This sponsored post is made possible by Inkpal.

In today’s world, keeping eco-friendly practices in mind, there are various ways to reduce the waste of many products; like purchasing items that are made from recycled materials. Remanufactured printer ink cartridges are a great example of a commonly expensive, but very necessary product, that has gone through a recycling process to be resold to consumers.

Description of Recycled Printer Ink

These ink cartridges are made from used cartridges that have been recycled and reprocessed by third-party printer ink industry professionals, and are then resold to consumers for use with a variety of printers. Such printer ink must fulfill specific quality guidelines, and undergo a detailed remanufacturing process.

Process of Recycling

The process of recycling is simple, and involves the collection of empty cartridges that are sent to an industrial unit to be disassembled and inspected. These cartridges are then carefully and completely cleaned, and defective parts are replaced. The next step is filling the cartridges with new professional quality ink, and finally the ink cartridge is tested to make sure it works properly with a variety of printers.

Advantages of Recycled Ink

- Less Expensive

Companies that offer recycled products are able to set their own prices, and such recycled ink cartridges generally cost up to 70 percent less than name-brand new ink cartridges. Many companies that sell these products also provide credit for used cartridges to save consumers even more money.

- Environmentally Friendly

Recycled ink cartridges reduce the amount of waste by using recycled materials such as plastic, aluminum, steel, and rubber. They protect the environment from harmful chemicals from non-biodegradable materials that sit for long time periods in landfills. It also takes significantly less energy to produce recycled products over new items.

- Result in Longer Printing Capacity

Many new name-brand ink cartridges are not completely full when consumers buy them, which results in the ink running out at a faster pace. Various remanufacturers fill recycled cartridges to the maximum capacity, and may provide consumers with double the amount of pages printed for one cartridge! You can increase the amount of prints by trying out compatible toner cartridges in place of their lower yield counterpart ink cartridges.

- Comes With A Guarantee

Various companies that sell recycled printer ink cartridges offer a guarantee on the quality of the product, and will even refunds or replacements in case a flawed cartridge manages to slip through inspection. The products go through a detailed process to make sure they are reproduced properly, and must each meet strict requirements prior to packaging.

- Widely Available

Many companies and online retailers sell a variety of recycled printer ink products, and are able to maintain massive inventories of cartridges by dealing directly with re-manufacturers.

How to Select Quality Recycled Ink Cartridges?

When searching for remanufactured products, it is important to find retailers that only use professional quality ink, because lower grade ink can damage printer cartridges and printers themselves. It is also necessary to do some research and compare prices. Recycled ink cartridges that cost much less than the standard price of other products are most likely of lower quality. Good retailers should provide a guarantee or warranty and have a worry-free return policy.

To keep the process of recycling printer ink cartridges going, it is important to actively donate your empty ink cartridges, and there are many recycling programs out there to choose from. Some programs only accept name brand cartridges, while others accept any type of empty ink cartridge. The amount of money you are paid will be based on the type of printer cartridge, model, brand of printer, and the company’s established rates. An important aspect to remember is the empty printer cartridges must be in great condition with no cracks or damage to any part of the cartridge.

Joel Arnold is a talented writer from Inkpal.com, but his articles can be found on a vast amount of websites all across the internet. His interest in global economics has been a lifelong hobby that has been fulfilled through various books, magazines, and courses. Joel has added to his knowledge of international economics via business trips around the world including Europe, Asia, and Africa. He is currently writing an academic book, while continuing his exploration of economics, together with all of his prodigious interests.

Smart Living Studios founder Kristee Rosendahl talks to Ecopreneurist about her newest offering Smart Gardener, an customizable online tool that helps newbies start their own vegetable garden – to enjoy and grow their own food. 

Smart Gardener is a new SaaS productivity tool that enables enthusiastic gardeners to easily design, grow and harvest a successful organic vegetable garden.

Read part I of the interview here.

You have run other businesses. What is different about starting a business that underscores the triple bottom line?

For one, the general excitement, enthusiasm and energy level of people who want to be a part of these kinds of businesses. There are a lot of us who have been looking for something that has a greater purpose, that means something to us, that hits home in our hearts.

