K. Nicole Kindred – Sustainability Consultant

On Tuesday I had the opportunity to attend World Pulse LIVE at the Paley Center for Media in New York City.

World Pulse is an organization that strives to bring a voice to women around the globe using new technology and media. One example of this was in the My Camera and Me against a Regime video – a video that was uploaded from a mobile phone by a women who was arrested during a Sudanese protest. World Pulse allows for an online area where women can come together to find and share their success stories.

For World Pulse LIVE, Martha Llano from Colombia, Beatrice Achieng from Uganda, and Sarvina Kang from Cambodia were selected to come to the US to discuss how they are using new media and technology to facilitate them as grassroots leaders.

The women told powerful stories of how they found their voices. In Martha’s talk she spoke about the dangers of living in the Columbia cloud forest and how she had learned to overcome the dangers. When people told her she should carry a gun, she refused, saying “I will not take a gun to speak for me, because I have my own voice and words”. She emphasized the importance of thinking globally and acting locally.

Sarvina told her story of being the only literate individual in a family of 35. She was the only girl in her family and her village to go to college and now has her Master’s in NGO leadership. She emphasized the importance of education for women in creating change and preventing social problems like sex trafficking.

Beatrice told her story of growing up in Uganda and her emphasis on HIV prevention and education. She emphasized how if you give hope to one girl, a grassroots leader will emerge. She told the story of how when her last brother died of AIDS, her mother lost all hope because only men can own land in Uganda; however, after she told her story on the World Pulse platform, the World Pulse members emphasized that they were behind her and she stood up to her village for the land and was able to keep it.

When asked what the women thought would be most beneficial to their communities in spreading their voice, all three women emphasized that their was a lack of technology in their communities, and solar panels would be an easy remedy.

World Pulse LIVE is also available launching an online tour for individuals who are not able to attend the event in person.

My most recent photo project – a humorous look at our obsession with new products and technology.

I first thought of it when I didn’t have TV and started laughing at the idea of putting up an iPod instead. I thought it was funny.

Last week I had the fortune of taking part in the annual Youth Assembly at the United Nations as a volunteer with Oxfam America. The Youth Assembly at the UN was created in 2002 as members of a Youth Outreach Sub-Committee at hte UN thought it was imperative to engage youth in the challenge and opportunities to realize the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

This year’s assembly took place over 3 days and hosted speakers from around the world and networking session to engage youth with non-profits who are working towards spreading the MDGs.

I was able to attend the MDG Campaign Night and Dinner on Wednesday night. At the dinner, youth learned of a number of non-profits who are working for the MDGs. Non profits that were present included 350.org, Engineers Without Borders, Oxfam, Habitat for Humanity, and Amnesty International among others.

I was preset with Oxfam America. Oxfam America is currently collecting signatures to tell President Obama to deliver a US strategy to end global poverty and recommit to meeting the MDGs by 2015. Right now, President Obama’s leadership is needed to bring US foreign assistance into the 21st Century so that we can more effectively use taxpayer dollars to drive greater results for people in need.

The dinner was sold out and a number of youth from countries all over the world were present to learn about the organizations working towards the MDGs.

The following 2 days of the conference hosted a number of speakers from the private sector, non-profits, the UN, and government organizations. One of the most impressive organizations I heard from was from Jing Zhou, founder of Girls In Tech/China and Girls 2.0. GITchina‘s sole mission is to spread this message by providing a platform on which women in technology can connect, empower and learn from one another. With the increasing importance of technology and its convergence with other professions, the necessity to educate, celebrate and support women in this field has become impossible to ignore.

I was also very excited to hear from Ishmael Beah, former child soldier from Sierra Leone and author of  A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.  Ishmael stressed the importance of education to create change. After the war in Sierra Leone made him an orphan and led him to a life as a child soldier, he had the opportunity to address the UN in the 1990′s and share his terrible experiences as a child growing up in those conditions. He was then adopted by an American women and was enrolled in school. Because he did not have any of his former transcripts from his war torn country, the school did not want to enroll him. However, after writing an essay on why he did not have transcripts, the school let him in. He credits his access to education for changing his life and believes the education is the core to all the MDGs.

A couple of weeks ago I attended Ignite NYC IX where I heard a short presentation from Zach Lieberman.  This particular Ignite event was part of Internet Week and featured a number of speakers talking on new technologies that have been developed.

