Need Money for your ideas then read this

You got a Idea that will help  India and it’s citizens? You can submit your ideas related to technology, infrastructure and transportation, energy, agriculture  and social entrepreneurship to Mahindra and get money in the form of funding upto Rupees 10  lakhs

A couple of ideas are selected in the first round. If you are interested you can check it here for more details http://www.sparktherise.com/

One of the company that got funding is KFP rainwater harvesting. The system gathers large amounts of rainwater underground using a durable plastic sheet. More details can be obtained by here http://www.varshajal.com/

Oil spillage Clean up

The X Prize Foundation, a non-profit organization announced the winners of the two companies  Team Elastec of Illinois and NOFI of Norway.  They where able to clean the BP OIL Spillage from the gulf coast the most efficient way. The conditions X prize foundation put forth is that the Teams should skim  minumum of 2500 gallons per minute of oil from the surface of the ocean water with a efficiency ration of atleast 70%. Read more here http://www.iprizecleanoceans.org/blog/2011/10/11/and-winners-are

Business Ideas. Develop apps without knowing software code.

Ideas for would be entrepreneurs

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/supermechanical/twine-listen-to-your-world-talk-to-the-internet

http://www.sparkdevices.com/demo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=B9qCLs8txBo

Clean water for cheap: Lukas jager developed  a bowl that can be used for purifying water.  The bowls are made of a clay and sawdust mix that is fired at 850 degrees Celsius. The sawdust burns away during firing leaving behind pores in the clay that make it ideal for purifying liquids at a fast rate. By adding colloidal silver, remaining traces of bacteria are killed, extending the shelf life of the final product. look for pictures here http://www.lukasjager.nl/waterschap.html

How to hide your emails from tracking

How To Hide Your Email: What Petraeus Did & What He Should Have Done

New ideas for a start up business in Philanthropic area

A organization called “Catchafire” http://www.catchafire.org/ creates new opportunities for talent based generosity. The website allows accomplished professionals with variety of skills who are looking for ways to put those same skills to good use for non-profits, social enterprises and NGO’s (it’s a kind of skills based philanthropy) join them . Catchafire will match the skills with non-profit projects based upon your skills and interests. The projects these professionals work are of high impact and high value for the society, spanning from few hours to many months.  Check out and see how your skills will be of good use for the betterment of the planet’s living beings at the site.

Nature”s article on generosity http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7416/full/nature11467.html

http://generosityresearch.nd.edu/

Some links to those who are already working in this area are as follows

http://www.akshayapatra.org/

http://www.globalgiving.org/

http://www.pencilsofpromise.org/

http://www.nextbillion.net/blog

http://www.changemakers.com/sustainableurbanhousing

http://www.pih.org/

http://poptech.org/about

http://www.one.org/c/international/issue/3803/

http://www.globalpovertyproject.com/

http://www.akdn.org/akf

http://everymothercounts.org/

http://www.charitywater.org/

http://www.crowdrise.com/

http://hopemob.org/

http://invisiblepeople.tv/blog/

Develop Apps without knowing code

http://www.theappbuilder.com/

http://ifttt.com/wtf

Using Whale example to explore deep in the ocean.

http://poptech.org/popcasts/kelly_benoitbird_marine_acoustics

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_echosounder

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/03/110316153133.htm

Pure water from salt water the cheaper way. Refrigerated by sunlight

Here is a a sustainable and useful idea for those living near the sea to use ocean water to get pure water. A clever design by Gabriel Diamanti gives 5 liters of fresh water from salt water. The method is very simple. He built a clay pot, a solar plate to heat and vaporize the salt water for desalination (vaporizing  salt water) , a metal base and collecting vessel.  Sun heats the salt water and condensation takes place. The water vapor is then collected at the bottom where it is cooler than on the top. This water is pure water and drinkable. Salt and other waste is cleaned out from the top for reuse of the same for more water.  Five Liters of  water can be collected on a good sunlight day. This idea should be made popular in our country since it is very cheap and effective way of collecting pure water in small scale by villagers. The following links gives you the pictures and the idea of how to build one for yourselves.

http://www.gabrielediamanti.com/projects/eliodomestico

http://www.core77designawards.com/2012/recipients/eliodomestico/

For more water related resources check the below websites.

