The award-winning entry was inspired by the Namib Desert Beetle, but other teams used solar-powered hot plates, conifer bark filters, and reverse osmosis in their projects engineered to provide “Clean Water for All” as part of the Applied Materials Clean Tech Competition.
Applied Materials employees are taking to the streets, the mountains, the parks and the classrooms as part of the Company’s EarthWorks campaign that celebrates Earth Day and encourages employees and their families to learn, explore and get involved this Spring.
Over the next few weeks, we will be planting trees in Alzenau, Germany, enjoying an Earth Day festival in San Jose, California, and participating in cleanup projects at Mount Fuji in Japan and at various historical sites in Korea. “Litter Gitters” will be out in full force in Whitefish, Montana and Austin, Texas employee volunteers will join the “sweep” of the city to remove waste.
Can sharing goods and services help save the planet? That was one of a number of provocative questions posed by Van Jones in a Master class offered by the Presidio Graduate School. You may recall Jones as the passionate human rights and green jobs proponent who served briefly in the Obama Administration. The problem statement with which he launched the class was that consumerism is threatening the planet’s future as we extract more and more resources and throw away more and more things, i.e. waste. Collaborative economics was described as a “nation of neighbors”, where we share with one another and rely more on our social capital than strictly upon financial capital. Jones capsulized it as follows: “do we want to treat our planet as if we are locusts (consuming the planet) or as honeybees (living, building and producing together)?”
Sharing can be part of the solution to the ecological problems that come from excess consumerism.
In today’s pop culture, the term strategic alliances often refers to players working together in a calculated manner to pick-off their opponents and remain the last survivor on the island. In this case, forging a strategic alliance is an effective survival strategy – and this strategy may be just as effective for nonprofit survival as well.
To explore the strengths of strategic alliances/collaborations for the nonprofit sector, Applied Materials brought together 48 nonprofit grantees in Austin, Texas for the Advancement Academy. The Academy is an annual training organized to increase efficiencies and community impact of the Applied Materials Foundation’s grants recipients.
The Department of Energy announced the 20 university teams selected to participate in the next Solar Decathlon in the U.S....and California is a big winner with four teams from the Golden State. The third place winner in 2009, Santa Clara University, will be joined by newcomers Stanford, University of Southern California, and a collaboration between Southern California Institute of Architecture and California Institute of Technology.
And, none of the four teams will need to travel far.
Applied Materials was featured in two recent issues of Profiles in Diversity Journal for its executive diversity leadership and corporate philanthropy. In this month's 10th annual Women Worth Watching special issue, Applied's Dana Tribula is recognized among this year's top female executive award winners for her creative and technical leadership and initiative and achievements across her career. Applied was also honored for its commitment to advancing women in leadership.
Thunder storms and muggy weather didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the Solar Decathletes in Washington, DC last week. The teams representing 19 universities from around the world competed to build the most energy efficient, affordable and attractive solar-powered home – not easy given the conditions!
The annual Clean and Green Singapore campaign, organized by the National Environment Agency and launched by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, is aimed at inspiring Singaporeans to care for and protect the living environment by adopting an Environmentally Friendly lifestyle. In its third year, the activities for 2011 focus on instilling a sense of pride and ownership of the environment in the community, to encourage Singaporeans to do their part in sustaining a clean and green Singapore.
Imagination sparks creativity so when innovative artists join together to rethink the future of our world, the possibilities are boundless, participatory, and thought provoking.
Recently I spent four amazing, rainy hours at Shanghai’s Expo 2010. The Expo, which is built around the theme, "Better City, Better Life," is focused on the future of the urban environment and the ways in which future policies and urban strategies will influence sustainable development in large urban areas such as Shanghai.
Like many things in China, the Expo is absolutely astounding. It covers over 92 acres and expects approximately 70 million visitors during its six month run.
Solar energy has the potential to create thousands of jobs and help strengthen our economy while providing a direct benefit to the consumer. But many homeowners lack the resources to harness this abundant source of clean energy - particularly the low-income homeowner that may need to choose between paying an energy bill and feeding their family.That’s where GRID Alternatives comes in.
The National Association of Manufacturers is highlighting several manufacturing companies that are "making investments to be more energy efficient and productive while protecting the environment."
Also included are Subaru, Ford, Allied PhotoChemical and Waste Management.
On its website NAM had this to say about Applied Materials: