As an American, it's been exciting to learn about the new ways in which Tällberg is connecting ideas on the future of energy. I come from the Pacific Northwest where the issue of where to get electricity was addressed long ago chiefly through the installation of hydro-electric dams. Woodie Guthrie wrote some great songs celebrating the completion and success of these large-scale projects that prepared my home for the 20th century.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vLZOKshJPs (I dare you to listen to this twice and not get the song stuck in your head)
Tallberg, though, has some people coming to talk about energy in the 21rst century, and the concepts are quite intriguing. Instead of huge, expensive government projects and grids, there may be small "mini-grids" where users can both take out power and put it back in. Instead of energy coming from a few large sources, instead it may come from thousands of small sources using renewable energy. Just as a sample of some of what may be coming, check these projects out:
Decentralised sustainable energy production leverage mobile phone towers, CleanStar FundCleanStar Fund, India, led by a group of young entrepreneurs in India and the UK, is partnering with the Confederation of Indian Industry, DESI Power, the Government of India, and mobile phone companies to design and implement viable models for decentralised sustainable energy production that leverage mobile towers as “anchor customers” for supplying rural energy services.
Training Barefoot Solar Engineers, Barefoot CollegeBarefoot College runs a training program for rural unemployed youth and women to become solar engineers and to manufacture solar kits - kits that are already used by 100,000 people in rural India. The program is now replicated in Ethiopia and Afghanistan.
Living in the US, it's easy to feel like you are locked into a debate between either sacrificing personal comforts for a greener lifestyle or continuing dirty, wasteful energy habits without limit. The truth is that it isn't nearly that simple, and things are changing fast. I encourage my American friends to check out different ways energy will change, and look at how you, too, might rework the world.
April 21, 2010
March 4, 2010
Water is Life
Its only a few weeks to World Water Day 22 March. In the conference Rework The World we have 5 main themes one of them is WATER, and I thought I would present some of the water projects here.
Over 1 billion people all over the world lack safe drinking water and over 2.6 billion have no access to basic sanitation facilities. One part of the problem is the lack of adequate business models for efficient water services. If we create distribution systems for water and also implement sustainable sanitation solutions and waste handling these systems can provide enormous new employment possibilities.
These fantastic projects and many more will come to Leksand on the 2nd to the 5th June to Rework The World.
Sometimes you can see the difference between good water and bad water.
Which glass would you drink from?
Which glass would you drink from?
The picture is from http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbg_photos/2419471868/
A global campaign to build awareness on sanitation and commercialize sanitation products
Jack Sim, World Toilet Organization
The 2.5 billion people without access to proper sanitation cannot be solved by charity alone. Now the World Toilet Organisation is building the market infrastructure for an efficient sanitation marketplace. The opportunity for economy of scale here is massive. The World Toilet Organisation is setting up a SaniShop franchising system, where training from how to determine local demand, starting & operating a SaniShop, promotion, installation, maintenance and a full menu of choices of products and services bundled with financing options. The ability as neutral party to convene and unite the whole global sanitation community to collaborate is unprecedented. As partner of USAID's WaterShed project, the World Toilet Organisation started the sanitation marketing program which proves very successful. Now is the moment to scale. The goal is to have complete the SaniShop franchise manual and field test it within next 12 months. To roll-out SaniShop franchises in all of Mekong region in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Burma ( about 30 SaniShops in 2011). Scale to 300 SaniShop world-wide in 2012. And let the geometrical progression continue by "power of 10" each year, meaning: 3000 in 2013, 30,000 in 2014, etc. Decentralized and globally self-sustainable model will include micro-manufacturing, micro-cosignment, micro-financing, non-interest tontine system, import of more intelligent parts from centralized design and manufacturing centers.
