Ideas for Change 2

http://ideas-innovation.blogspot.com/

Hi everyone

This is my second post in the series of Ideas for change. I am collecting Ideas that are solving environmental Issues, ideas aimed at helping people to be more efficient, more productive, solving their problems, etc.

Let's have a look at some of the Ideas

1. Better Place: Why Can't we have environmentally friendly at the same time efficient Transportation solution. Well Shai Agassi seems to be asking that question for a while & the answer is BETTER PLACE. Better Place is the world’s leading electric vehicle (EV) services provider, catalyzing the transition to sustainable transportation. Better Place aims to reduce global dependency on petroleum through the creation of a market-based transportation infrastructure that supports electric vehicles. Better Place is building first electric vehicle network & has operations in Israel, Denmark, Australia, U.S, Canada & Japan.

Shai Agassi spoke at TED this year about his grand vision. Have a look.

2. Velib : The widely reported Paris' famous bicycle renting scheme is one unique business model started by Jean francois & Jean-Charles Decaux. Launched in July 2007, today the bicycles have become a mainstream & green form of public transportation in Paris. More than 2,00,000 Parisians have taken one year subscription ($40) and in a poll in May, 94% of Velib users said they were satisfied with the service.

3. Ecover(Eco friendly washing powder) : Belgian Company Ecover is manufacturing environment friendly washing powder made of natural plant & minerals ingredients. The product also comes in a recyclable bags. Last year the company generated $15 mn in pre tax profit.

4. Haath mein Sehat (Health In Hands) Project: Moving on to Ideas which aim to improve lives of people. One Such Initiative is Haath mein Sehat (Health In Hands) Project (to which I was also a part of ) which aims to improve livelihoods of people living in slums of Mumbai through health education and developing efficient low-cost water treatment methods. HMS is an interdisciplinary, international collaboration between local organizations and institutions in Mumbai and students at the University of California, Berkeley. Have a look at the Project Video.

5. Aravind project : India’s Aravind Eye Care System is probably the world’s largest provider of eye care. From April 2006 to March 2007 Aravind served more than 2.3 million patients and performed more than 270,000 surgeries. Founded in 1976 by Dr. G. Venkataswamy, Aravind has as its mission nothing less than the eradication of needless blindness among India’s population, including the rural poor, through the effective delivery of superior ophthalmic care.

I’ll be posting some more ideas & projects in the coming period.

Thanks

Neeraj

Sources: http://hmsindia.org/ http://www.ted.com/talks/shai_agassi_on_electric_cars.html http://www.betterplace.com http://trendwatching.com/ http://www.youtube.com/ http://www.ideo.com/images/uploads/news/pdfs/IDEO_HBR_Design_Thinking.pdf