Asia's Rise ~ Hans Rosling @ TEDIndia...

Data uberguru Hans Rosling speaks on Asia's Rise at TEDIndia...

Terraced Green Roof ~ Lovely Dutch Inhabitat...

The nicest thing Inhabitat spotted this past week is this terraced green roof building planned for Groningen in the Netherlands...

Factory Surgeries ~ On Indian Hearts and Eyes...

Fascinating cover story in the WSJournal by Geeta Anand on The Henry Ford of Heart Surgery ~ In India, a Factory Model for Hospitals Is Cutting Costs and Yielding Profits. Pioneered by Dr Devi Shetty, this new approach...

"...offers cutting-edge medical care in India at a fraction of what it costs elsewhere in the world. His flagship heart hospital charges $2,000, on average, for open-heart surgery, compared with hospitals in the U.S. that are paid between $20,000 and $100,000, depending on the complexity of the surgery. The approach has transformed health care in India through a simple premise that works in other industries: economies of scale. By driving huge volumes, even of procedures as sophisticated, delicate and dangerous as heart surgery, Dr. Shetty has managed to drive down the cost of health care in his nation of one billion. His model offers insights for countries worldwide that are struggling with soaring medical costs, including the U.S. as it debates major health-care overhaul."

Perhaps even more widely known is the story of the Aravind Eye Hospital as reported on by PBS NewsHour's Fred de Sam Lazaro in Two Decades On, India Eye Clinic Maintains Innovative Mission...

"The late ophthalmologist Govindappa Venkataswamy founded Aravind in 1976, after he retired at fifty-five from the government hospital in Madurai. Dr V, as he was widely known, combined a religious zeal to serve and his fascination with businesses like McDonald's and the "other chains you have in America" that were able to provide a uniform product on a massive scale. Methodically, he built on the concept of high quality assembly line patient care, forging close ties to public health experts at the University of Michigan and to the Berkeley-based Seva Foundation. [...] Aravind began by offering care to paying patients, using the proceeds to offer free care to those who could not afford it."

Both of these are excellent examples of innovative healthcare approaches emerging out of developing countries!

Micro-Gardens ~ From Concrete to Community

Thanks to the FT's Tracey Taylor for spotting the shift From concrete to community in the Mission District of San Francisco. Local resident Jan Martin tore out the fugly concrete and planted instead a small garden. And despite nay-sayers and skeptics...

"...her garden thrived. In fact it attracted the attention of the local community and passers-by for positive reasons. People stopped to chat when she was out weeding and several neighbours asked her how they might go about planting their own front-of-house gardens. Indeed this modest patch of succulents, evergreens and native flowers in one of the city’s densest neighbourhoods became the launch-pad for an ambitious greening project that has seen significant expanses of pavement replaced with gardens across San Francisco."

This spawned a boom in planning applications and a community volunteer body, Plant*SF, to advocate and spread more such gardens. What a great little story of DIY urbanism making for every more beautiful, livable, and vital cities!

A Better Mountain ~ From Stones Into Schools!

I love a great human-interest story and Parade delivers! Greg Mortenson writes about his work Fighting Terrorism With Schools. It started after a disasterously failed attempt to climb K2, the world's second-highest peak which located on the Pakistan-China border...

"I staggered into a tiny village called Korphe, where the impoverished residents gave me food, shelter -- and a mission. One afternoon, I watched 82 children scratch their lessons in the dirt with sticks. Among them was a girl named Chocho, who appealed to me to come back one day and build Korphe a school -- one that would be open to all children, even though, in that part of the world, the privilege of learning to read and write has traditionally been reserved for boys. Three years later, I kept my promise. The organization I founded, the Central Asia Institute (CAI), has kept right on building. Today, in the mountains of rural Pakistan -- where schools are scarce and all too often supported by the same radical Islamist money and ideology that fuels al-Qaeda and the Taliban -- CAI now has 91 schoolhouses. We serve 19,000 students -- three-quarters of them girls."

Mortenson's written about his experience in a to-be-published book, Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace With Books, Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. About that aborted climb, though?

"A few months ago, I gave a talk in Durango, CO. A young girl raised her hand. "Will you ever go back and try to climb K2 again?” she asked. "No," I replied. "I’ve found a better mountain."

How beautiful is that -- A Better Mountain to climb!

Biking to School ~ Normal Mode in Netherlands!

Thanks to David Hembrow for this video of everyday kids biking to school in the Netherlands. Note how normal it is, even in winter, and how much the basic infrastructure is competently designed and built... Curiously enough, this was my normal mode growing up in Los Altos, CA and biking to school every day at Egan Junior High!

The Thrivers ~ Alive at the Four Seasons Lodge

Thanks to MIT Sloan alumna Beth Pollack for pointing out her grandparents story. The Four Seasons Lodge movie follows Holocaust survivors who come together each summer in the Catskills to dance, cook, fight and flirt and celebrate living in freedom -- thriving, really. Just the trailer alone makes me want to see the whole film...

Recovery ~ Beyond Justice in Sierra Leone...

Recent BBC coverage asks Did Sierra Leone get war crimes justice? The atrocities committed there -- and the tremendous resulting economic and social disruptions -- should never be forgotten. See also this BBC slideshow of photos by Nick Danziger on Recovering in Sierra Leone... The rebel terror tactic of chopping limbs -- and the resultant great need for solutions -- is one reason I'm an enthusiastic supporter of our MIT Developing World Prosthetics class in the D-Lab family.

iRobot Looj ~ "Less Chores, More Life!"

Brad Feld suggested his MIT fraternity brother Colin Angle's business -- iRobot -- to the Daily Grommet -- specifically their Looj gutter router! Great motto: "Less Chores, More Life!"

Lawrence Walmsley ~ Clean Energy on MP.tv!

Wonderful to have MIT alumnus and MIT $100K Lead Organizer Emeritus Lawrence Walmsley on MaximizingProgress.tv tonight! With UN-connected parents, he lived a very cosmopolitan youth, growing up in Peru, India, Brazil, and Paraguay. Then inspired at a young age to be an astronaut, Lawrence studied engineering at Princeton. Waylaid by Goldman Sachs and banking temporarily, he ended up at MIT Sloan and Harvard's Kennedy School pursuing dual-degrees. While at MIT, he co-led the MIT $100K business plan competition with then doctoral student Jason Fuller -- and, in fact, was instrumental in doubling the size of the Competition from the then $50K prize fund to today's $100K! After schooling, Lawrence joined premier global strategy consultancy McKinsey, and today is in their cleantech and energy innovation practice. Fantastic to have Lawrence share his experiences with us tonight. And I personally very much look forward to seeing what entrepreneurial directions he heads into next...

12 TW in 40 Years ~ Saul Griffith @ NextAgenda

Saul Griffith articulates case for building ~12 Terawatts of new clean energy by mid-century -- 2050...

Imaging Wishlist ~ Raskar Keynote @ 6Sight!

My MIT Media Lab colleague Ramesh Raskar's imaging wishlist!

Raskar 6Sight Keynote Talk Nov09

Stormy Anime ~ Time-Lapse Atlantic Weather!

Thanks to the Map Scroll for spotting this Stormy Anime...

Global Corruption ~ Transparency Int'l Map 2009

Thanks to the BBC for spotting War-torn nations 'most corrupt' and serving up Transparency International's worldmap 2009...

Bigger Bites ~ Lessons From Animal Kingdom...

The DailyMail delivers again, this time showing how morono-croc fails to escape hippo vengeance...

Fighting Epilepsy ~ 60 Minutes on Seeking Cures

60 Minutes spotlights a very disruptive neurological disorder -- and the search for solutions -- in this piece Epilepsy: Fighting For A Cure...

"More Americans are suffering from epilepsy than Parkinson's, cerebral palsy and multiple sclerosis combined. Katie Couric reports on a disease that may not be getting the attention it deserves."

Riding Bikes ~ Yes, The Dutch Get It!

Trailer for Riding Bikes with the Dutch by Michael Bauch!

Riding Man ~ An Especially Flaming Bicyclist!-)

Riding Man a kinetic pyro-sculpture at Burning Man 2006...

Prefab ~ Kirsner on Factory-Built Housing...

Great to see Innovation Economist Scott Kirsner spotlighting urban innovations, specifically the power of prefab housing in today's piece on This new house...

