mukari is to be a network of exchanged social referrals-- task oriented recommendations between you and your contacts. mukari encourages you and your network to interact with one another based on need.   I shot this video as a promotional piece to get people excited about the project. I teamed up with my friend Freddy Mejia, we ended up shooting thousands of still photographs. I then edited them together using Final Cup Pro and Motion 3 to create a cool stop-motion effect. Mix in a little "Matt + Kim" (they gave me permission!) and some filtering...I think it turned out pretty well!

To celebrate the launch of our GNY project, I threw a little somethin' somethin' at a cool DUMBO nightspot for my team and all those involved. All of our featured people came, the bar was open, people where bustin' moves! We had a blast, so I made a little recap video for friends who couldn't make it.

Joshua Davis, aka Bit Shifter, makes music on his Game Boy . Remember, those revolutionary portable gaming systems that let you bring Mario on the road? Kind of like the great great grandfather of your DSi or PSP? Just when it seemed the Nintendo Gameboy was settled into retirement, experimenting musicians like Joshua Davis taught it a new trick: CHIPTUNE .

What do you get when you mix hip hop, a skate board, and a frying pan? You get Chef Roble Ali, 6 feet tall and then some, clad in fly street gear with a gleaming smile that lets you know he's happy to meet you. Get his name wrong, and he'll kindly re-pronounce it for you (pronounced "Row-blay", but if that's too hard, his friends call him "Bleezy"). Cultivated from hip hop culture, Chef Roble takes his love for the art-form of food-making and mixes in his very own blend of urban style and attitude to create a whole new understanding of cuisine.

Despite the success and acclaim he received in 2008 for his work, Charles Hui (aka "ChuckBoy") really is still just a kid at heart, admiring the collectibles as if he were the proud owner of them all. "I think creating a toy starts with a really great idea and design, either in your head or on paper...coming up with something great, then cleaning it up and finalizing it...if it hits people in the way it looks and feels, that's when it's successful."

Late one night, new tattoo machine in hand, Brian Wren started his first practice tattoo on a slab of pork. Half frozen after an hour or so, the flesh starts to become a bit unusable, shifting around the over sized plate on his dining room table. "It's looked down upon to start tattooing on someone when you're not ready" Brian explains as he gives us the reason for inking a perfectly good pork chop. Brian carries himself with a quiet confidence, his face is strong and he always seems to think before he speaks. We find out that Brian is a man of some pretty strong conviction, he's ambitions, truthful, and damn handy with a tattoo gun.

Amanda Duarte has probably always been an actor and writer, because as she puts it "...she was never good at anything else..." I find that hard to believe and laugh as we sit down at the G:NY studio and have a chat. The topic: how Amanda got where she is, and where she's going.

As a young boy it was apparent to AJ that his love for flight would take him to places that people on terra firma dream about. In his adolescence he had recurring dreams of flying for years. No, not a helicopter or plane, just little AJ soaring over the verdure of a pastoral backdrop. As an adult he entered flight school, logging over one-hundred hours of flying time in a helicopter. When the money ran out AJ left without completing his certification, but the itch for flying never fizzled out.

Ken Tanabe, the multi-talented designer of Belgian-Japanese descent has flexed his creative muscle throughout the design industry in a variety of roles. As founder of lovingday.org, however, he now plays a much more pivotal role that transcends his industry niche—that of educator.

Even on days where the sun warms the mahogany bricks of the many hollowed, dusty factories along the waterfront, the neighborhood has the feel of a place long forgotten. Iron wrought fences bend back as if stepped on by giants. Human sized oil drums are scattered and labeled “hazardous liquid” in rushed handwriting, amongst warped deadwood that look like fossil remains. Despite the Red Hook Flea Market a few blocks away, it is noticeably empty on a Sunday afternoon. There is a quiet hum underneath the streets that can be heard, like something is brooding beneath. This is just one of Bill Hilgendorfʼs many Brooklyn playgrounds.

In high-waisted jeans and simple tank tops, long necklaces and boots fashion-designing twins Ayaan and Idyl compliment each other nicely as they walk into the studio. You get the sense that effortless style is in their fingertips, waiting for inspiration. That inspiration is their multicultural heritage. Citizens of both the United States and Somalia , they decided early on that they wanted to make their careers in fashion, designing for the multicultural woman.