Imagine Cup
Congratulations to the winners of the eighth annual Imagine Cup Worldwide Finals that were recently announced in Warsaw, Poland!
With society’s growing reliance on information technology, software has become a crucial ingredient in relief activities such as disaster response and problem solving, according to Scientific American. For instance, software programs help maneuver robotic subs, which have proved very useful in the attempts to control BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. To help make further technological advances that can help in emergency situations, the Imagine Cup Worldwide competition was created eight years ago.
Imagine Cup Worldwide is the leader among student technology competitions, reports Microsoft News Center. This year Microsoft Corp sponsored the competition involving more than 325,000 high school and university students from over 100 countries, showcasing their best. Throughout the week of competition and celebration, the students got together to illustrate their real-world solutions while competing across five categories (software design, embedded software development, game design, digital media and IT challenge) and six awards for a total of $240,000 (USD) in cash prizes.
Imagine Cup projects are associated with the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals which include eliminating poverty, improving healthcare, advancing education and providing clean drinking water by 2015. Consequently, this year’s projects place the spotlight on solving challenges relating to education, the environment and healthcare, enabling students to illustrate compassion and determination in creating projects that could have positive impacts. There was a keen focus on key global issues including the creation of several projects that used social networking to deal with carbon emissions, emergency services access, and visual/hearing impairment. With such a positive focus and theme, the students have been able to use the competition as a means of developing incredible technological innovations that have the potential to help others and truly impact our world for the better.
Recently, Microsoft announced that the 2011 Finals will be held in New York City, marking the first time the competition will occur in the United States. To check out how your nation did in the competition, please see the list of winners at Microsoft News Center and please note that students’ registration for the 2011 competition has already begun at www.imaginecup.com.
Tags: design, development, disaster response, Imagine Cup, Microsoft, Millennium Development, Scientific American, software, technology, UN
Snails vs Bushmeat
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN reports that people in many African countries eat bushmeat, which tends to be more readily available and cost less than other forms of protein-based foods. Modern hunting methods including rifles and poison are used, and the hunters target any animal they find including endangered animals. Due to human population growth and related hunting, many species are liable to go extinct.
A glimmer of hope has appeared, and it’s centered around one of the smallest animals in Africa – the snail. The Wildlife Conservation Society is working near Nigeria’s Cross River National Park, where bushmeat poachers have been killing endangered gorillas. The Wildlife Conservation Society has helped local people establish snail farms, which gives the residents alternative food and livelihood options.
In fact, farming snails is likely to bring in more money for the local people than does the bushmeat trade, which makes it a favorable alternative. One reason some Africans hunt for bushmeat is that they have limited sources of income and food. The Society is testing several alternative livelihoods, of which the snail farming seems the most promising. Once built, the farms require little maintenance and quickly produce results.
Snails are considered a delicacy and delicious, which competes well with the people who like the taste of bushmeat, or think it’s more healthy.
Hopefully the snail farming will save the local animals, including the Cross River gorillas. A third of the Cross River gorillas live in the Takamanda National Park - unfortunately this does not save them from bushmeat poaching. Solutions including alternative income and food sources need to be found, then spread throughout Africa. So it may be time for us to develop a taste preference for snails, both in Africa and here at home, to fuel the market for this potential solution to the African bushmeat crisis. My apologies to the 100 Mile Diet. Does anyone want to comment on this?
Tags: 100 Mile Diet, bushmeat, Cross River, Food and Agriculture, gorilla, snails, Takamanda, UN, Wildlife Conservation Society
Wild Weather Solutions
Weather and humanitarian efforts are becoming more and more linked. The UN and its aid partners have appealed for $1.9 billion for this year for Sudan, Africa, which makes it the world’s largest humanitarian operation. Along with tribal and political violence, people are threatened by food insecurity and rising malnutrition caused by poor rains and crop failures, along with higher food prices (due to lack of supply, likely).
In Asia, an estimated EUR 2,000,000 (US $2.7 million) is needed to relieve a humanitarian disaster in Mongolia, where the winter of 2009-2010 was exceptionally cold. In fact, a natural disaster called a “Dzud” occurred, in which continuous heavy snowfall with extreme cold follows dry summers, causing a lack of grazing pastures and massive loss of livestock.
Meanwhile, South America is home to Guatemala. In the last few days the World Bank announced that it will offer an emergency loan of $85 million, and the United States will donate $112,000, as humanitarian aid to aid Guatemala following tropical storm Agatha. It rained so much that a giant sinkhole occurred in Guatemala City – surreal photos online. Around 11,000 buildings were damaged and 109 people died.
These stories from around our world all center around wild weather, a sign of climate change. We need to do more than just talk about climate change. Agreements such as the recent Canadian Forestry Agreement that Caitlin wrote about this week (see below), that helps stop climate change while saving endangered species are a good step. We need agreements like that all around the world. Greenpeace recently publicized that Nestle has agreed to get palm oil, which is in so many of our products, from only sustainable sources rather than sources that destroy huge amounts of rainforest. Yea!