Frenk @ Media ~ Empowerment Thru Knowledge

This coming Wednesday November 18, 2009 from 11a to 12noon in Bartos Theatre, the MIT Media Lab's Social Health Initiative hosts Harvard School of Public Health Dean Julio Frenk for a talk on Empowerment Through Knowledge: Determinants of Progress in Global Health.

"The MIT Media Laboratory is launching a Social Health Initiative, and a series of inaugural keynote lectures. Our goal is to create a network of organizations and tools that help people thrive, staying healthy and happy during their entire lives. Because social health is intimately intertwined with social support, adequate wealth, self-determination, and security, a successful social health system must take a holistic view of life."

The transformative implications of consumer-centric and systemic-holistic health are enormous. This is a must-see event and the Social Health Initiative is worthy of your close attention.

New Inhabitats ~ Green Live-Work Alternatives

Clickon the latest goodies (and crazy ideas) from Inhabitat...

Puppies Behind Bars ~ Prisoner Responsibility...

Glad I picked up the USAToday and read Joshua Hatch's piece Prison pups serve those who served about Puppies Behind Bars, a program which allows-encourages prisoners to train dogs to perform valuable tasks. This is great both because of the helpful abilities of these hounds, but because -- in the essential words of one prisoner -- taking on this responsibility is "Making me a better person". According to organizer Gloria Stoga...

"Prisoners are great puppy raisers, Stoga says, because "they put their all into each and every dog." Unlike professional trainers, she says, prisoners "have a real need and desire to prove they can do something right. Here is a chance for someone to say, 'You succeeded.' " "There's a level of responsibility that's involved, like having a little baby," says Eric Jenkins, 37. Convicted in a 1992 fatal shooting, Jenkins got into the program in 2007. He's training his second dog, a 3-month-old golden retriever named Skamper. "It compels you to extend yourself and not think only of yourself. I have to think about him first," Jenkins says, stroking Skamper's head. An inmate in the program -- who still has to do a regular prison job -- spends 24 hours a day with the dog. He must learn basic veterinary care, keep a journal and be an assistant to a primary trainer for at least six months before he gets his own puppy."

This is valuable and rehabilitative stuff.

EDC ~ Non-Profit MIT Educational Spinout...

Great to hear a nice snippet of news about the Newton, MA based Education Development Center (EDC) -- that Clinton lauds Newton group's Philippines project. EDC is a...

"...global nonprofit organization that designs, delivers and evaluates innovative programs to address some of the world’s most urgent challenges in education, health, and economic opportunity."

In addition to doing important work in these fields, EDC is one of the key -- and oft underappreciated -- non-profit spinouts from MIT. Others include MITRE, Draper, Society for Organizational Learning, OneLaptopPerChild, and most recently Learning Unlimited. EDC started back in the Sputnik era when MIT physics Professor Jerrold Zacharias and colleagues crafted...

"...a new high school physics curriculum, PSSC Physics. This curriculum, funded by the National Science Foundation, focused on science as the product of experiment and theory, constructed by real people. EDC introduced it successfully in schools across the country and eventually in many parts of the world."

As I can personally attest, PSSC Physics was great stuff, a curriculum I benefited from at Los Altos High before coming to MIT as an undergrad to study engineering! More generally, EDC has become today a multi-division organization pursuing hundreds of programs with over a thousand employees worldwide.

"More People, Faster" ~ Nokia's Entry Phones...

Compelling piece by Nathan Wyeth on NextBillion.net about Nokia Releases New Phones. Nathan asserts...

"Not only should other multinationals be learning from Nokia's success in emerging markets, I think the development community should be treating its product releases more like the wealthy public treats the release of a new iPhone -- with excitement and attention to its details. [...] these price drops in handsets alone -- an almost 40% reduction from Nokia's least expensive phones two years ago -- will reach more people, faster, than any of the innovative approaches profiled elsewhere on NextBillion.net. For better or worse if I had to choose the single organization driving the most market development at the base of the pyramid globally, it wouldn't be the Gates Foundation or Grameen, it would be Nokia. While the company is losing out in the smartphone market it's shipping almost half a billion handsets a year, accounting for their 60% market share in India and 45% market share in China. They intend for Nokia Money to reach 300 million people by 2011. As a benchmark, the global microfinance industry has something shy of 150 million clients."

Great example of transformative innovations changing people's lives for the better. Anyways, see here the entry-level Nokia 1280... And also see here pieces by Nokia's Jan Chipchase about Lessons for the Design of Mobile Money Services.

Tinkering ~ DIY Renaissance in WSJournal!

Thanks to Lemelson-MIT Invention Program Executive Director Joshua Schuler for spotting today's WSJournal piece Tinkering Makes Comeback Amid Crisis by Justin Lahart. All about the DIY build-it movement sweeping our planet. Cool associated video featuring interesting examples, including MIT alumna Limor Fried and her adafruit business...

Plan Ceibal ~ One Laptop Per Uruguayan Child!

Thanks to Adrian Garcia for spotting this OLPC video about the Uruguayan Plan Ceibal -- deploying one laptop for all children and teachers! Ceibal stands for "Conectividad Educativa de Informática Básica para el Aprendizaje en Línea", which can be translated as "Basic informatic educative connectivity for on-line learning".

Jason Kelly ~ Ginkgo BioWorks Co-Founder...

Excellent to have MIT alum entrepreneur Jason Kelly on MaximizingProgress.tv tonight! Jason's co-founder with four other MIT alums of Ginkgo BioWorks, a biological engineering firm dedicated to "...making biology easier to engineer. Ginkgo offers technology to speed the construction of DNA and enable reliable, rapid prototyping of engineered biological systems." Their offices and lab space are located in the Marine Industrial Park in Boston, an up-and-coming biotech hub. During our conversation, Jason described the exponential Synthetic Biology revolution and the powerful role of extracurricular activities like iGEM 2009, the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition, in accelerating this movement. His own path is quite interesting too: as an undergrad at MIT, Jason pursued degrees in Chemical Engineering and Biology -- since there was no Biological Engineering degree yet -- and then a PhD in... Biological Engineering! Among his outside activities, Jason is a co-founder of OpenWetWare, a community of life sciences researchers exploring ways to conduct science more effectively, as well as serving as Judge in iGEM.

Droplet Dynamics ~ SloMo TimeWarping Water!-)

Thanks to Paul from GeekPress for spotting Jeff's TimeWarp perspective on water droplet dynamics! Stunning...

Financing Neuroventures ~ VC Panel @ NTV09

Great guest panel of venture capitalists joined us in our MIT Neurotechnology Ventures class last night...

Dr Jonathan Behr ~ PureTech Ventures ~ Senior Associate charged with unearthing and evaluating venture creation opportunities. Part of the founding team of Endra and technical consultant to Enlight Biosciences, both PureTech portfolio companies. Earned his BS at Rice University and his PhD at MIT, both in Biological Engineering.

Dr Mikhail Shapiro ~ Third Rock Ventures ~ Senior Associate focusing on new company formation and due diligence. Co-Founder of Cyberkinetics Neurotechnology Systems, a neurology medical device company, and Epernicus, an enterprise software company. Holds a PhD in Biological Engineering at MIT and a BSc in Neuroscience from Brown University.

Dr Ann DeWitt ~ Flagship Ventures ~ Senior Associate. Previously at 3M and co-founder of Novophage Therapeutics. Has a BS from the University of Illinois, Urbana and a PhD in Chemical Engineering with minor in Biology from MIT, and MBA from Harvard Business School. While at Harvard, she was the Lead Organizer for the Biotech Track of the MIT $100K Business Plan Competition.

Wide-ranging advice including the power of networking, the need for best-in-class advisors and team members, the role of intellectual property, and more. We also discussed the challenges and opportunities in pursuing neuropharma and neurobiotech versus more consumer neurotechnologies and the impact of regulatory structures. Fascinating stuff!

MIT G-Lab Africa ~ Global Health Delivery!

Check out the Projects Map for MIT's G-Lab Africa class which specializes in understanding and improving Global Health Delivery... The students all travel to these project locations for the better part of January 2010 after spending Fall 2009 in class with MIT Sloan's Anjali Sastry and a great set of guest speakers and preparatory exercises.

Benevolent Dictators ~ Kagame, Atatürk, Others?

Interesting to read in Cashewman today Manpreet Singh's guest piece Rwanda’s Paul Kagame: The Benevolent Dictator?

"Plato said that the best form of government would be a benevolent dictatorship, and this is, in effect, what Rwanda has. Kagame is officially elected, but he has 95% approval -- indicative of a stifled political process. When I’ve spoken to Rwandan friends about this, no-one has a bad thing to say about Kagame. But it’s hard to have a debate when the opposing voice isn’t allowed to speak."

