Since coming to Pop!Tech in 2005 as a Sun Microsystems Fellow, Neema Mgana has been developing the first project of her Rural Center of Excellence – a hospital, a medical training center, and a secondary school in Ipuli, Tanzania. The project was born out of a collaboration that began at Pop!Tech when Neema was introduced to Cameron Sinclair, co-founder of Architecture for Humanity, and to Larry Smith of Haley & Aldrich.

Sponsored by Haley & Aldrich. Beth Cohen and Michele Bowman from Pop!Tech, Vikki Ott from Haley & Aldrich, and cameraman Bill Megalos recently traveled to visit the project. (Watch the longer version of the video update in our Pop!Cast archive, here.)

Ipuli is a small, rural village in the east Rift Valley of Tanzania, a stunning landscape filled with endless hills and soil that is a deep, rich red. Home to the Wanyiramna tribe for generations, life in Ipuli is simple but challenging: the village has no electricity or running water. A regional school draws students from neighboring villages, but there are no books and only a handful of classrooms have chairs for the nearly 500 students. Medical care is almost non-existent here; the village has no hospital and no doctors.

Photo by Vikki Ott, Haley & Aldrich

Just getting to Ipuli is difficult. The main road there is broken and dusty. By the time we arrived after a two-day journey from Dar es Salaam, we had red dust on our faces and cameras lenses, and our cameraman had something akin to whiplash.

Neema’s parents, Charles and Helena, grew up in Ipuli and the family became committed to this project after hearing the story from a young medical assistant: mothers and fathers were pooling months and months of salary to take sick children to the nearest hospital over 80 km away, sometimes making excruciating decisions as to who would be treated and who would not; pregnant women in labor were being carried over the broken road often by oxcart and bicycle to reach the nearest doctor.

In this region, the major health problem is malaria, followed closely by acute respiratory infection, pneumonia, eye infections and diarrhea. Infant and maternal mortality rates are high, and life expectancy continues to decrease due to HIV/AIDS.

Photo by Vikki Ott, Haley & Aldrich

To build the hospital, men draw water from the pond, and shovel sand from the river, mixing them with cement and then hand-cranking concrete blocks. The bricks then take a day or more to dry in the sun, a process that grinds to a halt during the rainy season. So far the men have made 6500 bricks, and the foundation for this future hospital is slowly becoming a reality.

Neema at Goat Ceremony, Photo by Vikki Ott, Haley & Aldrich

In a small ceremony, the village elders gave Neema two goats, gifts of gratitude and honor. Last week we received an email from Charles who wrote that one of these elders had fallen very sick and was diagnosed with severe malaria and typhoid. Charles found him lying ill at home after he had been released from the local clinic, and so gently tucked him into his car, and drove the 80 kilometers to get him the health care that may keep him alive. Thanks to Haley & Aldrich, Architecture for Humanity, Neema Mgana and other supporters, when the Rural Center of Excellence opens its doors this spring, medical help will no longer be a long and arduous journey, but will be a part of the community and its future.

The Rural Center of Excellence still needs support. If you would like more information on the project, or if you would like to find out how you can help, please email Neema Mgana at nmgana@yahoo.com.

Four Ipuli boys and their future clinic, Photo by Vikki Ott, Haley & Aldrich

Beth Cohen,
Michele Bowman

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

In today’s program, Andrew Zolli, announced the Pop!Tech Carbon Initiative. This initiative is the second iteration of our commitment to being “carbon negative”. This is not your parent’s carbon neutrality. The idea of being carbon negative means that you are offsetting in excess of your carbon emissions.

Representatives of each benefiting project in Pop!Tech’s listings are participating in this year’s Pop!Tech conference as “Pop!Tech Carbon Fellows.” Fellows include:

* Robert Freling, the Executive Director of The Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF), an organization dedicated to helping rural communities in the developing world power a brighter future through innovative uses of solar energy. SELF is bringing solar powered irrigation to Benin’s Kalale District in West Africa where over 80% of the villages do not have a source of surface water. The villages are provided with a source of clean renewable energy, eliminating the need for diesel & gas powered pumps.

* Dr. Sarah Otterstrom, the Executive Director of Paso Pacífico, a non-profit organization seeking to build wildlife corridors along the Pacific slope of Central America by supporting private landowners and small-scale farmers in sustainable land use and conservation activities. She is currently working on the restoration and conservation of endangered forest ecosystems in the Rivas Province of Nicaragua. This project also reduces the vulnerability of local communities to extreme climate events while improving ecosystem services and the viability of endangered species.

