The Portable Light is a self sufficient and sustainable source of power that can be easily folded and transported. Designed by KVA MATx, each portable light unit generates about two watts of electricity and about one hundred lumens of white light, enough to read a book or do domestic tasks by. It can even be used as a power supply to charge a cell phone, or used in conjunction with other units to increase its power supply so it can charge medical equipment or laptops. This breakthrough technology is great news for the 2 billion people in the world who live without electricity.

The Portable Light is on display at MoMA Feb 24 – May 12 as part of their Design and the Elastic Mind exhibition.

For additional images and video of Portable Light adapting to a variety of different uses, click here.

To hear Sheila Kennedy at Pop!Tech discussing the inspirations for Portable Light, click here.

Courtesy of KVA matx

Peggy Shea Andrews

Last year at Pop!Tech, Cary Fowler, Executive Director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, spoke of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway. February 26 marks the official opening of the “Doomsday Vault,” as it has come to be called. It is intended to protect the Earth’s crop diversity against gradual or catastrophic losses. Sited deep inside a wild Arctic mountain in Norway, seeds from around the world will be mechanically cooled to -20 degrees, which will keep seeds alive for up to 19,000 years. To ensure that developing nations can participate in this important seed bank, The Global Crop Diversity Trust is providing funding so that a diversity of all crops will be secure forever – even in the event of an asteroid or nuclear disaster.

Link to a video about the Seed Vault on the National Geographic website.

To read about specific crop strategies, regional strategies, or to make a donation to this effort, visit http://www.croptrust.org.

Also, last week, the BBC World’s Earth Report aired a documentary about the vault. To read the transcript and watch the video, click here.

Entrance to Global Seed Vault- Credit Image Mari Tefre/Global Crop Diversity Trust

Peggy Shea Andrews

From a series entitled Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait, Chris Jordan looks closely at statistics of contemporary American culture. How closely? Have a look at his piece, Plastic Cups (2008), one million disposable plastic cups, the number used on airline flights in the United States every six hours. At first glance it looks like an intricate pattern of plumbing, or ant factory work, but look closely and you’ll see stacks and stacks of cups, weaving their way into an untraceable road leading us nowhere. Best seen live, these prints offer a glimpse into our real consumer culture, a sobering visual representation of the stats we usually only hear run down during a speech or campaign.

View the entire series of portraits here.

Watch his 2007 pop!cast here.

Peggy Shea Andrews

At Pop!Tech 2007, five-time Grammy award-winner John Legend moved and motivated Pop!Tech participants, weaving stories from his Show Me Campaign—a movement he launched to help eradicate extreme global poverty—in between each soulful song.

Now in a February 2 release, John joins ranks with Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas and director Jesse Dylan (son of Bob) in their new celeb-studded music video in support of Barack Obama. The video is a musical performance of Senator Obama’s Yes We Can speech, his “concession” speech following Senator Clinton’s win in the New Hampshire Democratic Primary.

In spite of the fact that we live in controversial times, today’s North American music scene increasingly emphasizes music that’s materialistic, sexually charged or violent, over and above music that’s politically controversial. This moving example of musicians coming together and speaking directly to their audience in order to have a positive influence, is a reversal of that trend, and regardless of one’s politics, this reversal is important.

Check out the video, and read about the backstory here.

John also recently shot and released a music video in Tanzania for the Show Me Campaign to introduce his fans to critical global issues. Watch this story of a young boy overwhelmed by the weight of the world who is asking questions and searching for answers.

The character in the video is inspired by the real life story of two young boys, Yaguine Koita (aged 14) and Fodé Tounkara (aged 15), stowaways who froze to death flying from Guinea to Belgium, on 28 July 1999. The boys were carrying plastic bags with birth certificates, school report cards, photographs and a letter to the world asking for solidarity and kindness in providing relief to Africa. Check out their letter on John’s site under the “music video & explanation” tab here.

While talk of AIDS has become nothing but white noise for many, Zinhle Thabethe, a counselor working on the frontlines of the South African HIV epidemic, is taking action. Through home visits, working with AIDS orphans, educating nurses and doctors, and singing in the internationally acclaimed HIV-positive Sinikithemba Choir, Zinny’s goal is to fight stigma by raising awareness, and to ensure that people with HIV get plugged into treatment and stay on treatment – all in one of the most resource-constrained environments in the world.