And this is in the context of strong performance...

"It’s fifteen years after the genocide in Rwanda, and seven years since Paul Kagame assumed office as President. In that time, Rwanda has thrived. Kagame has actively pursued pro-business policies, making Rwanda attractive to international companies, and to large funding organizations. As a result, Rwanda has shown year-on-year GDP growth of over 7%, for the past three years."

Other past transformational strongmen include Atatürk in the post-Ottoman period and the Meiji Restorers in post-Shogunate Japan. And yet we also have tragic failure modes, like what happened with the Shah as he drove for modernization in Iran or more visibly the malevolent dictators of North Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe, etc. Each seemed to start on a good path and then flipped a bit. What checks & balances are in play in today's Rwanda?

Vital Den Bosch ~ Before & After Images...

Thanks to David Hembrow for spotting Mark Wagenbuur's videos comparing contemporary Den Bosch with historic imagery...

"The city of 's-Hertogenbosch closed the historic inner city for motorized traffic. This used to be different. From the 1960s the city looked like one big parking lot. Now we only see pedestrians and cyclists in the historic center that since long has become a shopping area. You can still park your car near this center, but it is very expensive. This encourages people to come by bicycle. If they can not do that, or if they do not want to, there are "transferia" at the edges of the city near the motorways."

The Pile ~ MIT SMR Reviews Mgt Readings!

MIT Sloan Management Review summarizes their advice on the most useful management reading over the past week in a new Sunday column called -- what else -- The Pile! Hilarious! And timely. Their latest tips: A More Practical Creative Sabbatical, Success and the Power of Research, and How To Write a Great Novel.

Fairytale Electronics ~ Eng Visits MIT Media Lab

In her latest video episode, Diana Eng at FairytaleFashion.org explores simple, playful, and wearable electronics with MIT Media Lab grad student Karen Brennan of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group and Professor Leah Buechley of the High-Low Tech Group...

"I Am..." by Trisha Meili ~ Exceptional Woman!

I just woke up to another compelling episode of the Sunday morning Magic 106.7 radio show, Exceptional Women, this time with co-host Gay Vernon interviewing Trisha Meili, better known as the "Central Park Jogger" who was so brutally assaulted in 1989. After 14 years of recovery and relative seclusion, Trisha realized that as part of her own healing process she needed to share her story and wrote I Am The Central Park Jogger: A Story of Hope and Possibility. In the book and now in motivational talks, Trisha today shares lessons-learned about recovery and resilience and...

"...how to manage through unpredictable change, whether personal, professional, economic or spiritual. Her story has encouraged people worldwide to overcome life's obstacles -- regardless of what they might be -- and get back on the road to life."

Hearing Trisha's poignant examples -- both personal, in recovering from her physical and neurological trauma, and as shared by others on the mend -- in this mornings conversation with Gay was inspiring. Great show, great guests!

Walls ~ Beyond Berlin, Let's Tear More Down...

Just watched History's Rise and Fall of the Berlin Wall which showed just how clearly the Cold War of West vs East was a contest between freedom and oppression, between civilization and barbarism, and between right and wrong. Epic stories of escape and ingenuity and daring combine with political lessons which still hold in these perilous times when our secular enlightenment civilization has to fight off collectivist statism on the one hand and mystical fundamentalism on the other. FYI, the BBC Mundo offers us a special report on many additional walls which need tearing down...

Jackass German ~ The New "Foreign" Minister;-)

How embarrassing for Germans!-) Their new "Foreign" Minister got on his high horse and rudely refused to either listen to or answer a BBC reporter's question in English. Why? Because it was a press conference... in Germany! Der Spiegel's Cathrin Schaer writes that Germans Poke Fun at Their New Foreign Minister. Decide for yourself by viewing the live event... Nevermind the fact that post-WWII the Allies should have just insisted that the new language for the conquered people should be English. Or that the EU's dominant language is... English. Or that the dominant language for business is... English. Or whatever. In any case, there are language schools available for such Germans...

R.I.P. Qian Xuesen ~ Father of Chinese Rocketry

Sad to hear that Qian Xuesen passed away at the end of October, 2009 at age 97. After finishing his engineering studies at MIT, he went to CalTech to finish his doctorate under Theodore von Karman. Later as a CalTech professor, Qian co-founded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. But when he applied for US citizenship, the organs of the State accused him of Communist sympathies, stripped him of clearance, and detained him under house arrest for years. In 1955, he was allowed-told to leave and thus, after arriving in Mao's China, Qian went on to become the Father of Chinese Rocketry. A fascinating tale including plenty of political stupidity and governmental incompetence, but also heroic inventiveness and resilience. At this present time of US space program incoherence and growing, multiple, open fears of Chinese space initiatives, the saga of Qian is worth remembering.

Kenya's Street Teens ~ Changing Their Struggle...

CNN's David McKenzie spotlights Kenya's street teens struggle to survive. Not good. And sadly repeated in cities and situations worldwide. Surely we can and must do better as a society than to allow such circumstances to continue. See for yourself Joan's reality...

Via Inhabat ~ Greenscrapers & Cleanways!

Thanks to Inhabitat for more clean and green delighters! Click on...

Lions on the Edge ~ F2F with the Big Game!-)

Again the Daily Mail brings on the big game in this piece by Sara Nelson, Jeepers... are you sure this thing is safe? Amazing 'invisible' cage which puts you a whisker away from lion's jaws. I'm not sure I'd be so sanguine on safari......except that it's the new Lions on the Edge exhibit!

Being Nemo ~ A Rather Sharky Situation;-)

The Daily Mail shows us the extraordinary lengths wildlife photographers -- such as diver Amos Nachoum -- go to in order to secure the shot. Quoth he: "I have a 100 per cent safety record." Is that so? Well, seems he had no troubles with Smiley the Shark here...

IDE ~ Al Doerksen & Zenia Tata @ D-Ventures!

Great to have both Al Doerksen and Zenia Tata visit our MIT Development Ventures class to share their experiences operating and growing International Development Enterprises (IDE). The core IDE mission is...

Creating Income Opportunities for the Rural Poor

...something they've pursued since 1981. Using enterprise-oriented approaches to increase incomes, they concentrate on improving market access, increasing agricultural production, and creating sustainable local businesses. Their projects are country specific and aim at increasing income for those living on less than a dollar a day and have collectively helped more than 19 million farmer-entrepreneurs lift themselves permanently out of poverty. I've written in the past about IDE founder Paul Polak, including his Pop!Cast talk and his visit to MIT at the launch of his book, Out of Poverty where he asked "Is Charity Ethical?" Be sure to check out latest updates via the IDE news blog. Also interesting to hear was the Board-level decision to concentrate resources on being the premier global supplier of affordable core farmer technologies, with special emphasis on irrigation and all things water...

Optical Neurotech ~ Boyden @ Sing Summit!

More thanks to Michael Anissimov for posting Singularity Summit 2009 videos, including this talk by my MIT colleague Ed Boyden on Optically Engineering the Brain to Augment Its Function...

Vaccines & Global Health ~ MIT Spotlight 11/9

The MIT Enterprise Forum of Cambridge's Innovation Series spotlights Vaccines & Global Health: New Technologies Create Global Opportunities this coming Monday, November 9, 2009 6-9p in the MIT Stata Center's Kirsch Auditorium...

"From SARS to HIV, infectious disease remains a global public health concern for emerging and developed nations alike... Pharma has recently cut a number of deals with emerging biotechnology companies piloting new approaches to infectious disease therapy to both address a pressing market need and help fill their pipelines. New funding for projects from basic research to vaccine development, has afforded academia and industry additional incentives to renew the commitment to developing new approaches to treating disease."

Value priced, especially for students! Keynote address by Dr Andrin Oswald, CEO, Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics Division, and a panel discussion featuring:

• Dr David Anderson, Vice President Immunology and Co-founder, Variation Biotechnologies
• Mustapha Leavenworth Bakali, CEO, Genocea Biosciences
• Michelle Dees, Director Innovation Fund, Internation AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI)
• Moderator ~ Dr Una Ryan, President and CEO, Waltham Technologies, former President and CEO AVANT Immunotherapeutics

Supporting Organizations include Mass Bio, the Licensing Executives Society, the Harvard Biotechnology Club, and the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center. Organized by the incomparable Pearl Freier of Cambridge BioPartners!

