Winners Announced in Financial Innovation Competition
World Changing 17/12/2008 20:42
To help promote the creation of new ideas for financial security, nonprofit organization Changemakers devised a contest to encourage innovation for the global financial crisis. The competition is called Banking on Social Change Seeking Financial Solutions for All.
Changemakers in an initiative of Ashoka, the world's largest association of leading social entrepreneurs. The nonprofit association started Changemakers as an open source community that would provide, collect and create information about social solutions, as well as organize collaborative competitions that would spur social innovation.
Banking on Social Change, their most recent competition, sponsored by Citi, came to a close last week. Nearly 300 contestants from more than 40 countries submitted financial solutions in the form of new products, distribution and credit ideas, including new ways of using things like mobile banking and peer-to-peer lending. According to Changemakers, "the projects ranged from improving access to affordable healthcare in India to an initiative that allows Canadians with disabilities to invest their government income."
These top finalists will each receive US $5,000 to expand their projects:
Fundación Pro Vivienda Social, Argentina: Using a community-modeled financing system, the Fundación Pro Vivienda Social is working with low income rural residents to increase their access to utilities and basic services by lowering costs and extending infrastructure.
Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala Rural Development Project (SKDRDP), India: Through their Sampoorna Suraksha program, SKDRDP is making health care affordable for the poor by providing them with medical coverage without destroying their savings or force them to borrow at steep rates.
Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala Rural Development Project (SKDRDP), India: Through their Pragathi Bandhu program, SKDRDP is uniting coalitions of small farmers to share their ideas and aggregate their land and talents to reach better economies of scale.
To learn more about the each recipient or to learn more about other competitions, visit the the Changemakers' website.
Read more about financial solutions in these articles from the Worldchanging archives:
Reconciling Poverty, Sustainability, and the Financial Crisis
The Future of Philanthropy: Innovation, Networks, Thought Leaders and the Fringe
Open Source Microcredit, Revisited
(Disclosure: We felt this was an important contest to cover, despite the fact that Citi, currently receiving a lot of heat from anti-coal activists, was its main sponsor.)
Image credit: Changemakers
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(Posted by Sarah Kuck in Philanthropy at 11:42 AM)
Evolution of the Web
World Changing 17/12/2008 20:00
The Radical Tech blog at Fast Company features a set of expert predictions on the evolution of the web in 2009. Some of the predictions are no-brainers (more emphasis on user experience, standards for authentication and identity and data portability, you own your own data. Richard Yoo predicts the inevitable demise of Web 2.0 companies without a compelling value proposition or business model or application.
It may just be how I slice my Twitter feed, but I see a lot of talk about marketing these days. Thinking about that lately, I realize that much of the talk is produced by anxiety - traditional marketing is dead and people who don't get the sea change are sensing that they have to adapt or find other work. They're struggling with this - paradigm shifts are just hard. Tara Hunt is ever clueful about marketing in the evolving computer-mediated media ecology. She's quoted in the Radical Tech post as saying:
Customers are major players in the arena of marketing - I would argue more so than the marketing professionals themselves now - so it is important to realize that and shift the marketing program to be more about how you interact and empower those customers rather than how you control and spread the message.
I might've listed this as another no-brainer, but evidence suggests that it's still hard for the marketing mind to grasp. How do you cede control of the message? What analytics are meaningful and useful in this new world where every consumer is also, potentially, a producer?
I started to say this isn't just about business, but it might make more sense to say that on the web everything is business, and the currency is attention... so in a sense we're all thinking about marketing. We publish - or converse, since it's more useful to think of conversations than publications - because we want to cultivate attention for whatever - who we are or what we think or what we have to sell. This is true for for-profits, nonprofits, public entities, individuals - in a sense all are thinking about marketing strategy.
Charlene Li makes a great point:
The biggest innovation will be the opening of social networks so that they can exchange profiles, social relationships, and applications. As such, companies need to think about how they will "open" up their businesses. For example, rather than create your own community, could you leverage a community that already exists on MySpace, Facebook, or LinkedIn?
