Site Search

Showing 101-112 of 112 results for

Chris Laszlo, PhD

Roberta Baskin

Claire Sommer

Megan Buchter, MBA

George Dionne, M. Ed.

Chuck Fowler, EMBA

Harry Halloran

Ronald E. Fry, PhD

Lindsey N. Godwin, PhD

John North, MBA

Roger Saillant

Ayushee Agarwal, PhD

Innovation Story Search

Showing 261-280 of 5593 results for

Greener Electronics for a Greener World

The company’s aim is to create appliances and products that use only a quarter of the energy consumed by current household appliances.

Mission: “To eradicate the electric load shedding in Pakistan. We believe in accomplishing our mission by replacing the power hungry appliances with SMART energy efficient alternates along with leading transition to the renewable energy.”

The partners' research and development (R&D) is part of a greater plan called “Kaamyaab Pakistan” (Rising/Successful Pakistan) under which "we have considered 500 different projects whereby we can empower people to basically set up their own business and generate their earnings without relying on any support from the government or any other person."

Conflict Free Minerals

As many other companies in the similar industry, Intel uses tantalum, tungsten, and gold in their manufacturing processes. These metals, often referred to as “conflict free,” can be mined within the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and other countries. Conflict free minerals are tantalum, tin, tungsten, and gold. They are used in everyday products such as laptops, phones, cars, jewelry, airplanes, and tablets.

A multitude of mines within these countries are controlled by rebel armed groups who exploit mine workers and use the sale of these minerals to fund violence and war. Since 1998, these militias have killed over 5 million people. They pillage against their own people if they don’t come work for them or if they’re against them they kill them and find people who will join them. The Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the poorest countries in the world. Its average citizen earns $395.25 per year. In 2009, Intel was the first company to begin an extensive investigation to develop systems to validate conflict free minerals. In 2014, they began manufacturing and shipping the first commercially available microprocessors that are conflict free for gold, tungsten, tantalum, and tin.

Coffee, Culture, and Community

Promoting social freedom, gender equity and cultural tolerance in one of the most highly-stratified corners of the world.

This is the only cultural meeting place coffee shop of its kind in Yemen. Many see it as a "second home" in the midst of the current volatility in Yemen.

Raising Organic Chickens: The Way to Reconnect Farmers to Consumers

  1. Free Birds is a social enterprise that focuses on the production of organically raised chickens. It was established through the initiative of a Philippine based movement called Gawad Kalinga which aims to end the poverty of Filipinos by first restoring their dignity.
  2. Free Birds creates models and implements technologies that empower Filipino farmers, sustainably and organically raise chickens, and enable small scale farms to scale exponentially.
  3. Free Birds provides value through the restoration of the land and province of Angat, Bulacan, while empowering Filipino farmers through the creation of sustainable, productive, and profitable models of agriculture on a very small scale farm.
  4. The owner, Louis Faure, hopes to raise chickens for people to have a healthier lifestyle because he believes that the generation today eats too much meat, which causes terrible consequences on their health and the environment due to mass production, consumption, and food processing.
  5. The social enterprise also aims to rebuild the connection between the consumers and the farmers to be able to pave their way out of poverty. This is because the Philippines today is experiencing a disconnection between the local market, resources, and supplies.
  6. Today, Louis works with three Filipinos who have helped him in making the business successful. The business is undertaking research and development for potentially discovering more profitable innovations and initiatives that could help the community.
  7. For Free Birds, the enterprise is modeled to be disruptive in the industry, enabling it to have a higher impact for business, society, and the environment.
  8. The process of producing food has become an anonymous industry, wherein food carries no love, and has less quality. That is why Free Birds has enabled farmers to be dignified and proud with the food they produce, which people can reconnect with and fully appreciate.
  9. The business plans to implement a training program for farmers to use affordable and efficient technologies. The training is an investment to improve the quality of work and increase the value of land, while maintaining low capital expenditure.
  10. By bridging the gap between the market, resources and suppliers, Free Birds is simultaneously promoting healthier and more sustainable lifestyles, as well as reducing poverty and overall economic disparity.

Education Over Obstacles

Education for Incarcerated Individuals

Connecting Curious Travelers with Micro-Entrepreneurs

Vayando is not a typical travel agency that provides guided tours of the usual vacation hot spots. Rather, Vayando creates organic experiences for tourists to learn about different cultures by connecting them with local entrepreneurs.

Celebrating Brown Boyhood with Multicultural Boy Dolls

Diverse toys for boys of color. The company says that it is "Celebrating brown boyhood with diverse toy dolls." The idea behind this is to break through social norms and stereotypes that create and reinforce hyper-masculinity and offer alternative models.

Skateboards for Plastic Free Oceans

Bureo is a company that recycles a harmful form of ocean plastic, discarded fishing nets, and fashions them into skateboards and sunglasses. Their products are designed taking inspiration from aquatic animals incorporating fish scales as the primary friction providing grips on their skateboards. They have recently started offering apparel made from 100% organic cotton with a portion of the proceeds going to "Save the Waves Coalition" which works on preserving and protecting the Chilean coastline. Fishing nets make up an estimated 10 percent of the ocean’s plastic pollution. They have embedded sustainability in their business model where they donate funds to local non-profits in Chile for every kilogram of fishing net they received, and have been certified by the Living Future Institute for their use of cradle to cradle life cycle and net positive use of water and energy.

