Do you want to know more about Facebook, Twitter and the power of social media? Getinvolved.ca presents Digital U a series that explores how social media is affecting social change.

TVO will air all eight different three-minute Digital U shorts, involving interviews with over 20 social media experts including; Mitch Joel, Twist Image, Jason Mogus, Communicopia, Meghan Warby, Argyle Communications, Beka Economopoulos, Fission Strategy, Craig Heintzman , World Wide Web Foundation, Christopher Berry, Critical Mass, and Sacha Chua, IBM. Episodes will air 3 times a week on Fridays, right after Heartbeat, starting in March. But, if you can’t wait, ALL of the 8 episodes are on Get Involved HERE or check out a full schedule and descriptions.

Digital U has made learning easy, and if you want to find out even more about social media, listen to our 20+ full length podcasts and become an expert yourself!

For more details check out our CNN Newswire Press Release.

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MolsonCoors Canada- represented by the fabulous Ferg Devins and Tonia Hammer – were among our 21 Canadian Corporate companies that participated in our launch. Theresa Wetzel from Timeraisers was their VIP not-for-profit partner who stood behind them during Mike Tierney of UPS Canada’s big announcement!

Molson Coors Canada has had a long standing relationship with Timeriaser, an award winning, national agency that connects and inspires young community members to get involved in their communities through meaningful volunteering opportunities. Through their Corporate Volunteer Program, Molson Coors Canada has pledeged 6,000 hours for the year 2010. Their contribution helped the Canadian Corporate Council on Volunteering reach their goal of pledging 814,900 volunteer hours!

To get an insider’s experience at the event, check out Tonia Hammer’s blog post to look at some great candid pictures!

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Volunteer Canada is the national leader in volunteer advocacy, involvement and strategy. With over 30 volunteer centers across Canada, Volunteer Canada is devoted to finding the right volunteer opportunity for you. To find a volunteer opportunity in your area check out Volunteer Canada’s local volunteer centre: Toronto, Ontario, Montreal, Quebec, Atlantic Canada, Manitoba, Calgary, Alberta, Vancouver, British Columbia, Yukon and the Territories.

If you are in the GTA a great place to check out some exciting volunteer possibilities is on Volunteer Toronto’s  Opportunities of the Week!

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Enthusiastic. Remarkable. Inspiring. These are just a few words that describe the individuals and groups across Canada that are doing amazing things to reduce their impact on the environment in large and small ways. They’ve taken the three R’s and made it a way of life. They’re every day heroes whose stories need to be told.

Finalists will have their films screened in shopping malls across Canada, displayed on the 270 monitors on subway platforms around Toronto, and hosted on YouTube and the Earth Day website.

Prizes will be awarded in four seperate categories, including Best of ‘Under 18’ years of age, Best of ‘18 and Over’, Best of Competition and the People’s Choice Award – so all filmmakers young and old, established and aspiring are invited to compete. Among the prizes are a MacBook Pro and a Toronto getaway to attend the Earth Day Canada Gala in June.

Voting for your favorite film (the People Choice Award) will enter you into a contest to win a $250 shopping mall certificate.

OR are you an inspired filmmaker? Then inspire Canada this Earth Day. Tell the story of your every day environmental hero and their dedication to support of a healthier environment through the power of film.

Snail mail or courier your movie file on a CD or data DVD, along with a printed submission form [345KB PDF] to:

Earth Day Canada Film Competition
111 Peter Street
Suite 503
Toronto ON  M5V 2H1

Or click here to submit your film online.

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Read up on some of the most inspiring athletes competing this March (12th-21st), and support your favorite athlete.

ALPINE: At her first Paralympic Games in 1998 in Nagano, Japan, Karolina Wisniewska of Calgary won two silver medals in the women’s alpine events. Four years later at the 2002 Paralympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Utah, she won medals in all four alpine disciplines. She began alpine skiing at age 6, and even after being diagnosed with cerebral palsy, she continued racing against able-bodied skiers. “I remember walking out of the tunnel into Rice Eccles stadium next to my teammate and it was the most amazing feeling that came over me to see all of those people going crazy cheering and waving. There were so many Canadian flags in the crowd! It was truly overwhelming and emotional and I was so happy to be there representing Canada. Once the Ceremony had started and we were in our seats, my teammate and I turned to each other and said that even if we didn’t win any medals it had been worth it just for this.”

