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Our friends at SparkAction are promoting the Young Minds contest, which is sponsored by Google and will send 12 young people (18-24) to Zeitgeist Americas in Arizona this September. Be sure to apply!

What is Young Minds?

Young Minds is a competition to find twelve young people who have made or are trying to make a positive difference in the world.  It’s a platform to promote what young people are doing to improve their communities and make a difference in the world.

Previous Young Minds winners have had big ideas and taken steps to make them a reality.  The winners attended Zeitgeist Europe 2011, met an array of influential business leaders and thinkers; three of the winners even had a chance to speak at the event.

Now it’s your turn.  We want to find twelve 18- to 24-year-olds who will win entry to a special program of events and master classes held at this year’s Zeitgeist Americas 2011. 

How do you enter? Upload a 1-minute video by August 25, 2011 for the chance to rub elbows with the best and brightest people on the planet.

What is Zeitgeist?

Zeitgeist is a special event hosted by Google that brings together over 400 of the planet’s top leaders and biggest brains – from businessmen to bloggers and inventors to activists.  That’s guest speakers like Professor Stephen Hawking, Desmond Tutu, Bill Clinton, Will.I.Am and Queen Rania of Jordan.  Why?  To talk about the big issues affecting our everyday lives, hear what they think is shaping this world of ours and begin to identify solutions to longstanding concerns.  You can view talks from past Zeitgeist events in full at zeitgeistminds.com.

Who, What, When & How

Young Minds is open to all 18-24 year olds from the USA, Canada, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina.  (Click here for complete rules.)

Zeitgeist Americas 2011

September 25-27, 2011

Montelucia Resort & Spa

Paradise Valley, AZ

http://zeitgeistamericas.com

Submitting an entry is easy:

1. Record a 1 minute video describing how you are making an impact in the world.
2. Upload it to your YouTube account.
3. Click this link to fill out the entry form.
4. Hit submit!

Google is doing an interesting experiment by offering free super high speed internet to select cities across the US. One such city that is lobbying pretty hard is Topeka, Kansas.

In a CNN interview Mayor Bunten said his priority is to keep young people in the city.

He "believes so firmly that younger residents of Kansas' capital city will benefit from faster Internet connections that he wants Topeka -- which he describes as a place of many lakes and the site of a burgeoning market for animal-food research -- to change its name for a month."

As a result, the city is renaming itself Google for the month of March in efforts to raise awareness about the competition. Think Big Topeka, a grassroots group has made videos, facebook, twitter, and online outreach to get The Google to the city.

"Bunten hopes the proclamation, which he read at a special City Council meeting on Monday, will catch Google's attention and make the Internet company decide to use Topeka as its guinea pig. The document renames Topeka as "Google, Kansas -- the capital city of fiber optics."

Google declined to comment on whether it's taking the whole "Google, Kansas" thing seriously.

The mayor believes that faster Internet connections would inspire young people to stay in the city and would encourage business development."

It's interesting to see a city recognize the importance of retaining young people and take such great strides to ensure youth are invested in their local cities.

The Mayor is "the first to say outsiders probably view Topeka as "another Midwestern town with not a lot going on," but he's been making efforts to change that. He trying to revitalize downtown with a bar and music scene.

Google would add to all that, making the city more attractive to youngsters, he said.

"To have this high-speed where people can sit down and have lunch and still keep working is a positive for young people," he said. "The young people are the ones that caught onto this and go to the Internet and asked people in the city to sign on as supporting Google coming to Topeka."

• Check out this Philadelphia Bulletin article that argues today's college students are being told what to think and not how to think. Whether or not you agree, it's still an interesting read.
• Sick of the major bank bailout disaster? Join TakeBackTheEconomy.org today, March 19, at nationwide demonstrations at the offices of major banks to demand an end to an era of corporate excess and rebuild an economy that works for everyone.
• As Karlo pointed out, Gov. Swarzcheneggar unveiled a green jobs program for under-priveleged youth. A great move forward in the direction of environmental and green-tech industries.
• Michelle Obama was at the National Mall marking the 30th anniversary of YouthBuild U.S.A., a national organization that helps at-risk youth work toward their GEDs or high school diplomas while building affordable housing for poor or homeless people. Another indication of the Obama's comitment to struggling youth and national service.
• National Journal looks at the role Google is playing in DC politics.

Recently, news broke that President Obama's new Director of Citizen Participation would be Google's Katie Jacobs Stanton. Kudos to the new President for sticking to his word that active citizenship would be at the forefront of his administration. Stanton was behind some of the Google applications that can be put to wholesome democratic use, such as Google's Moderator tool. Stanton's background is in technology, but what experience does she have in the way of citizen participation? A simple Google search doesn't turn up much, but maybe that's by design. To be sure, her knowledge of Google applications and other products can help turn the White House into the most connected and engaging executive office ever.