To work in a business that can be conscientious, make a difference, and be sustainable enough to create a livelihood for people, is a pretty powerful promise. It sure makes it easier to find great people. Who doesn’t want to be apart of the energy of that?

Secondly, these types of business are about solving problems with either completely new solutions or taking something that lives on the outside edges and moving it into mainstream. Think back to when most of us knew virtually nothing about the importance of composting, why we should read the carton on our eggs carefully, or how little control we really had about the food we were buying for our families. Moving those discussions and solutions from the early adopters to a larger majority of people is essential and exhilarating! This really speaks to the third point – the challenge that drove me to want to create Smart Gardener.

One of the most exciting parts of this for me has been the ability to apply technology solutions appropriately to an eco-social business. It seemed like a ripe opportunity to use the combination of technology and design to take something that is so “hands on”, like growing food, and make it fundamentally easier and more accessible to others. Can’t technology add value by automating or calculating the hard parts like crop rotation, seasonal scheduling or  how much to grow for a family of four? Doesn’t this save us time and allowe us to focus on the satisfying parts of raising food?

What are some of the challenges worth tackling in your eco-socio-centric business?

Many of us grew up in jobs surrounded by business tools, calendars, trackers, and other management tools that helped us get our work done efficiently. It seemed to me that there was a real opportunity here to create some easy to use productivity tools that could apply to a whole group of tasks around becoming more self reliant, and sustainable in our personal lives. What kinds of smart tools would you need to plan, manage, and harvest your vegetables, fruit trees, bees, chickens, water usage, security, even energy use. for your urban or suburban “homestead”?

The exciting part of all of this is not only trying to solve some of these huge problems, but actually figuring out how to incorporate solutions that can be adapted into the way we live – to mainstream sustainability. We won’t get the changes that are needed in our world if we don’t start to deeply root sustainability into our everyday lives. The challenge for eco-socio-centric businesses is how to move as fast and as fluidly between solving the big problems and making the solutions easily adoptable by an individual.

Through this offering, Kristee helps good food enthusiasts to

1. Create a layout for their garden.
2. Select plants according to the geographical location.
3. Obtain a smart garden plan and
4. Receive weekly to-do list to help you keep the garden healthy and happy.

What is stopping you from starting your own vegetable garden?

Smart Gardener is an internet based productivity tool that enables enthusiastic gardeners to easily design, grow and harvest a successful  organic vegetable garden. 

With all the ambiquity surrounding food these days, it seems most of the food we eat is manufactured not grown, leading us to question -where does our food really come from? In most cases, there is one conlcusion: to truly have complete control on what we eat- we need to grow our own food.

Now growing your own food is not all that easy. Or is it? Enter Smart Gardener:  It is a unique tool positioned to give consumers exactly what they need to easily grow their own healthy, organic vegetables.

Smart Gardener is built with proprietary IP and delivers consumers highly personalized online tools and garden plans based on key inputs including geo-location and household size.  Their service is also differentiated by a complex weather mapping algorithm, an extremely rich database of over 500 plants, as well as ecommerce to purchase the best organic seeds available online.

Smart Gardener is the first of a new breed of digital products from Smart Living Studios, LLC, a company in the northern California Bay Area founded to build a positive and tangible difference in peoples lives.

We interviewed founder Krsitee Rosendahl, who has spent the last 26 years working across digital product development, user experience, design and management to build innovative new digital products and applications.

Tell us a little bit about what inspired you to start Smart Gardener?

In 2006, I moved to a rural property in Sonoma County, CA to enable me to pursue a more “hands on” lifestyle while still working in the tech field.  I jumped into food gardening, started to revive an old apple orchard for hard cider, and started beekeeping. All this while trying to run a consulting business meant I wanted to both enjoy my time outdoors while being efficient and successful with the results.

Frustrated every weekend about what to do in the garden, I resorted to reading dozens of gardening books, designing spreadsheets, and spending hours online. Further frustrated with those results, I began building the first prototype in 2006 of what would become Smart Gardener today. I just wanted a way to know what I should be doing specifically for my garden each weekend to keep it healthy in order to harvest the best food I could grow.

