Google is asking for the world to vote for one of 16 initiatives that it can support with its resources. The voting ends October 8. Get to the link to look over the project ideas and vote at Project 10100.
Google began a call for ideas a year ago and received more than 150,000 ideas from people in 170 countries. Google staff sifted through the proposals grouped them and came up with the 16 best representations of the “big ideas” from around the world. Presumably, all of the ideas that Google has proposed for a vote it considers “do-able” from the perspective of being a good use of Google resources.
A number of the initiatives have great potential benefit to the environment and to the creation of green jobs world-wide. Others are perhaps more broad in scope, but will increase communication and the standard of living world-wide so that people in developing and war-torn countries have a better chance of gaining first world educations and contributing to the world economy. All of the projects that offer components of education, communication and resource allocation have the potential of being used to help the environment.
The most directly green proposals include:
Work toward socially conscious tax reform world-wide so that tax systems replace income based systems with societal sustainability and development systems. For example, this proposal asks Google to lead the effort toward taxes that are based on smart consumption, wise use of resources, and socially beneficial works.
Encourage positive media depictions of engineers and scientists to encourage the next generation to pursue careers in these fields. Our research into creating green jobs leads us to a conclusion that unless more young people choose a career in science and engineering there will not be enough trained workers in these fields to drive the massive changes to use of renewable energy, energy efficiency and a clean environment that must occur in order to stem global warming. So, in our opinion, this is a critical need.
The last proposal goes hand in hand with another proposal: Enhance education in science and engineering. Ideas included building a virtual science lab, building a math based game, and other online tools that will encourage math and science-related creativity.
Drive innovation in public transport is another energy-related initiative that is up for a vote at the Google site. This proposal would have Google help support the development of new transportation technologies that will use less energy and allow millions of people to get around more cheaply and with a reduced carbon footprint. There were ideas such as hydrogen-powered bicycle, an airship that is used for commuter travel, and many more ideas in this sector. Google’s part would be to drive innovation toward making some of these ideas a reality.
There are many other worthy projects proposed, some of which would surely lead to a better use of technology and educational resources to drive innovation and improve use of human resources world wide. These include finding more efficient ways to remove landmines from former war zones; creating a real world issue reporting system that would allow reporting of crimes and environmental issues to the proper authorities world wide; promoting health monitoring and data analysis; creating a genocide monitoring and reporting system; building a real time user reported news service; creating a real-time natural crisis tracking system; creating a website that makes government more transparent to people around the world; helping social entrepreneurs drive change; providing quality education for African students.
Now is your opportunity to make your voice heard with Google by voting for one of the Project 10100 proposals.
Green Research Council