Now, National Geographic is recognizing Zinny’s extraordinary contributions by naming her one of the 2008 class of Emerging Explorers – individuals who represent the next generation of world-changing talent from many different fields.

We continue to work with Zinny and her colleague, Dr. Krista Dong of iTeach, on Project Masiluleke, a Pop!Tech Accelerator project focused on using mobile devices to improve HIV care in South Africa and beyond. And we join in congratulating Zinny on her National Geographic nomination.

Bill Shannon brought the house down at Pop!Tech 2007, reminding us that anything is possible. Armed with a set of rocker bottom crutches, at times a skateboard, and two legs compromised by remnants of Legg-Calvé-Perthes disease, Shannon danced, jumped and glided effortlessly across the stage. Now, after many years of performing his distinctive style of dance, Shannon, aka the Crutchmaster, has begun systematically cataloging the components of his style.

In a new YouTube video, Shannon demonstrates various grips of the crutches, transitions used to move about, and describes the position of the body in relation to the floor. Shannon seems to defy physics, which is exactly the point.

Superficially his performance could be seen as eye candy, but Shannon’s practice goes much deeper with roots in performance art and his explorations of popular perceptions of disability. For more about this, check out his amazing online project “what is what” commissioned by Creative Time in 2003.

by Peggy Shea Andrews

What’s the net impact of Pop!Tech?  I’ve been thinking about my time in Camden, Maine a lot lately - never more so than while I attended the 2007 Net Impact conference this past week in Nashville (see, pun very much intended.)  In all seriousness however, my trip to Tennessee prompted the following questions: what is the impact of Pop!Tech and what will it do next?

These questions are not accidental; the Net Impact conference’s theme this year was, in fact, What Will You Do Next?  With 1800 attendees and up to 16 sessions at a time (!) there is no one answer from Net Impact.  Despite the wide variety of experiences among attendees, the conference managed to communicate a clear theme: get it done. 

Part of that theme stems from the fact that Net Impact attracts mostly MBA students - they are all about starting a business or at least working with organizations that address social and environmental problems.  I saw MBAs eager to be the next Claire Broido Johnson (of SunEdison) or Paul Hudnut (of EnviroFit) - two perfect examples of people who are “doing it next” through their work. 

(Side note: check out Paul’s excellent blog, What’s a BOPreneur? and his report from Net Impact.)

Pop!Tech, on the other hand, is just beginning to dip into the “get it done” arena.  This year’s conference, The Human Impact, seemed to be a departure from previous events.  Quite a few attendees described previous Pop!Techs as gadget-fests, featuring the latest innovative products and concepts.  This year’s conference, on the other hand, gave a lot of stage-time to problems, mostly environmental degradation and persistent poverty.  I’m not sure the old-school Pop!Techies were happy with this shift, even though the conference did a marvelous job pointing out the innovative tools, models, and ideas that are indeed changing the world - and featured some great “get it done” types, like Jessica Flannery and Van Jones (among others.)

So, getting back to my original question, what is Pop!Tech’s net impact?  In many ways, it remains to be seen - it depends how the Pop!Tech Accelerator and the Pop!Tech Carbon Initiative work, among other things.  These two initiatives are forays into the “get it done” space.  If they are successful, then Pop!Tech’s impact will grow.  If they hit some roadblocks, however, Pop!Tech may have jeopardized its hardcore audience in its effort to take its program to the next level.  (Side note: I’m confident that Andrew and co. can make it work.)

What will it do next?  For starters, Pop!Tech can continue its excellent programming.  I’d like to see invites to next year’s meeting go out to folks like Paul Hudnut and Claire Broido Johnson, for starters, as well as other get-it-done speakers at Net Impact - Cindy Cooper, Tim Prestero, Ben Powell, Cleve Justis, etc.

Ultimately, these are two vastly different conferences, but they can learn from one another.  Net Impact, in my opinion, can take a page from Pop!Tech’s book and sharply reduce the number of sessions and speakers - quality over quantity!  Not only that, but mandated, controlled networking - like Pop!Tech lunches - are the sorts of things that sets a conference apart from a series of lectures interspersed with a bag lunch.  Can you do Pop!Tech for 1800 MBAs in 2/3 of the time at 1/3 of the budget?  No - and I’m not asking Net Impact to.  But as Pop!Tech can learn from Net Impact, it goes the other way as well.

by Robert Katz, World Resources Institute

Paris was one of the Global Bloggers attending this years conference. Below is her wonderful post-conference thoughts from her blog Ride the Wave
****************

I am so grateful to collaborate with Hamid Tehrani in sharing my experience of Poptech with an Iranian audience on Global Voices Online Farsi. However it is in the time after the conference that I am able to truly reflect and share my experience to both Iranian and American audiences, and as a citizen of both of these countries, to speak to all people about the things that are closest to my heart.