We think about this from a sales and marketing perspective - how do you find your customers or potential audience, or the community you want to join and serve? For businesses, though, the web is no longer just about sales and marketing, and this is a trend I didn't see acknowledged or addressed in the Fast Company piece.
All business is moving to the web - not just sales and marketing, but all business processes. Many businesses will drop expensive internal IT in favor of cloud solutions, and they'll focus more on cultivating internal value networks or knowledge networks. They'll start thinking more about how to assess the value of intangibles - knowledge transactions - and how to leverage and demonstrate that value. They'll use social technologies to find efficiencies and control costs, not just for sales. Those of us who do web consulting will be challenged to produce strategy and results for the whole business, not just sales and marketing.
And, of course, a bunch of us will be using social web technologies to change the world, and make it work for everybody, because that's the business that really matters.
Image: Jan 2005 Map of the Internet. Source: opte.org
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(Posted by Jon Lebkowsky in Columns at 11:00 AM)
Worldchanging Books: In Praise of Slow
World Changing 17/12/2008 00:02
Ever thought that its you keeping your schedules happy and not vice versa? A couple of years ago Canadian journalist Carl Honoré found himself always being in a hurry and started to dig into the philosophy of slow life.
MY RHYTHM of life had gotten so fast that I was constantly trying to save a minute here, another there. My wake-up call came when I caught myself thinking of buying a collection of One minute bedtime stories. At that point I realised that my speedaholism had gotten so bad that I was even willing to speed up the most intimate moment between me and my son, Carl Honoré describes the crucial point of starting to live his life at a slower pace.
So Honoré gave up the race against the clock and started to ease up with his schedules. Aside from that, he wrote a book In Praise of Slow
The idea behind slow life is not really about doing things at a snails pace, but at the right speed. Its about concentrating on quality instead of quantity. Slower life is also ecologically stronger life, Honoré explains.
In Praise of Slow has already been published in 30 countries all over the world. The problem of speeding up seems to be global. Its just gone crazy. We have gotten stuck in a fast-forward way of thinking. There are actually some courses on speed yoga held in London. We even want to calm down at fast speed.
The slow-movement was created in Italy in the early 1990s, having its focus on slow food. Now the ideology has spread into various areas: the slow way of doing things can be associated with traveling, sex, management, food you name it! Even having sex has become a quick performance. Climb on and climb off. Making love should be something enjoyable and anything but time-oriented.
Read the rest of the article on 6 Degrees (Finland)
For more articles on the Slow Movement, see the Worldchanging archives:
The Slow Home Movement
The Food Less Traveled (aka The Slow Food Movement)
Thanks to SlowHome for bringing this article to our attention.
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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Community at 3:02 PM)
European Leaders Agree on Package of Laws to Cut Emissions
World Changing 16/12/2008 21:37
Package details cuts emissions and energy consumption by 20% and raises energy from renewables by 20% all by 2020
by Ian Traynor
Almost two years after staking a claim to lead the battle against global warming, and after two days of hard haggling over how to spread the financial pain, European leaders today agreed a package of laws aimed at cutting greenhouse gases by one-fifth within 12 years.
The complex package details how European industries, power generators, governments, and transport sectors are to effect the "triple 20" deal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2020 compared with 1990 levels, of cutting energy consumption by 20% by the same deadline, and of ensuring that 20% of the EU's energy mix comes from renewable sources.
The deal will cost tens of billions of euros to implement and has been fought over ferociously for months, with governments and industrial lobbies pleading special treatment.
The politicians hailed the green pact as historic, but environmentalists denounced it as a disgrace.
With the imminent inauguration of a new US president and with UN climate talks in Poland aiming to pave the way to a global climate deal a year from now, Europe's leaders argued that today's pact sent a powerful message to Washington, Beijing, Delhi and the other key players who must commit to reducing emissions if the Earth's rise in temperature is to be kept to no more than a "safe" two degrees centigrade.