Validation Trajectory ~ Rick's Startup Whiteboard

Great to see MIT Media Lab alum entrepreneur Rick Borovoy's Startup Whiteboard! Check out Episode #3 on designing a Validation Trajectory for your startup...

Hype Cycle ~ Gartner on Emerging Tech 2009

Gartner's 2009 Hype Cycle Evaluates Maturity of 1,650 Technologies...

CJ Johnson ~ 3PlayMedia Co-Founder on MP.tv!

Great to have MIT alum entrepreneur CJ Johnson on MaximizingProgress.tv tonight! Co-founder with three other MIT Sloan alums of 3PlayMedia, CJ shared his founding story, how the team coalesced through class and extracurricular projects, and how they address the critical market need for Intelligent Transcription by operating a full service transcription and captioning provider offering high-quality and fast-turnarounds. Why call themselves 3 Play? Because each media file gets a three-fold treatment...

Fastest Meets Fastest ~ Usain Bolt + Cheetah!-)

Ruud spots World's Fastest Man adopting World's Fastest Cat!

Natural Recycling ~ 5,000 Larvae vs 2 Fish!

Thanks to my MIT D-Lab colleague Gwyn Jones for spotting this enthralling timelapse footage of 5,000 Larvae dining on 2 Fish! This kind of natural recycling is actually quite important. Indeed, the Swiss Eawag Aquatic Research Institute's Department of Water and Sanitation in Developing Countries has an entire Solid Waste Management research theme dedicated to the Conversion of Organic Refuse by Saprophages (CORS)...

"Saprophages are all organisms feeding of dead or decaying matter. Typical examples are earthworms, millipedes or insect larvae. Conversion of organic refuse by saprophages is an innovative technique to treat organic waste in low and middle-income countries, with degraded organic matter and saprophage organisms themselves as treatment products."

The resulting end-products are in-turn used as feed for fish farms or other livestock or are otherwise converted to beneficial use.

Trash Is Cash ~ Phillie Says YIMBY to NYC Waste

Thanks to NYTimes reporter Manny Fernandez for spotting that Philadelphians Reap Rewards from New York’s Trash...

"New York City pays Waste Management, the company that runs the landfill complex, and Waste Management in turn pays millions of dollars in fees to its host municipalities, in addition to making other donations and contributions that have turned the landfills into an unusual source of civic pride for many residents. People in Falls Township have their trash picked up for free by Waste Management. The company donated four-wheel-drive vehicles to the Morrisville Police Department. Nearly 740 people in Tullytown recently received checks in the mail, an annual gift to property owners [who] used to get $1,500 each. But business is booming at the landfills: This year, each check was for $5,000 [...] "New York’s trash is our cash," chuckled Dan Dougherty, a 56-year-old foreman watching Game 2 on Thursday night at Dacey’s Pub on West Philadelphia Avenue in Morrisville."

NIMBY? No way. Here it's YIMBY!

Whole Brain Emulation ~ Anders @ Sing Summit!

Thanks to Michael Anissimov for posting Singularity Summit 2009 videos, including this delighter by Anders Sandberg...

Desertec ~ Huge Saharan Solar Power Deal

Good to read in the BBC that Sahara Sun 'to help power Europe'...

"A sustainable energy initiative that will start with a huge solar project in the Sahara desert has been announced by a consortium of 12 European businesses. The Desertec Industrial Initiative aims to supply Europe with 15% of its energy needs by 2050. Companies who signed up to the $400bn (£240bn) venture include Deutsche Bank, Siemens and the energy provider EOn"

R.I.P. Robert Rines ~ IP Giant & Inspiring Educator

Very sad to hear Robert Rines passed away yesterday at age 87. I first met him -- as did so many fellow MIT engineers -- in the classes he taught for nearly a half-century, 6.901/6.931 Inventions and Patents/Development of Inventions and Creative Ideas. Well before our contemporary appreciation for intellectual property, Rines wrote Create or Perish and championed the power and rights of the inventor. As fellow MIT alum-entrepreneur Z Holly poignantly remembers, Bob was a...

"Friend, mentor, philanthropist, amazing renaissance man. Who else can claim they played violin with Einstein, invented high-resolution image-scanning radar, founded a law school, won an Emmy for television-turned-broadway musical, found evidence of the loch ness monster, and taught and inspired thousands of MIT engineers?"

Indeed, perhaps Bob's most epic accomplishment is founding the Franklin Pierce Law Center in Concord, New Hampshire, which today is among the country's top places specializing in intellectual property law. The interesting back-story is that this was supposed to be the MIT School of Law -- but Rines was turned down by then MIT President Jerry Weisner, something I still think was a big mistake!

iGEM 2009 ~ Genetically Engineered Machines!

The iGEM 2009 Jamboree has been taking place at MIT over the past few days thru now! This international Genetically Engineered Machine competition has student teams compete to design and assemble engineered machines using advanced genetic components and technologies. Randy Rettberg, the director of the iGEM competition provokes us, asking...

"Can simple biological systems be built from standard, interchangeable parts and operated in living cells? Or is biology just too complicated to be engineered in this way?"

I'm delighted to see this happen, especially since I recall my conversation back in the day with TK about the power of student competitions and independent activities as an inspirational and inventive force. Lots of goodness has blossomed since then!

President Magnanti ~ New Uni Hires MIT Prof...

Great to see Singapore announce the formal selection of MIT Institute Professor and Engineering Dean-Emeritus Tom Magnanti as the Founding President of the new Singapore University of Technology and Design. This new Uni will be quite unique in having inter-disciplinary programs across four prime domains, including Architecture and Sustainable Design, Engineering Product Design, Engineering Systems and System Design, and Information Engineering and Design. Magnanti has long ties to Singapore, including helping start and run the Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA) and serving as founding director of the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology (Smart). I personally know him from his time running the MIT School of Engineering where he championed the new Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation, the UPOP Program, and was a strong supporter of the Lemelson-MIT Invention program and student-run MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition.

Mixed-Up ~ Celebrating A More Diverse World...

British geneticist Aarathi Prasad writes in the Telegraph that It's a wonderful, mixed-up world...

"...my daughter, and approximately 400,000 other children like her in Britain today, is mixed race. Families like mine are on the rise -- nearly one in 10 British children now lives in a mixed-race family, a figure that is six times higher than it was when I was a child [...] All my instincts as a geneticist make me question the notion of what it means to be "pure". As for it being a good thing, the potential for inherited disease in children of related individuals, or people from small communities, tells us that inbreeding is generally not a great idea. And there are very few communities in the world that are sufficiently inbred to be able to confer upon themselves the dubious honour of being "pure-bred". On the other hand, nature repeatedly shows us that genetically, diversity must be better: more diverse genes mean that animals are better at adapting to changing environmental conditions, and at fighting off and surviving infections."

Interesting stuff. Read the rest of the article for further elaboration of this sometimes touchy topic.

Birdmen ~ Wing Suited Extreme Adventurers

60 Minutes spots the Birdmen, wing suited extreme adventurers...

Faith In Technology ~ TimeWarp Meets SawStop!

Would you stick your finger into a saw to illustrate its safety features? Right, well, these jokers do just that! Thanks to MIT's Amy Qian for spotting how TimeWarp delivers answers to our inquiries... Being pretty objectivist, I ought to think of this as "Confidence In Technology" given the data, facts, and evidence which show that SawStop works. Nevertheless, I'm ultra-conflicted about how willing I would be to stick my own paw into the maw! That would be as close to an act of faith as I'd ever get!

Howtoons Your Halloween! ~ Costume Contest...

Best Costume? Let's Howtoon it! Bring your cloak on!

Containerized Development ~ Health Clinics Next

For a while now I've been interested in finding more Urgent Solutions, rapidly deployable Containerized Infrastructure, and living quarter innovations such as Tempohousing. So I'm pleased to see another addition to this mix in Bridgette Meinhold's Inhabitat article, Shipping Container Health Clinics For Developing Countries...

Inhabitat This ~ Glorious Green Goods & More!

Inhabitat delivers the latest! Get your click on these...

David v Goliath ~ Kingbird Pwns Red-Tailed Hawk!

Thanks again to the Daily Mail for spotting another epic nature story, How little bird David defended his young from Goliath the red-tailed hawk (with a mid-flight peck on the head)...

M51 Composite ~ Glorious Whirlpool Galaxy!

Thanks to BBC for posting this ESA/NASA composite image of M51...

