- Chip Weiner
- Gina Kravitz of reachIT.org (on the swing) with 10/100/1000 judges (L to R) Reuben Pressman, David Warner, Ken Cowart and Julia Freeman
An all-volunteer organization that refurbishes computers and gives them to needy families won the $1,000 top prize last night in the 10/100/1000 Challenge, the annual ideas competition co-sponsored by Creative Loafing and Creative Tampa Bay. reachIT.org will use the money to purchase software licenses and place fresh installs on 83 computers headed for local households and elementary schools.
reachIT and the finalists whose proposals made the Top Ten were cited during an awards presentation at CL Space. It was, if we do say so ourselves, a pretty damn inspiring event.
It was hard not to feel inspired when hearing from people like Jason Sowell, whose Laundry Love Project was the Readers' Choice, or Lena Young Green and the teenage gardeners from the Tampa Heights Junior Civic Association, or Ellen Brown and Olga Bov of the Tampa Bay Independent Business Alliance and Keep St. Petersburg Local, respectively, speaking about their proposal to transform neglected downtown streetscapes into "indie pop-up blocks."
And the best part was perhaps what happened offstage, when all these creative people started trading business cards and discussing ways they could collaborate.