What happens next?
Four pieces of legislation to be passed next week in the European parliament will do two main things.
One will revise the world's first and biggest carbon trading system, the European Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), so that industries start paying to pollute from 2013 via the auctioning of permits that allow you to belch tonnes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This system covers Europe's power plants and processing industries .
The second, on "effort-sharing" dictates what the 27 countries of the EU have to do at national level to cut pollution from other sectors not covered by carbon trading, such as construction, transport, and agriculture. The emissions trading scheme and the effort sharing cover all greenhouse gases.
The other two laws concern renewable energy and national targets to reach the 20% across Europe and the establishment of centrally funded pilot projects for carbon capture and storage, technology that aims to collect CO2 from power plants and bury it.
What does all this mean for Europe?
Political leaders argue that today's deal means that Europe is setting an example to the rest of the world and hope to seal a transatlantic pact with the incoming Obama administration that could result in a fledgling global market in carbon trading.
Environmental and economic standards vary hugely across the EU, from high-achieving Sweden to bottom-of-the-class Romania. The new member states of central Europe have a lot of catching up to do in terms of standards of living and are also saddled with dirty Soviet-era coal power plants. The system seeks to spread the costs and pain accordingly.
Some of the east European countries are allowed to increase their emissions, while they also benefit from a "solidarity" mechanism, getting 12% of the pollution permits for free and receive large discounts on the price of the permits for their heavily polluting power stations. This is especially crucial in Poland, by far the biggest of the new member states which generates more than 90% of its electricity from coal.
In wealthier western Europe, the claim is that the package will provide a boon to clean technology development, encouraging companies to go green, to invest in new plant, and spawn a vast renewables industry.
Who pays and how much?
Despite the "polluter pays" principle of the carbon trading scheme, there are trade-offs and exemptions galore, pushed mainly by Germany which campaigned for large concessions for its heavy industries. This could see many European companies enjoying a multibillion euro bonanza in windfall profits by pocketing their permits for free and passing on the nominal costs to consumers.
While east European power stations get big discounts on the price of carbon, west European generators pay full whack.
Processing industries, however, will get their pollution permits for free if deemed to be exposed to unfair competition from rivals outside the EU. That will mean 96% of the companies, according to expert calculations.
Under the initial proposals from the European commission, the trading scheme was to have generated 55bn (£49bn) in revenue in 2013-2020. Given the tradeoffs and free permit allocations agreed over the past two days, that pot of money will be much smaller.
Any other loopholes?
One of the most controversial aspects of the package, denounced as neo-colonial by some in the green lobby, concerns the practice of "offsetting". This enables countries and companies to meet their emissions cuts by funding projects in the developing world.
Under the trading scheme, companies can count environmental investment in the developing world towards their obligations to cut pollution in Europe. They may offset around of half their burden this way.
And similarly under the national targets, countries or companies can also offset their reductions to the tune of around 70% through projects outside Europe. Environmental activists complain that big polluters will need to do little at home to observe the new laws. Leaders counter that if Denmark builds a wind farm in, say, Cape Verde, that is an excellent thing that would not otherwise happen because Cape Verde could not afford it.
How does the trading scheme work?
It is "cap and trade", with a progressively smaller number of permits being auctioned every year. Between 2013 and 2020, the "cap" or emissions ceiling falls by 1.74% every year to produce an overall greenhouse gas reduction of 21% by 2020 compared with 2005. One permit equals one tonne of CO2. The number of permits issued falls every year.
Whether you pay for the permits or get them free of charge, say the supporters, pollution still comes down. If a company emits, say, a million tonnes of CO2, it either buys or is given a million permits. If it is dirtier, it goes to the carbon market to buy more permits. Conversely, companies are encouraged to be cleaner and can then sell surplus permits to increase earnings. On the market, the current price for CO2 is 15 a tonne, but is expected to rise to around 40.