* Stefano Merlin, the Director of Ecologica Network and President of Instituto Ecologica, which coordinates several socio-environmental programs including the Bandeira Switching Non-Renewable Biomass Project in the North of Brazil. This project addresses the problem of deforestation and reduces the quantity of biomass decaying which, in turn, cuts down on green house gas emissions.

When you visit the Pop!Tech Carbon Initiative website, you can input some information to get your annual carbon footprint. The average American’s carbon footprint is 9.44 tons of CO2. Mine was 14 tons and to offset that amount towards Paso Pacifico would work out to be only about $77 dollars)

How do you compare to that average?

Also, Mark Anderson of Wired Magazine just wrote a story about the program as a part of Wired coverage of the event.

August 29th marked the two year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

To commemorate the event for our community, Pop!Tech selected a very special installment for our August Book Club. This week, many of you will have received a copy of Chris Jordan’s book of photography, In Katrina’s Wake: Portraits of Loss from an Unnatural Disaster.

The book provides an opportunity for reflection on one of the worst natural disasters in the history of our country. All proceeds are being donated to hurricane relief charities, but the Book Club donation will be going to a new member of the Pop!Tech community - a man named Craig Howat.

A few months ago, Craig applied to receive a Participation Grant to attend this year’s conference. Craig has been a teacher in Lousiana for 12 years. When his school laboratory was destroyed by Katrina, he and his dedicated students raised funds to rebuild a brand new science center. Together, they’ve raised over $10,000 to pay for supplies and materials, and they continue to fundraise in order to complete the project. You can see architectural plans of the building at http://www.l00k.org/lulinglandlab/luling-land-lab.

We’re proud to be part of Chris Jordan’s charity and Craig Howat’s vision, and look forward to their participation at Pop!Tech this October.

The young, talented graphic designers of Project M, founded by John Bielenberg, have started a unique fundraising project entitled “This is Not Grass” for the creation of a green space in East Baltimore that will inspire others to think about the importance of open spaces in our lives.

In their own words:

(from the thisisnotgrass.com)

During the Summer of 2006, a small group of designers drove from the rural coast of Maine to the urban center of East Baltimore with one goal…

to make a positive and significant impact on a blighted community.

What they discovered when they arrived, was that they were in way over their heads. The social and political machines had been in motion long before they stepped into town and the scale of the problems were staggering. There seemed to be no hope and little they could do as designers to help a city stricken with such alarming poverty and hopelessness.

However, they learned of several efforts by people who truly love the community of East Baltimore and have dedicated their lives to improving it. These heros have inspired hope and enriched the lives of people that many have forgotten.

One of the symbols of this hope was a field of grass, lined with daisies and guarded by hand painted totem poles. The word love was spelled out with flowers, designed so that the news helicopters would photograph it from the air. What once was a haven for drug dealers and vandals, was now the pride and joy of a community. This green space transformed vacant lots and back alleys into a living part of the neighborhood that lifted the spirit of the community.

Now, these designers want to continue the efforts started from within, by asking for help from abroad. Most people take things like yards, parks, and gardens for granted, but the social and psychological impact of green space is very real. With your help, the designers of Project M 2006 hope to fund the creation of another green space in East Baltimore and inspire others to proceed and be bold.

PROJECT M 2006
John Bielenberg, Bernard Canniffe, Erik Cox, Christian Helms, Brian W. Jones, Bruce Lindsey, Dana Malas, Jim McNulty, Victor John Penner, Jillian Perez, Anne Marie Purdy, David Stychno, Charlotte Sullivan, Kodiak Starr and Mike Weikert

The folks at Project M printed a “This is Not Grass” book in February 2007 and will distribute it soon.

Pop!Tech encourages you to go to their site and contribute to their project.

Addendum (May 29, 2007):

Also check out this post about Project M’s past and upcoming projects.

Members of Project M were also the ones who did the amazing design work for the Pop!Tech 2006 Artifact book . The Artifact is a full-length book documenting the 2006 event and was printed and shipped to all participants within days of the conference ending.

Earlier this year, Pop!Tech 2005 speaker Cameron Sinclair of Architecture for Humanity (AFH) met up with Natalie Chanin, founder of “Alabama Chanin” - a line of limited-edition jewelry, clothing, home furnishings and textiles that are rendered by hand using recycled materials and local talent. The two discussed AFH’s work to help displaced families and individuals who lost their homes after Katrina.

