Generally, you go to a library to read book, it’s usually not where you go to write a book. This is an old assumption that Librii — a concept for a community-based, digitally-enhanced series of libraries in the developing world — would like to flip on its head. TED speaker Jane McGonigal has given this ambitious project a [...]

Anjan Contractor’s 3D food printer might remind you of the “replicator” popularized in Star Trek where Captain Picard was constantly interrupting himself to order tea.  Contractor’s company, Systems & Materials Research Corporation, just got a six month, $125,000 grant from NASA to create a prototype of his universal food synthesizer.    

Futurist Thomas Frey: The first time I rode on a Segway, I was confused. Even though I loved the experience, I couldn’t quite figure out how it would fit into my life. It wasn’t going to replace my car and it certainly wasn’t a substitute for my bicycle, so what exactly was it?    

 A variable rate irrigation system installed to water crops saves hundreds of thousands of gallons of water. The U.S. has seen record-setting drought in recent years. The drought has pushed everyone to look for new ways to save water. So, the The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has joined forces with America’s beer brewers to change how [...]

The New York team proposed that a net-zero park be created within a three-block-long stretch of central median running down Allen Street on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. One of the biggest challenges faced by people who are associated with building cities is being able to create open space when there seems to be none left. [...]

The organization of your dreams. What if you wanted to design the best company on earth to work for? What would it be like? Harvard Business Review asked hundreds of executives in surveys and in seminars all over the world to describe their ideal organization. This mission arose from their research into the relationship between [...]

Abod One billion people of the world’s population lives in informal communities – sometimes known as shantytowns, tent cities or, if you’re really going for the jugular, slums. Doug Sharp, president and chairman of BSB Design, came up with a tiny, inexpensive home for slum dwellers that can be built in less than one day by [...]

Traffic can be a huge burden on economic development, and just overall quality of life. Sometimes when entrepreneurs are just fed up with something that is when they come up with the most innovative ideas. Their ability to make people’s lives just a little easier, whether through a solution to a dangerous social problem or [...]

Futurist Thomas Frey: Fifteen years ago in an article I wrote for The Futurist Magazine, I made the prediction that once we had talking computers, we would soon have downloadable personalities to create a more human-like experience. I went on to suggest that most of us would actually download multiple personalities so we could interact with [...]

The Delight It’s a hard job in developed countries to maintain a safe, clean network of public toilets is where most people have other places to go to the bathroom. In countries like India, with limited facilities and a big “floating population,” it’s doubly difficult. Facilities easily get damaged and misused, and quickly become no-go [...]