While refining the prototype, I spent time with lots of gardeners, and “want to be” gardeners who confirmed to me that there was an eager market out there wanting to be successful at growing tasty healthy food. We all had different levels of gardening experience, but we all shared the issue of time and convenience.

During this same time, I saw a larger trend emerging – an increased desire and need to reclaim personal self-sufficiency on both a personal and social level. I decided to take the leap and start working on the product full time in 2010. It seemed many trends were converging  – food, green, and sustainability issues, fueled by social movements and behavioral changes as well. The time seemed right to build this product given all this momentum.

I think that it’s really what distinguishes an entrepreneur – they see an opportunity to connect the dots, and feel compelled to take it from thought to action.

In part II of the interview, Kristee shares her experiences on building an eco- business. Stay tuned!

The group responsible for the solar panel installation, the for-profit University Park Solar, includes members of the church’s congregation like Don Monroe. “In this church,” Monroe said, “there’s a real sort of consciousness of what we call ‘care for creation,’” adding that solar energy “very much fits into that idea.”

How the solar panels came to be installed on the church is as much a story of innovative entrepreneurship as it is about “care for creation.” President and founder of UPCS Dave Brosch formed the company as a way for residents of the city to promote renewable energy without incurring excessive personal expense.

The organization first considered filing for non-profit status, but quickly realized that the complicated process of fundraising and grant applications was too taxing on the community’s time and resources.

Green Investments Draw More Appeal

The group also discovered that renewable energy projects had more appeal to the community when offered as an investment. For a year, Brosch scoured the neighborhoods of University Park, searching for a roof that would be a good candidate for solar panels. The church turned out to be one of the few suitable structures.

“Our neighborhood is filled with trees,” Brosch said, “and we have a lot of houses that are not oriented in the right way.”

In a three-day period, solar company Standard Solar installed a 22.77-kilowatt photovoltaic (PV) system on the roof of the church, using 230-watt Sharp panels, made in the United States. The PV system is expected to generate over 30,000 kilowatt hours each year, enough to meet almost all of the church’s electrical needs. It cost $130,000, before rebates and tax credits.

An Eight-Percent Return on Investment

University Park Solar members contributing at least $2,000 were allowed to participate in the project. Member Lisa Nau invested $10,000.

“I guess you would say that bought me one-thirteenth of this power plant,” Nau said. Nau expects to recoup her investment in 7 years, and will then begin to receive a share of the profits. Nau is expecting an 8 percent return over the life of the system.

Pleased with the company’s success so far, University Park Solar is looking for more rooftops. They are currently in talks with another church, a synagogue and a school.

They are just one of many community groups sprouting up around the country with an eye on generating extra income as well as renewable energy. Some are crowdsourcing models like UPCS’s. Others are DIY “barn-raising” projects. Communities across the nation are proving that going green can add green to pocketbooks, too.

Photo: Karen Carmichael for Maryland Newsline

Money and the environment. You may think that one kind of green has absolutely nothing to do with the other, but that’s not entirely true. The very premise of greener living (and in your case, greener working) is to find a way to accomplish tasks more efficiently and to cut waste. Coincidentally, this is exactly the kind of thinking that could be saving you money as an entrepreneur.

Are you wondering how going green can keep you in the black? From utilising fuel comparison sites to giving your employees a much-needed break, read ahead for some tried and true green changes you can make to your business today.

Go paperless. This is one of the easiest, most popular, and most effective ways to go green. Not only does going paperless save you money on toner, paper, and the power it costs to run a printer, but it also makes your work place more efficient. Office software such as Inbit Messenger or SameTime instant messenger can allow you to easily share electronic documents and save the time that you would ordinarily waste printing out those pages and meeting in person to exchange them.

Get the most from your electricity. All electricity is not created equally, and you may be able to get more bang for your buck if you switch to a greener supplier. Electricity created by burning fossil fuels is becoming more expensive, and changes in the market are becoming more erratic. If you take some time to compare energy prices for competitive providers, you could come out with a cleaner, cheaper supplier.