Life Zoomer ~ U of Utah's Learn.Genetics Tool!

Wow, thanks to Paul Hsieh from GeekPress for spotting this interactive Powers of 10-esque Life Zoomer! The University of Utah has online Genetic Science Learning Center tools for "making science easy for everyone to understand" -- Fantastic!

Skyline From Memory ~ Savant Artist's Superskill!

Thanks to the Daily Mail for spotting Autistic artist Stephen Wiltshire [who] draws spellbinding 18ft picture of New York from memory... after a 20-minute helicopter ride over city!

DIY Jet Pack ~ Howtoons For Candy Capture!

Go to Howtoons, get your Jet Pack on, and max candy capture!-)

AssuredLabor ~ David Reich @ MIT D-Ventures!

Excellent to have David Reich return to our MIT Development Ventures class to share his experience over the past two years founding and building AssuredLabor -- including recently launching their Spanish-language site Empleolisto in start-country Nicaragua! David and classmates first started planning this concept as the Ad Hoc Labor idea back in Development Ventures Fall 2007 class. Since then they've adjusted business models a couple times, secured some angel financing, key partnerships, and -- most important -- thousands of company and employee customers! They're creating the Monster.com for Emerging Markets and boosting employment to the benefit of all! FYI, here's Nicaraguan TV coverage...

Bicycle Parking ~ Robotics Transforms Storage!

I've written about this bike robo-storage system before, but this video renders it very clear, including how to fast-fabricate the deployment... This is a fantastic example of a robotics and automation-enabled urban innovation.

Homemade Hero ~ Howtoons Your Halloween!

DIY Super-Homemade Hero costume for superior candy capture...

Hector Hernandez ~ Grokking Extremophiles!

Delighted to have MIT post-doc extremophile scholar Hector Hernandez on MaximizingProgress.tv tonight! We talked about his studies in the biogeochemistry of carbon sequestration. This is an important topic since so little is known about how underground microbial ecologies will affect how carbon is trapped or the operational efficiency of CO2 injection into subsurface volumes. We've known each other since serving together on the task-force advising the MIT Presidential search process, i.e. while Hector was an MIT Chemistry grad student. After Hector "made like a cylinder and graduated" he's worked together with other colleagues in MIT's Parsons Lab exploring the wide-open and still poorly understood topics of ecobiology, long-term environmental impacts, and other frontiers of environmental science and engineering!

Natural Gas ~ Meet the Methane Makers...

Thanks to BBC Magazine for spotlighting Lord Stern's report on the impact of meat production. Among other things, lots of natural gas...

Take It Off ~ Supermodels Shed C's For Climate!

What an aesthetically appealing way to show support for a cause!-) Conceived by Cameron Russell of the Chase-Russell super-family!

Energy in Brazil ~ Engevix Co-Founder Tue 10/27

Don't miss a great chance to hear about achievements, challenges, policies, and opportunities for Energy in Brazil this Tuesday, October 27, 2009 from 6:30p–8:00p in E51-115, the Wong Auditorium in MIT Sloan's Tang Center. Mr. José Antunes, Co-Founder and COO of Engevix, a fast-growing nearly $1B/year clean energy engineering firm, will speak about the Brazilian energy landscape, drawing from a 40 year career in the sector, highlighting biopower, hydropower, and solarpower. Fascinating opportunity to hear from a key player from one of the BRICs!

Reinventing Syria ~ Playing a Pivotal New Role

My favorite monthly magazine, National Geographic, spotlights Syria in the latest issue in an article by Don Belt and photos by Ed Kashi...

"Forty years of socialism -- this is what we're up against," said Abdallah Dardari, 46, a London-educated economist who serves as deputy prime minister for economic affairs. [President] Bashar has recruited Syria's best and brightest expatriates to return home. The new team has privatized the banking system, created duty-free industrial parks, and opened a Damascus stock exchange to encourage more of the private and foreign investment that has quickened the pulse of the capital and launched dozens of upscale nightclubs and restaurants. "My job is to deliver for the people of Syria," said Bashar, who is known for occasionally dropping by a restaurant, leaving the bodyguards outside, to share a meal with other diners. In his push to modernize, Bashar's most potent ally is his wife, the former Asma al-Akhras, a stylish, Western-educated business executive who has launched a number of government-sponsored programs for literacy and economic empowerment. Daughter of a prominent Syrian heart specialist, Asma was born and raised in London."

The whole story is fascinating and timely -- especially since I've been keenly supporting the Innovate Syria initiative born here at MIT -- and because Syria is the lynchpin for enabling a peaceful and vital Levant.

MIT Elevator Pitch Contest ~ Finale Thurs 10/29!

Definitely check out the Finale of the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition's Elevator Pitch Contest this week Thursday, 29 October 2009 from 7-9pm in Kirsch Auditorium! Last year Riccardo Signorelli won for his one minute Pitch on electricity storage venture FastCap. Who of the over 300 entrants this year will make it all the way to the Finale? Twelve semifinalists (two from each track) will be announced in random order and invited to redeliver their new venture Pitch in one minute or less. Both a new panel of Judges and the audience will decide on 4 prizes for $10,000 in cash. $1,000 for the Audience Choice award, $2,000 for 2nd and 3rd place winners, and $5,000 to 1st place winner for the best Elevator Pitch overall. That's serious coin for 60 seconds of work;-) See you Thursday night!

Maasai: At The Crossroads ~ Premiere Fri 10/30

Harvard's Calestous Juma, the Director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project helps launch Maasai: At The Crossroads this Friday in a world university premiere. This 45-minute documentary narrated by Juma is about enriching the lives of Maasai children through education while respecting their customs, traditions, and way of life. The special showing is in Harvard's Science Center Lecture, Hall D this Friday, October 30, 2009 from 6:30-8:30pm and is open to the public. MIT Media Lab spinoff One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) will demo the XO laptop after the screening. (FYI, see Dutch videojournalist Ruud Elmendorp's recent piece on XO laptops in Kibwezi, rural Kenya.) And producers and founder of Africa Schools of Kenya (ASK) will also be there.

D-Lab Design ~ OpenCourseWare Shares All!

MIT's OpenCourseWare (OCW) staff spotlight D-Lab Design! OCW is MIT's project to share via web nearly all MIT course content openly and freely available to the world. We hope that other engineering colleges and universities -- or even motivated individuals -- can benefit from having these materials to either start or enhance great offerings at their own locations.

Black Like Me ~ Exploring 1950s US Prejudices

Thanks to the BBC's Kevin Connolly for Exposing the colour of prejudice asking...

"How much does the colour of our skin make us who we are, and shape the way the world sees us?"

...and spotlighting a 50 year-old book by John Howard Griffin who...

"...embarked on one of the most remarkable one-man social and psychological experiments in history. Griffin was the white man who fooled hundreds of Americans into believing he was a black man as he travelled through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia -- and who felt at first hand the bigotry that meant. The whole business of racial impersonation might make us feel vaguely uncomfortable now, but in 1959 a black writer simply could not have found an audience for such a graphic portrayal of African-American grievance. Only a white writer prepared to take the extraordinary steps that Griffin took could tell the story. [...] He took a drug called Oxsoralen, which is to combat Vitiligo [...] and got under an ultra violet sunlamp."

This procedure worked and allowed him to embark on a six week journey in the Deep South, including working various trades. Griffin published Black Like Me in 1961 describing the problems he encountered in finding food and facilities as well as the default hatred of many everyday white people towards him. Connolly concludes...

"It is worth reading what he wrote -- and then reflecting, in this age of the first African-American president, on how far we have come. And how far we have to go."

Vintage Cycle Chic ~ The Bikable, Livable City!

One of my favorite sites is Copenhagen Cycle Chic which consistently and delightfully celebrates the vibrant cycling lifestyle and sensibly designed, cycle-friendly cities! Usually the spotlight is on contemporary beauties -- i.e. photos of cyclists in all seasons, in all situations, especially in Copenhagen, but with guest excursions to lovely spots elsewhere. Today Mikael spotted two vintage clips from Holland and Denmark -- being biased, I re-post here the Dutch one;-) And I remind all of the remarkable century-old Barcelona video!

Inspiring Inhabitats ~ Let's All Live In These!

More lovely Inhabitats! Get your click on these...

Great Charter Cities ~ Historical Travelogues...

