forage oakland

Code for Oakland: harvesting near Lake Merritt

asiyawadud — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 00:15:42 +0000

We’re gearing up for the Code for Oakland event this Sat., 7/21, and looking for a few bountiful fruit trees to harvest! If you live in the Lake Merritt area (the event is @ the Kaiser Building, near Harrison/ 21st) and have surplus fruit from backyard trees, please email foragecity@youthradio.org) so that the Code for Oakland folks can come harvest! For more info, send us a message.

Thank you!!

Students Create Apps to Help Communities

asiyawadud — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 04:45:34 +0000

Click here to read an article from Education Week about Youth Radio’s Mobile Action Lab and the Forage Oakland collaboration, Forage City (as presented at the Digital Media and Learning Conference last week).

Reprogramming Urban Ecologies Through Youth-Made Apps

asiyawadud — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 06:26:14 +0000

Tomorrow I will be presenting at the Digital Media and Learning Conference on a panel that includes my collaborators from Forage City. We will be discussing the Forage Oakland/ Youth Radio ‘Mobile App Lab’ collaboration, and more broadly, youth-made mobile apps, and their potential to ‘reprogram urban ecologies. Below is information about the conference (from the conference website).

About the Conference

The Digital Media and Learning Conference is an annual event supported by the MacArthur Foundation and organized by the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub located at the UC Humanities Research Institute, University of California, Irvine. The conference is meant to be an inclusive, international and annual gathering of scholars and practitioners in the field, focused on fostering interdisciplinary and participatory dialog and linking theory, empirical study, policy, and practice. The third annual conference – DML2012 – is organized around the theme “Beyond Educational Technology: Learning Innovations in a Connected World” and will be held between March 1-3, 2012 in San Francisco, California.

How to eat a passion fruit

asiyawadud — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 04:06:07 +0000

It’s mid-October again, which means that North Oakland is awash in ripening passion fruit. Passion fruit are a delicacy even in North Oakland due to the dearth of public vines. They do exist, though, especially in Lower Temescal (in the low 40s-numbered streets). When you do find one, the next challenge could be figuring out how best to enjoy the fruit.

Below are a few simple guidelines.

Step 1: Take note of ripening passion fruit. If the fruit appears on private property, ask the residents of the property if you can harvest a few excess passion fruit they don’t intend to harvest. If your neighbors are as friendly as mine, they will definitely grant you permission to harvest the fruit, and will be appreciative that you asked permission prior to harvesting.

Step 2: Wait for passion fruit to ripen and fall. A deep purple and wrinkled skin indicate ripeness. Collect fruit.

Step 3: With a sharp paring knife, slice in half and enjoy with a friend.

Making Beautiful Maps: Geodata, Spatial Analysis, and Map Design

asiyawadud — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 13:59:29 +0000

Skillshare Mapping Course

This 2-hour data visualization class is brought to you courtesy of Skillshare, and is taught by Jake Levitas, the research director at GAFFTA. This class will be taught Wednesday, October 5th, 6:00 – 8:00 pm at GAFFTA: 998 Market St., San Francisco.

At the end of this class, I hope to be able to produce an interactive North Oakland fruit tree map that shows real-time data about quantity of fruit available, public/private status of the fruit tree in question, and level of ripeness.

"At Vacant Homes, Foraging For Fruit" in the NY Times

asiyawadud — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:10:00 +0000

On Sunday, August 14, an article about foraging at Atlanta’s foreclosed homes appeared in the New York Times. The article, written by Kim Severson, offers an interesting perspective on foraging during economically trying times; you can decide for yourself what you think about this practice, and the ethical questions therein.

Click here for the full article.

Gray Area Foundation for the Arts: Summer of Smart

asiyawadud — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 01:54:00 +0000

(Screenshot taken from the GAFFTA, SoS website)

Gray Area Foundation for the Arts (GAFFTA) is a San Francisco-based foundation that seamlessly integrates the work of designers, coders, urbanists, and artists. They work at the intersection of these various disciplines, producing provocative work that engages people from disparate fields.