http://water.org/water-crisis/water-facts/water/

http://water.org/news/resources/

For those students who want to do live projects the below resources gives you more ideas. Check them

http://www.gabrielediamanti.com/

http://jap.hu/electronic/

http://www.ifixit.com/

http://www.semiconductor-today.com/news_items/2012/SEP/NTNU_170912.html

http://www.ideo.com/work/#work_categories

http://www.new-startups.com/electronics/

http://iprojectideas.blogspot.in/2009/09/civil-engineering-project-ideas.html

http://www.diynetwork.com/

http://www.codeforge.com/s/0/software-mini-projects

http://www.lce.com/Mechanical_Engineering_Project_Examples_327.html

Refrigeration by sunlight

Science  daily carries a article on how sun’s rays are used for cooling food that is kept in a fridge. The process involves heating water to 200 degrees F and then uses the heat to drive a compressor that lowers the temperature of a refrigerant in the fridge. With very hot climate in India I think this is a good solution of keeping farmers vegetable and fruit crops fresh until they are sold in the market. This method is environment friendly, reduces the usage of electricity to minimum.

I’m hoping that somebody takes this idea to implementation stage. The details about this process can be read at http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100503111531.htm

The MEDISCO project (Mediterranean food and agriculture industry applications of solar cooling technologies) has built several of these solar refrigeration plants in Mediterranean countries where sunshine is plenty.  Engineers are using concentrating collectors to direct the sunlight onto an absorber that heats water. check more details at http://www.medisco.org/about/

Actors , actress and celebrities try living as poor. Google to count Fish and water business.

Charity news

“SHE ” is the first  a charity that raises fund to educate girl students in developing world. http://www.shesthefirst.org/

Do something is a effort that gathers  students to help others.  Check more details here http://www.dosomething.org/

A innovative projects called “Live below the line’  https://www.livebelowtheline.com/  asks celebrities to live below poverty line life style for a budget of $1.50. It already attracted 25 000 people to experience poverty real time. The money raised by this effort will go for funding charities focused on hunger and the developing world, http://www.unicef.org/ and malaria no more http://www.malarianomore.org/

Fish news

Fisherman and Fish farmers harvest more fish than what nature can withstand. By fishing too much the eco balance of the ocean is disturbed. In order to know where fishing is done too much or too little researchers have come up with the idea of using Google earth as a tool to know how much fishing has being done. A report    http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0030546   says that  “Examining the coastline of 16 Mediterranean countries for signs of the cages in which fish farmers raise their herds, the researchers estimated the 2006 production at 225,736 tons, a shade more (but not a statistically relevant amount more) than the 199,542 tons reported to the FAO by fishermen.  More than 90% of the coastline was well documented in Google’s map database, and the UN publishes extensive statistics on the ocean cage fish industry. That made accounting for the sector relatively straightforward compared to attempts at estimating fishing production for commercial, high-seas fisheries in intentional waters or subsistence fisheries.” http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-501369_162-20117650.htm

The use of Google earth is particularly very useful because the days of expensive use of satellite images are not required any more. Hope our state and central  government agencies  are smart enough to use Google earth images for various programs they conduct for agriculture, fishing and mapping towns and cities and other social needs.

Water Initiative:

Fresh water is a scarce resource and is estimated to be a $1 trillion business by 2020. check more here http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/scarcity.shtml Most of the clean Water that comes thru municipal pipes get’s wasted in flushing toilets or cleaning clothes or for many other household chores. Very little amount of clean water goes for drinking. This is a huge waste of money maintaining clean water all thru the pipelines which sometimes break and contaminate the clean water and thus causing more damage to health of the people who drink it. It requires large amounts of money to run a company to clean water and send it thru pipelines. This is again waste of money when very little amount of water is used for drinking.