I've been quite fascinated by Paul Romer's idea for Charter Cities -- i.e. city-scale special administrative zones with rule-of-law, openness to migrants, and attraction to investors -- as well as the pro's and con's of urban renewal and regeneration -- i.e. the tearing up of the old and building of the new. See especially recent Charter comments on urban housing. So thanks to Erica Young and Cory Kidd for spotting these late-1930s vintage travelogues. Yes, the voice-over is laced with the imperialist and racist western outlook of the time, but the images capture an important historical view on what are arguably today our greatest cities. First Hong Kong, "Gateway to China"... Second, Singapore, "Crossroads of the East"... Fascinating historical perspectives on two cities which were clearly vital freeports and transport hubs already at that time. Curious too is the emphasis on "British Imperial Power" since both of these cities would fall shockingly rapidly to Japanese forces just three years after these images were shot. Post-WWII led to the emergence of the modern Commonwealth with Singapore today a thriving independent city-state and, since 1997, Hong Kong as a special administrative region of mainland China, but effectively still a highly autonomous city.

Storing Wind ~ Obama Hears Slocum's Solution

Wind power when the wind isn't blowing? Check out the MIT way!

Remembering DEC ~ Epic MIT Spinoff Firm...

Innovation Economist Scott Kirsner writes about Remembering DEC: Memoir from Co-Founder Harlan Anderson Due Out in November...

"Harlan Anderson just turned 80 this month. With Ken Olsen, he started Digital Equipment Corp., which was one of the pillars of the Route 128 era here in Massachusetts, and at one point was the second-biggest technology company in the world. Next month, his memoirs are out: Learn, Earn & Return: My Life as a Computer Pioneer. [...] Olsen and Anderson left MIT in 1957 to start a company that would design new computers that took advantage of the shift from vacuum tubes to transistors. [...] At its peak, DEC employed an incredible 140,000 people worldwide. Olsen was replaced as its leader in 1992, and in the late 1990s, many Digital businesses were sold off, culminating in the sale of the company to Compaq in 1998."

The photo of the early DEC Board is pretty epic in that it reminds us of Jay W Forrester, MIT Sloan Professor Emeritus whose former students have gone on to found more high-impact ventures than any other Institute faculty member! Digital, MITRE, 3Com, Patni, Pugh-Roberts, Meditech -- this list continues. Jay even used his own System Dynamics methodology to model the growth of startup companies... and used it as a board member at Digital;-)

Amanda Parkes ~ Toys, Energy, DIY, Media, more!

It was excellent to have MIT alumna engineer-designer-entrepreneur Amanda Parkes joining me on MaximizingProgress.tv tonight! After going through Stanford's undergrad Design program, she worked in the museum exhibits sector culminating in the awesome SF Exploratorium! Attracted to the MIT Media Lab, Amanda worked with Tangible Media innovator, Professor Hiroshi Ishii on several projects, including especially DIY dynamic toys Topobo together with collaborator Hayes Raffle. This project is akin to one of my favorite DIY toys -- Legos -- in that it's assemble-your-self, but it has the additional glorious property that it also remembers how you manipulate it! So if you physically tweak it -- and thus mimic walking, for example -- then Topobo remembers how to walk! That's just brilliant! Amanda also runs the FutureCraft class with collaborator doctoral student and innovation impressario Leo Bonanni, protagonist of the Sourcemap open supply chains initiative. Beyond lab and class, Amanda connected with Sam Hill and co-founded BodegaAlgae, a clean energy company which was Finalist in the 2007 MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition and continues to pursue their algae-based biofuels business!

Speed Demon ~ Wind + Paper Plate = Howtoons!

Blow this plate and get your Speed Demon on!

Internalizing Externalities ~ Sobering Realities...

Two great pieces today in the NYTimes, one by Matthew Wald on Fossil Fuels’ Hidden Cost Is in Billions, Study Says and another by Leslie Kaufman on Nudging Recycling From Less Waste to None. Both stories are fundamentally about accounting for what historically cost nothing: the environmental and health impact of absorbing pollution and waste. That's changing fast. Fossil fuel...

"...costs the United States about $120 billion a year in health costs, mostly because of thousands of premature deaths from air pollution. [...] "The largest portion of this is excess mortality -- increased human deaths as a result of criteria air pollutants emitted by power plants and vehicles," said Jared L. Cohon, president of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, who led the study committee. Nearly 20,000 people die prematurely each year from such causes, according to the study’s authors, who valued each life at $6 million based on the dollar in 2000. Those pollutants include small soot particles, which cause lung damage; nitrogen oxides, which contribute to smog; and sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain."

At the same time, for solid wastes...

"Across the nation, an antigarbage strategy known as "zero waste" is moving from the fringes to the mainstream, taking hold in school cafeterias, national parks, restaurants, stadiums and corporations. The movement is simple in concept if not always in execution: Produce less waste. Shun polystyrene foam containers or any other packaging that is not biodegradable. Recycle or compost whatever you can. Though born of idealism, the zero-waste philosophy is now propelled by sobering realities, like the growing difficulty of securing permits for new landfills and an awareness that organic decay in landfills releases methane that helps warm the earth’s atmosphere."

By accounting for true costs, and internalizing these historic externalities, economic rationality drives us to minimize these costs. This is a good thing!

Wind to Grid ~ Early MIT Alumco Energy Invention

Thanks to WIRED archival review This Day in Tech for spotting Oct. 19, 1941: Electric Turbines Get First Wind...

"In 1941 the Smith-Putnam Wind Turbine fed AC power to the electric grid, the first wind machine ever to do so. The unprecedented project was built up from nothing, practically conjured, by Palmer Putnam, an MIT-trained geologist with no formal education or experience in wind power. He was a fascinating character, a clean-energy entrepreneur 70 years ahead of his time..."

Interesting longer story, including an epic failure mode! Plus check out video of the original turbine in action and more info about the Smith-Putnam turbines!

Density Is Green ~ The Case For Cities...

Witold Rybczynski in the Atlantic makes The Green Case for Cities...

"Density is green. Does this mean that we all have to live in Manhattan? Not necessarily. Cities such as Stockholm and Copenhagen are dense without being vertical. And closer to home is Montreal, where the predominant housing form is a three- or four-story walk-up. Walk-ups, which don’t require elevators, can create a sufficient density -- about 50 people per acre -- to support public transit, walkability, and other urban amenities. Increasing an area’s density requires changing zoning to allow smaller lots and compact buildings such as walk-ups and townhouses. In other words, being truly green means returning to the kinds of dense cities and garden suburbs Americans built in the first half of the 20th century. A tall order -- but after the binge of the last housing boom, many Americans might be ready to consider a little downsizing."

Tailball ~ Dolphins Kick Around Jellyfish;-)

Thanks to Cynical-C and Dangerous Minds for spotting the BBC short piece Dolphin Football off North Coast and related video...

Inhabitat Green ~ More Delights By Design!

Another weekly dose of green Inhabitats!

Priceless! ~ You Can't Make These Up!-)

Homeless compete for cash; honesty at work... Phobic tattoo quotes Leviticus which also forbids... Tattooing! German arm wrestler is one-limbed Popeye... 'Midget Cup' at horse race slammed... 'Ho White' isn't "sweet", angers Disney... Aussie chooses Pet Croc, divorces husband... Why are half of these Australian?-)

Income Is Development ~ KickStart's Fisher...

Thanks to Policy Innovations for spotlighting KickStart co-founder Martin Fisher's Innovations piece, Income Is Development: KickStart’s Pumps Help Kenyan Farmers Transition to a Cash Economy...

"In a cash economy, money is the primary means to securing other vital resources. Except in a few very remote areas of the world, if you ask a person in a poor place what they need most, they will tell you that it is a way to make more money. The way to address the challenge of persistent poverty is to create sustainable income-earning opportunities for millions of people. Income is development."

Winner of the 2008 Lemelson-MIT Sustainability Award, Martin Fisher and colleagues enacted this idea nearly two decades ago by founding KickStart -- today best known for their MoneyMaker Pumps -- and pursuing a powerful five-step systematic approach to ending poverty by boosting incomes:

1. Identify Opportunities ~ What ventures are profitable?
2. Design Products ~ What device or tool makes money?
3. Scale the Supply Chain ~ How do the goods get everywhere?
4. Develop the Market ~ What inspires actually buying?
5. Measure Impact & Repeat ~ Ensuring results & reinvesting!