Break your bottle addiction. Bottled water, that is. This popular way of hydrating has become an expensive habit for most Americans, which means that you probably offer some form of bottled water in your workplace. Spring for a tap filter instead, and you will not only save money but also preserve the health of your employees since water in stored bottles sometimes contains traces of harmful chemicals from the plastic used to make them.

Be conservative. Along with lowering the price that you pay for electricity, you should also engage in some cost-saving measures aimed at reducing the amount of energy used in the workplace. If you work with computers, put each unit on a power strip along with any corresponding equipment such as printers, monitors, and fax machines. This will make it easier to completely shut down all equipment at once and avoid losing power from standby loads.

Cultivate a healthy lifestyle for employees. In the same way that you invest in health insurance for your employees, you can invest in creating a healthier environment for them, too. Small changes such as using natural, non-chemical cleaners in the office, providing organic snacks, and making use of natural sunlight instead of artificial lighting when possible will help your employees stay healthy. As a result, they will become more productive members of the workforce and possibly take less time off due to illness.

Schedule work-from-home days. Your employees will surely thank you for this one. Working from home can be more productive for some workers because they are forced to set a time limit to accomplish all of the goals on their to-do list. The faster they get done, the faster they can move on to something else. This practice can also save fuel since employees don’t have to commute to work as well as electricity costs for the work place, which will benefit you as a business owner.

What other green initiatives can you think of as an ecopreneur?

Mark_Boethe

This post was made possible by uSwitch a free, impartial online and telephone comparison and switching service that helps you to compare prices on a range of products and services – including gas & electricity, heating cover, home phone, communications, insurance and personal finance products.

Editor’s Note: This is the second part of a 2-post guest appearance by Alex Magnin, a Brooklyn-based technology entrepreneur whose latest startup is helping to “green Hollywood” (more info at the bottom). This series came about as a response to Peter Thiel’s ‘The End of the Future‘ tract. In part one, Magnin showed patterns in the creation of lasting progress — and encouraged us to fear not, because humans have shown an overwhelmingly impressive ability in their history to innovate and move forward past many daunting challenges. In this post, he looks at what we have to do to ensure history repeats itself….

Before his post starts, I just want to note how happy I am CleanTechnica has the readers and friends it has — this is a truly wonderful post, and I’m sure many of you will resonate with it. Thanks, Alex!

Peter Thiel during TEDx Silicon Valley presentation.

In Part One, we looked at what progress is made of. We saw the process of technological innovation and how it is turned into economic prosperity in a particular pattern. Today, in a recession, the march forward seems unsure. History shows us it should not.

Yet, just because things have cycled before does not mean for sure they will cycle again. Nothing is guaranteed. Our actions determine the future.

So, to make sure things go well, we must remember what is required of us to keep the pattern going, to ensure we continue to turn innovation into prosperity and progress.

Basically, while one person can innovate, many people must take up that innovation and use it well to generate prosperity. It is not inventing the technology, but installing and deploying the technology that makes progress.

So, while having more people in the world has been a great thing for technology, with more innovators making more innovations, it poses difficulties to progress: more people need to cooperate to deploy new technology in a way that creates prosperity and progress.

This cooperation only works on the basis of faith. When shared benefits require shared sacrifice, one must trust his neighbor to participate equally in both the sacrifice and the benefits. And this faith, of course, is a leap to trust – it calls upon our heart.

Society has worked well for quite some time. For the majority of our history, our societies were small. The leap of faith was easier. Recently, our worlds have rapidly expanded. So, the question of continuing progress, the type of progress that turns innovation into prosperity — progress that requires society-wide sacrifice for future benefits — will be a test of what is on our hearts.

