Technology Archives

We have witnessed amazing accomplishments over the last 20 years, and emerging technology promises much in terms of genetical and biological innovation, as well as continued digital progress. The challenge is to design affordable, scalable products that will empower emerging economies and democracies as much as the global elite.

April 5, 2008

Social Innovation Camp in London this weekend

logo.jpgThis weekend in East London is what looks like an amazing first of it's kind event that hopefully will be replicated across the world soon. Based on the Barcamp / Unconference events that have blown up over the last year or so, Social Innovation Camp puts teams of techies with social entrepreneurs whose 5 ideas have been chosen before the weekend event.

My housemate Seth actually submitted one of the selected ideas, which is Stuffshare, Freecycle meets Street Car . The idea that actually seems the most similar to my own vision for Open Green is Barcode Wikipedia:

A site for storing user-generated information – such as carbon footprint, manufacturing conditions and reviews - against a product, identified by its barcode number.

Even though I'm a bit disappointed to not have submitted an idea to the perfect event for my converging interests (too much of my time focused on my job), it'll be cool to attend the final session tomorrow afternoon.

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February 1, 2008

Active Advertising on the Rise

In 2006 as I was graduating from Insead with my MBA, I was looking for mainstream advertising and digital agencies that were proactively helping brands and companies take responsibility for their social and environmental impact. I didn't find much, but it looks like the mainstream Ad world is finally starting to catch on to the trend toward conscious culture.

Publicis Acquires Act Now, Adds it to Saatchi & Saatchi 'Sustainability' Division

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January 8, 2008

Green Maps by Google

I am still searching for a great implicit footprint calculator, but while searching for it, I found the follow interesting post about a different kind of green mapping that Google seams to be up to.

Turning the map Green by ZDNet's Garett Rogers -- Google is a "Green" company — they care about the environment and now are they getting ready to create their own Green Map? According to the official website, the Green Map System is a locally adaptable, globally shared framework for environmental mapmaking — sounds like something Google would do doesn’t it? Green maps are designed to [...]

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November 26, 2007

Amazingly Clear Stand on Open Wireless


This is the most clear communication I've heard to date about the ridiculous way in which the US wireless industry is treated differently than the Internet.

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September 26, 2007

Zero Footprint Calculator - Next Step: Using Implicit Green Data

Like many people right now, I've been trying to merge my interest in improving the impact on the climate (reducing my CO2 emissions, etc.) with my interest in the evolution of digital culture.

I have been looking for (and willing to help build) an opt-in service for customers of big food and home products companies that helps measure our impact and gives us recommendations for how to improve.

Finally, today I found the Zero Footprint Calculator, which has the right tools (but not yet the community) for measuring and improving your lifestyle (check out the Kids version, which is even better).

Unfortunately it took me about 20 minutes to fill out the information and the graph wasn't so visually compelling to get me interested in playing further with the site. This is why I actually think the user interface of the Kids version is stronger.

However, the more important step we all need to make is to use implicit data instead of asking people to fill out more forms. In 2007, the data for our Travel, Home, and Food choices exists in private databases like those of Orbitz (travel), Con Edison / EDF (Home), and Target / Whole Foods / Tesco (food). Why not request that those databases of information get mashed up with the ecological footprint databases?

That way, we can see the impact of our actual choices, not the ones we think we make, and also see the improvement over time, both individually and socially. Imagine being able to challenge your Facebook friends to certain lifestyle goals in the same way that users do it for running with Nike Plus?

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