Since starting, KickStart has sold over 130,000 pumps throughout Kenya, Tanzania, and Mali, and has had substantial impact. Their basic business model can be and is being replicated by others in different geographies and in developing and deploying different product lines. With commercial-mindedness, these ideas can accelerate development everywhere! On a final note, be sure also to see KickStart's full MoneyMaker Pump promo music video featuring Mr Ebbo;-)

Lawnmower ~ Andover, MA Goes Old School;-)

The Globe's Brian MacQuarrie writes Here’s something to chew on...

"In tough times, Andover has found a money-saving idea to chew on. The town has recruited a half-dozen goats to keep a public meadow trim and tidy. Taxpayers will not be charged a penny, and the four-legged lawnmowers will be treated to an all-you-can-eat smorgasbord of grass, brush, and other growth that is threatening to overrun the Virginia Hammond Reservation. [...] the goats might clean as much as a half-acre every three days, for free."

Such ideas are what make Massachusetts an "innovation economy";-)

EnergyNight ~ Innovations NOW @ MIT Museum!

The latest MIT EnergyNight is happening now 5:30-8:30p Friday 16 October 2009 at the MIT Museum! I'm very glad that this activity I started with Energy Club founder Dave Danielson continues, this year under the leadership of Ásbjörg Kristinsdóttir and Anil Rachakonda. FYI, here's a blast from the past -- the 2007 EnergyNight...

Rory Sutherland ~ Perceived Value & Intangibles

Thanks to Dan Greenberg for spotting this TED talk by Rory Sutherland, an ad man with Ogilvy, speaking on the role of intangible value and profiting from changes in perception...

Neurotech Clusters ~ Commercial Concentrations

NeuroInsights and NIO just released their downloadable report Neurotech Clusters 2010: Leading Regional Leaders in the Global Neurotechnology Industry 2010-2020 highlighting the San Francisco Bay Area and Boston-metro strength in commercial neuroscience as well as over a dozen other regions of note... These neurotech hotspot metro regions...

"...around the world are leading the way in innovating treatments for the largest unmet medical market, brain-related illness. By developing the necessary infrastructure to discover and develop neurotechnology -- drugs, medical devices, biologics, cell-based therapeutics, and diagnostics for the brain and nervous system -- these regions are helping spur local economies while fighting many of the most vexing medical problems of modern times, such as Alzheimer's disease, depression, obesity, stroke, epilepsy and chronic pain."

African Plantoleum ~ Mali Biocarburant's BioDiesel

Check out the latest video about Mali Biocarburant, a West African venture with smallholder farmer cooperatives as co-owners which sources Jatropha nuts and produces biodiesel... Thanks to Full Belly Project founder Jock Brandis who last summer at the International Development Design Summit (IDDS 2008) pointed me towards this company and the Dutch entrepreneur spearheading things, Hugo Verkuijl.

Videomap ~ Integrative Visual Driving Directions

Thanks to Rachel Kremen at Tech Review for spotting Videomap, Integrated Videos and Maps for Driving Directions...

Owen Johnson ~ Betaspring, ConnectProvidence

Great to have Owen Johnson join me again on MaximizingProgress.tv! We talked about his latest activities in the innovation and entrepreneurship hotspot of Providence, RI. These include his continued support for Connect Providence, which helps entrepreneurial folks get linked through information, education, and fun monthly gatherings. Also Owen has launched Betaspring, a Providence-based mentorship-driven startup accelerator program. And most recently he's been working with the Awesome Foundation on launching a Providence branch. Owen's an MIT alum in CS where he discovered early-on the joys of building programmable LEGOs, virtual spaces, and working on the Web. He co-founded InterDimensions, an early web-consultancy, and the Webmasters' Guild and most recently Investment Instruments Corporation.

Prepaid Debit ~ High Growth, Hidden Hazards...

Thanks to intrepid NYTimes investigative team for spotting the The Hidden Price of Prepaid Debit... In the related piece by Andrew Martin, Prepaid, but Not Prepared for Debit Card Fees, he notes that it seems like a great way for the unbanked to engage, but...

"It’s a very expensive way to bank," said Jean Ann Fox, director of financial services at the Consumer Federation of America. [...] For many people who do not have bank accounts, or cannot get a credit card, the appeal is irresistible, making the reloadable cards among the consumer banking industry’s fastest-growing products. But their convenience comes with a catch: fees, often hidden in the fine print. [...] The MiCash Prepaid MasterCard docks cardholders a $9.95 activation fee. Like many competitors, it then charges numerous recurring fees, including $1.75 for each A.T.M. withdrawal, $1 for each A.T.M. balance inquiry, 50 cents for each purchase, $4 for monthly maintenance, $2 for inactivity after 60 days and $1 for a call to customer service."

Read the rest for more unimpressive and exploitative details. I'm nonplussed if this is how the system embraces the unbanked...

Vision 42 ~ Trans-Manhattan Sans Autos!

Great to see Alison Gregor's NYTimes piece Without Cars, a Different Sort of 42nd St. Envision a prime avenue in Manhattan owned not by autos but people and railcars!

"Vision 42 would like to turn the full length of 42nd Street into a pedestrian mall, while adding a light rail line that would connect the 39th Street ferry terminal on the Hudson River, near the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on the West Side Highway, with the 36th Street ferry terminal on the East River, near the undeveloped Con Edison sites on the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive. [...] Douglas Durst, the chairman of the Durst Organization, which owns five office buildings on 42nd Street, including One Bryant Park and 4 Times Square, said it made sense to build light rail, which is faster and creates less pollution than buses. "Real estate people should take a look at what’s happened with real estate values in other cities where there are these walking streets," said Mr. Durst, who visits pedestrian-friendly Copenhagen frequently, as his wife is Danish. "They’ve increased tremendously." Vision 42 advocates said light rail lines in Dallas had stimulated more than $1 billion worth of development. In Portland, Ore., light rail has catalyzed about $1.2 billion worth of development."

We all need to be thinking much more creatively about road and rail use, plus friendliness to pedestrians and bicyclists! This is one delightful instance of a more general movement towards more vital cities, with clean and green systems.

Dyson Air Multiplier ~ From Sucking to Blowing!

Dyson does it again, now instead of sucking, he blows!

Jam Bot ~ iRobot's Shape-Shifting Dyna-Blob!

MIT's Star Simpson spots another good one, this time iRobot's Jam Bot, a shape-shifting soft morphing dynamic blob!

Every Mission ~ Visual History of Spaceflight!

Thanks to John Mills for spotting A Visual History of Space Exploration by my favorite monthly journal plus exploratory society -- National Geographic -- as commented on by Adrian Covert in PopSci...

Cheating Death ~ Revived From Icy Nordic Grip...

Epic story! David Martin, CNN's Senior Medical Producer, writes From an icy slope, a medical miracle emerges about Anna Bågenholm's recovery from extreme hypothermia...

"Bågenholm slid down a steep, icy gully and ended up submerged head first in a hole in the ice in a mostly frozen stream. Only her skis and Telemark boots and bindings protruded from the thick, opaque ice. As the 29-year-old struggled, her friends Marie Falkenberg and Torvind Næsheim began a frantic effort to free her, made impossible by a torrent of frigid spring runoff pouring over them into the hole where their friend was submerged. [...] rescuers cut a hole downhill from Bågenholm and pulled her through the opening. She had been under the ice for about 80 minutes. "I thought we were taking a friend, dead, out of the water," [...] And the decision was made. We will not declare her dead until she is warm and dead." [...] the waiting team at the hospital were hoping the CPR that Bågenholm received after being pulled from the stream had provided enough oxygen to her chilled brain. When it's cold, the brain needs far less oxygen than it does at normal temperature, 98.6 degrees (37 Celsius), and Bågenholm was definitely cold. Her body temperature was just 56 degrees Fahrenheit (13.7 degrees Celsius). No one had ever been that cold for that long and survived. Rushed to Operating Room 11 at the hospital, surgeons rerouted Bågenholm's blood through a heart-lung machine and slowly warmed it. More than three hours after her heart stopped, Gilbert recalled watching the video probe of Bågenholm's heart. "It was standing completely still. No movement. I just saw some little shivering. No fibrillation. And suddenly it contracted. Pssh," Gilbert said, squeezing his fists to mimic a beating heart. "And there was a pause and pssh. A second contraction." Gilbert tears up at the memory. Bågenholm was alive, but months of recovery lay ahead."

Absolutely great! And evidence of so much more we need to learn about hypothermia, cryonics, healthcare, extreme medicine, and the works! Kudos to friends Falkenberg & Næsheim, Policeman Mikkalsen, Rescuer Singstad, Doctor Gilbert, and Bågenholm herself!

