Photos from Mesoamerica Meet-up #1 – a monthly meet-up sponsored by Mesoamerica Institute and Oakland Digital Arts & Literacy Center.

The purpose of the meet-up is to bring together artists from different backgrounds to collaborate and strengthen the community through complimentary mediums: dance, education, mixed-media, photography, technology, and video.

Located on 2121 West Street, Berkeley California inside Strawberry Creek Park, Mesoamerica Institute was founded by Arturo Sosa in 1988. Arturo has been teaching for over twenty years and has established several language institutes in Mexico.

He has taught extensively throughout the United States in schools such as

• The University of La Verne in Los Angeles
• San Mateo County Department of Education
• Park Day School in Oakland

Clients include Levi Strauss, The Environmental Protection Agency, Kaiser Permanente, and Lonely Planet. All instructors and translators are trained by Arturo Sosa and provided with lesson materials created or compiled by the director himself.

Oacia Williams, People's Choice Award for "See!! There is a Pot of Gold!!"

Come celebrate with Our Oakland’s Contest winners, finalists and participants, and all the partners and volunteers who helped make the contest possible! Oakland Public Library Associate Director Gerry Garzon will present awards.

• Learn about the new 81st Avenue Branch Library opening soon.
• Take a guided tour of the Our Oakland: Eastside Stories website and share YOUR East Oakland story online!

Eastmont Branch Library
Saturday August 28th @ 11:00 am

Eastmont Town Center
7200 Bancroft Ave., Suite 211
Oakland, CA 94605

PLEASE NOTE SPECIAL WEEKEND ACCESS: Enter the Eastmont parking lot on Foothill Blvd., park in large lot (second level). Enter Mall through the Wellness Center, cross hall to the Library

* Free & Refreshments provided; bring family, friends and colleagues!

Click here to view ODALC’s Flickr set, National Night Out in West Oakland (Part 1 of 2).

OAKLAND, Calif. – July 31^st, 2010 – It’s no secret that the City of Oakland has had a difficult year. A $30.5 million budget deficit, crime, poverty, social unrest, cuts to public services are all recurring themes in top news stories pertaining to the city. With so many systemic problems on Oakland’s radar, it’s all too easy for individual hardships to slip past the public consciousness.

Hard-working citizens live in poverty as the cost of living has outstripped minimum wage; family-owned businesses that have been operating for decades are being forced to close their doors. As other industries hurtle forward to keep pace with a shifting economic landscape brought about by recession and the dawning of a digital age, underserved communities are effectively being declared obsolete and left behind.

One year ago, Shaun Tai founded Oakland Digital Arts & Literacy Center, or ODALC, to see that those alienated from the digital age have a place to take refuge, to learn computer technology at their own pace and claim their rightful place in the future workforce. This is much easier said than done.

As Oakland struggles to make ends meet this year, so has the nonprofit sector. By the same token, starting a nonprofit organization would seem like an impossible task, yet against all odds ODALC has grown from one man’s vision to a fully-fledged brick-and-mortar operation in the span of one year. Esteemed allies including City Councilwoman Jean Quan and Director of Education Kitty Kelly Epstein attended ODALC’s 1224 Harrison Street facility grand opening.

“This year has been filled with sacrifice, success, and joy,” said Tai. “Nonprofits usually don’t get into the bulk of their programming until they secure funding, but with ODALC we wanted to hit the ground running and prove to people that there’s a demand for what we do, the community believes in us, and that our work matters.”

Things seem to be working well so far. If you drove on Highway 80 past the Gilman Street exit or travelled near Broadway and 41^st in Oakland, chances are you encountered ODALC’s mark on the community.

The Inspire Oakland Billboard Contest, which provided four aspiring, local graphic designers with the chance to have their work seen on five Bay Area billboards, displayed the winning entries from the end of April to the end of May. Each of the entries, bearing the message “Inspire Oakland,” served to showcase local talent and generate Oakland’s interest in digital art.

On March 25^th, ODALC produced Mayor Ron Dellums’ video campaign nominating the City of Oakland for Google’s Google Fiber for Communities project, which could potentially endow the city with an experimental fiber network, increasing Internet speeds exponentially. “Oakland Digital Arts and Literacy Center is a new and innovative resource to help Oakland residents navigate the opportunities of tomorrow,” Mayor Dellums stated in an open letter of support. “We look forward to working with ODALC again very soon.”

Earlier on March, ODALC put on a public workshop teaching young amateur musicians from urban communities how to market and publish their creative work online, turning their passion into a potential career path. The workshop, titled “Evolution of the Music Business in Web 2.0,” featured an expert panel of volunteers from Pandora Internet Radio (which incidentally is based in Oakland), Bandcamp.com, and hip-hop icon Ray Luv.

“There is so much innovation and development happening online, it’s important that we channel that productivity back into the communities that need it the most.” said Tai “ODALC and its work this year represent what I hope will be one of many steps toward a better, brighter future for Oakland and the East Bay Area.”

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For more information and to pledge your support, visit www.odalc.org.

Download this press release.

NATIONAL NIGHT OUT is designed to:

• Heighten crime and drug prevention awareness;
• Generate support for, and participation in, local anticrime programs;
• Strengthen neighborhood spirit and police-community partnerships; and
• Send a message to criminals letting them know that neighborhoods are organized and fighting back.

Come join your West Oakland neighbors!

Location: Mandela Gateway Community Room for food, 8th & Mandela for fun & games!

Date: Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

Time: 6pm – 9pm

*Visit the Oakland Digital Arts & Literacy Center (ODALC) Digital Photography booth for cool activities and to pick-up new skills!*

Remember Jinghong Kang

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” - Mother Teresa

“An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind.” - Mahatma Gandhi

A sample of our 7/9/10 participants’ digital artwork:

Reason 4: Beatmaking 101

Want to learn how to make a rap/hip-hop beat? This workshop will introduce Reason, a music software program developed by Propellerhead Software. It emulates a rack of hardware synthesizers, samplers, signal processors, sequencers and mixers, all of which can be interconnected. Reason can be used either as a complete virtual music studio, or as a collection of virtual instruments to be played live or used with other sequencing software.

When:
Friday, July 23, 2010 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM

Where:
Oakland Digital Arts & Literacy Center
1224 Harrison Street
Oakland, CA 94612

Three take-aways from the workshop:

1. Understand what Reason is,
2. Make their first Reason beat,
3. Get inspired to explore and create more!

Demographic – who should attend?
Music enthusiasts, upcoming artists & producers.

Interested? Sign-up / register today!

1) ODALC Workshop: Marketing and Selling What Matters In a Way That Matters (July 15th, 1pm) - <SIGN-UP HERE> – Practical, interactive demonstration of how to: let go old myths that marketing and selling have to be manipulative or dishonest; tap the surprising marketing and selling genius you already have; discover and engage with your best market; joyously close sales that lead to great customer relationships.

2) ODALC Workshop: What is SEO? Good Practices & More (July 16th, 1pm) - <SIGN-UP HERE> – As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Participants will leave the workshop with a good understanding of SEO, as well as an in depth breakdown of good practices, parameters, variables, consumer advocacy, and real-life examples.