Selling small, simple sanitation solutions
Karin Ruiz, Peepoople
Today 2,6 billion people have no access to basic sanitation facilities. This affects both the society and the individual through the contamination of fresh water and ground water. Peepoople has re-thought the problem and by using a bottom up approach created a simple viable solution that will be able to reach the most poor. The Peepoo is a self-sanitising single-use biodegradable toilet bag and it puts the users needs first. It also opens up several opportunities for services systems to establish themselves. After use the Peepoo bag offers a value as fertilizer which enables collection and reuse systems to arise, informally or formally, privately or publicly, small scale or large scale. With one million people using the Peepoo toilet in 2015, there will be some 1000 employment opportunities for distribution and collection services.
Selling small, simple sanitation solutions: Peepoople.com
Water for All Always
Vijay Chaturvedi, Development Alternatives
In cooperation with Arghyam Trust, Development Alternatives initiated a project to increase water security in Bundelkhand, India, by involving the community in developing and delivering solutions. The management of water supplies has had a focus on conservation and on community management. Women and young people in the village have been trained to deliver and install 'Jal-TARA' water purification systems (Slow Sand Filtration technique, developed by DA) in the villages to purify bacterial contamination which is the main problem in the region. The impact of the initiative can be seen in how thewomen from these villages are now enjoying the freedom from drudgery and diverting their efforts for productive employment such as food processing or poultry rearing, to raise their income levels. In these villages, village committees are responsible for collecting payments by users of the water supplied and consumed and use water meters to keep track of excessive consumption. In certain villages the water delivery enterprises are set up by the community while in others it is set up by an individual entrepreneur. So far, the initiative has been implemented in 10 villages, generating various employment opportunities. Development Alternatives estimates that with an investment of 10Million USD over the next 5 years, the initiative has the capacity to create more than 1000 enterprises and 300 jobs in approximately 100 villages.
Water for All Always: community driven water security solutions: Development Alternatives (devalt.org)
February 3, 2010
The unemployment debate we need in Sweden
Part 2: The way forward
There is an alternative more pragmatic way forward that recognizes the limits of government programmes to create jobs, and instead tries to capture the political momentum in the employment debate to address the strategic long-term challenges that governments interventions do have the power to influence.
The first of these is social exclusion. This is a very real concern, with 5000 people under 30 permanently leaving the labour force every year, and with 10% of high school students having such poor educational record to be considered “at risk”. Social exclusion is related to employment. But the inability of groups ”at risk” to get a job is more a consequence of broader social and educational failures, than the result of unemployment. In simplified terms: it is not the inability to get a job that is the problem, it is the sense of exclusion that makes you stop looking for one. If this is recognised, new policy instruments, new actors and a new tools can be brough in to address the challenge. Furthermore, the business of social integration - alternative education, afterschool activities, etc - is in itself an emerging sector with large employment potential which must be encouraged.
The second question is the sustainability-imperative. We are facing a structural transformation of our economy of a dimension hitherto unseen in peacetime. But so far politics has failed to build anything even resembling adequate political support for the interventions required. And unless it can be shown that sustainability policies could be the way to provide the employment of the future, the support for change is certain to stay elusive.
Since employment is so central to people’s lives, that debate will always have the political centre stage. This puts a particular responsibility on politicians and interest groups to help frame the debate so that it also addresses long-term strategic issues. Politicians need to tell new stories that help voters see unfamiliar challenges in familiar terms. So far this is not happening, unfortunately.
There is an alternative more pragmatic way forward that recognizes the limits of government programmes to create jobs, and instead tries to capture the political momentum in the employment debate to address the strategic long-term challenges that governments interventions do have the power to influence.
The first of these is social exclusion. This is a very real concern, with 5000 people under 30 permanently leaving the labour force every year, and with 10% of high school students having such poor educational record to be considered “at risk”. Social exclusion is related to employment. But the inability of groups ”at risk” to get a job is more a consequence of broader social and educational failures, than the result of unemployment. In simplified terms: it is not the inability to get a job that is the problem, it is the sense of exclusion that makes you stop looking for one. If this is recognised, new policy instruments, new actors and a new tools can be brough in to address the challenge. Furthermore, the business of social integration - alternative education, afterschool activities, etc - is in itself an emerging sector with large employment potential which must be encouraged.
The second question is the sustainability-imperative. We are facing a structural transformation of our economy of a dimension hitherto unseen in peacetime. But so far politics has failed to build anything even resembling adequate political support for the interventions required. And unless it can be shown that sustainability policies could be the way to provide the employment of the future, the support for change is certain to stay elusive.
Since employment is so central to people’s lives, that debate will always have the political centre stage. This puts a particular responsibility on politicians and interest groups to help frame the debate so that it also addresses long-term strategic issues. Politicians need to tell new stories that help voters see unfamiliar challenges in familiar terms. So far this is not happening, unfortunately.
The unemployment debate we need in Sweden
Part 1: The Problem
Yet again, the election campaign ahead will be fought over jobs. With an unemployment rate approaching 10% this would always be the case. Unfortunately, the debate is already getting stuck in yesterday’s ideological conflicts, rather than pragmatically addressing the strategic issues of tomorrow. This failure to renew the debate matters, because how we tell stories matter. We are now losing an opportunity to use the political momentum around unemployment to address the two most important long-term challenges to Swedish society: social cohesion and sustainability. Rather than populistically promising to ”create jobs”, the parties should instead argue over how to prevent groups at risk from falling into long-term exclusion, and how to stimulate long-term job growth that will meet the sustainability demands of tomorrow.
The problem with the current debate is this: what voters ask for is not really in the power of governments to give. There is very little evidence that, so called, “labour market policies” - eg. employment protection, tax incentives, job matching schemes, etc - impact aggregate employment figures. In short, jobs are not “created” as the result of government policies, at least not in the quantities and time frame relevant to elections. But the debate is framed in those terms because it serves the ideological interest of groups like the main Labour Union and the Swedish Association of Enterprise. Their interest is not really unemployment numbers as such, but rather how much of the problem their members should pay for.
This of course is not to say that labour market policies don’t matter. They do, but not by affecting aggregate unemployment numbers. They provide crucial support to people who have lost their job (eg. unemployment benefits); they help redistribute the burden of unemployment between young and old (employment protection legislation); in the best of instances they help instil hope and meaning in the life of young people who may otherwise fall into crime and deprivation (eg. coaching and training schemes). Labour market policies do not however “create jobs”.
There is, in other words, a mismatch in the debate between policy instruments used and purported results, which is generally a recipe for not achieving much in any area at all.
Yet again, the election campaign ahead will be fought over jobs. With an unemployment rate approaching 10% this would always be the case. Unfortunately, the debate is already getting stuck in yesterday’s ideological conflicts, rather than pragmatically addressing the strategic issues of tomorrow. This failure to renew the debate matters, because how we tell stories matter. We are now losing an opportunity to use the political momentum around unemployment to address the two most important long-term challenges to Swedish society: social cohesion and sustainability. Rather than populistically promising to ”create jobs”, the parties should instead argue over how to prevent groups at risk from falling into long-term exclusion, and how to stimulate long-term job growth that will meet the sustainability demands of tomorrow.
The problem with the current debate is this: what voters ask for is not really in the power of governments to give. There is very little evidence that, so called, “labour market policies” - eg. employment protection, tax incentives, job matching schemes, etc - impact aggregate employment figures. In short, jobs are not “created” as the result of government policies, at least not in the quantities and time frame relevant to elections. But the debate is framed in those terms because it serves the ideological interest of groups like the main Labour Union and the Swedish Association of Enterprise. Their interest is not really unemployment numbers as such, but rather how much of the problem their members should pay for.
This of course is not to say that labour market policies don’t matter. They do, but not by affecting aggregate unemployment numbers. They provide crucial support to people who have lost their job (eg. unemployment benefits); they help redistribute the burden of unemployment between young and old (employment protection legislation); in the best of instances they help instil hope and meaning in the life of young people who may otherwise fall into crime and deprivation (eg. coaching and training schemes). Labour market policies do not however “create jobs”.
There is, in other words, a mismatch in the debate between policy instruments used and purported results, which is generally a recipe for not achieving much in any area at all.
January 22, 2010
Per Aspera Ad Astra –Through difficulties to the stars
It is almost dizzying to try and imagine what innovation and renewal could bring about as we tackle the challenges of today's complex societal crisis. This is not a time for the timid and the discouraged. It’s the time for bold visionary power.
We are convinced that we are well on the way into history's largest ever societal reconstruction project. In forty years, nine billion people need to be supplied with education, energy, food, housing, culture, transport, entertainment and rights /justice. They must live in a dynamic balance with nature. They place their hopes in technological innovation and in our ability to "Rework the World".
We have done this before, rebuilt society, but without the absolute requirement for renewal demanded by our current converging crises.
Our time is far better able to plan and manage innovation and change. If governments and companies can manage the crisis well, the shift will go fast and it will reach all humanity.
The three converging crises, whose solutions will change the world, must at the same time
• terminate the ongoing destabilization of ecosystems
• provide additional 1-1.5 billion people place in value-added work
• permanent economic growth and financial stability
We must not put a bridle on creativity and innovation. Right now new solutions are flowing from labs and creative design centers. New battery technology for renewable energy and electric automobiles; offshore wind farms with back-up wave power, windmills that draw water from arid air; a rapidly diversifying solar industry on the verge of exponential growth, from roof panels to massive desert-scale installations; harnessed photosynthesis for hydrogen home power plants; smart grid software and hardware; new sustainable closed-loop energy and waste systems in urban designs; new medical technologies; new farming methods.
Globalization accelerated in order to create higher productivity and growth. The Internet has released the new arenas of value creation and growth. Future ecological efficiency and stability in economic productivity will stimulate a different technological base for growth than that which led to ecological destruction. The good news is that this is already well underway.
To rework the world need not take more than 25 years. Growth that renews the ecosystem's capacity and puts billions more into work and welfare is what the world needs.
The world has become interdependent. Our identity and consciousness are evolving, from being simply Swedes or Indians, to being mutually dependent; and that in everything we do, we humans depend on the laws of nature.
These are the emerging patterns in the scenarios of the future. The problems that the old development gave birth to can only be solved by a new development. The paradox is that the problems created by the world are the drivers of the new world.
In June 2010 Tällberg Foundation gathers two thousand entrepreneurs from all parts of the world and many walks of life to create a vision to unleash the forces to build anew: Rework the World. In 2005 the Tällberg Foundation foresaw that the main scenario for the following few years would be bleak for the environment and economic development. Now, as these crises have pushed their way into our consciousness, change too will come, change that can take us through the difficulties to the stars.
We are convinced that we are well on the way into history's largest ever societal reconstruction project. In forty years, nine billion people need to be supplied with education, energy, food, housing, culture, transport, entertainment and rights /justice. They must live in a dynamic balance with nature. They place their hopes in technological innovation and in our ability to "Rework the World".
We have done this before, rebuilt society, but without the absolute requirement for renewal demanded by our current converging crises.
Our time is far better able to plan and manage innovation and change. If governments and companies can manage the crisis well, the shift will go fast and it will reach all humanity.
The three converging crises, whose solutions will change the world, must at the same time
• terminate the ongoing destabilization of ecosystems
• provide additional 1-1.5 billion people place in value-added work
• permanent economic growth and financial stability
We must not put a bridle on creativity and innovation. Right now new solutions are flowing from labs and creative design centers. New battery technology for renewable energy and electric automobiles; offshore wind farms with back-up wave power, windmills that draw water from arid air; a rapidly diversifying solar industry on the verge of exponential growth, from roof panels to massive desert-scale installations; harnessed photosynthesis for hydrogen home power plants; smart grid software and hardware; new sustainable closed-loop energy and waste systems in urban designs; new medical technologies; new farming methods.
Globalization accelerated in order to create higher productivity and growth. The Internet has released the new arenas of value creation and growth. Future ecological efficiency and stability in economic productivity will stimulate a different technological base for growth than that which led to ecological destruction. The good news is that this is already well underway.
To rework the world need not take more than 25 years. Growth that renews the ecosystem's capacity and puts billions more into work and welfare is what the world needs.
The world has become interdependent. Our identity and consciousness are evolving, from being simply Swedes or Indians, to being mutually dependent; and that in everything we do, we humans depend on the laws of nature.
These are the emerging patterns in the scenarios of the future. The problems that the old development gave birth to can only be solved by a new development. The paradox is that the problems created by the world are the drivers of the new world.
In June 2010 Tällberg Foundation gathers two thousand entrepreneurs from all parts of the world and many walks of life to create a vision to unleash the forces to build anew: Rework the World. In 2005 the Tällberg Foundation foresaw that the main scenario for the following few years would be bleak for the environment and economic development. Now, as these crises have pushed their way into our consciousness, change too will come, change that can take us through the difficulties to the stars.
December 22, 2009
The policy discussions at the summit
The global unemployment crises immediately and urgently calls out for a powerful response. The consequences of up to a billion unemployed and disenchanted youth in the world is unimaginable, in the north as well as in the south. Moral imperatives mandate urgent action, as does the need for social stability
We are facing an immediate social crises. This unfolds against the backdrop of an equally urgent but more long-term imperative: the required structural shift of our global economy towards ecological sustainability. Furthermore, it does so at a time when the financial crisis has already streched national accounts to historic levels and where the level of risk in the global financial and monetary system is extreme.
This situation poses very serious challenges for policy makers. The prospects of handling these in a piecemeal way are not promising. Instead, we need policy instruments that allow us to get to the logic of the present system responsible for generating the various imbalances.
Therefore, just as the summit takes its starting points in tangible ventures which carry within them answers to multiple challenges, the task of the policy discussions is to look for the policy frameworks and governance models that can solve multiple challenges, and help the emerging models on display translate into systems impact.
In other words: given the financial environment, what actions available today could simultaneously address the employment crises and support the emergence of a new kind of value creation?
The discussions will proceed form documented cases of promising policies in this area, documented and discussed in a Tällberg policy paper to be presented in the spring of 2010.
The expected outcome of the policy discussion is the general principles for a holistic global jobs programme, designed to respond to the confluence of social, financial and ecological crises - in terms of governance structure, finanical mechanisms and implementational strategy.
December 8, 2009
Changemakers in Moldova
Most of the world is now focusing on the COP15 developments. Meanwhile, in Moldova, a small country between Romania and Ukraine, where little attention is given to climate change or global negotiations, an important step on the road to sustainable solutions and environmental improvements was taken this Saturday.
In the capital Chisinau, 200 participants took part in the first nation-wide gathering of its kind, to strengthen entrepreneurship and development of small enterprises throughout the country. A much needed effort in a country that has long ranked as Europe’s poorest. Its agricultural industry – once its pride – is almost collapsed, and today a quarter of its population is working abroad (often illegally). Adding to that, the country is squeezed between the borders of EU and the almost-nextdoor neighbor Russia, with whom Moldova has frosty relations but is totally dependent on for its energy supply.
If change in a sustainable direction is to take place around the world, part of the solution lies in the entrepreneurial initiatives that are about creating brighter and more reliable futures in places such as the countryside of Moldova. If that is to happen, there need to be crowds of creative and confident entrepreneurs in the country. The need is evident, and the potential is great. These future entrepreneurs are the ones to start solar energy generation facilities to allow for secure, cheap and climate friendly energy; to start ecological farming of premium vegetables to be sold in Europe; and to open up the IT service centers of the future.
