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Hank & John Start VidCon Early in the Morning (thus the rare shot of empty seats)

VidCon. In a word? WOW. As one friend put it, “it’s like the internet exploded into real life”. It was surreal, amazing, & awesome to meet people that I’ve only been able to see through my computer screen.

Even though there wasn’t nearly enough time, I’m in awe at how seamlessly online friends turned into “real life” friends. In most cases it’s like you’ve known someone for ages and are just hanging out.

This photo makes me look more epic than I ever have the right to be.

Hank & Me on Stage

It was also a real honor to be able to speak in front of 1,700+ people at VidCon. I can’t thank Hank & John Green enough for this opportunity.

In all honesty, if they were picking speakers solely based on number of YouTube subscribers & views, than I would never have been picked. But, that’s part of the reason I’m so grateful I had this chance.

I believe that YouTube is an unprecedented force for good in this world. Forget the haters – we as a community can do amazing things. But, I believe the power of this community remains largely untapped.

With the exception of YouTube featuring stuff, the conversation about global poverty is but a small teeny tiny fraction of the conversation going on YouTube. That’s something I’d like to change.

I’m trying my best – but I can’t do it alone. It’s hard because I can’t do what normal YouTubers do to climb the charts and become a success.

For example, I can be informal & casual but – given the subject matter – I can’t be too silly. Although I want to, I also can’t make videos on a regular & frequent schedule. I’m forced to balance doing a good job on-the-ground with spending time making videos.

In some cases, the projects I do take years to complete. They require planning, networking, budgets, on-the-ground trust building, and also need to account for natural disasters & political unrest which push back schedules.

The video I showed at VidCon is a perfect example. It took 1,000 days to bring this story to an audience. It’s hard to do something like that on a weekly basis. It’s for that reason I need the YouTube community to help me share & spread videos like this one:

So speaking at VidCon was very important because, not only is what I do funded by the YouTube community, the future success of this project is entirely dependent on how much support this work gets on YouTube.

This trip to VidCon wouldn’t have been possible without the support of Hank Green (VidCon event organizer and vlogbrother) who sponsored my flight to VidCon and Patrick Clinger at ProBoards who sponsored my room, board, and stay in Los Angeles.

For this year’s Project for Awesome, I decided to pull out all the stops and show you guys a lot of the stuff I’ve been doing but haven’t had the time to put into individual episodes or videos. I keep saying that this project is less about me and more about the community behind it – hopefully this latest video helps convey that.

And, yeah, this video does use copyrighted music by Coldplay (part of EMI Records). I did enough research into YouTube’s agreement with EMI Records and am fairly certain this video won’t be taken down. But, of course, I also had to forfeit any chance of earning any ad revenue and (as I later found out) any reasonable chance of having this video being featured or promoted. EMI can also reserve the right to take down this video, region lock it, or place ads on it where they can earn all the ad revenue from it (just like the Counting Crows & Universal Music have region locked my Cyclone Sidr video and take all the ad revenue from it).

But that’s cool. This was a kind of video I wanted to make for ages. I just never could find the right match of visuals and music until I heard “Life in Technicolor ii” by Coldplay.

I couldn’t be happier even if this happened to someone in my own family. I recently, learned that John Green (Nerdfighter, vlogbrother, and biggest supporter of this project) is now a New York Times bestseller! He’s been on tour promoting his new book Paper Towns. Want to catch him on his cross-America tour? Check out the map and see when he’s coming to a town near you!

If you know John Green, you probably know him as a great vlogger, amazing writer, and all around awesome guy. But, with this project, I’ve been able to see another side of him. He’s been a great source of personal and emotional support for me. Even though he’s been a busy guy (and soon to get busier), he’s always made the time for me.

Whether I was ranting about how the well-to-do in Bangladesh sometimes look down and scorn me and this project, the challenges and hurdles I’ve had to overcome to do this project, or how I wish my relationship with my brother was as close as the relationship he has with his brother – John’s always been there with sage words of advice and support. This is his project as much as it’s mine and he deserves all the success that’s coming his way right now.

I titled this video “Using YouTube with a Purpose” because, really, this couldn’t have been done without the help of a little website called YouTube and the community that is part of it (in particular the Nerdfighter community). From the donors Hank and Pat – both of whom are YouTubers – to the musicians who lent their music for free in this video such as Jamison Young, Brad Sucks, and Josh Woodward. And, here in Bangladesh, if Rick Davis never found my videos on YouTube – I would have never thought to make this trip nor would I have been able to meet the amazing children in this rural village.

If you notice in this video, I use a clip from one of my sadder videos – The Hard Lessons of Aid Work. That’s because, even though I don’t talk much about it in this video, I did learn a lot from this experience. I now have a better understanding about why big name charities need to have large overhead and infrastructure. I also have a better understanding of how help can sometimes come with a risk and how even trying to help can sometimes have it its pros and cons.

All that plus some photos from the field after the jump.

Continue reading ‘Using YouTube with a Purpose’

Part of the reason I decided to start accepting donations is because I wanted to you guys involved in this project in a way that didn’t force you to be a mere spectator. In my previous video, I talk about how I”m going to spend a donation made by Hank Green. Well, thanks to YouTube, you can get to know Hank Green and why he decided to donate to me:

Hank runs EcoGeek.org and also – along with his brother – runs the vlogbrothers channel. But, if you are made of awesome you’d know that already

Today was one of those days when I am kind of in awe at the international scope that this project seems to be taking.

Just hours ago, Matt boarded a plane to Uganda. Before heading out, Matt had informed me that a shipment of mosquito nets (PermaNets) donated by Vestergaard-Frandsen hadn’t arrived at his home in Florida. After touching base with a friend at the company, I found out that unfortunately the shipment had been delayed at customs in Geneva. So now I’m looking into having something donated to Matt from Vestergaard-Frandsen’s Kenyan office which could then be shipped to where Matt will be staying in Uganda.

Meanwhile, back here in Dhaka, I’m stuck with this cold, flu, or whatever it is that I have. It doesn’t seem to want to go away. That’s what has been making it hard for me to make new videos. I was, fortunately, able to keep my friend John Green up-to-date about what I’ve been doing though. He was able to make a video about it on his channel which he filmed in his backyard in Indianapolis. If you’ve seen that video than you already know that I’ve been able to spend the money donated by his brother Hank (who lives in Montana).

Those trying to visit uncultured.com earlier today might have noticed the site was dead. I noticed this as well but I wasn’t sure if the problem was on my end – the internet connection I have here in Bangladesh isn’t that great afterall. After checking with a cousin in Ottawa, I realized the site was actually down. So I had to fire off an email to the California-based company that hosts this website. Looks like everything is back to normal now though. Although, that wasn’t the only problem I’ve been having to deal with today.

I also was shocked to find that my savings account had been frozen by my bank back home. I know everything I’ve been doing with my work in Bangladesh (and my bank back home) is 100% legal – so why on Earth would it be frozen? Turns out there is a rule pertaining to how many times you can transfer money to/from your savings account in a given month. The limit seems to be six times. I had always sent any money from PayPal to my savings account before transferring it to checking before withdrawing it. So, unless, I create a different setup – I might bump into this problem again.

So, at the end of the day, my work with this project has in some way, shape, or form involved people or things happening in Geneva, California, Dhaka, Florida, Ottawa, Indianapolis, Kenya, Montana, and my family and bank back home. While that’s really amazing… it’s also a nightmare because Murphy’s Law is apparently internationally scalable.