A investment strategist Kevin McGovern found this problem as an opportunity to bring  together materials science researchers and water experts from around the world to create  water filters that remove the biggest health threats (such as pathogens, arsenic, fluoride, and other chemicals). They came up with a  water cooler that  can be hooked up to a  kitchen tap or other supply pipe to provide quality water when and where it’s needed. With this he was able to eliminate the expensive process of cleaning the water and sending it thru pipelines and only 2% is drinkable at the end. The group has successfully installed water coolers all over Mexico and even the government of Mexico  offices are all having one in their offices. In India and other Asian countries this is a big opportunity if some one can come up with the similar kind of idea or join forces with him to bring that technology to India. http://thewaterinitiative.com/

Man made Photosynthesis:  In Another news by Nature Royal Institute of technology scientists have come very close to mimic plant’s photosynthesis process by creating a catalyst that can break water molecules (H2o) to Hydrogen and Oxygen . Read more here http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/v4/n5/full/nchem.1301.html

http://www.kth.se/en

Thirst

We take water for granted. Water is not just a concern for the future but is quite clearly a current Issue. Water issues must be framed in the wider context, including issues of efficiency of distribution , availability of safe, clean water, improving water resources, reducing travel and  transport time of water distributions, focusing on documenting how companies are using the water resources and how they handle pollutants etc. Based on current projections and research global population growth is set to rise from 6.7 billion today to over 9 billion in 2050. Unlike fossil fuels, water has no substitutes or alternatives and the way that water is currently managed in many countries is simply unsustainable.

Recently New York city’s Department of Design and construction worked with a team to provide guidelines on how to save water. Find more details of this good project at http://new.pentagram.com/2011/09/new-work-water-matters/

Our Municipal corporation , state Govt. should work with builders, engineers, architects to make sure water usage and distribution is done well while permitting building constructions or infrastructure development of a town or a city.

Did you know that water makes 60% of human body, 80% of blood, 70% of brain. We can survive a month without food but we cannot survive without water for more than a week. Water that existed for millions of years exists today also and it covers most of the planet. Only 3% of that is fresh water and most of that is ice and 1% is used by humans and industry.

Did you know that most of the water is wasted in over pumping,  flushing toilets, washing clothes ,   leaking pipes, taking showers (10 minute shower uses 50 gallons of water) , filling bath tubs,  brushing teeth while tap running(4 gallons but without tap running it just .25 gallons)

Did you know that millions of people live on less than 3 gallons of water per day? Millions of people are becoming refugees because of contamination in water and they are forced to move out of their homelands. On top of this we are now experiencing global warming and extreme weathers with floods in some places and dry lands in some places. One in five doesn’t have clean water to drink. According to United Nations a child dies due to contaminated water every 15 seconds. We might run out of water before we run out of oil.

As both the world population and the demand for clean water are increasing, water availability is decreasing in some locations around the world. We are already experiencing the scarcity of water for agriculture use in India. We saw India suffering from losses in food production and high prices of agricultural products. Our Water problem is becoming a hunger problem too.  check the below links

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=is-india-running-out-of-water

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=climate-change-impacts-staple-crop-yields

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=wasted-food-equals-wasted-energy-10-10-03

Heavy use of water by industry is building up pressure on this precious natural resource too. There is some awareness by global corporations about  the water problem and they are taking some steps

The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) has turned its attention to water as well and recently released the results of its first Water Disclosure (WD) questionnaire More can be learnt here (https://www.cdproject.net/CDPResults/CDP-2010-Water-Disclosure-Global-Report.pdf)

Here are a few highlights from the 2010 CDP WD report, which went out to 302 of the world’s largest companies. Of the respondents (and 25 unsolicited submissions)…

• 50 percent of the companies foresee near-term risks (1 to 5 years), with 39 percent currently experiencing impacts such as disruption to operations from drought or flooding, declining water quality, and increases in water prices.
• 67 percent already report on water related issues to the board or executive committee level.
• 89 percent have developed specific water policies, strategies and plans
• 60 percent have set water-related performance targets

And the CDP WD is not alone — several key reports on water risk and opportunity have recently been released.  Check this links for more information.

http://www.sabmiller.com/files/reports/water_future_report.pdf

http://www.edf.org/documents/490_AQUA.pdf

http://www.2030waterresourcesgroup.com/water_full/Charting_Our_Water_Future_Final.pdf

http://www.croptrust.org/main/laboutus.php

http://www.nature.org/ The Nature Conservancy protects Earth’s most important natural places — for you and future generations — through great science and smart partnerships

http://www.unep.org/dewa/vitalwater/index.html

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has taken a lead position over the last 30 years, in assessing and monitoring the state of global water resources and their use and management. In collaboration with partners and collaborating centers, it collates and analyzes water resource data on a global scale.

Finally water is desired, beneficial and  necessary.