Zach spoke primarily on the EyeWriter Initiative that he helped develop. The EyeWriter Initiative is a low-cost eye-tracking apparatus and custom software that allows graffiti writers and artists with paralysis resulting from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to draw using only their eyes.

Members of the Initiative teamed-up with a LA graffiti writer, publisher and activist, named Tony Quan, aka TEMPTONE. Tony was diagnosed with ALS in 2003, a disease which has left him almost completely physically paralyzed… except for his eyes. The international team is working together to create a low-cost, open source eye-tracking system that will allow ALS patients to draw using just their eyes. The long-term goal is to create a professional/social network of software developers, hardware hackers, urban projection artists and ALS patients from around the world who are using local materials and open source research to creatively connect and make eye art.

“Art is a tool of empowerment and social change, and I consider myself blessed to be able to create and use my work to promote health reform, bring awareness about ALS and help others.”

– Tony Quan, aka TemptOne

I recently learned that I received a full conference scholarship from West Coast Green. West Coast Green is the largest interactive conference on green innovation for the built environment and is taking place in San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center, October 1-3, 2009.

West Coast Green attracts thousands of the brightest minds in green building, business, and technology.

West Coast Green is a feast of innovations, ideas and opportunities:

* 125 speakers – hear from the industries top leaders – including Ray Anderson, Mayor Gavin Newsom, Michelle Kaufmann, Hazel Henderson, Bill Reed, Dan Kammen, Andrew Tang, Josh Becker, and more!

* 300 exhibitors – see the emerging breakthroughs, clean tech showcase, and the coolest innovations in green

* Entrepreneurship Series – launch your concept to the next level with one-on-one expert business consultation

* Network like crazy – build your future and meet your next business partner at dynamic, topic-specific networking sessions

* More! Experience the Green Jobs Pavilion, Self-sustaining Show Home, Hanging Storm Water Gardens, and more

Register now to gain the tools you need to express your brilliance!

From the ‘zero watt PC’ to a smart electricity meter that allows consumers to monitor their power consumption in real-time, Green IT is getting much attention at CeBIT – the world’s largest trade fair showcasing digital IT and telecommunications solutions for home and work environments.

The number of vendors at Europe’s largest technology trade fair has dwindled due to the global economic crisis but the environmental element of this show has branched out – growing six-fold over last year.

Sourch: Reuters

Being able to visualize your energy use helps people determine what appliances use the most amount of energy and allow them to learn where to cut back on energy use. A report by the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University showed that real-time information on energy use can save people up to 15% of their energy bills.

Google has taken the concept of monitoring and visualizing energy use and created Powermeter, a website tool that receives information from networked smart meters in homes and lets you see and analyse your energy use.

The Powermeter is not yet available to use for your home – Google wants to test the meter on its own employees first – but the company is already looking for collaborators to roll out the device and website in pilot programmes.

Google says the Powermeter is part of a wider plan to push government policy to adopt more smart meters in homes. “If we are going to have an energy revolution, then empowering users should be a fundamental part of that transformation.”

Read more.

On 12 February 2009 100+ cities around the world will be hosting Twestivals which bring together Twitter communities for a fun evening to raise money and awareness for charity: water.

charity: water is a non profit organization that aims to bring clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations by funding sustainable clean water solutions in areas with the greatest need.

Visit twestival.com to learn more about this event and to find out where it is taking place near you.

Let your computer do ethical stuff whilst it’s idle.

The World Community Grid aims to create the world’s largest public computing grid to tackle projects that benefit humanity. They have developed the technical infrastructure that serves as the grid’s foundation for scientific research. Our success depends upon individuals collectively contributing their unused computer time to change the world for the better.

The considerable spare capacity of our home computers is used to make lighter work of some of humanity’s most important calculations. The idea is simple: while you use a fraction of your machine’s capacity to go about mundane stuff, IBM’s World Community Grid runs calculations in the background pertaining to molecular mechanics in order to find the next generation of solar cells for Harvard University. Alone, it is estimated, it would take Harvard’s department of chemistry and molecular biology computers some 22 years to do the necessary calculations for the Clean Energy Project, but using our spare computer capacity, researchers hope this can be reduced to a matter of two years.

You can learn more, sign up and Install the grid in your computer at: