Elizabeth Hausler explains to Global X that she was finishing her Ph.D. in engineering at Berkeley when an earthquake hit India and killed 20,000 people. That’s when she realized that “it’s not the earthquake that kills people, it’s the building collapsing.”
She looked for a solution and launched Build Change to build earthquake-resistant houses in developing countries and change construction practices permanently so that homeowners in seismically active developing countries can sleep at night.
TED has hosted a number of excellent speakers on the topic of climate change. However, I found 2 interesting almost opposite approaches to solving the issue.
In this talk, energy guru Amory Lovins lays out his plan for weaning the US off oil and revitalizing the economy in the process. It’s the subject of his book Winning the Oil Endgame, and he makes it sound fairly simple: On one hand, the deadly risks of continued dependency, and on the other, some win-win solutions.
Environmental scientist David Keith talks about a cheap, effective, shocking solution to climate change: What if we injected a huge cloud of ash into the atmosphere, to deflect sunlight and heat? As an emergency measure to slow a melting ice cap, it could work. Keith discusses why it’s a good idea, why it’s a terrible one — and who, despite the cost, might be tempted to use it.
The article here and its accompanying video describe this invention as, “…a taut membrane fitted with a pair of magnets that oscillate between metal coils. Prototypes have generated 40 milliwatts in 10-mph slivers of wind, making his device 10 to 30 times as efficient as the best microturbines…”
I spent some time watching the talk Dr. Bussard gave at Google sometime ago- it was very interesting both from a scientific point of view and a political point of view. It seems all that is required to solve most of the world’s problems is political will and stepping away from narrow egotistical views.
Here is what Slashdot says in a post: Dr Bussard, the man behind the Bussard Collector and inventor of the Polywell fusion device, passedaway last Sunday in the morning. He leaves behind him a legacy of EM fusion devices, and a team determined to continue his efforts. The news of funding extension for the construction of his WB-7 fusion devices made it to slashdot months ago (as well as his talk at google). They may be a serious candidate in the run to bring commercial fusion, and may work at lower scales than other projects. Let’s hope the project continues in good shape despite his departure.
TechCrunch reports that this technology is so revolutionary that Adobe snapped up co-inventor Shai Avidan on a moments notice. Check out the video to see how neat this is…
Jacqueline Novogratz of Acumen Fund speaks on the importance of patient listening and dignity in social development related businesses. Here is her talk on TED.com
The website AfriGadget documents precisely what its tagline says. This is the website to check out if you are interested in seeing how people solve real life problems with limited resources. An African version of the Indian HoneyBee network may prove helpful.
ScienceDaily reports on a just invented process to make a high-energy liquid bio-fuel from fructose. This is all fine and good but we need to ask ourselves honestly… do we really need to convert corn into fuel and animal feed when a quarter of the world is underfed?
I am a big fan of TED and it never fails to wow. In this presentation Hans Rosling demonstrates visually a myriad of development indicators and at one point argues that Africa is not a basket case but has made tremendous strides in social development.
Guy Kawasaki gives an interesting presentation (video) on Art of Innovation. It is nice not only from the content but also the presentation point of view.
This Foreign Affairs article points out that massive increase in demand of biofuels like ethanol may displace food crops and increasing food prices.
filling the 25-gallon tank of an SUV with pure ethanol requires over 450 pounds of corn — which contains enough calories to feed one person for a year
The irony is that automobiles like SUVs are a big cause of global warming…Is this a case of stealing from the poor to solve the rich man’s problem? We need better ways of harvesting solar energy than food crop-based biofuels.
Strangely, this reminds me vaguely of something I read about India’s Green Revolution many years ago- The Green Revolution introduced crops which were shorter than the traditional crop breeds- this resulted in reduced production of straw/hay for fodder… the scarcity of fodder was the impetus for introducing factory-produced fodder.
I am a MS (Information Science) graduate from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and work for a management consulting firm. When I am not travelling for work, I live in Pittsburgh. My hometown is Bangalore, India and did my college education from New Delhi, India and Chapel Hill, USA.
