearse “The Insect Play,” which was written by the Capek brothers in 1921. Borrowing from Kafka, the film will show the ways in which the actors resemble and even become insects.

Social Impact News

In just three short weeks, Humans of New York’s campaign Let’s Help Dr. O’Reilly Fight Pediatric Cancer has raised almost $4M. This will make a huge difference for a hospital like Memorial Sloan Kettering because it turns out that pediatric cancer “doesn’t get the funding support from national granting agencies, nor does it have the zeal of the pharmaceutical industry… It truly relies on philanthropy to seed new concepts and ideas.” We’re so proud that our community came together to fund new ideas that will save lives.

Feeling inspired? Download the free Indiegogo Field Guide to get started today!