We are the ones who can solve the worlds’ problems. To solve these problems we must first recognize that there are people who share with us a dream for a better world. The first step is to hold on to the dream that there can be peace, and I realized that at Poptech there are many people who share this dream with me. For example, Zainab Salbi was a great source of inspiration when she spoke about the role of women in maintaining peace within society. She founded Women for Women International, responding to a need to make sure that the world is safe for women. Women hold together the family structure, and if women are being raped, killed, or offered food in exchange for one of their children, a society can only fall apart. Her organization makes it possible to give these women a chance, and a choice.

Van Jones is another world-changing thinker that is bringing his dreams to life. He realized that people living in poverty were not being given chances to succeed the way more affluent, educated kids were given chances. He recognized that he could combine solutions to social inequality and environmental destruction. He explains that by creating green jobs [jobs that are beneficial for the environment], he could work in creating educational, rewarding work opportunities for people–creating “green pathways out of poverty.” He worked to create the Green Jobs Act, an initiative that identifies jobs and skills needed to grow renewable energy and energy efficiency industries, while creating a way out of poverty for low income adults.

The solution that Van Jones brings to life is the type of thing I dream of seeing happen between Iran and the US–exchange of culture, tools, ideas, and technology that improve our understanding of one another, and help us all toward achieving a safer planet. Rather than fighting about how we disagree on certain things, we should keep our focus on the problems that relate to us all, and find solutions to those problems. Our environmental problems are a global concern, and our emphasis as citizens of this planet should be on generating global solutions to bigger the issues that impact all of humanity. We have a choice: to focus on “the other”, creating labels such as terrorists, militants, freedom fighters… or we can find solutions, collectively, for global exchange, interconnection, and peace.

outside of the opera house
she asked me “if poptech
were a poem what kind of poem would it be”
and i said it would be a bridge poem
a poem of hands and hearts and blood and connective tissue
reaching across the distance wide and long
it would be
a reaching-out-to-touch poem
an imagine-that poem
a lookit-what-i-did poem
an open-mouth-in-awe poem
an open source poem

it would be
a 20minutes on the clock poem
a slow down poem
a prayer to the infinite joy of dr. victoria hale poem
a van jones for president poem
a medicine will heal poem
an andrew zolli was meant to do it poem
a where are alla the black people in camden poem
a tell the story poem
a kiss yo’ kids and call yo’ mama poem
an electricity of joy poem
a this is not a dream
but i dreamt it and here it is poem

a poem for a young lily in the arms of her father

poem in the shape of heidi’s smile
bright and wide and beautiful
as a song on the lips of the sky
even at midnight after 12 hours
on her feet in the heat of the
proverbial kitchen poem

it will be a you poem
an us poem
a we together poem

it will be
a human contact poem
a yell it out from the balcony of the opera house poem
a my gratitude is but the seed of the edge of a sea of gratitude poem
a you changed the world and i saw it poem
a one-person-at-a-time poem

it will be a risky poem

a love poem
a power of love poem
a lookit-what-love-did poem
an i-took-my-students-to-the-ocean-poem
an ah-ha poem

if poptech were a poem
it would be a poem with toenails.

Excuse the delay in gathering the latest blog posts about Pop!Tech 2007. There has been so much wonderful traction on the web about the conference, so thank you to everyone who took the time to share your impressions, questions and even criticisms of the event. Pop!Tech in its purist form is about having a dialogs with people and your posts help us to do just that.

Here is just a sampling:

Christian Science Monitor, Sounds Iranian,TreeHugger, NPR, Conferenza, TrueTalk Blog, MobileActive, NextBillion.net, Wired, Down The Avenue, amGlobal, Boing Boing, Core77,Tiago Doria, MedeaMaterial , Paris Marishi, Emily’s Window, Boston Globe, and Fast Company
.

And you can also find more sites that have posted about Pop!Tech over at Technorati.