Synthetic Food ~ Fueling the Need to Feed...

The BBC today asserts Food production 'must rise 70%' to save us from mass-starvation by 2050. I've written before about the emergent Global Food Crisis. And a lot about food-related things, including city farms & robogardeners, sky farms, urban share-farms, agri-history, tuna harvests, ocean ranching, emerging market agri-innovations, even Meeting Your Meat, and more. But ever since seeing Star Trek Replicators pump out chow on-demand......I've known-imagined this as a potential alternative. Neil Stephenson's Diamond Age envisions MC's -- Matter Compilers -- playing this role, cranking out synthetic snacks as needed. But what will it take to invent such solutions? I've written about In Vitro Meats, which I think is a step in the synthetic direction, but there's much more to be done to have a full menu of proteins, carbs, vitamins, and caloric goodness generally, all synth'd by 'bot. But if successful, such a system would mean Food = Energy (plus component raw material) and that radically changes the Doomsayer argument away from one of agricultural land and productivity to one of energy sourcing and pricing.

Kurils Peace Park ~ Shared Sovereignty by Nature

Why not use the neutrality and peacefulness inherent in a Transfrontier Conservation Area to resolve the ongoing official state of war between Russia and Japan? A Kurils Peace Park would allow both parties to save face while resolving a long-going territorial dispute over the islands -- Kunashir, Iturup, Shikotan, and the Habomai. Let's let nature reign supreme in the disputed territories -- and allow both countries to simultaneously share sovereignty. I'm not original here, as scientists from both Russia and Japan have advocated this solution before, but I think the time is ripe now for a reasonable resolution...

Mannahatta ~ Eric Sanderson @ TED on pre-NYC

I wrote about Before New York earlier, but check out Eric Sanderson's time warping TED talk! Stay 'til his last minute!

Access to Energy ~ NextBillion Spots BOP Report

Thanks to Aileen Nowlan from NextBillion for spotting New Report: Clean, Safe Energy for the Base of the Pyramid, including the Ashoka-Hystra report and video...

Youngest Headmaster ~ BBC on India's Babar Ali

Thanks to the BBC Hunger to Learn series host Damian Grammaticas for spotting The 'youngest headmaster in the world', 16-year old West Bengali, Babar Ali, who...

"...is in charge of teaching hundreds of students in his family's backyard, where he runs classes for poor children from his village. [Babar is still in formal school himself, but...] has made it his mission to help Chumki and hundreds of other poor children in his village. The minute his lessons are over at Raj Govinda school, Babar Ali doesn't stop to play, he heads off to share what he's learnt with other children from his village. [...] Now his afternoon school has 800 students, all from poor families, all taught for free. Most of the girls come here after working, like Chumki, as domestic helps in the village, and the boys after they have finished their day's work labouring in the fields. "In the beginning I was just play-acting, teaching my friends," Babar Ali says, "but then I realised these children will never learn to read and write if they don't have proper lessons. It's my duty to educate them, to help our country build a better future." Including Babar Ali there are now 10 teachers at the school, all, like him are students at school or college, who give their time voluntarily. Babar Ali doesn't charge for anything, even books and food are given free, funded by donations. It means even the poorest can come here."

This is a great story of entrepreneurial persistence and passion, but also a powerful case example of kid-to-kid, older-to-younger and peer-to-peer learning.

Startup Bootcamp ~ Inspiring Lessons Now @ MIT

The student-run Startup Bootcamp is happening now at MIT! Great lineup of folks speaking, including Robin Chase, Alexis Ohanian, Dan Bricklin, Angus Davis, Dharmesh Shah and more. Tune in via Justin.tv (whose co-founder Kyle Vogt is also speaking, as I write this, literally right now, Mon 11:45am;-) Sponsored primarily by Hemant Taneja and colleagues at General Catalyst venture capitalists. The big challenge for me listening in is answering "Where's the Boot in this camp?" since it's mostly just warstories and venture remembrances so far. Ah, Hemant kicks in with some good tips about VC funding. And Dan Bricklin shares his suits, lawsuits that is! Nuts & Bolts getting busted out as should happen in any good Bootcamp!

Shoot Straight ~ Goldwater on Gays in the Military

Interesting to hear that President Obama is planning to get rid of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." In addition to decriminalizing prostitution and drugs and drinking age laws, eliminating this legalized phobia clears up one of the big remaining inconsistencies disconnecting US from the American Constitution. Getting the State out of people's private affairs is something one of my heroes, Barry Goldwater, championed...

"Everyone knows that gays have served honorably in the military since at least the time of Julius Caesar. They'll still be serving long after we're all dead and buried. That should not surprise anyone. [...] The conservative movement, to which I subscribe, has as one of its basic tenets the belief that government should stay out of people's private lives. Government governs best when it governs least -- and stays out of the impossible task of legislating morality. But legislating someone's version of morality is exactly what we do by perpetuating discrimination against gays." [And finally] "You don't need to be 'straight' to fight and die for your country, you just need to shoot straight."

Barry was right then and his ideas are still right now!

Piano Staircase ~ Fun Theory of Behavior Change

Thanks to Sean Fabre and other FB friends for spotting the Piano Staircase in Sweden, one of the projects of TheFunTheory.com!

Community Therapeutic Care ~ Plumpy'Nut Plus!

I wrote earlier about Plumpy'nut, the lifesaving therapeutic food, so it was great to see this recent Guardian video report on how foods like this are making possible a different and improved system of treatment called Community Therapeutic Care...

Legalizing Prostitution ~ SAfrica's Cup Calls...

Thanks to the Guardian for reprinting The Observer's piece by Tracy McVeigh and Savious Kwinika on the Call to legalise World Cup sex trade...

"Calls are growing for South Africa to legalise prostitution ahead of next year's football World Cup in an effort to limit HIV infection among millions of fans visiting the country for the tournament. [...] Professor Ian Sanne, head of the clinical HIV research unit at Johannesburg's Witwatersrand University, said the party atmosphere being touted by the football authorities, travel companies and the South African government was a green light to alcohol abuse and promiscuity among fans next summer. [...] Sanne said not only would the visitors be at risk, but young South Africans and the sex workers too, opening the way for the virus to spread at a dramatically increased rate. "HIV/Aids is a problem globally and there is a great need to encourage and enforce better health and responsibility, especially to the young South Africans who could be at risk during the World Cup," he said. He called for legal frameworks to regulate the practice of sex workers rather than discriminate against them."

Beyond the substantial public health benefits of decriminalization, we have the basic moral and legal principle that free choice is what should dominate any exchange between consenting adults. Whether money or love is involved ought to be entirely up to them. The officious organs of the state should just get out of the way.

Dope vs Drought ~ How Illegalization Ruins Earth

Thanks to the Christian Science Monitor's Eoin O'Carroll for noting that Marijuana growers worsening California drought...

"Large marijuana plots hidden deep in California’s public lands have illegally diverted hundreds of millions of gallons of water, compounding shortages caused by the state’s ongoing drought. [...] ...most of the environmental destruction is caused not by Mendocino’s local pot growers, who have long taken advantage of the county’s mild climate and tolerant views toward the drug, but by mostly Mexican crime syndicates that, in the 1990s, began planting large plots deep in the woods, which they would abandon after the October-November harvest. [These sites...] ...are as remote as the growers can get, often three miles from the nearest road. They contain an average of 6,600 plants, tended by an average of seven growers who live in tents the entire season, from May to October. The growers are aided by scanners, radios, night-vision goggles, an arsenal of weapons, and truckloads of plastic pipe to divert area streams to their plants, sometimes from as far as a half-mile away. When they abandon the site in the fall, they leave behind mountains of trash, about as much trash as a small city dump."

The title is a bit deceptive, however, because the root-cause of the worsened environment are in fact the unconstitutional drug laws criminalizing agriculture, trade, and freely-chosen consumption and thus making such extreme, violent, and destructive measures financially lucrative. Solution: Decriminalization. Treat all foods, drugs, alcohols, tobaccos alike -- i.e. as things any citizen has the liberty to choose to grow, trade, and/or consume as they please.

Great Story ~ Totally Believable Excuse ;-)

Top Inhabitats ~ Glorious Goodness On High!

Inhabitat keeps delivering the goods! Click-here...

Speaking Piano ~ Voice Rendered Via Notes!

Thanks to MIT's Star Simpson for spotting the Speaking Piano...