The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
Review: Blue Gold–The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World’s Water
Review: The Atlas of Water, Second Edition–Mapping the World’s Most Critical Resource
Five Star and Below
Review (DVD): Blue Gold–World Water Wars
Review: Environmental Security and Global Stability–Problems and Responses
Review: The Blue Covenant–The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water
Review: The Blue Death–Disease, Disaster, and the Water We Drink
(Mission & Mandate)
ICBA’s mission is to demonstrate the value of saline water resources for the production of environmentally and economically useful plants, and to transfer its research results to national research services and communities in the Islamic world and elsewhere.
ICBA will help water-scarce countries improve the productivity, social equity and environmental sustainability of water use through an integrated water resource systems approach, with special emphasis on saline and marginal quality water.
ICBA is an applied research and development center located in Dubai, UAE. Its mission is to develop and promote the use of sustainable agricultural systems that use saline water to grow crops. The center, originally known as the Biosaline Agriculture Center, initially focused on forage production systems and ornamental plants in countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council and other parts of the Islamic world. The technologies we develop are, however, of global value and importance. Wherever farmers face problems of saline soils or irrigation with salty water, ICBA is here to help.
Related:
+ ICBA resource links
+ Global Biosaline Network
+ Oase Foundation (Biosaline products)
“The majority of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%.”
—Dr. Paul Polak, International Development Enterprises
Exhibition on view National Geographic Museum, Washington, DC through September 6, 2010
Imagine connecting item & service-requests to those lacking basic needs into a global online and mobile market forum like a Craigslist.org merged with Kiva+ SMS/txt message capabilities, something like Ushahidi, Wikimapia, as well as GoogleEarth-like & SecondLife-like 3D map to post photos and messages of requests and successful transactions without a centralized “middle-man” who manages everything.
Example: An African farmer needs a part for 1950’s Romanian pump. An aid worker posts need via UNICEF Rapid SMS. A Romanian engineer volunteers to make the part; a German pays for FedEx from Romania to Nigeria; a tourist commits to personally delivering it and posting a photograph of the farmer and repaired engine online to close out need.
It would be designed so that anyone could add “affordable” items (that meet a particular criteria) to the list. Please email earthintelnet |at| gmail.com if you have suggestions. For more info on the concept, see page 7 of the Earth Intelligence Network overview draft and this global range of nano-needs graphic. On 7/21/10 Craig Newmark of Craigslist.org sent this email: “..a number of people say they're working on similar efforts,” but he did not specify. Another great example is Practical Action's “Practical Presents” store where a goat, fish cage, farm tools, and many more products can be purchased for donation.
Global Range of Needs Index/Map/Forum could include the following items:
+ Cheap colloidal silver-treated water filters: see Potters Without Borders & Potters for Peace
+ Lifestraw, the one person water filter that can be worn around the neck
+ Saline water condenses into drinkable water using the WaterCone (video) (product info)
+ Various water storage products (bladder & plastic lined pond)
+ Peanut butter project (child malnutrition) connected with UNICEF, Doctors without Borders, USAID, etc and PlumpyNut
+ Affordable burn-proof stove | Guatemala Stove Project | stoves fr the Congo | Darfurstoves.org
+ Hand-Crank Battery-Free Dynamo Flashlight | “Light Up the World” solar powered battery L.E.D. lighting
+ List of innovations here from the Honey Bee Network
+ Cell phones (regionally compatible) / One Mobile per Human / One Mobile per Child / instead of just One Laptop per Child (see the $12 computer project) There are phone donation campaigns but the closest one found so far aims only at health care workers. And this wireless, local, do-it-yourself, telephone company toolkit.
+ KICKSTART water pumps for crop farming
+ Micro-irrigation systems for small plots (mentioned in this video at the chapter 6 mark), also called PEPSEE systems (also see DripTech)
+ Moringa seeds/leaves (nutrients + water filtering)
+ “Pot-inside-Pot Cooler” filled with sand and water (see 36 sec video). When that water evaporates, it pulls heat from the interior of the smaller pot, in which vegetables and fruits can be kept. See this African “refrigerator” called Zeer Pot (also: link1 | link2 | link3) which can keep meat fresh for five days mentioned in the book Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.
+ Shoes (Soles4Souls.org)
+ Shelter (mini-domes) and Architectureforhumanity.org (video in Haiti), Open Architecture Network, rammed earth, tires, and plastic bottle innovation, Earthship Biotecture, Grassroots United, and Uber Shelter (video).
