15:37
CAMBRIDGE,
MA – The Climate CoLab, a project at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (MIT), uses online contests to find innovative, new ways to
address global climate change. Today, the Grand Prize and Honorable
Mention winners were announced at the Climate CoLab’s 2014 conference.
The Grand Prize winner, Danielle Dahan, took home the $10,000 award for her proposal, Improve Building Energy Performance: Green Job Skills Training,
which addresses the shortage of qualified personnel to maintain the
increasingly sophisticated heating, ventilation and air conditioning
(HVAC) systems installed in green buildings today.
“As
high performance green buildings increase in complexity,” Dahan writes
in her proposal, “we need to give building technicians the skills to
maintain buildings and achieve high performance energy goals.” The
curriculum, when in full motion, is projected to save 33 trillion metric
tons of carbon each year in the United States alone.
Honorable Mention awards were given to three proposals:
A Carbon Tax in Pro-Growth Fiscal Reform,
by Adele Morris, Fellow and Policy Director of the Climate and Energy
Economics Project at the Brookings Institution. She proposes a carbon
tax that creates pro-growth tax reform, while also protecting the poor
and reducing the deficit.
A Collaborative Solutions Communication Platform,
by Anne-Marie Soulsby and Mandolin Dotto Kahindi, of Tanzania. The
proposal presents Tunza Kwa Faida (Benefits for All), a platform that
combines a radio show and two-way text messaging to help coastal
Tanzanians increase their resilience to climate change.
Democratic Finance: Energy Of the People, By the People, For the People,
by Job Taminiau, Gordon Schweitzer, Kathleen Saul and Sardar Mohazzam, a
group from the United States, Netherlands, and Pakistan. They propose
installing community-funded solar projects on unused federal rooftop
space, which, they predict could mitigate millions of tons of CO2
emissions.
These
proposals were selected by a prominent team of experts: Robert
Armstrong, Director of the MIT Energy Initiative; Hazel Markus,
Davis-Brack Professor in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University;
and Richard Schmalensee, the Howard W. Johnson Professor and Dean,
Emeritus, at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
The
Grand Prize winner and Honorable Mention awardees were selected from
the 34 proposals that won individual Climate CoLab contests. The
winning proposals were submitted by scientists, non-profit
organizations, researchers, entrepreneurs, students, and concerned
citizens. The contests ran throughout 2014 and covered a wide range of
topics, including transportation efficiency, changing social attitudes
and behavior, decarbonizing energy supply, adapting to climate change,
land use, urban resilience, and others.
All the winners were recognized at the Climate CoLab’s conference, Crowds & Climate: From Ideas to Action, held this week at MIT. The conference focused on how creative new ideas to tackle climate change can be translated into meaningful action. As a key part of the event, attendees and a set of guest experts worked with the 2014 winners to identify specific actions that can be taken to advance these innovative proposals.
All the winners were recognized at the Climate CoLab’s conference, Crowds & Climate: From Ideas to Action, held this week at MIT. The conference focused on how creative new ideas to tackle climate change can be translated into meaningful action. As a key part of the event, attendees and a set of guest experts worked with the 2014 winners to identify specific actions that can be taken to advance these innovative proposals.
Additionally,
the conference featured keynote addresses by Anthony Leiserowitz of the
Yale Project on Climate Change Communication and Jeremy Grantham of the
Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment. Plenary
panels included speakers from business, government and the non-profit
sector -- including Lockheed Martin, Braemer Energy Ventures, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, Environmental Defense Fund, and the
City of Boston-- who have launched climate change initiatives that are
making a difference today.
"This
year’s 34 winners came from 17 countries and from a very diverse set of
people," says Laur Fisher, the Climate CoLab’s Community and
Partnerships Manager. "Winners were researchers in Singapore, software
engineers in Japan, entrepreneurs in the Netherlands, and community
organizers working across Germany, Kenya and the United States. We are
very proud of them.”
“With
the Climate CoLab project, our hope is to engage the entire world – not
just experts – in developing creative and effective solutions to
address the climate change challenge,” says Professor Thomas Malone,
director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, and principal
investigator for the Climate CoLab. “And our winners represent that.
Our community now has more than 30,000 members and is doubling or
tripling in size with each round of contests. As the community continues
to grow, we hope to engage even more smart, creative people from around
the globe.”