Under the staggered reduction scheme, the cap on CO2 emissions in Europe falls from 1,974 million tonnes in 2013 to 1,720 million in 2020. This represents roughly half of carbon dioxide emissions in Europe since the other half comes from industries not included in the trading scheme.
Why do so many get to pollute for free?
It's the economy, stupid. Since the outline package was agreed in March last year, economic hard times have set in with a vengeance, triggering a backlash by governments and industries worried about job losses, the costs of combating climate change, and the threats from big corporations to move out of Europe.
Italy threatened to veto the deal. Germany's Angela Merkel shifted from being a climate chancellor to a corporate lobbyist. Poland warned electricity prices would soar and threaten the government. But everyone claimed they were a winner. Ultimately, the councils of Europe are a bazaar.
This article originally appeared on The Guardian. Ian Traynor is The Guardians's Europe editor, based in Brussels.
Help us change the world - California Leads the Way (Again)
Air board approves ambitious climate plan by Adam Stern California regulators took a major step forward in climate policy today by approving a plan to implement the states landmark Global Warming Solutions Act. The plan commits the state to reducing greenhouse gas emissions from 596 million metric tons (business-as-usual) to 427 million metric tons in 2020, or 30% from what would otherwise occur. This is a big deal! Californias plan did not occur in the dark of night (like some environmental rulemakings we know). A two-year planning process included 250 public hearings and 42,000 written comments from stakeholders representing business, environmental groups, and community activists. The result is a 142-page document that lays out specific targets for cutting carbon in all major sectors of the California economy. Improvements in energy efficiency, fuel standards, and electricity from renewable sources will produce most of the emission reductions. TerraPass testified several times this year about the benefits of allowing carbon offsets to be part of the plan. We spoke about the expanded use of clean technologies in reducing GHGs at landfills and dairies, and the related cost savings that could come from offsets. Though many details remain to be worked out, we are pleased that the Air Resources Board approved offset policies consistent with TerraPass approach to quality standards. Our projects already meet the key tests of generating emission reductions that are real, additional, permanent, and independently verified. The packed hearing room today had an atmosphere of history in the making, as each state board member discussed the significance of the climate plan for current and future generations. They painted a world in which we would soon see cars with GHG labels, plug-in hybrids, and utilities paying customers to use less energy. Chairwoman Mary Nichols even quoted Nelson Mandela, who once said: The clerk called the roll: eight votes for; none against. Chalk one up for the planet. Image by author Help us change the world - DONATE NOW! (Posted by WorldChanging Team in Politics at 12:27 PM)
by Damian Carrington and agencies A coal stacker pours coal into piles ready for export in Newcastle, Australia. Image credit: Mick Tsikas/Reuters
World Changing 16/12/2008 21:27
A vision without action is just a dream; an action without vision just passes time; a vision with an action changes the world.
This piece originally appeared on The TerraPass Footprint.
Australia Pledges to Cut Emissions by up to 15%
World Changing 16/12/2008 20:27
Australia today pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 5%-15% by 2020 via the world's broadest cap and trade scheme.
Business analysts believed that industry overall would be relieved at the trimming of some of the costs to polluters but environmental campaigners condemned the deal.
The prime minister, Kevin Rudd, said the interim plan would not affect his commitment to slash the carbon emissions that are blamed for global warming by 60% from 2000 levels by 2050.
"Australia is today the biggest carbon polluter in the developed world on a per capita basis," Rudd said. "Yet we are the developed country with the most to lose from climate change."
He added: "Without action on climate change, Australia faces a future of parched farms, bleached reefs and empty reservoirs."
Australia's plan is only exceeded in scale by the European Union's emissions trading scheme. On Friday, European leaders committed the bloc to a 20% cut in greenhouse gases, relative to 1990 levels, by 2020. This would rise to 30% if the UN negotiations culminating in Copenhagen in December 2009 deliver a global emissions deal. The upper 15% cut in the Australian deal has the same trigger.