The long-term trend has humans cooperating in our best nature. Logic dictates it. Universal morality boils down to the golden rule – treat others as you would like to be treated – at the very least, because in a free, competitive society unbound from that morality, it is a likelihood that, some of the time, you will end up on the wrong end of the stick. The process of civilization, the state, and the rule of law can be seen as a sort of mutual détente – the recognition that, in a zero-sum world of unbridled freedom and desire, we feel an uncomfortable possibility that we could lose. We realize we will do best by working together with other free people.

But a paradox of universal freedom is that it unleashes our wildest desires while its universality – the very fact that we have it, and so does everyone else – so expands the pool of potential competitors that the odds of anyone attaining all those desires become near-impossible. In our worst nature, this frustration leads to violence in its many forms – from wars over resources to jealousy of our neighbor, from skirting corporate regulations to children dying in famine.

So, we build institutions and culture to help us — to help us subsume our egos and drive oppression and violence out of our society; to help us cooperate better; and to lead us to greater faith in each other. The process is ongoing, from primitive to feudal to mercantile and to free democratic, but through human history, institutions and culture have been the lynchpins of progress.

Today, as economic growth stalls, our institutions appear ineffectual, and our culture indulges escapism and narcissism, a reminder of what got us this far is imperative.

Remember that being human means being able to conceive of possibilities beyond the momentary reality. It means being able to look towards our own future, but also to step into our neighbors’ shoes.

It was this conception that impelled us to trade ego for morality before, to treat others as we would wish to be treated. It is this conception that continues to impel us to turn individual innovation into societal progress, and to build the culture and institutions that help us do so. We need them. Optimizing technological progress for prosperity means optimizing us. The two are the same, because progress and prosperity in a free and open society exist within a moral framework – what I wish for myself, I must also wish for others; the zero-sum game is one in which I may well lose. So the future of progress is a question of what is inside us. Our minds may have limits, but the potential of our hearts is infinite. So long as there is no end to that capacity, there is no end to the future. This is a reason to be hopeful.

Alex Magnin is a Brooklyn-based technology entrepreneur. He serves as COO of Lua Technologies, building enterprise communications software for mass collaboration — Lua is working with the Environmental Media Association and the Producers Guild of America Green Initiative to help make the $31B Film & TV production industry more eco-friendly.

He is also on the Board of Directors of Every Person Has A Story, a non-profit connecting students around the world through digital photography.

Alex helps make cool things for the internet as a partner in Betamale Ventures, and was on the founding team and formerly ran product and business development at Martini Media, a premier digital advertising technology company. He attended Wesleyan University. He owes much to many, but in this article a particular intellectual debt to Alexis de Tocqueville and Rene Girard. You can find Alex at alexmagnin.com and twitter.com/alexmagnin

Peter Thiel photo via Suzia Katz

Source: Clean Technica (http://s.tt/14U2M)

Many new products come to the marketplace each year that allow us to live our lives in a greener, cleaner manner. Whether it is something like solar panels for our homes or a hybrid car, choices for a more sustainable lifestyle abound. As we learn more about the problems with our environment, whether it be global climate change, resource depletion or environmental degradation, and are trying to make as many small changes in our lives that we can. Sometimes the biggest way we can help the environment is to do as much as we can with as few resources as possible. Take, for example, the garden.

A lot of people want lush yards or gardens and, as a result, have a sprinkler system or go out and water by hand. Water is a vital resource and, in many places, it is a scarce resource. With droughts that have been plaguing countries for years – including the southern United States – saving water is something we should all do. However, when it comes to our yards and gardens, it is hard to control how much water we use. We, more often than not, end up using too much because we don’t realize what our plants actually need. Water in the yard is highly overused and wasted.

A new gadget called the WaterSaver seeks to help people reduce the amount of water they use in the garden or on the lawn, reducing the amount of water used and also the amount of the water bill – both good things. The WaterSaver attaches to your hose and provides a digital display of how much water is being used. It also provides information that is vital to knowing how much water is enough.

While it might take a bit of time to get used to the device, and to learn how to read it and adjust your use of water accordingly, it is a neat little device that helps reduce the waste of such a vital resource. Over time, the device will pay for itself by the savings you will glean from reduced water usage. Your lawn and garden will not suffer at all, thriving with just the right amount of water, reducing water waste.

