ONE and (RED) Launch Digital Quilt to Fight AIDS




ONE and (RED) have jointly launched (2015)QUILT, a digital crowd-sourced tapestry built in HTML5, to bring people together behind the cause of an AIDS-free generation by 2015. The launch coincides with World AIDS Day Dec. 1 and the 30th anniversary of the discovery of the disease.

The organizations hope that by 2015 the transmission of the HIV virus between mothers and their babies will end, 15 million people will be on medication and new prevention techniques to drastically reduce infections will be implemented.

“What we’re doing now is saying that we’re at this moment in the fight against AIDS, where people can come together and bring the beginning of the end of AIDS,” Chrysi Philalithes, (RED) chief digital officer, told Mashable. “(2015)QUILT represents everyone standing with us to fight for an AIDS free generation by 2015.”

You can join the initiative by visiting www.2015quilt.com, creating a panel expressing your support, pledging to take action to help fight AIDS and sharing your panel on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ (see the gallery below for a walk-through). The quilt integrates Facebook’s latest Open Graph to connect the user and the app. Once you’ve added your pledge, you can choose one of six free song downloads from The Killers, including a Christmas song made for (RED) “The Cowboys’ Christmas Ball.”

In addition to The Killers, you’ll join celebrities such as Coldplay, Paris Hilton, Zach Galifianakis, The Black Eyed Peas, Barbara and Jenna Bush, Perez Hilton, Martha Stewart, Chelsea Clinton, Ellen DeGeneres, Oprah Winfrey, Tyra Banks and Tom Brady, among others, who’ve already created panels (see some below). U2′s Bono co-founded both ONE, a non-partisan advocacy group, and (RED), which uses corporate and consumer power to fund the fight against AIDS, so he too is supporting the quilt.

Barbara Bush

Click here to view this gallery.

The (2015)QUILT is inspired by the AIDS Memorial Quilt, begun in 1987 in San Francisco, which grew to become the largest community art project in the world, now containing some 94,000 names and weighing 54 tons. Its just-launched digital counterpart has the potential to gain as many participants while taking up much less physical space.

You can pan through the HTML5 quilt, designed by @radical.media, and hover over panels to reveal their creators and pledges. You can also search for names and locations within the quilt.

“After 30 years and 30 million funerals, we have the potential to finally turn the tide on AIDS,” Michael Elliott, president and CEO of ONE said in a statement. “With the right scale-up of effective treatment and prevention programs, we can prevent babies from being born with HIV, keep more people alive through treatment, and simultaneously reduce the number of people becoming newly infected with HIV.”

Will you make a panel and pledge to join the fight to begin the end of AIDS by 2015?

Select a Quilt Pattern and Border

You can chose your panel background or border.

Click here to view this gallery.

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