Both these targets fall short of the the cuts of 25%-40% by 2020 demanded by the scientists contributing to the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in order to avoid a high risk of catastrophic climate change.
The Australian cut is relative to 2000 emissions levels, a tougher reference year than Europe's 1990. Rudd argued that his new plan exceeded the cuts in the EU plan in terms of the emissions reduced per capita.
The Australian government were caught in the same dilemma that faced Europe's leaders on Friday: the need to start cutting greenhouse gases very soon to prevent long term climate catastrophe versus the need to support industry and business in the short term during a deep and global economic downturn.
The government said the scheme would only trim about 0.1% off annual growth in gross national product from 2010 to 2050, with a one-off increase in inflation of around 1.1%.
"You could say that the decision came down to a choice between the environment and the economy and at this stage it looks like the economy has won," said Gary Cox, head of environmental derivatives at global brokers Newedge.
Green groups agreed. "The weak targets announced today will damage Australia's international reputation and hold back progress toward an effective international agreement [in Copenhagen]," Australian Conservation Foundation executive director Don Henry said.
Frank Jotzo, an Australian National University economist who specialises in climate change policy, concurred. "It's disappointing because it makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for Australia to come to the party of an ambitious international agreement," Jotzo said.
Australia's largest business group, the Australian Chamber of Commerce, said it remained apprehensive about being burdened with pollution reduction targets during the current economic slowdown.
But Rudd said the global economy could not excuse failing to act on global warming.
The details of the plan
Permits to emit carbon dioxide will be auctioned by the government in the first half of 2010, raising an estimated A$11.5bn in 2010/11. This money will be used to compensate businesses and consumers for higher power and fuel costs. In future, the number of permits will be reduced, leading to reductions in emissions.
Three-quarters of the nation's emissions will be regulated by the scheme. Billions of dollars are earmarked as compensation for the coal-fired power industry, which accounts for about 80% of Australia's electricity generation and about a third of national emissions. There are also major exemptions for companies that could lose business to overseas competitors which operate in nations that do not require them to buy carbon permits.
Iron and aluminum producers, like BHP Billiton, Alcoa and Rio Tinto, will get up to 90% exemptions, while liquid natural gas producers, like Chevron and Woodside Petroleum, will get up to 60%.
The price of the permits is set by the market. The government estimated an initial price of about A$25 (£11.10) a tonne, lower than the European emission allowances, which are trading around 15 (£13.50) a tonne. However, there will be a government-imposed cap of A$40 a tonne for four years, which puts a ceiling on the costs for industry but will undermine the use of carbon reduction technologies that cost more that $40.
Transport and fuel are included in the scheme, but agriculture, responsible for 16% of the nations emissions, is exempt for at least five years. The government will introduce the carbon trading laws in 2009.
This piece originally appeared in The Guardian
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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Politics at 11:27 AM)
Track&Trace: A New Backstory Tool
World Changing 11/12/2008 23:52
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MADE-BY, an Amsterdam-based organization that promotes social and environmental sustainability across the consumer fashion industry, fashion brands, has launched a new interactive system for checking the backstory behind your clothing.
The program is called Track&Trace, and it currently allows consumers to track the backstory of products they purchase from a short list of Netherlands-based fashion brands. Visit the MADE-BY site and enter a code printed on the garment's label to pull up a history of the product that describes the places it's been and the people who played a role in its creation. (A few months ago, we posted about a similar system that tracks wool products from NewZealand-based Icebreaker)
The Track&Trace backstories take you step by step from the clothing brand company to the actual garment manufacturer, the workers who spun the yarn, the farmers who grew the cotton. Each step along that journey is illustrated with a photograph of an actual person, and a snippet of an interview talking about the labor and commerce at that level.