BIATHLON: Verena Bentele from Tettnang, Germany, is a decorated Paralympic biathlete competing in the visually impaired class. As a 16-year-old, Bentele won her first four medals at the Paralympic Winter Games in Nagano in 1998. Four years later, she won another four gold medals in Salt Lake City 2002, followed by three additional medals in Torino 2006 . “Two days before we left Germany to go to the Paralympic Games in Salt Lake City, I had a crash during my training and hurt my right foot. The doctor told me that I would not likely take part in the first competition of the Games, and that I should try not to use my foot for the next several days. I was thinking a lot about myfoot the morning the first competition started. Then, when I finally got onto the course to warm up, all thoughts of my injury left my head. Once I was in race mode, I crossed the finish line with the fastest time. I won the gold medal…Never give up, and always expect that your dreams can come true. You just have to believe in them.”

WHEELCHAIR CURLING: Chris Daw has represented Canada in adaptive track, marathon, basketball, rugby and curling. He was the skip for Canada’s gold-medal winning wheelchair curling team at the Torino 2006 Paralympic Winter Games. Daw returned to the Elderton Curling Club near London, Ontario, with his gold medal. “{In Torino} There was a crowd so loud you might think you were at a football game instead of a curling match. We already surpassed our own expectations. After the Games, I would learn that our coach thought we had a chance at a bronze medal, at best. And given that our curling team was only put together nine months before the Games, I think we all knew that we would give it our best but weren’t positioned to win. The gold medal game was close and I was prepared to win a silver medal. That’s when, in the last end, Great Britain missed our rock.”

CROSS COUNTRY: Canadian cross-country skier Brian McKeever was chosen for the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games, making him the first winter sports athlete to compete in both the Olympic and Paralympic Games. McKeever has won seven Paralympic medals, including four gold. McKeever suffers from Stargardt’s disease which has left him with impaired sight. His brother Robin acts as his guide; “Guiding my brother Brian for the past seven years has led to some great times, some great races and some hilarious stories, but it has never been easy. For a B1 classified skier (that is, totally blind), the guide — through verbal direction and without touching the athlete — has to keep the athlete on an undulating race course and away from competitors, trees, people, fences and television cameras along the course.Greatness is only achieved through an amazing bond of confidence between guide and athlete. Last season, after working full-time for four years, starting a family and training less, Brian surpassed me in physical fitness. That’s when the communication on the race course consisted of me wheezing a heck of a lot and him telling me to move over ‘cause I was going too slow!”

*Athletes bios from Paralympic Perspectives

Read more on the Paralympic Games

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The 2010 Paralympic Games start a week after the Olympics, and run from March 12th-21st – and just like the Olympics Games there will be some fantastic wins, and amazing sports stories.

In 1948, Sir Ludwig Guttmann organized a sports competition involving World War II veterans with a spinal cord injuries. Four years later, competitors from the Netherlands joined the games and an international movement was born. Today, the Paralympics are elite sport events for athletes with a disability. They emphasize, however, the participants’ athletic achievements rather than their disability.

There are five categories of games at the Paralympics: Alpine Skiing, Biathlon, Cross Country Skiing, Ice Sledge Hockey and Wheelchair Curling.

Alpine: Much like Alpine skiing in the Olympics, this sport is fast, dangerous and intense. Racers can reach speeds of more than 100 kilometers an hour, traveling down a vertical drop that ranges from 120 to 800 metres.

Athletes are classified as standing, sitting or visually impaired and compete against other athletes with a similar disability.

Skiers with a visual impairment use the same equipment as able-bodied skiers, but ski with a guide. Skiers with locomotive disabilities may either use the same equipment as able-bodied skiers or a prosthesis (an artificial arm or leg) and stabilizers in place of ski poles (stabilizers are a type of crutch with a small ski at the end). Sitting skiers use a mono-ski.

Biathlon & Cross Country: Biathlon was first introduced in the 1988 Paralympic Winter Games in Innsbruck, Austria. The shooting system has changed considerably since then when, at the 2002 Paralympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, a new electronic and acoustic system was developed.

In both biathlon and cross-country skiing, athletes are categorized as standing, sitting or visually impaired and compete against athletes with similar disabilities.

The International Paralympic Committee utilizes a Nordic Percentage System in order to equalize the disability time handicap for skiers within each category. The percentage is applied to each skier’s final time and the skier with the lowest calculated time is the winner.

Wheelchair Curling: Wheelchair curling is a relatively new sport, making its Paralympic debut at the Torino 2006 Paralympic Winter Games. The first World Wheelchair Curling Championships were held in Switzerland in 2002. It is played much like Olympic curling, but because the athletes don’t have the ability to use their upper body strength – it is some ways much more difficult!

