Tom Fisher: Designing Systems to Avoid Failure
Recent catastrophic events, such as the I-35W bridge collapse, New Orleans flooding, the BP oil spill, Port au Prince’s destruction by earthquake, Fukushima nuclear plant’s devastation by tsunami, the Wall Street investment bank failures, and the housing foreclosure epidemic and the collapse of housing prices all stem from what Thomas Fisher calls fracture-critical design.
Steve Lansing: Bali’s Efficient Water Temples
Steve Lansing discusses the Byzantine system for the distribution of water from a volcanic lake in Bali to over two hundred farming villages. It’s worked since the 12th century, it’s egalitarian and it’s still sustainable. He says “It’s one of the few functioning, ancient democratic institutions that we know about. It’s kind of beautiful.”
Jennifer Indovina: Eliminating Power Poverty
Jennifer Indovina was a finalist in the 2010 Best Young Entrepreneur category for the 7th Annual Stevie Awards for Women in Business. Jennifer has been working to spread energy efficiency initiatives worldwide and helped develop the PICOwattTM Smart Plug, an energy saving outlet adapter.
Paul Needham: Owning Electricity
Paul Needham’s organisation, Simpa Networks, makes solar energy available to the poor. By using a pay-as-you-go pricing structure modeled after mobile phone cards, Simpa gives its customers ownership of the electricity. Once the initial cost of the equipment is paid off, the device belongs to the customer and their electricity is free.
Kalev H.Leetaru: Culturomics 2.0
Kalev H. Leetaru is a scientist. His award-winning work centres on the application of high performance computing to grand challenge problems using news and open sources intelligence. He has been programming computers since childhood and started his first web company in the 8th Grade. Overtime, Kalev’s numerous projects have become increasingly inter-disciplinary and global.