The meeting, that was held to launch the first Moldovan platform to support sustainable youth employment, provided a possibility for the 100+ participating entrepreneurs to learn about concrete possibilities for financing, incubator support and networking opportunities. Among the presenters were representatives from banks and financial institutions. They made it clear that lack of money is not Moldova's greatest problem. Funding programs in the ranges of EUR 100 million were presented. But the links between the funds and the entrepreneurs are not there, the models of the big institutions are not accessible for the small businesses. Maybe the presentations and discussions that day took a small step towards bridging that gap.
Maybe links between resources and entrepreneurs were also made by the fact that the Prime Minister, Vlad Filat, participated and explicitly offered support and asked for feedback to help make improvement in the legal frameworks –he participated together with ministers and vice ministers of finance and youth. The government is young. The Prime Minister has been in office only two months, and is eager to quickly achieve real change in a direction “towards Europe”. I hope they will.
This event was put together not by the government, not by an international organization. It was organized by a young serial entrepreneur and change-maker. Igor Casapu is in the restaurant business – and at the age of 27 he has already successfully bought, built and sold at least three cafés. He has also built an impressive network of 140 young entrepreneurs around the country, supporting them with necessary connections, advice and training. Revenues from his restaurants are making this work possible. When institutional funding is slow, his business income makes it possible to achieve change quickly. That is a social entrepreneurship model that is worth copying – for quick change in the right direction.
In the capital Chisinau, 200 participants took part in the first nation-wide gathering of its kind, to strengthen entrepreneurship and development of small enterprises throughout the country. A much needed effort in a country that has long ranked as Europe’s poorest. Its agricultural industry – once its pride – is almost collapsed, and today a quarter of its population is working abroad (often illegally). Adding to that, the country is squeezed between the borders of EU and the almost-nextdoor neighbor Russia, with whom Moldova has frosty relations but is totally dependent on for its energy supply.
If change in a sustainable direction is to take place around the world, part of the solution lies in the entrepreneurial initiatives that are about creating brighter and more reliable futures in places such as the countryside of Moldova. If that is to happen, there need to be crowds of creative and confident entrepreneurs in the country. The need is evident, and the potential is great. These future entrepreneurs are the ones to start solar energy generation facilities to allow for secure, cheap and climate friendly energy; to start ecological farming of premium vegetables to be sold in Europe; and to open up the IT service centers of the future.
The meeting, that was held to launch the first Moldovan platform to support sustainable youth employment, provided a possibility for the 100+ participating entrepreneurs to learn about concrete possibilities for financing, incubator support and networking opportunities. Among the presenters were representatives from banks and financial institutions. They made it clear that lack of money is not Moldova's greatest problem. Funding programs in the ranges of EUR 100 million were presented. But the links between the funds and the entrepreneurs are not there, the models of the big institutions are not accessible for the small businesses. Maybe the presentations and discussions that day took a small step towards bridging that gap.
Maybe links between resources and entrepreneurs were also made by the fact that the Prime Minister, Vlad Filat, participated and explicitly offered support and asked for feedback to help make improvement in the legal frameworks –he participated together with ministers and vice ministers of finance and youth. The government is young. The Prime Minister has been in office only two months, and is eager to quickly achieve real change in a direction “towards Europe”. I hope they will.
This event was put together not by the government, not by an international organization. It was organized by a young serial entrepreneur and change-maker. Igor Casapu is in the restaurant business – and at the age of 27 he has already successfully bought, built and sold at least three cafés. He has also built an impressive network of 140 young entrepreneurs around the country, supporting them with necessary connections, advice and training. Revenues from his restaurants are making this work possible. When institutional funding is slow, his business income makes it possible to achieve change quickly. That is a social entrepreneurship model that is worth copying – for quick change in the right direction.
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