Sledge Hockey: Ice sledge hockey was invented at a Swedish rehabilitation centre in the early 1960s, when a group of athletes with a disability decided they wanted to continue playing hockey. They took two regular ice hockey skates and built a metal frame (called a sledge) to fit on top, with enough room for the puck to pass underneath. Using short poles to propel themselves along the ice, the men played the first ice sledge hockey match outdoors, on a lake south of Stockholm. By 1969, Stockholm had a five-team ice sledge hockey league.

Ice sledge hockey debuted at the 1994 Paralympic Winter Games in Lillehammer.

“Our men compete as hard as any able bodied player I’ve ever coached. I think you really have to see a game to appreciate the athletic ability they have. People are amazed at the speed and the aggressive nature of the game. Their will to win is as great as anybody else’s. I saw that when we won the gold medal at the Torino 2006 Paralympic Winter Games. They are truly proud to wear the maple leaf. Watch for them at Vancouver 2010 and you will discover a new twist on Canada’s game.” – Jeff Snyder, Head Coach of the Canadian Ice Sledge Hockey team

Learn more about the Paralympic Games

Or Learn all about the Inspiring Athletes

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Episode 1 – Online Activism: An Overview: WATCH

- With social tools like twitter and facebook, and thousands of sites devoted to issues and causes –– like minded individuals are hooking up about everything – and it’s revolutionizing how activists organize. Individuals can organize large scale events with virtually no cost, to create awareness and engage others for their cause.

Episode 2 – Transparency: Tell No Lies: WATCH

- Controlling and spinning a message has driven public relations for decades. The motto has been– it’s better to conceal than to reveal. But the internet has allowed us to access any and all information surrounding institutions and government. Not only can individuals share and discuss products and policies, but concerned citizens can use accountability sites to report neighborhood problems.

Episode 3 – The Power of the Citizen: Politics 2.0 – WATCH

– Social media has forever changed democracy. Citizens are now being engaged like never before, as a dialogue in now emerging between politician and voter. People can now actively participate in their society, as governments have begun giving them the opportunity to brainstorm ideas to create change initiatives in their communities. And this concept of active citizenship is only the beginning of this democracy make-over.

Episode 4 – The Power of the Consumers: Consumers Pumping Up the Volume – WATCH

– The power is back in the hands of the consumers. With networking sites, blogs and forums, customers can share their opinions on virtually any purchase. But the conversation isn’t just one ended, consumers have begun to demand a conversation with the companies themselves. The digital space has finally given consumers the power to stand up and be heard.

Episode 5 – Twitter and Micro-messaging – WATCH

– Twitter is the “hot” micro-messaging tool, and it’s bringing people together faster than we ever could have imagined. Events like Ho Ho Ho TO proved micro-messaging’s success and its capacity for social change. But micro-messaging doesn’t always need to connect people over serious issues. It has made creating events, and coming together virtually effortless. The world is flattening in not only a geographical way, but a social way too.

Episode 6 – Crowdsourcing: The Wisdom of the Masses – WATCH

– Crowdsourcing is all about taping into the power of your consumers, acknowledging that many customers interested in an organization or a company are also going to be extremely knowledgeable about your products. Crowdsourcing also gives companies the opportunity to test products before they hit the mass market. From designing their own t-shirts, to measuring craters on Mars for NASA, this ability to harness our collective talents all over the world is one of the most powerful tool to bring about social change.

Episode 7 – A Virtual Printing Press – WATCH

– Self-publishing has become easier then ever before, and simple tools like blogs, Youtube and Twitter, your message can reach the over 1.5 billion people online. Anyone can publish online and for free, which means that content is diverse, unique and frequently controversial. Citizen journalism has also taken to the internet, as everyday citizens take to the streets and have begun conducting their own interviews and asking their own questions that haven’t always been addressed by the mainstream media.

Episode 8 – A Loss of Privacy? – WATCH

– The internet has closed the geographical gap and put information right at our fingertips – but its also important for all users to remember that anything they put on the web, can be difficult to remove, and accessible by almost anyone. Any profile or account you create online can be searched by employers, potential spouses, friends, family and strangers – which not only puts your reputation at risk, but also your safety. As a user you need to be aware and beware of the digital crumbs you can leave behind.

Want to learn more about a specific topic? Check out the full length interviews – as our Digital U Podcasts.

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Check out the schedule below and watch the ones you are interested in! In no time you’ll be creating widgets and expanding your online social network.

Mitch Joel – President, Twist Image and Author of “Six Pixels of Separation”: WATCH

Ryan Taylor – Goldsmith, The Fair Trade Jewellery Co: WATCH

Craig Heintzman – Development Associate, World Wide Web Foundation: WATCH

Deanna Zandt – Media Technologist and Author of “Share This!”: WATCH

Ryan Coleman – Facilitator & Information Designer: WATCH

Donnie Claudino – Marketing Manager, TechSoup Canada: WATCH

Meghan Warby – Senior Consultant, Argyle Comm.: WATCH

Jason Mogus – CEO, Communicopia: WATCH

Lisa Torjman – Associate, SiG@MaRS: WATCH

Sarah Prevette – Founder & CEO, Sprouter: WATCH

Beka Economopoulos – Vice President, Fission Strategy: WATCH

Sacha Chua – Enterprise 2.0 Consultant, IBM: WATCH

Christopher Berry – Group Marketing Science Director, Critical Mass: WATCH

Tamera Kremer – Founder and Chief Strategist, Wildfire Strategic Marketing: WATCH

Phillip Djwa – Principal, Agentic Communications: WATCH

Roz Lemieux – Partner, Fission Strategy: WATCH

Monica Hamburg – Writer & Social Media Evangelist: WATCH

Sam Dorman – Technology Strategist: WATCH

Marco Campana – Online Capacity, Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI): WATCH

Samer Rabadi – Senior Campaign Manager, Care2.com: WATCH

Don Tapscott – Chairman of nGenera Insight: WATCH

OR WATCH Digital U – the Series!

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The volunteering experience at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games is certainly a great and life-changing one. Over 30,000 volunteers are needed to help run the Olympic games. Among the hundreds of different jobs as an Olympic volunteer are community relations, food & beverage (which frequently includes meeting the athletes!), assisting with the events (including performer support, costumes, flowers and props) and even helping with the medal ceremonies! All these exciting opportunities were certainly enough to get 77,000 people to apply for these Vancouver Games. Most of these volunteers have paid for their transportation and accommodations – the compensation is the thrill of being there.

Read one volunteer’s journey through her fantastic blog the 2010 Winter Olympic Games: A Volunteer’s Olympic Odyssey: http://olympicvolunteer.wordpress.com/

The London Games in 2012 will need up to 70,000 volunteers to help run the Olympic and Paralympic Games. With even more opportunities available there will be lots to do! Apply to be a volunteer in 2012 now!

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It took only 23.17 seconds for Alex Bilodeau to become Canada’s first “golden” boy of the Olympics. The world watched in great anticipation on Sunday night, as the Men’s Moguls finales went by in a blur of stumbles and sprays of snow. A fantastic run; clean, fast and high difficulty on the jumps gave Alex a total score of 26.75, and Alex became the first Canadian EVER to win an Olympic gold medal on Canadian soil. Interview requests poured in from all over the world, for both Alex and his older brother Frederic.

That’s right, there are two heroes in this Olympic story. One can fly over moguls at warp speed, and the other can barely walk. Frederic Bilodeau has cerebral palsy, and spends most of his time confined to his wheelchair. Yet, Frederic is Alex’s inspiration – and was all Alex could talk about when he found he had won gold. ”When he wakes up in the morning, he’s got that big smile,” said Alex, 22. “He goes to bed, and he’s got that big smile…You look at him, and he’s got all the right to complain. How many times do we complain in a day? I don’t think I can even count mine.”

Despite Frederic’s physical limitations, his is by no-means “disabled” – he still skis from time to time, he knows everything about Roman history and he loves to oil paint.”It’s incredible what he can do,” Serge Bilodeau said. “We have paintings of Alex doing a backflip and Beatrice in the moguls.”

And seeing the TV images of the brothers joyfully embracing near the bottom of the moguls run was a magical moment for many with this condition that frequently doesn’t receive as much attention as other disbalities. Joanne Hutchinson, a volunteer for the Halifax Regional Cerebral Palsy Association who was born with the condition points out that many people with cerebral palsy avoid going out in public, especially if they have a noticeable disability or uncontrolled muscle movements or spasms.”They don’t know much about us, they don’t have an understanding and there’s a lot of (public) misconceptions,” added Hutchinson, who hopes the focus on Frederic Bilodeau’s no-holds-barred support of his brother will help raise awareness of the condition they share.”When you saw that embrace at the end, it was just two brothers sharing that moment. And you didn’t see the disability.”

Want to learn more or volunteer? Check out:

Cerebral Palsy Support Foundation of Canada, Ontario Federation for Cerebral Palsy, Cerebral Palsy Association of BC, Cerebral Palsy Association of Alberta, Cerebral Palsy Association of Quebec and Cerebral Palsy Foundation Saint John

Or give you support by donating used clothing or joining the Facebook Challegne: donate $26.75 (Alex’s winning score) to the Cerebral palsy Foundation through Canada Helps.

Articles: Always Smiling Brother… by Vicki Hall – the Vancouver Sun and Bilodeau’s Esteem for Brother… by Sheryl Ubelacker – The Canadian Press

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