+ 10 cent blood-type test, 99 cent ovarian cancer blood test
+ Toothpaste & toothbrushes or teeth-cleaning twigs | African twig brush/chew sticks (sell to Westerners, sold here) | traveler feedback on chewsticks | Miswak | Other African info and some historical perspective on chew sticks
+ Solar dynamo radios + Farm Radio (African rural poor)| Healthy Radio
+ Bicycles / bicycles for humanity (and locks!) ONE | TWO
+ Devices powered by bicycle (Global Cycle Solutions)
+ Durable versatile safer wheelchairs Video 1 | Video 2 | Whirlwind Wheelchairs International (open source)
+ Affordable prosthetics, eyeglasses, mobile eye exam lense
Other needs: medical supplies ($3 negative pressure pump, telemedicine microscope, Rice Univ project list), seeds & fertilizer, toilets (see this loo, & one-time use bags), electricity and medical equipment in Afghan hospitals, products for the elderly, games for children, and services such as the needs for software to be developed where there is a desire for “Code in Country” (CIC), and a global “classifieds” tool for job-hunting via mobile SMS (Craigslist.org but with more reach and aware to those without a web connection). Continue reading “Design for the Other 90% Exhibit + “Micro-Giving” Global Needs Index to Connect Rich to Poor/Fullfill Global-to-Local Requests”
AidData attempts to capture the universe of development finance and foreign aid, increase the value of data by providing more descriptive information about development activities, provide data in an accessible format, and strengthen efforts to improve donor and recipient strategic planning and coordination. The PLAID Project — the predecessor to AidData — benefits from significant support given by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, Richard and Judy Finch, and the National Science Foundation. PLAID is a partnership of the College of William and Mary and Brigham Young University. Its successor, AidData, is a merger of PLAID and the Development Gateway's Accessible Information on Development Activities (AiDA) Additionally, our work would not be possible without the institutional support of the College of William and Mary, Brigham Young University, and the Development Gateway Foundation.
The AidData team is committed to building an easy-to-use, comprehensive, and timely resource describing the universe of development finance project-by-project, including all grants and loans committed by all major bilateral and multilateral aid donors. We currently have the most comprehensive database on development finance, but have plenty of additional work to do. Better data will help increase aid targeting and coordination, and it will enable better measurement and evaluation of aid effectiveness. AidData is currently developing a publicly-accessible interface that will enable researchers, field workers, and policy makers interested in development finance to access detailed project level data in order to increase transparency, accountability, and effectiveness.
+ Host: London-based International Centre for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence
+ Partners, Affiliates, Financial Support: National Defense Univ, Rena & Sami David, The Rockefeller Foundation, Public Safety Canada, Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation, Centre for Policy Research, New Dehli, Dept of War Studies , King's College London, Inst for Strategic Threat Analysis & Response, Univ of Penn, International Inst for Counter-Terrorism, Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Pakistan Inst for Peace Studies, Regional Centre on Conflict Prevention, Jordan Inst of Diplomacy
> Overall, disappointing but reviewing these notes shows there are some good nuggets to take + connect.
BIGGEST SURPRISE = NOT ONE MENTION ABOUT FINANCING OF TERRORISM
Continue reading “Event Report: 30 Jun-1 July, NYC – ICSR Peace and Security Summit”
Where We Are Winning – Where We Are Losing:
Futurologists Publish Annual Report on Major World Problems and Opportunities
Berlin 7th July 2010 – Can civilization implement solutions fast enough to keep ahead of the looming challenges? The Millennium Project, a global independent think tank of futurologists, and thought leaders, today published its 14th report on global perspectives in Germany and around the world. Until two years ago the report showed a positive trend in the so-called “State of the Future Index” (SOFI). Triggered by the financial and economic crises and the failure of the climate conference in Copenhagen, the current SOFI shows that the prospects of success in solving some major global challenges have become somewhat clouded.
What the authors see as lacking the most, according to Jerome Glenn,
Director of the Millennium Project, are a serried of serious global
strategies to be implemented by governments, companies, NGOs, UN
institutions and other international bodies.” The world is in a race between
implementing ever-increasing ways to improve the human condition and the
seemingly ever-increasing complexity and scale of global problems. After 14
years of research into the future within the framework of the Millennium
Project it is increasingly clear that the world has the necessary capacity
to cope with its problems. However, it remains unclear whether humankind
will make the right decisions on the scale necessary to meet the global
challenges appropriately”, said Glenn.
Among the regular sections in the ninety page ‘State of the Future' report
are the annually updated analyses of the fifteen key global challenges, as
well as the publication of the State of the Future Index (SOFI). The index
identifies areas in which there has been either an improvement or
deterioration during the past 20 years and creates projections for these
scenarios over the coming decade. All relevant and recognised studies by the
UN or World Bank are distilled as part of these projections.
On individual results of the State of the Future Index:
Where We Are Winning
Continue reading “Where We Are Winning – Where We Are Losing: Futurologists Publish Annual Report on Major World Problems and Opportunities”
For a so called independent event there are a ‘number' of mainstream players involved such as National Geographic, World Wildlife Fund, UN Foundation, Richard Branson's “Carbon War Room,” and Greenpeace (speakers).
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Location:
Woolly Mammoth Theatre
641 D Street, NW (7th & D)
Washington, DC
Comment: It will be interesting to see how many events develop like this that address poverty/wealth creation strategies and infectious diseases (see: analytical matrix card).