Now you know that we live in a thirsty world. We are all thirsty, agriculture is thirsty, industry is thirsty. It is time we take a serious look of how we use water daily. Do your best to rethink about this issue and please let your friends also be made aware about water problem?

Water will be next issue for war between countries in future.

some more links on water http://www.watercanary.com/Water_Canary.html

http://www.varshajal.com/

Story telling clock, Floating solar grids, Liquid electricity

A guy named Mike Bodge realized that every second some on twitter is mentioning about what time it is while tweeting something. By mining the time and what is told Bodge developed a clock called Chirp clock that tells you a mini story (a tweet) every minute. With this twist a dumb time clock becomes a story teller of what people are tweeting every second. The time will be displayed based on where you are on the globe and stories or tweets will be running in the background. When you are alone or bored this time piece becomes your story teller every second. Check out this cool idea in action at  below links

http://chirpclock.com/#  Mike bodge’s link http://bod.ge/

Floating solar grids

While most of the solar energy is generated by panels that are sitting on vast areas of land , water that covers 1/3^rd of the planet was lying waste until Solaris a Israel based company came up with an idea of floating solar grids in waste water treatment plants. The idea can be used in other places such as wastewater ponds, sewage treatment pools, dams, and reservoirs also. Solaris came up with this idea by accident. They are trying to solve a problem of concentrated solar panels heating up fast and in order to cool those down they realized the new idea of floating solar grids on the water surface. The water evaporated will cool the grids and also generates electricity while floating on the water surface. It is so beneficial to develop solar systems to be on water than on land since land is not available for huge solar plants to be established while we have vast oceans lying around us. With a combination of ocean thermal energy, solar and wind energy this idea can generate a viable business for enterprising business people. Get to know more from the following links

http://www.solaris-synergy.com/

http://www.ecomagination.com/bobbing-for-power-floating-solar-panels-show-potential

Liquid electricity A group  of scientists came up with storing liquid electrictiy with the help of a bacteria   Ralstonia eutropha that is genetically modified to generate electricity fuel and CO2 as byproduct. Learn more from the following links

http://microbewiki.kenyon.edu/index.php/Ralstonia_eutropha

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=turning-carbon-dioxide-back-into-fuel

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6076/1596.abstract

Save money on mobile use, Water news and 2011 world solar car race

We have different requirements when it comes to Mobile use. Don’t know which Mobile service plans is cheapest for your mobile use? Here is a app for andriod phones to know which plan is best for your kind of usage. click here to download the app.

https://market.android.com/details?id=com.threegsimplified.planhound

Planhound app secured third position in NASSCOM emerge contest. Click here to know more

http://emerge.nasscom.in/2011/08/nasscom-emerge-appfame-2011-%E2%80%93-and-the-winner-is/

 

In case you are using other kind of phones then click here to know which mobile plan suits your requirement.  http://www.3gsimplified.com/search/index

 

Water news

We are facing sever shortage of water and it could become worse as the days pass by. Fresh water resources such as lakes, rivers etc are polluted more and more by humans and industrial wastes that are allowed into them. The only alternate for abundant water is oceans. But separating salt and other chemicals from ocean water is very expensive and there is lot of research going on to reduce the cost of extracting pure water from oceans.

Reverse osmosis is the process of getting clean water from ocean is widely used method in the world. But it is expensive and extensive research to reduce the cost has reached their limits as per a report in science magazine. http://www.sciencemag.org/content/333/6043/712

A team from Yale university are trying to change entire process, by making a series of membranes for the pre- and post-treatment stages of desalination. Click here to read more about this research.  http://opac.yale.edu/news/article.aspx?id=8775

If any of us come out with a cheap method of cleaning ocean water we could solve water crises not only for India but to many parts of the world. Israel is the country which pioneered water purification process so much and they are world leaders in preservation of water. Recently they built another purification plant at a cost of $423 million. Read more here.  http://planetark.org/enviro-news/item/62884

2011 World Solar Challenge

This year’s World Solar car racing Challenge 2011 Darwin to Adelaide is the largest  and the stage is set for an adventure of epic proportions, contested by 21 countries. It’s a 1,800-mile solar car race through the Australian outback. Participants this year come from the U.S., UK, China, India, Japan, Saudi Arabia and more, to race their often student-designed solar car prototypes, each vying for their moment in the sun. The race stretches from Darwin to Adelaide, and according to the rules of the race, this distance must be cleared with at least 90 percent of the cars’ energy coming from the sun. More can be read here http://www.worldsolarchallenge.org/news_and_information

Some of the competitor details can be obtained here

http://mitsolar.blogspot.com/

http://www.sunswift.com/

http://solarcar.stanford.edu/blog

http://www.philsolarchallenge.org/pscs/projects/sikat-ii

http://www.cuer.co.uk/cars/endeavour/

Delhi Technological University’s Avenir is India’s contender in the race this year. It runs on a lithium phosphate battery, and has a cruising speed of 40 mph and a max speed of 52 mph. The team’s big sponsors this year include IndianOil and IndoSolar.

http://energy.einnews.com/news/india-energy-storage

New research in Purification of water

Lot’s of experimentation and research is going on in finding a cheap solution to purify water. Some of them are are looking promising for further research.

1. Sand can be used in purifying water cheaply. But pure sand cannot filter deadly chemicals from a dirty pond. Rice university professors has developed a ‘Coated sand’ by coating sand with Graphite oxide (the one used in making the lead in the pencil we use). Graphite oxide is cheap , sand is cheap so it is one solution we should look forward to for purifying water. More details about this research can be found by clicking here.  http://www.wateronline.com/article.mvc/Coated-Sand-Excels-At-Water-Purification-0001
2. TATA Swach: Tata’s filter, which lasts 200 days for an average family of five, uses a combination of paddy husk ash and tiny silver particles to kill 80% of all bacteria that cause waterborne disease.  TATA swach costs around Rs 1000(one thousand Indian repees). http://www.physorg.com/news179390123.html
3. Assistant Professor Norma Alcantar from university of Florida found that when the mucus of the cactus plant is mixed with water contaminated with sediments and bacterium Bacillus cereus quickly filters them to the bottom of the water container. More about this can be read here http://inhabitat.com/cactus-gum-can-purify-water-cheaply-and-effectively/
4. Researchers at MIT are working on a fog-harvesting device inspired by the Namib Beetle, an African species that gathers water droplets from the morning fog on its back and lets the moisture roll into its mouth.
5. We should closely take a look at the chemical ALUM that is used in villages to purify water. More research is needed to find if alum can be used for purification of water. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alum

 

 

 

 

Water opportunities

World is facing a severe water shortage and desalination of sea water is very expensive. Industrial desalination involves huge amount of electricity consumption that makes the business non profitable. If you can solve these problems of purifying sea water cheap or reduce the cost of making solar energy cheap so that it can be used in desalination process of water,  you will be solving the most challenging global problems and you can also make money in the process. Here is the challenges we are facing regarding water.

” A cheap way to extract salt from seawater so we can drink it? Several countries are already dealing with the impact of rising populations and shrinking lakes and wells without water. For example, in Amman, Jordan there is scarcity of water. Droughts in China , INDIA, Australia and Ukraine have led to crop failures, rising food prices and dwindling grain stocks.

In the middle of the 20th century, the world had about 4,000 cubic meters of fresh water per person per year, according to DHI Water group http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9925900-54.html#ixzz1Imw1VSbu . Now we’re close, globally, to 1,000 cubic meters per person per year — and 1,000 cubic meters per person per year is defined as water scarcity.

Since 97 percent of the world’s accessible water is in the ocean, inexpensive green technology like desalination — the process of turning seawater into fresh — would open up vast new sources.

Beef production accounts for 1.3 percent of calories consumed by the global human population, but cattle occupy 60 percent of the agricultural land. It takes 31.5 kilowatt hours and 2,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat. Grain for human consumption takes less than a kilowatt-hour and 25 gallons, according to various estimates.”

So now you know the impact you can make if you can find a cheaper way of desalinating sea water or finding a cheaper solar technology to generate enough electricity for all the industrial , agricultural and human use. Try your best and start finding some solutions. Good luck.

Carbon and water foot prints

https://www.cdproject.net/en-US/Pages/HomePage.aspx “The Carbon Disclosure Project is an independent not-for-profit organization holding the largest database of primary corporate climate change information in the world.

Thousands of organizations from across the world’s major economies measure and disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, water use and climate change strategies through CDP. We put this information at the heart of financial and policy decision-making.”