"From rural Moldova to urban Brazil to suburban Massachusetts, CODEGIRL follows teams who dream of holding their own in the world’s fastest-growing industry. The winning team [in the Technovation Challenge] gets $10K to complete and release their app, but every girl discovers something valuable along the way."
"...calls on students from universities around the world to form teams and produce a robust project proposal -- consisting of a business plan and creative pitch -- that presents an unexpected and out-of-the-box solution to the global challenge of feeding 9 billion people by 2050."
"Los Angeles Times staff writer Kenneth R. Weiss and staff photographer Rick Loomis traveled across Africa and Asia to document the causes and consequences of rapid population growth. [...] the world's population has exploded over the last two centuries. The boom is not over: The biggest generation in history is just entering its childbearing years. The coming wave will reshape the planet, and the impact will be greatest in the poorest, most unstable countries."
Wow, Japanese Women played amazing real football finale World Cup versus USA! Far better and more exciting than Men's Cup!-) Writes the WSJ's Goldenberg... "Japan is certainly the biggest underdog winner in World Cup history -- Men's or Women's."
MIT IDEAS Competition & Global Challenge Awards Celebration is tonight May 2, 2011 in Kresge Auditorium with Poster Displays from 6:30-7:30 and Awards Ceremony from 7:30-9pm! Check out past entrants and winners and see the latest tonight!
The MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition deadline for the Spring semester Business Plan Contest are due via online submission this Friday night 25 February 2011 by 6pm EST! I encourage everyone eligible to give it a shot. Multiple tracks and overall grand prize of $100,000! Many excellent actual companies have been born from this Competition, including Harmonix, Akamai, SmartCells, Neurometrix, and a hundred more. Plus I'm very proud that a third of the previous round winners and many past track winners and finalists are former students in our Ventures classes!
The Commonwealth celebrates Women as Agents of Change this whole year, with special events during March 14-20 2011..."By investing in women and girls, we can accelerate social, economic and political progress. Women and girls make up over half of the world's population. In the Commonwealth, that's over one billion people. By educating them, giving them accessible health care and making sure they are treated fairly and have the same opportunities and protection as men and boys, we can go a long way towards addressing the many problems of the world. Women and girls need to be included at all levels of decision making to ensure that their needs are properly met. This will benefit us all."
"Nine-year-old Cody McCasland has more than 20 artificial legs so he can take part in all sports and beat his able-bodied friends -- despite having his own amputated. The determined boy, who dreams of winning a Paralympic gold, has running, walking and sitting down legs so he can get around -- and win at every event."
Delightful to have MIT alumna and X-Prize Lab executive director Erika Wagner
join me on MaximizingProgress.tv! Like so many of us, Erika's childhood dream was to be an astronaut -- only she never grew out of it! This appears to be generational too, since 2.5 year old daughter Sally delights in playing the "Blast Off" game with mom and dad Wagner;-) After undergrad studies in biomedical engineering at Vanderbilt, Erika came for grad studies in the Man-Vehicle Lab at MIT working with Larry Young, Dava Newman and other key aero/astro faculty. While running the Mars Gravity Biosatellite project, she connected with amazing MIT alumnus astropreneur Peter Diamandis and they launched the MIT X-Prize Lab to have leading thinkers work together with MIT students to explore areas ripe for breakthroughs catalyzed by strategic prize-based philanthropy. Very cool stuff! I've participated in several of their classes, including my favorite on Ocean X-Prizes! FYI, here's an overview summary of the X-Prize approach -- Making the Impossible Possible...
...the Chinese trade embargo should give pause to any rational human in the free world. What are the unelected, undemocratic, and untransparent Politburo's true intentions? Is so-called "Peaceful Rise" realistic? In any case, HSNW shows where the minerals are... 
Excellent to have MIT alumna entrepreneur Jodie Wu 
join me on MaximizingProgress.tv tonight! Jodie's not only a newly minted Echoing Green Fellow, but a graduate of our Development Ventures class and the D-Lab family of offerings! She's visiting us from Tanzania, East Africa where she's building up Global Cycle Solutions to supply economically valuable bicycle accessories which either save people time or money or earn them an income. Winner of MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition Development Track in 2009, Global Cycle Solutions makes and distributes Corn Shellers and Mobile Phone Chargers and has more such "hardware apps" in the pipeline!
Thanks to MIT Global Challenge colleague Lars Hasselblad Torres for spotting this Next American City initiative, which has... "...partnered with IBM's Smarter Cities blog and is looking for the Next American City. [They want to know] what your city and town is doing to move into the 21st century, how are they using technology, and open data to make your city more interactive?"Interesting challenge. But I wonder how any American City can realistically invest much in being smarter when they're so busy cutting costs and paying unaffordable pensions. On the other hand, private industry in the form of mapcos, rideshares, social/service networks, and myriad other commercially viable services may be able to step up.
While reading about Partners in Health, I happened upon this WGBH/NOVA/Vulcan production Rx for Survival about critical and emerging threats to global health. It... "Examines what makes us sick, what keeps us healthy, and what it would take to give good health the upper hand through two broadcast components -- a complete six-hour series and a special 2-hour program. [...] The ultimate objective of the project is to translate awareness into action."See the Preview and here's an excerpt on transportation challenges... Addressing these challenges are what my D-Lab Health and Global Health Delivery colleagues specialize in at MIT.
Be sure to come this Wednesday night 12 May 2010 to MIT's Kresge Auditorium for the Finale of the MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition! Keynote speech by Reebok founder Paul Fireman and pitches by Finalists including...
