Garden Tutors, poop for food, cruelty and poverty

I wanted to put these in "Links I liked" but had a short commentary to add with each one. So I made a separate post of them all.

1. PSFK put up this great post about Garden Tutors. It got me thinking about what if we gave more educated farming tutorials to farmers in India and other parts of the world, to both start kitchen gardens of their own (so that they have something to eat during the year that is nutritious), as well as to teach them better farming techniques to survive the drought and pests. "Agricultural Tutors" of sorts.

I just loved this Garden Tutors program and how people are signing up madly. I'm a bit of an amateur gardener and I think working with the earth really makes you want to protect and take care of it better.


2. This post from Wronging Rights, downright cracked me up. When nuts rule the world, this is the kind of nonsense we can expect.


3. I found this post from the PSD Blog about the differences in the way women and men are approached in terms of entrepreneurship to be fascinating. My own personal view from my fieldwork has been that women face a myriad of pushback in terms of entrepreneurship, particularly if they are poor. Firstly their lifestyles are such that they have very little time to build a business --- between motherhood, housechores (which take a LOT of time), their job, and taking care of their demanding families (husbands and in-laws)--- the playing field is not even. Women who often speak of starting a business get shot down quickly by their families, by their communities and of course by banking institutions (though micro-credit is changing this a little bit).

4. Alanna Shaikh in Blood and Milk, muses about whether poverty causes cruelty or inequality?? I had to really pause and think about this. I have to disagree with both of these. I know plenty of people who have been extremely poor, harboring the several injustices and inequalities that are unpardonable, and I've never seen them be cruel. Cruelty comes from a lack of morals, and human weakness or greed. Cruelty happens irrespective of socio-economic circumstances, religions, castes or cultures. And in this case, i had to ask for a definition of cruelty. It seemed so unfair to label someone as "cruel" who had unknowingly given his child up as a servant (and she had ended up as a prostitute instead). This is one of those hard questions to answer.

More Contests Spurring Tech Innovation

Following up on my last post about the X-Prize, I wanted to point out three more contests that are improving technology (this is in the same vein as the WB Development Marketplace, and others like it).

1. Keen Footwear's Stand Up Out For contest:


Keen's Stand For winner, Brian Bell, plans to melt Haiti's ubiquitous plastic trash and transform it into footwear for kids (source: Robert Gottofrey)

Recently Keen released profiles of their Stand contest winners. For each of the categories, entrants had to provide a write-up of their idea for "changing the world," a budget, and a personal statement about who they were and why they deserved the prize. In return, they won US$25,000 to implement their visions. Probably the ones I am most interested in are the engineer who plans to recycle plastic trash collected from the roadsides in Haiti to be converted into footwear (croc-like??); and to a lesser extent (only because its not very original) in another engineer who will be using her prize money to build water pipelines in Kenya.


2. Dell's Regeneration Green Computing Challenge:


The Lawn PC, one of five finalists from Dell's Regeneration challenge (source: regeneration.org)

You've all probably heard about toll e-waste (electronic waste) is taking on the developing world. Most of the toxic e-waste from the developed world ends up in landfills in the poorer parts of the world. So Dell decided to take responsibility and run a contest for greener design. As of a few days ago, Five finalists have been chosen and its upto you to vote for your favorite. Computers, with One Laptop per Child (OLPC) and others, are changing the world and continue to break down a lot of education barriers in the developing world. Green computing will improve access to the electronic world and education in the developing world, without increasing the damage that has already been done. Very important.


3. INC.com's Inspired Innovations Great Idea Contest:



Unlike the rest, this is still running. If you have an idea that will change the world, submit it here and you'll get some cash, venture funding, and other resources to make your dream come true. HURRY, applications are due May 9th. According to their website, here's what the contest is about:

Let us hear about your great idea. Give your submission a headline that describes your idea in brief, and then tell us about your innovation in an essay, being sure to include:

A thorough description of the idea -- Is it a product, a service, an enhancement to something that exists already? The market it serves -- Who is the target market and what need does the idea serve so well?

Be creative in your submission -- sell us on why your idea is truly innovative.

Note: We recommend you create your submission in a word-processing program prior to submitting. Each submission should be no longer than 5,000 characters with spaces. After reviewing and editing your essay, you can cut and paste it into the form below.

Related Posts:
Playpump International
The Development Marketplace and other social competitions/conferences

Greened Out

Its the day after Earth Day. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm officially "greened-out." I got so bombarded with green posts, emails, lectures, magazines and billboards about saving water and food and animals and the earth, that I decided to save my own sanity (and yours) and not post much. I had originally composed two posts on water conservation, but I hope you already know that you should not waste water. If not, let me just say...please conserve water.

Another by-product of this green-out is that I am depressed...I saw so many pictures (even a hip hop video) of how depressing the world is that I had to escape.

I had to do something un-green and get my adrenaline pumping. So I went into my backyard and killed all the green weeds I could find, and then watched Monsters Inc (which has a lot of blue monsters, if you ignore Mike Wazowski). I feel much better this morning.

I still love earth. And so I leave you with some Colbert:

Good technology comes from good institutions

I spent a lot of time at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) until a few months ago. What makes me most proud about having been involved with that institution is that it is a true laboratory of genius - minds work together, not for the money or the fame, but for the beauty and purpose of technology itself, that it should help others. The university provides the space, the creative minds, facilities, and some funding to get students started up. From there, genius evolves. Its not surprising that some of the world's greatest minds and technologies are born there.

Recently, MIT has taken on a major energy and sustainability drive. The energy drive was first driven by student interest. They organized themselves and brought on board faculty and more students. Then the political climate became such that energy was the hot topic. Soon the university embarked on a major energy initiative. Now the whole University is working together to devise better technologies to address the incoming energy crisis. I have no doubt that they will succeed.

Similarly, when graduate students found that MIT's energy bill was a ridiculous 100 million dollars a week, they decided that something had to be done. They organized a sustainability drive, bringing together a group of undergraduate and graduate student projects that all addressed various sustainability issues across campus. Its now a movement to "green" MIT. Yesterday, NPR did a great piece on it. Check it out here.
http://www.here-now.org/shows/wed.asp

There are many universities that do projects like this, but there need to be more. And there needs to be more invested in projects like these. More universities nationally and internationally need to provide this type of environment for budding minds to flex their intellectual muscle for the good of mankind.