Of course, for those who want to make their purchasing decisions based on backstory, a system that requires a purchase before revealing the history isn't the ideal solution. And the brands associated with Track&Trace have already built their identities around sustainability, so all of this is largely icing. Nevertheless, it's an interesting tool that will hopefully inspire more responsible social and environmental practices across the industry. Getting to know a piece of clothing in this way could be a very enlightening experience for many consumers, since fashion comes cheap in many parts of the world, and it's easy to forget that the hundreds of identical items hanging on a store rack each trace back through the hands of people around the globe. It would be great to see more Track&Trace systems elsewhere, even outside the fashion world.
Images from the MADE-BY website.
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(Posted by Julia Levitt in Stuff at 2:52 PM)
Pozna, Days 6 & 7: More Cash for Adaptation?
World Changing 11/12/2008 22:04
Amanda Chiu reports from the 14th Conference of Parties (COP 14) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Pozna, Poland.
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"Contact groups" have been meeting since late last week, meaning that international climate negotiations have now gone behind closed doors. One of the key negotiations, and arguably the most important decision that might come out of Pozna, revolves around the Adaptation Fund and Article 9 of the Kyoto Protocol - the review and possible updating of the treaty.
Under Article 9, Parties to the Kyoto Protocol will, "periodically review this Protocol in the light of the best available scientific information and assessments on climate change and its impacts, as well as relevant technical, social and economic information.... Based on these reviews, the Conference of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to this Protocol shall take appropriate action."
One of the areas under examination is funding for adaptation projects - efforts by countries to address and adapt to the wide-ranging impacts of climate change, from rising sea levels to worsening droughts. Currently, the Kyoto Protocol calls for a 2-percent levy on all funding used to support projects under the treaty's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a tool that allows emitters in wealthy countries to offset' their own emissions by investing in emissions-reducing projects in the developing world. That 2 percent is automatically put into the Adaptation Fund, which supports adaptation projects in developing countries that are Parties to Kyoto.
Negotiators are currently considering extending the 2 percent levy to the treaty's two other emissions-reduction "mechanisms": Joint Implementation (essentially, CDM projects for the former Soviet transition countries) and the emissions trading system. This could occur during either the first Kyoto commitment period (ending in 2012) or the second (beginning in 2013).
Aside from the 2 percent CDM levy, the Adaptation Fund currently has only one other funding source: voluntary contributions from individual countries. By extending the levy to all three Kyoto mechanisms, the cash flow to the Fund grows. The timing of implementation is also important, as it relates directly to the time-sensitive nature of adaptation. Already, many countries are seeing changes due to climate change and need help now.
Environment ministers and other key government officials are now arriving at the conference, and high-level negotiations commence on Thursday. Because Party delegates have not been able to agree on an outcome for the Adaptation Fund discussion as of yet, negotiations on this topic are expected to make their way up to these tables.
On a different note, I attended an eye-opening "side event" on potential low-carbon pathways in India's energy future, sponsored by the Delhi-based NGO The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI). (Side events are events put on by groups accredited with the UNFCCC and run concurrent to the official meetings.) Panelists included TERI Executive Director Leena Srivastava, R.K. Pachauri (TERI Director General and Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), Nobuo Tanaka (Executive Director of the International Energy Agency), and Harlan Watson (Senior Climate Negotiator of the U.S. Delegation to Pozna). Pachauri is also a contributing author to the upcoming Worldwatch report State of the World 2009: Into a Warming World and will be attending the State of the World 2009 briefing in Washington in January.
Srivastava painted an interesting portrait of what India is and could be. The country has a population of more than 1.1 billion and an installed electricity generating capacity of around 150 gigawatts (GW), compared to the United States, with a population of just under 306 million and approximately 1,000 GW. Over half of India's rural population does not have access to electricity, and already this system is over-taxed. Oil reserves are extremely limited, a cohesive transport infrastructure for natural gas does not exist, and coal reserves are expected to last only another 40 years.
Despite all of this, energy demand continues to grow with development. Given current rates of consumption, TERI projected that India would exhaust its domestic fossil fuel reserves by 2016 or 2017, pressing that it does not have the luxury of time to wait until after these dates to transform to a new energy-secure path. If India still relies on fossil fuels by then, it would have to depend almost solely on energy imports, a serious breach of energy security.