Chanin was inspired by Cameron’s work on the Gulf coast and decided to support AFH’s rebuilding projects by designing a reverse applique (a
traditional quilting technique) shirt called “Alabama Builds“.

This very special organic couture t-shirt is $75 from Alabama Chanin and 100% of the proceeds are go to benefit AFH’s Gulf Coast Project .

As Cameron said himself, these shirts are for “Eco-warriors, hipsters and all round nice folk”. Check ‘em out.

On the heels of Brian Eno’s Pop!Cast, we are releasing his session-mate Will Wright’s presentation. He discusses how we can understand the complexities of the world around us by understanding its underlying simplicity.

Also released today, Bob Freling, Executive Director of the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) explains how bringing solar energy to remote villages can be a key to promoting health, education and economic growth in developing worlds.

Will Wright

Bob Freling

You can watch more Pop!Tech Pop!Casts at www.poptech.org/popcasts.

We also encourage you to share these Creative Commons-licensed videos on
your website, blog or other video website. If you do, please let us know
at info@poptech.org.

On Thursday evening, Pop!Tech hosted a dinner in New York City’s Harvard Club to benefit 2006 Speaker and AIDS Activist Zinhle “Zinny” Thabethe and the Siphithemba Choir (formerly Sinikithemba Choir).

But the evening was more than just a charity dinner, it was a call for action. We invited 40 senior level executives and change agent from varied fields to put our minds together for three discrete projects. The Choir, comprising of HIV + men and women from Durban, South Africa, have become independent of the McCord Hospital and are in the process of being a legally incorporated entity. Pop!Tech is helping them to achieve this as well as to secure studio recording time to produce another album, increase the Choir’s international visibility and to help them develop a self-sustaining business model.

Zinny presented her compelling story to the guests and even surprised everyone with a moving musical performance in Zulu. Copies of Keefe Murren’s documentary film iThemba | Hope were also distributed to help spread the amazing story of the Siphithemba Choir.

The dinner is the first step Pop!Tech’s growing mission to amplify the signal of inspiring projects like the Choirs and the work of Partners, the AIDS treatment program in rural South Africa where Zinny works with Dr. Krista Dong.

Check back for more developments on this project and we would also like to extend the ask to everyone on the blogosphere who would like to learn more about the Choir and help to bring awareness to their work by contacting me at june (at)poptech.org.

photos by Joshua Bright.

Ahhhh, another year…another tax season.

But the IRS offers us this temporary relief to the sting of paying taxes by instating the Telephone Excise Tax Refund. I know, sounds exciting right? Well, actually it kind of is. The government owes tax payers approximately 20 billion dollars in illegally collected taxes on telephone bills (this was a law created to help fund the Spanish American War). It may seem like a measly 20 bucks that you get back, but you can do something really exciting with that refund. Refunds for Good is an internet marketing campaign that is focused on educating Americans about this tax refund and enouraging taxpayers to consider supporting one of three nonprofit organizations.

Our friend, The Solar Electric Light Fund, is one of the organizations to which you can donate.

The great thing about refundsforgood.com is how simple they make the process. The website takes you through the entire process so that donating to organizations working towards world peace, population control and sustainable development is a snap.

Here is a YouTube video clip about the project and a feature article from the Boston Globe as well as the official press release from SELF

Pop!Tech encourages you to visit the Refunds for Good website and support one of these causes with your long awaited telephone refund.

I flew up to Camden, ME this week to meet up with my fellow Pop!Techers. As I waited for my flight at New York’s JFK, I decided to ease myself into an outdoorsy frame of mind and bought the latest issue of Outside Magazine.

The banner across cover model, Governor Schwarzenegger’s chest, reads The Green Issue. In the magazine, they list some of the Green leaders and innovators from politics, health care, architecture and Hollywood.

Entrepreneur, explorer, eligible bachelor and Pop!Tech friend David de Rothschild is featured as one of these Enviro All-Stars. David is the founder of Adventure Ecology, a program that gets kids excited about adventure and fosters an appreciation for global responsibility.

“The environment is an area that requires a great deal of energy and optimism,” David says, “and, to my mind, kids have these features in abundance.”

Here is another feature from 2006 on David and how he started Adventure Ecology (also from Outside Magazine).