There are many areas of our life that can be further greened. While the WaterSaver seems like it would provide a relatively small reduction in the amount of water used, it is a reduction. It provides cost savings and allows one to have the perks of a yard or garden without flagrantly wasting water in the process. It gives one the knowledge they need to know how much is enough.

Image Credit: Martin Pettitt via Flicker Creative Commons

The Clorox Company last week launched its new Ingredients Inside smart phone application and mobile website. Now smart phone users have immediate access to information about Clorox ingredients for their household and commercial disinfecting, cleaning and laundry products in the U.S. and Canada. Next Step? Explain how the ingredients affect planet and human health.

Today’s shopper is well-connected, more than ever. Smart-phones are changing the way we purchase – from creating shopping lists on our phones to comparing prices through cellphone apps, we are using our phones more than ever while we shop.

Clorox is launching a smart phone application that will help shoppers know what goes into their cleaning supplies. Clorox is offering the app initially to iPhone® users, enabling them to scan a product UPC code and be taken instantly to that product’s ingredient listing. In addition, a new mobile website, which is available for all mobile platforms, gives easier, on-the-go access to the company’s Ingredients Inside program by offering content and functionality optimized for mobile device use.

Clorox Chairman & CEO Don Knauss said,

“Mobile computing is triggering a shift in how consumers access information to make purchasing decisions. Our new product ingredient tools will help consumers make informed choices about our products anytime, anywhere.”

The Clorox Company was the first major consumer packaged goods company to launch a product ingredient communication program in North America. In January 2009, the company began listing ingredients of its household and commercial cleaning, disinfecting and laundry products in the U.S. and Canada on its corporate website.

According to a recent Nielsen Mobile Media report, 44 percent of all Americans own a smart phone, and 49 percent of mobile consumers say they frequently use their smartphones while shopping. In a recent Clorox survey*, 62 percent of Americans believe it’s important to know what goes into their household cleaning products, and 60 percent who own smartphones say a mobile app would make them more likely to read a household cleaning product’s ingredient information.

But Is Listing Ingredients Enough?

The Ingredients Inside is a great communications initiative by Clorox, that has steadily been improving on ingredient disclosure since 2008, but what about the disclosure on what those ingredients really mean and its effects on human and planet health? That would be a great next step in corporate social responsibility and transparency.

The free application can be found in the iPhone App Store by typing in “Clorox ingredients.” The Ingredients Inside app will be available for other mobile devices soon.

Planet People‘s “Who Cares about this Planet?” challenge  has a winner! Introducing Vikas Malhotra; committed to starting incentive based programs in his work place and his community to encourage more environmentally friendly and sustainable living.

About the “Who cares about this Planet?” Challenge

The “Who cares about this Planet?” Challenge followed the company’s 2011 launch of iQ, a new line of eco-friendly household cleaning products that questioned conventional cleaning, and features an innovative new packaging system that reduces plastic waste by over 80%.

The challenge revolved around motivating individuals and groups to submit innovative green projects for a chance to win up to $5000 in funding. Five finalists were chosen from submitted entries by an Advisory Committee consisting of leaders in the environmental sector, including the CEO of Green Living, eco-journalists from Mother Nature Network and Homemakers, and a representative from Planet People.

In the final phase of the challenge, voting was thrown open to the public to select the winner, with every vote contributing to a dollar raised for the winning project.

The Finalists and the Winner!

Finalists were announced in December last year and included five innovative and effective projects.  The projects ranged from a school greenhouse that would serve a community garden to a mobile app that helps to save energy at home.

The Winner: Vikas Malhotra’s Saving the Planet at Work, Brampton, ON: 

The winning entry was submitted by Vikas Malhotra, resident of Brampton, Ontario with a passion to encourage environmental living in both his home and his workplace.  His submission introduces incentive-based programs for carpooling and encourages using online billing to reduce paper waste and incentivizes individuals to remove wasteful, non-recyclable materials from the workplace.  As the winner of the Challenge, Malhotra will be awarded $1,000 to help bring his idea to fruition.

