What do coding, a frog and a stove have in common? When left in the hands of innovators they become problem solving agents. What is to come? Our short list of startups creating a better tomorrow include how coding is making a more resilient and prepared population, how a frog is redefining consumer choice and how a stove will save millions of lives. Lets go!
From phones to cars to medicine, technology touches every part of our lives. If you can create technology, you can change the world! – Susan Wojcicki CEO of YouTube
We all love our mac products, TV’s, tablets and other gadgets, but who will produce them in the future? In the techno loving and techno dependent era we still don’t have sufficient computer scientists for the amount of technological demand. The computer science job market is currently growing three times faster than the number of graduates. This makes us question: What is causing this mismatch? Why are we so much more interested in consuming than creating technology? Is there a solution?
Hour of Code, a non-for-profit organization is the go-to place when asking such questions.
A few years ago they realized that 9 out of 10 schools didn’t offer computer programming classes. Considering that computer programming is the ABC of technology, it is no secret that forecasts suggested that by 2020 there will be 1 million more jobs than students of computer science.
After becoming aware of such a saddening statistic, Hour of Code journeyed into transforming the future: enlightening students by making accessible free tutorials and learning material for those interested. Today, with the help of Microsoft, Zuckerberg, Page and many others – check their Indiegogo campaign – Hour of Code has been able to reach 47 million knowledge seeking youngsters and helped redefine their passions.
It is this will to create a more prepared society and a better future that makes Hour of Code featured in our social gold list. As the CEO of YouTube said, “if you create technology, you can change the world”.
Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
“What are you willing to do for the environment? This is what you are not going to do. Quit your job, leave your family, hop no a plane to Nicaragua… and end up leading an Occupy the Rainforest movement! But what you can do is: Follow the FROG!
The frog is a label that appears in all Rainforest Alliance certified products. It gives consumers a way to know that the product they buy has been produced according to sustainability standards and thus has helped to prevent deforestation, curb climate change, protect wildlife and alleviate poverty. Companies like Walmart, Dunkin Donuts, Costa Coffee, British Airways and American Airlines are Rainforest Alliance certified!
So why are we featuring the Rainforest Alliance? It seems to be a great idea. With the advent of choice saturation, the potential for a differentiating dimension that encourages green consumption just seems genius. “Need of the present without compromising the ability of future generations” should be a thought that is present in all producing and consuming endeavors. Good vision Rainforest Alliance!
This one is queen! Why? Because of it’s paradigm changing potential.
Did you know that 3 billion people use traditional stoves for cooking? That 4.3 million people die each year from indoor air pollution – more than Malaria and HIV combined? That a high % of those deaths are caused as a result of burning dangerous material in traditional cooking stoves?
The upside: this doesn’t necessarily have to continue happening!
Yes, you heard right! A passionate duet of engineers from Berkeley found a solution to this million plus unnecessary “death sentence” with their Kleancook and K2 cooking stove (coming soon).
The K2 cooking stove is a low cost, high fuel efficiency cooking stove that uses innovative combustion technology to minimize the emission of dangerous gases during combustion. To make it even better, it also uses the heat created during combustion to transfer electricity into a battery that can later on be used as a source of electricity. EINSTEIN material!
Why have we presented Energant to you? An idea that can potentially save millions of lives is just an idea that we feel is worth the ink.
These are just three startups creating a better tomorrow, and there are many others just like them. Are you using the services of any these companies? Is there something even greater that we forgot?
