Cardboard Revolution: 'Caine's Arcade' Inspires Global Imagination Challenge

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul9c-4dX4Hk
Last spring Los Angeles filmmaker Nirvan Mullick made an 11-minute film about Caine Monroy, a 9-year-old boy who constructed an arcade out of cardboard boxes in his dad's East L.A. store. Mullick posted 'Caine's Arcade' online and millions of viewers around the world fell in love with Caine's story—adults funded a college scholarship for Caine and kids began making their own cardboard games.

Mullick and his team—so inspired by the response—started The Imagination Foundation, a nonprofit effort that hopes to "find, foster, and fund creativity and entrepreneurship in kids everywhere." One of their first initiatives, the Global Cardboard Challenge—a nod to Caine's creative DIY skills—asks people to create create "anything awesome out of cardboard, recycled materials, and imagination."

The foundation hopes participants will use the rest of September to build their cardboard creations and share them at a Global Day of Play on October 6th, the one-year anniversary of the flash mob at Caine's Arcade. Through local events hosted by schools, libraries, churches, and community centers, builders connect to a community of creative local makers. So far, over 150 event organizers in 25 countries plan to participate and anyone can sign up to host an event.

What happens after the challenge is over? Fortunately, this is just the beginning for the foundation. Down the road they hope to partner with schools and organizations to nurture the creativity and imagination of all the other kids out there like Caine.