Here’s what Vikas Malhotra says about his entry:

“In my office, I have assigned myself the title of “The Green Police”. I have taken it upon myself to instill a system that I believe will impact our workplace, community, state, country and planet. However small these steps are, it is my firm belief that every little effort counts when it comes to making changes for the better to clean up this beautiful planet.”

Some of the many changes, Malhotra has put in place at work inlcude:

• Switching the customary styrofoam cups to ceramics.
• Encouraging the paperless route by doing all the office billing online and offering direct deposit, rather than sending out mailings and printing up checks.
• Employees are now using the front and back of paper when printing, and only printing when necessary, reducing spending on office supplies.
• Car-pooling in to the work place is encouraged with premium parking spots for employees who take advantage of this great tool.
• The office plans to award a prize incentive to the office members for going green. Each mission they are able to accomplish will give them points and at the end of each quarter, prizes will be awarded to the Green Workers who put forth the best effort to make a positive change.

Malhotra calls this project a “work in progress”. He adds,

“We can all make a HUGE difference at work! A Greener office saves us money, saves the environment, and gives us happier employees and a happier planet!”

To support the “Who cares about this Planet?” challenge, Planet People worked with  a Toronto based and emerging Spoken Word artist, Made Wade and Creative Studio, Eighteen Eighty to create a thought-provoking short film that encourages viewers to question their own commitment to the planet.

Related Posts:

Planet People Announces Finalists for the “Who Cares About this Planet?” Challenge: Vote Now!

Got an Eco-Idea? Win $5000 With Planet People’s- Who Cares About this Planet? Challenge

iQ Questions “Smarter Cleaning” and Provides Solutions

The second edition of the Cleanweb Hackathon concluded this past weekend in NYC bringing together scores of innovative minds in information technology who believe “cleantech” can solve the resource constraints of the 21st century. 

The Cleanweb Hackathon attracted about 100 developers and boasted an impressive panel of judges. Per GigaOm,

This weekend in New York City, programmers spent the entire weekend building mobile and web apps around new ways to manage energy, water, food and fuel. As Sunil Paul, the founder of the event and a partner with Spring Ventures, put it in a short talk on Sunday afternoon, the idea behind the project is that “Information technology is the most powerful lever we have to address resource constraints.”

The idea behind the Cleanweb is to use existing information technologies to accelerate clean technologies and resource-efficient business models, said venture capitalist Sunil Paul, a cleantech whiz who helped popularize the term “cleanweb”.

CNET reported that 15 teams, including one from Columbia University, showed off their “hacks” and received awards. The Web and mobile applications touched on everything from streamlining the solar business model to identifying municipal buildings in New York that most badly need an energy efficiency upgrade.

The overall winner, as determined both by the judges and other participants, was an application called Econofy that helps online shoppers find the most efficient appliances. The Web app pulls data from EnergyStar ratings and popular products on Amazon to show consumers how much they would save by purchasing a more efficient model and the purchase price. In the process, the developers hope to create more competition among manufacturers to make efficient air conditioners, refrigerators, televisions, and the like.

Another prize winner was NycBldgs.com, which used energy usage data provided by New York City to create a map of the municipal buildings and how they rank on energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions. The app is designed to zero in on buildings that could improve their efficiency and, conversely, identify buildings, such as schools, that perform well.

As Sunil Paul says,

Today, information technology exponentially (has) more power, is mobile, and has an embedded trust model of social networks.  It’s a layer of infrastructure to allow a transformation of how we use energy, resources, food, water, and land.

Exciting.

Related Posts:

Love Tech and the Planet? Hit the Cleanweb Hackathon in NYC

Cleanweb Hackathon Showcases ‘World Changing’ Apps in 30 Hours: Final Results

Cleanweb Hackathon, San Francisco: Hacking Continues, Results Soon!

Cleanweb Hackathon Gets Underway in San Francisco 

Sunil Paul Cheerleads CleanWeb Hackathon, live from San Francisco

The Cleanweb Hackathon Invites Innovative Minds to Do Social Good Via Technology