As Peter Levine points out in his post about young people and education, most young people do not attend college. As we know from the 2008 election and past elections , young people with some college education, especially current college students, are much more likely to vote than young people with no college experience whatsoever. In other words, college go-ers don't need much help from the Obama Administration to get involved. If anything, online Millennials will probably innovate new technologies and applications that increase their online influence. Stanton's help may quicken this process, which means that online Millennials will have a disproportionate voice in government when compared to their peers. At this moment, low-skilled and lower educated youth are suffering the most from the economic downturn. January's unemployment rate will be released tomorrow (February 6th) by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, so be on the look-out, data-geeks. December 2008's unemployment rate for 16 to 18 year old youth was a whopping 20.8 percent, a one-year high--compared with 7.2 percent for the entire nation.

College students and recent graduates are experiencing a tough job market as well, but they have strong advocates on Capitol Hill and elsewhere that are fighting to include certain higher education provisions into the stimulus package. I'm in favor of these provisions, but where is the clamoring for the unemployed teenage youth and low-skilled workers that are being laid off in droves from large corporations. Where is their lobbying group? Which Senator or Representative is the "Champion of Under-served Youth Everywhere?"

I'm calling on Stanton to use her office for the most good by incorporating the ideas and wants of young people that don't go to college. People that are generally left-out of the democratic process, sometimes by choice and sometimes by design. (She can do this with technology, and this task will be easier once the promised broadband technology reaches every part of this nation.) One way she can succeed is to tap into existing networks. Groups like the Hip Hop Caucus and The League of Young Voters focused much of their GOTV and voter registration efforts on young voters with no college experience, as well as non-White urban youth--one of the least likely demographics to attend college. As the Director of Civic Participation, Stanton should work closely with the Corporation for National and Community Service--the government agency responsible for AmeriCorps--to create a citizen corps that does not recruit heavily on college campuses, but in rural towns and urban centers away from the ivory towers. Moreover, Stanton should form a working group that includes a diverse sampling of citizen-centered organizations in order to design programs that engages directly with America's most under-served populations. Research organizations such as CIRCLE and the National Conference on Citizenship can help measure the effectiveness of these programs.

Millennials that are comfortable with technology and have college experience voted for Obama by a wide margin over McCain, so it's no surprise that Obama should cater some of his policies to that demographic. Stanton's appointment seems to be a step in that direction, but she should take this opportunity to bring serious change to America for those who need it most. As the Director of Citizen Participation, Stanton's measure of success should be how high she raised the lowest bar. We'll be watching...and working with her, too.

While Puxatawney Phil may have predicted six more weeks of winter, there's no end in sight to talk of the youth vote and their continuing presence in the Obama administration. Today's posts are particularly assorted, ranging from Senate filibuster talk to corrupt judges.

• Washington Whispers covers a recent panel on the youth vote and reports on a former youth vote director for Obama's statements crediting high school seniors in Iowa for playing a key role in the election of Obama
• Future Majority gets a shout out in a Democratic Strategist post advocating that Democrats do more to work with young people down the ballot.
• Obama has chosen Google's Katie Jacobs Stanton to become the new Director of Citizen Participation, starting in March. It should be interesting to see how her role plays out in the coming months, particularly with changes to whitehouse.gov.
• A Senate filibuster of the stimulus package continues to be a possibility. Nate Silver does some math to see how a Republican filibuster would play out.
• Two Pennsylvania judges have been jailed for taking bribes from juvenile detention centers in exchange for sending teens to juvie. Highlights the need for criminal justice reform in America.
• Diana Kimball of Digital Natives says that the internet is simply a tool to accomplish a plethora of tasks, but is not a last resort for most. Brings up that today's youth aren't as tech saavy as adults would like to believe.
• It's Getting Hot in Here celebrates 'monkeywrenching' and plugs Capitol Climate Action. An interesting piece about civil disobedience, regardless of if you agree or not.
• Obama campaign manager David Plouffe gets the 'Esquire treatment' in a 6000 word profile.
• Finally, here's Rep. Tim Ryan talking about higher education tax credits in the stimulus:

The Google has launched some super sexy voter registration and Election Day tools via Google Maps.

You start out by going to maps.google.com/vote and enter your home address.

As the video says - the thing that comes up is pretty sweet. It shows you how many days you have left to register, deadlines for postmarks to mail in registration, tools to check if you are registered, how to get an absentee ballot, and a link to the local office of elections to help you ensure you have all the facts and information you need.

Go play with it - its brilliant!!

Thanks to Adam for the tip.

Three items, all having to do with online video and politics.

First, MoveOn has announced the 15 finalists in its Obama in 30 Seconds contest. You can vote here. The winner will be aired on national television. This one is my favorite:

Second, I've just found out through the blog grapevine that Joe Felice, one of my old MFA colleagues, has an awesome YouTube Show in which he covers politics, among other things. It's amazing.

Joe is currently involved in an online video contest the prize of which is a free ride to the Democratic Convention. He's been selected as a finalist in the Project Breakout Political Pundit competition and here is his final submission:

Joe is smart as a whip and just as witty. His coverage of the convention will be top notch. He deserves to be there. Go vote for him.

In the meantime, I'll be adding Joe's show to the Breaking Video sidebar. Watch for that crazy afro he's got going.

Finally, Google and YouTube have announced a partnership to produce a political forum in New Orleans during the general election. Here's hoping they adopt something like the MTV/MySpace Dialogue format.

Here's the announcement: