Dewey Winburne Community Service Award

Dewey Winburne served as one of the original co-founders of the event that we now know as the SXSW Interactive Festival. A man of tremendous energy and vision, he imagined this event would come to showcase people who combined technological innovation with massive creativity. Fourteen years later, this vision has proven to be remarkably accurate as SXSW Interactive has evolved as an international mecca for trend-setting creative thinkers.

Teaching multimedia skills to teenagers, particularly teens of low-income and minority descent, was one of the great passions in Dewey's life. Many of the students who gained their initial new media training from him have gone on to achieve incredible careers in the local and national tech community.

The Dewey Winburne Community Service Award celebrates the vision that technology is society's most effective tool to level the playing field between the haves and the have-nots. Like the man whom it honors, the criteria for judging this prize is somewhat open-ended and fluid: candidates need to primarily live in the Central Texas area and be involved with a grass-roots effort to use convergent media to better the lives of this community's less fortunate citizens. Beyond these two stipulations, qualifications for this award are largely dependent on the skill sets of the nominees.

Shahed Amanullah Wins 2007 Dewey Award

SXSW Interactive proudly salutes the winner of the 2007 Dewey Winburne Community Service Award -- Shahed Amanullah, Editor-in-Chief of altmuslim.com. Amanullah received this honor at a special ceremony on Tuesday evening, March 13 at the Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant in downtown Austin. The ceremony for the Dewey Award was held in conjunction with the annual Accessiblity Internet Rally (AIR) Interactive Competition as organized by Knowbility.

Altmuslim.com is a site which helps bring attention to various issues and stories that are often ignored by both the Muslim and western press. The site strives to provide an outlet for objective analysis using multiple sources of information and multiple viewpoints. Altmuslim.com also emphasizes introspective, as a way to challenge all of us to better our communities. Amanullah's role with this website is part of a worldwide effort -- associate editors are based in London, New York, Washington DC and Syndey, Australia.

2007 Nominees

Brenda Adrian
The Associate Director for Instructional Technology at St. Edward's University, Adrian has been very active in developing accessibility curriculum.

Donny Branam
A founding members of the Austin Student Digital Film Fest, Branam has long-championed the vision of student digital video.

Rodney Gibbs
An active and enthusiastic proponent of the Austin video game industry, Gibbs is also very involved in local charities such as Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Bobbie Guerra
At the Texas School for the Deaf, Guerra teaches her students to express themselves by using technology such as Final Cut and Final Cut Express

Kathy Keller
A longtime volunteer for AIR Austin, Keller develops interactive media and web applications for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department

Joyce Lauck
Lauck helps senior citizens to gain Internet access and learn basic e-mail skills at the Austin Groups for the Elderly,

Pat Pound
A tireless proponent of accessibility, Pound now serves as Executive Director of the Governor's Committee for People with Disabilities.

Harvey Smith
Smith created "Peacebomb," an award-winning game that encourages participants to take part in real-life peace and community activist flash-mobs.

Stefan Wray
The force behind the website savetexasaccess.org, Wray is a strong advocate for the free flow of information in the Lone Star State.