sustainability

Local Motors: Successful Crowdsourcing as a Design Tool for Innovation

2 Comments / business models, collaboration, creativity, decision making, green innovation, innovation, leadership, sustainability / By

During the CoDev 2011 conference in Scottsdale, Arizona, I was impressed with a speech given by a local CEO, John (“Jay”) Rogers of Local Motors in Chandler, Arizona. This small company designs exciting new vehicles using design contests that are open to the public. Their rapidly growing community (12,000 participants so far) contributes designs and …

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Thinking Beyond Ethanol

1 Comment / agriculture, bioenergy, bioproducts, Brazil, green, green innovation, South America, start-ups, sustainability / By

Ethanol as a biofuel may soon reach practical limits in the US and frankly is clouded with questions about its economic and environmental utility. However, the fermentation systems for producing ethanol can be adapted to produce much more valuable products using special microbes developed at some of the most promising green energy and biotech companies. …

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Amyris: Great Story of Open Innovation and Renewable Products

2 Comments / bioenergy, bioproducts, Brazil, collaboration, consumer products, green, green innovation, innovation, Intellectual Assets, IP rights, open innovation, partnerships, patents, South America, start-ups, sustainability, tech transfer, universities / By

In my ongoing work on analyzing the intellectual property landscape in biofuels, one of the most impressive companies I’ve run across is Amyris, a renewable products company whose clever use of synthetic biology goes far beyond biofuels. Amyris was founded by Kinkead Reiling, Neil Renninger, and Jack D. Newman who met at Berkeley and founded …

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The BP Oil Disaster in the Gulf: Innovation Fatigue in Full Force

5 Comments / external fatigue, fatigue factors, government, green, green innovation, networks, organizational fatigue, publicity, sustainability, tech transfer, technology / By

While many US citizens are tempted to make political points from the problems we’re facing in the Gulf, there are some basic organizational issues that transcend political parties and get at one of the basic problems in responding to unexpected changes. The problem is bureaucracy and the myriad of personal and departmental incentives that are …

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Innovation and Sustainability: Lessons from the Paper Industry at PaperCon 2010

paper industry, sustainability / By

The international conference on the paper industry, PaperCon 2010, was held April 2-5 in Atlanta, Georgia, where nearly 1300 attendees gathered to learn the latest developments in areas such as papermaking, coating, and broader issues such as innovation, leadership, and sustainability. The “broader issues” are handled in the 1/3 of the program managed by PIMA, …

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