In TERI's most ambitious scenario for energy transformation, two-thirds of India's electricity sector, roughly 800 GW, could be served by solar energy (both photovoltaics and solar thermal) by 2031 or 2032. Large and small hydropower could produce almost 200 GW, followed by wind at slightly over 100 GW and nuclear at 100 GW. Other fuels could be used to a lesser extent. Fossil fuels would account for a much smaller portion of the pie.
To reach this scenario, India would unwaveringly go beyond its "common but differentiated responsibilities" defined under the Kyoto Protocol, and bring its "equitable right" of 2 tons of emissions per capita down to a far more rigorous 1.3 tons per capita by 2031. As a result, carbon dioxide emissions in 2030 would be about 75 percent lower than under the business-as-usual case, and total systems costs would be about 11 percent lower.
This article originally appeared on the Worldwatch Institute, for which Amanda Chiu is the MAP Sustainable Energy Fellow.
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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Events at 1:04 PM)
DIYcity Challenge: Build a Rideshare Program that Works
World Changing 11/12/2008 20:30
Using computer and communication applications to improve the rate and ease at which we work is something we write about often at Worldchanging (see more stories here, here and here). Applications like Twitter and Facebook not only help us stay connected within our networks; they are also beginning to help us harness the power of collective thought and action to re-imagine our world.
The collaborative platform DIYcity is encouraging people all over the world to improve and create applications that could change the way we use current systems and infrastructure. To help generate more efficiency in our communities and activities, DIYcity is challenging applications creators and others to build and implement real solutions to problems like waste, transportation and traffic.
Each week, DIYcity issues a development challenge to their readers to transform urban space and rebuild cities using tools like Twitter bots, aggregators, social software and mobile apps. Their first challenge, for example, asked people to innovate solutions to traffic using Twitter bots. Their first user-submitted app is Traffictweet, a Twitter bot from Andy Weissman that lets people broadcast current traffic conditions to others who are listening. It's pretty general, but works well, says DIYcity, just "subscribe to it, broadcast messages about traffic, and receive messages sent by others."
Their second challenge, issued earlier this week, asks participants to "conceive of a grassroots ridesharing system that can overcome the problems inherent in ridesharing and achieve critical mass." (Find a refresher on the idea of ridesharing here.)
You can build an application, but what DIYcity is really looking for in this challenge is a concise proposal. The more proposals, the juicier the collaboration will be! So submit your visions and ideas for improving rideshare applications to diy@diycity.org today!
Collaborative platforms such as DIYcity help us come together to create the tools that we need to make our daily tasks a little easier, and to help us play a role in building the communities we want to live in. These tools give us the ability to imagine efficiencies for our cities that, in the long run, will make the places we live and the things we do more sustainable.
Image credit: Sonicribbon for DIYcity
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(Posted by Sarah Kuck in Transportation at 11:30 AM)
Down Under
World Changing 11/12/2008 19:07
[Image: The subterranean granny flat of the future, via the Sydney Morning Herald].
According to an article published last month in the Sydney Morning Herald, turning backyard swimming pools into subterranean "granny flats" is a spatially innovative, if unexpected, way to assuage Sydney's growing housing shortage. Indeed, much of Sydney's projected population growth could simply be "housed within some of [New South Wales's] 360,000 swimming pools." These "redeveloped pools" could then be used as detached bedrooms for grandparents, teens, guests, bunker enthusiasts, underground-obsessed schizophrenics, and so on.
The region's 360,000 swimming pools would first be emptied of their water and then transformed, through architectural intervention, into a comfortable domestic space, "complete with a small bedroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom, garden alcove and rooftop windows."
But where would everyone then swim? In the ocean pools of Sydney, of course.
(Thanks to Simon Sellars for the tip!)
This piece originally appeared on Geoff Manaugh's site, BLDGBLOG
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