Beyond Destination

Journey Beyond Travel arranges tailored trips full of meaningful cross-cultural experiences and in-depth personal encounters. Each trip is tailored to the personal interests each individual traveler. Journey Beyond Travel prides itself on ensuring authentic, high-quality, and rewarding adventures for their clients. The crew of Journey Beyond Travel is made up of staff and coordinators as well as independent city guides and drivers who have been with the company for over a decade.

Do Good. Do Well. A Business Model for Sustainable Development.

Revival of Ancestral Ways

Artisans of Madagascar make inspirational, home decor items using all natural materials. The artists draw upon authentic ways of their ancestors, and then donate up to 20% of their profits to funds children’s school fees.

Inclusion as a Business Model

This innovation highlights how an inclusive business culture can impact the community and society in ways that are beyond measure. The success of this company is predicated on diversity and inclusion and therefore constitutes a new and innovative telecommuting business model. They have done away with the concept of a physical office space thus evening the playing field for employees with disabilities and introduced the concept of technology as an equalizer.

Solar Lights for Women

This innovation is a partnership between several companies who united in order to empower local women in Kenya to emerge out of poverty and to become independent.

Partners who were involved in this program: MPOWERD, NewCourse, and the Maasai Wilderness Conservation Trust (MWCT).

The partnership distributed 400 Luci solar lights to Kenyan women who were organized into women's groups (WGs) and then were trained to go out and sell the Luci solar lights for 10$ each. New Course donated these Luci lights to the group of women (WGs) to resell.

Luci Solar lights is an innovation by an organization called MPOWERD (www.mpowerd.com). Their goal is to help people around the world who are living without electricity. These Luci lights produce clean energy at affordable prices. Luci lights are charged by sunlight and get up to 12 hours of light from solar.

Quote from New Course: "There are currently thirteen WGs with a total of approximately 350 women who meet regularly to conduct business, manage the affairs of the group, and discuss issues of common concern”.

The Social and Economic Relations of Food

Conflict Kitchen came about six and half years ago as an art project, but is also a social enterprise. The co-founders are Jon Rubin and Dawn Weleski, both artists. Their vision is to utilize art and food as a means to build local community and promote dialogue while providing a unique and engaging experience in Pittsburgh, PA.

The Conflict Kitchen mission is to increase the diversity of discussion in public spaces and create a sense of curiosity within the Pittsburgh community about cultures and its peoples' actual lives. This type of discussion and the learning it creates are often inhibited by governmental rhetoric about the actual lives of people from other countries, especially in countries where the U.S. is involved in conflict. The goal of Rubin and Weleski is to help people admit their own lack of familiarity and avoid "inheriting" preconceived ideas from family, friends, and the media.

Home Improvement: A Stove Story

The Paradigm Project works to “positively impact poverty” by connecting low-income families in developing areas with efficient stoves. By doing this, they improve the health of many families who use open fires as their source of food preparation, they save the environment by drastically decreasing firewood need in arid and semi arid areas, and they give family members more time to do other things such as go to school or work to support the family.

Reduce, Reuse, Upcycle

Rustbelt Reclamation, originally Reclaimed Cleveland, was formed in 2010 offering both standard and commercial products made of upcycled materials that boasted both environmental and aesthetic benefits, and was inspired by the revival of the “Steel-Belt” turned “Rust-Belt” cities. Based on demand for their product, Rustbelt Reclamation has already scaled-up, transitioning from an artisan model to larger-scale upcycle production.

Embedding Sustainability at the Foundation

Forest City's Vision aims to be the real estate leader and partner-of-choice in creating distinctive places to live, work, and shop.

Forest City is a leading owner, operator, and developer of distinctive and diversified real estate projects in select core markets, which create value for customers, shareholders, and communities through place creation, sustainable practices, and a long-term investment perspective.

Good for you. Good for the farmer.

Instead of focusing on ’what is it Sweden has to offer Gambia?’, switch to ’what is it Gambia has to offer Sweden?’. And in that answer was the whole idea - cashews, and what became Smiling Group as of today.

With Gambia’s endless amount of cashew cultivation, Smiling Group together with the farmers, came up with a model that makes it possible for the processing of the nuts to stay in the country under fair conditions and thus contribute to poverty reduction.

Today they use the same model not only in Gambia, but also in Ghana, the Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, China and India.

Eradicating Inequality With Wifi and Mobile Banking

Safaricom Ltd. is a mobile telecommunications company that focuses on transforming lives and communities through technological innovations. Safaricom uses wireless and data technology to assist in famine relief, provide economic empowerment to 25 million Kenyan citizens with mobile banking and quality education to children that have sought refuge along with their families in Kenya.

An Ecological Healing Center

Marrakesh Organics is an ecological training center with a holistic transformation intention. The farm's goal is healing the Earth and its people by creating and regenerating natural abundance. It attracts people from around the world to study and renew on once abandoned and arid land near Marrakesh, Morocco.