Individually, we can help out through ways such as telecommuting and doing our work from home one or two days a week so we keep our vehicles off the road, reducing emissions. And conserving water by using gray water for our gardens and doing our laundry only when we have a full load, and not multiple times a day as some recent research suggested is all too common. See the California water bond article that Susie wrote below.
Working together, with everyone including businesses helping in some way, we can solve the problems of our planet Earth. Stories such as last Sunday’s article (see below) about the San Diego Zoo’s 10 Reasons for Hope show us that we can achieve amazing feats. We need to do this – as Vancouver’s Canadian Memorial Church’s sign read last year, There is No Planet B.
Tags: 10 Reasons for Hope, Agatha, Canadian Forestry Agreement, Canadian Memorial Church, Climate Change, crop failures, Dzud, Greenpeace, Guatemala, Humanitarian, Mongolia, Nestle, palm oil, San Diego Zoo, Sudan, telecommuting, UN, wild weather, World Bank
Caring About Climate Change
If you drove through Vancouver’s Kerrisdale today, or one of many other neighborhoods across North America, you may have noticed groups of people holding signs about climate change.
The group I stopped to chat with was led by Janette McIntosh of KAIROS Canada and Kevin Washbrook of Voters Taking Action on Climate Change (VTACC). They had a sizable turnout considering the freezing weather, and were received warmly by the many people driving by who honked their support.
Both organizations are grassroots and volunteer-driven. VTACC focuses on getting people involved politically on behalf of our planet with regards to climate change. When the group started in 2007, governments were not listening and although the large environmental groups were doing good work, they were not getting results. Kevin attributes this to a lack of involvement from the general public.
VTACC’s events are positive, fun and family-oriented, and include soap box derbies and parades. Occasionally the political signs appear, such as on the first day of the current international climate change conference. VTACC also organized leadership debates during the election. Their goal is to legislate serious carbon emission reductions to help stop climate change. “Climate change is not a political issue – it’s about creating the type of world we want to live in for the rest of our lives,” Kevin told me. “We’re not going to solve this unless we’re all working together.” VTACC forms alliances with other groups to accomplish goals related to climate change, as well as human rights and social justice. It’s an urgent time for action and although there are reasons to be worried, some things give Kevin great hope, including China and India announcing reduction targets, and the Canadian government’s shift in position. If groups are active now and then Copenhagen fails to reach an agreement, people will ask “why not?”.
VTACC is asking supporters to participate in a rotating fast during the Copenhagen talks – information is available on their Facebook page.
Janette McIntosh of KAIROS explained that her organization is multi-denominational and involved with climate change as well as social issues. Five years ago, Janette, a public health officer by trade, took on the issue of water abundance and went to churches to educate people. Soon after, other environmental activities related to resource extraction followed, especially in places where North American laws don’t apply. Three years ago, KAIROS decided to “focus on a longer-term, three-year climate change campaign, which gives us a chance, [as] volunteers, to become better educated and to become better advocates on the issues,” Janette explained. Being faith-based, KAIROS takes its message to congregations, and writes resources and policy documents based on Christian messages. Currently KAIROS is facing budget cuts from CIDA, which will negatively affect the international work they do.
Janette reports that some people who have witnessed old forms of environmental activism feel hesitant to get involved. Others are too busy, even lacking time to think or reflect. She approaches issues gently and takes time to build relationships and establish trust so people start to listen. In time, some join her group. She agrees that the role of stewardship is an important model. Feeling humble makes it much harder to approach our planet with an attitude of dominance. The bottom line is our relationship with ourselves, with other people, and with our planet. We need to examine who we are in relation to our world, how we live, and that we’re not alone. “In the business of going from place A, to B to C, communication dwindles – you’re not able to have meaningful conversation on issues that matter. If you’re not having those conversations, then the depth that all of us long for is not being met,” Janette suggested. Many people are not aware of how fulfilling life can be when it is lived intentionally, or with purpose.
Sometimes an overdose of climate change information — as with some media outlets during the lead up to Copenhagen — can make people feel hopeless or even desensitized. Those who get scared can bury it, pretend a threat doesn’t exist, and carry on with business as usual. Other people become overwhelmed as they stretch their energy in too many helpful ways.
There are different ways to approach this, but Janette suggests — and I agree — that people with an awareness or who have time to think, have a responsibility to help. “There has to be political analysis and an ability to work with an alliance-building and a partnership approach,” Janette suggested. Many people are helping and their voices have the right to be heard. A number of churches now have environmental committees or stewardship groups. Seattle-based Earth Ministry, for example, has a lot of activity going on to reach everyone. And we need everybody – all hands on deck, please!
The 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen started today. May great wisdom guide the decision makers and may they work together to reach an agreement that supports our planet. We wish them well.
Tags: Climate Change, Copenhagen, Earth Ministry, environment, grassroots, KAIROS, steward, UN, VTACC
