There was a surplus of amazing events on campus this week although none was quite as informative as The José de Acosta Lecture by Dr. Daniel Kammen. In breif, Kammen is heavily involved with government policy:
Kammen advises the U. S. and Swedish Agencies for International Development, the World Bank, and the Presidents Committee on Science and Technology (PCAST), and is a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Working Group III and the Special Report on Technology Transfer). Dr. Kammen serves on the technical review board for the GEF (the STAP), is a lead author for the Special Report on Technology Transfer of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and advises the World Bank and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and well as the African Academy of Sciences.
His analysis was thoroughly embedded within a policy framework and ways that we will be able to meet goals outlined by the state of California and most recently President Obama in Copenhagen which seek to keep carbon levels below.
Quick facts:
Kenyans get more energy per person from solar than anywhere else on earth (due to a lack of energy infrastructure)
The only ‘green’ or carbon neutral billionaire? Suntech founder Dr. Zhengrong Shi
By 2030 the U.S. government estimates 20% of our energy will come from solar…currently around 1% (according to Kammen this is a conservative est.)
New policy terms you should know:
PACE: Property Assessed Clean Energy loans through local governments, obligation transfers with ownership
Cap and Dividend: It caps fossil fuel supplies, makes polluters pay, and returns the revenue to everyone equally.
I attended a short lecture by a great Prof. at USF, Larry Louie, which provided a brief overview of microfinance as an introductory to his graduate level course. Considering myself relatively in tune with the players in this field, my mind moved to the next step in the microfinance evolution. Three start-ups I’m following:
Vittana is an early-stage non-profit startup bringing student loans to the developing world through the power of person-to-person microfinance. We are a different kind of non-profit: we are designed from the ground up to be scalable, cost-effective, and just get things done.
Our mission is to leverage mobile payment systems (MPS) to bring financial services to the unbanked poor. To do so, we are currently programming FrontlineSMS to function as middleware in order to connect any MPS and any microfinance management information system (MIS) in real time. As a result, microfinance institutions (MFIs) will be able to send and receive payments directly from the mobile wallet of their MIS, which will significantly reduce the operational costs of issuing credit.
By helping MFIs integrate mobile payments into their business strategies, we aim to eliminate geographic barriers to financial inclusion while simultaneously allowing users to generat robust auditing trails and client credit histories.
I had the opportunity to attend the January gathering for the San Francisco Net Impact Professional Chapter which brought together three interesting voices on Urban Ag. I took some notes on my trusty Iphone and have shared them below:
Happened to be reading the NY Times on my iPhone this afternoon and there were a couple of great pieces on the wireless market. One in particular caught my eye as I am a keen observer of the tech space.
Google employees who asked not to be identified confirmed recently that the company was indeed developing new hardware and software for Android phones and coming up with new ways to get those phones into the hands of consumers, but they would not give more details. One Google employee said the new phone, which is being made by HTC, a major Taiwanese cellphone maker, was designed from the ground up by Google.
The latest news follows the recent introduction and growth of Google’s own Android operating system.
As I started to think about why Google is doing all this and various innovations around the mobile space I also pieced some other things together.
Based upon these recent developments I am beginning to picture a highly disruptive innovation by Google in the wireless space that will allow much cheaper pricing to consumers. I would guess that they would sell their device at a low price with significantly lower service costs operating over a VOIP network. The spectrum is important because it allows consumers to operate any device they choose.
