Welectricity, the innovative social network, that we have mentioned before in GLOBAL IDEAS, has won an award at the prestigious Knowledge@Wharton/Wipro Technologies Innovation Tournament. The competition was held at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania on April 27th 2011. Welectricity has excelled and beat 44 other teams, that also made it to the semifinals. Welectricity’s web-based service was judged to be the “Best New Sustainability Innovation” (full press-release here). Well, congrats for the award! The idea behind Welectricity is absolutly worth it in our opinion. It allows users to track, compare and reduce their electricity consumption at home. Users from 86 countries worldwide are participating already.

We would like to give you the opportunity to watch the report that GLOBAL IDEAS made with the help of Welectricity again. In this post you will also find an interview we did during the filming in Kingstown, St. Vincent.

ecoATM, a startup company from San Diego, has recycled the idea of cash machines. If you are living in the southern California region you may have a good chance to find one of the so called kiosks, you can see in the video below. These machines will recycle your unused tech items and give you money for the trashy things. If you have an expired cell phone, an overplayed MP3 player or used-up ink cartridge, the ecoATM will determine the product, estimated it's value and will make you and offer (you might not be able to refuse). The idea could be a goldmine not only for the company, but for the recycling market as well. Because, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the recyling potential of electronic trash is especially significant. Every year the world generates about 40 million tons of E-waste, which contains valuable quantities of gold, silver and copper. More information on the values of trash you will find here.

Sometimes it's easier to understand a complicated issue if you can play with it. Take climate change as an example. To garner support for climate action a video game is released today. The game is called Fate of the World that and it is based on state-of-the-art climate models, the developers say. Red Redemption from Oxford have created that strategy game in cooperation with the global TckTckTck campaign. People who are downloading the game are literaly ‘players’ in the climate change debate and can contribute towards real-life changes. In the game users must find a way to deal with Earth’s resources and the climate crisis. At the same time the needs of the growing world population need to be minded, such as more food, energy, and living space. TckTckTck and Red Redemption seek to increase the understanding and awareness of climate change by providing gamers with the opportunity to learn and explore the subject. More informations you will find here: http://tcktcktck.org/fotwgame/

Twice a year in Hoima, a town in the northwest of Uganda, they have a parade that goes through the streets and collects plastic garbage from the ground. The town is full of plastic bottles and other things. The problem is: it is totally dry. And when it is raining, the water just flows away and doesn´t reach the roots of the trees. This problem has been well known for years. But because of the extreme dry season the problem is getting bigger and bigger. The government tried to solve the problem. But now the bishop of the Kampala region found a way to make the people more responsible. The religious leaders in the country have a huge impact on the Ugandans. The bishop for example encourages couples to plant a tree before they get married. And guess what – it is working.

This week there are national elections in Uganda. Many people I asked about the elections told me that democracy does not work in Uganda. "What we need is a new strong dictator", a woman told me. "The people just make the wrong decisions, they don´t know what is good for the country". I travelled to the countryside near the border to the Congo. Many people in Uganda live in small villages like the one you see in the video above. Many of them are disappointed – they don't have jobs. For the past two years there has also been an extreme drought. The crime rate is rising fast. The people that I asked in the villages hope for a law-and-order president. Many say that Som daid Idi Amin, the Ugandan dictator from the 1970s was not so bad. Having the freedom and democracy movements in northern Africa in mind I was kind of shocked and surprised. Are the people expecting demonstrations and riots during the election week? 'Yes', many said. Because they are quite sure that the results of the elections are going to be rigged. I'm wondering: What do they want? Free and democratic elections and a new dictator? What are they going to demonstrate for?