Here is a bit about their work, in their own words: ” GAFFTA brings together the best creative coders, data artists, designers, and makers to create experiments that build social consciousness through digital culture. We fund programs aimed at the production, research, and dissemination of digital culture where art, science, technology, and society intersect. We bring diverse communities together to incubate ideas, and we support and showcase the projects they create. We host classes, workshops, seminars, and symposia taught and attended by the very people that are transforming today’s digital age.

This weekend, GAFFTA is organizing the third and final Summer of Smart: Public Health + Food + Nutrition + Urban Agriculture. The event, which is open to the public, is a weekend-long affair whereby teams of attendees will work together to create mobile applications that address urgent needs at the nexus of planning, food systems, and public health. The most promising projects will have an opportunity to present their work at the San Francisco mayoral forum, as well as become researchers-in-residence at GAFFTA this fall. Click here for more information about this dynamic event.

I’ll be there, and I hope to see you, too.

-Asiya

Boskoi: New Foraging Mobile App

asiyawadud — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:12:00 +0000

(screenshot pulled from the Boskoi website)

Urban Edibles, an Amsterdam-based harvesting group, has released a new mobile foraging application whereby users can search for any number of fruits, nuts, fungi, herbs, and reeds, among other forage-ables. The new application is based on an opensource Ushahidi platform and is called Boskoi, which means ‘browser’ in Greek. The application is currently available in beta form for Android phones.

Download the free application and contribute to the crowdsourced list of edibles.

Thank you for attending the Oakland Museum Harvesting Tour!

asiyawadud — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 02:16:00 +0000

Photo by Shaun Roberts, courtesy of the Oakland Museum of California.

Photo by Toni Gauthier, courtesy of the Oakland Museum of California.

Thanks to all who joined us on Sunday, July 10, for a meandering bike ride from the Oakland Museum to Temescal. Despite the time constraints, we were able to harvest plums on 41st St. (thanks to Viva and Jonathan’s generosity), as well as make an impromptu stop along Lakeshore for a blackberry harvest. With a critical mass of approximately 50 people, we were a sizeable crowd, taking the scenic route down Oak St.; around Lake Merritt; and along Webster until we reached our destination.

Some have requested a route map, which I’ll post soon.

If you were able to capture any photos during the tour or subsequent panel discussion, please email me at forageoakland@gmail.com

Thanks for attending this event, and though Forage Oakland won’t be directly involved in upcoming Seed Circus events, I encourage you to attend.

Sincerely,
Asiya

The Future of Apps In The Hands of Today’s Teens (Re-post from MacArthur Foundation’s Digital Media and Learning Blog)

asiyawadud — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 05:10:00 +0000

If you’d like to learn a bit more about Forage Oakland’s involvement with the MacArthur Foundation sponsored Mobile Action Lab, follow this link. The new urban harvesting mobile application will allow users to locate fruit trees within a specified geographic area and to be notified as the fruit is ripening (and thus ready for harvest) and contact Oakland-ers (and eventually users in other cities, but Oakland will serve as the pilot city) who are available to assist with harvesting in exchange for a certain quantity of excess backyard fruit. In addition, the application will allow fruit tree owners to donate (or barter, if they choose) their glut to a local non-profit that is in need of a regular supply of fruit.

This application will essentially crowd-source the labor- staying abreast of a fruit tree’s ripening schedule; contacting fruit tree owners; arranging for harvesting and redistribution- that results in a successful urban fruit redistribution program. It has the potential to increase the amount of excess fruit that is equitably redistributed to individuals, households, and community organizations in Oakland, as it will increase the efficiency by which residents can contact willing harvesters, and harvesters can- in turn- redistribute said fruit. I look forward to the application’s launch later this summer, and please check the Mobile Action Lab or the Forage Oakland blog for updates about this exciting collaboration.