I just liked Interaction Design Foundation (IDF) on Facebook. By the time you finish reading this story, you will want to do the same. At last count they had 38,066 likes.
Founded by husband and wife team Mads Soegaard and Rikke Friis Dam, IDF is an organization that seeks to share knowledge at an affordable price worldwide. At SAPPHIRE NOW to promote their sponsorship with SAP and SAP University Alliances, the Danish duo had a textbook on display written by two SAP employees. IDF's textbooks and video materials, on topics ranging from Information Architecture to Wearable Technology, written by and recorded with the elite of the tech world, are offered free of charge through their website. They believe that education should be available to people all over the world, regardless of their means or income or access to learning facilities.
In this short video, Ann Rosenberg, head of SAP University Alliances, and Rikke, talk about their joint efforts.
Targeting students and designers but also corporate employees, their latest campaign to share knowledge and learning materials involves an Austrian bike enthusiast called Max.
Share the Knowledge Tour
Max Peer was arguably the most incongruous figure at SAPPHIRE NOW. Wearing a t-shirt and shorts, Max wheeled a bike complete with a one-wheel trailer onto the show floor, weighted heavily down with enough gear for the 4-year, 35,000-mile around-the-world trip he was about to embark on. Leaving Orlando, he was headed north, where he planned to stop in Philadelphia at the SAP office in Newtown Square, before swinging west to California.
(Rikke Friis Dam, Ann Rosenberg, Max Peer, and Mads Soegaard with the bike).
His equipment includes:
- One canoe, made of tarpaulin and assembled with extensible tubing.
- GPS and old-school maps.
- Tent
- Solar power panel and dynamo hub to power the cameras, laptop and other devices.
On his Share the Knowledge tour, Max will stop at universities, SAP locations, and other learning facilities to distribute open access e-books. IDF has created a fantastic website where you can follow Max's adventures and track his progress. A complete list of his equipment, including photos, can be found here. Max was motivated to support this cause after meeting Mads and Rikke and learning about their mission. He is not new to biking or to volunteerism. In the past he has loaded his bike down with crayons, pens, pencils and art supplies, distributing them to primary schools during a bike tour of South-East Asia. I spoke to Max at SAPPHIRE NOW about his motivation and goals for the tour.
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