The map shows that ranks the nations of the world by their peacefulness according to peace index rating. The first is New Zealand and Japan in third.. How lucky I am to have permanent residency in both countries!

Visit: http://www.visionofhumanity.org/

“William Kamkwamba, from Malawi, is a born inventor. When he was 14, he built an electricity-producing windmill from spare parts and scrap, working from rough plans he found in a library book called Using Energy and modifying them to fit his needs. The windmill he built powers four lights and two radios in his family home.”

Via TED

While children have fun spinning on the PlayPump merry-go-round, clean water is pumped from underground into a 2,500-liter tank, standing seven meters above the ground.

A simple tap makes it easy for adults and children to draw water. Excess water is diverted from the storage tank back down into the borehole.

The water storage tank provides a rare opportunity to advertise in outlaying communities. All four sides of the tank are leased as billboards, with two sides for consumer advertising and the other two sides for health and educational messages. The revenue generated by this unique model pays for pump maintenance.

The design of the PlayPump water system makes it highly effective, easy to operate and very economical, keeping costs and maintenance to an absolute minimum.

Capable of producing up to 1,400 liters of water per hour at 16 rpm from a depth of 40 meters, it is effective up to a depth of 100 meters.

As part of Water For People’s integration of PlayPumps technology into its portfolio of community water options, we will modify the system and its operation to fit the needs of local communities and improve sustainability. This includes investing resources in catalyzing local entrepreneurs to service the systems, as well as reducing tank height, keeping potential advertising revenue in the community, etc.

Visit: Water For People

“Provide hope and support for the lives of children! Why not become involved in global medical and food issues through isave?

Through reports and photos, the isave application aims to inform you about serious problems happening around the world as part of such global efforts as medical services, support for children and the removal of mines.

The isave iPhone application allows you to participate in the solution to global problems via well-established Japanese NGOs/NPOs.”

visit: http://itunes.apple.com/app/isave/id365499029?mt=8#

In a place like Nairobi, You will probably need this type of solution when the lights went out. Deforestation and environmental degradation leading to frequent blackouts. One street vendor has cashed in on the crisis with this wonderful gadget called “Juakali Lamp”.

Via AfriGadget

“THIS YEAR I WILL TRY NOT TO was born out of frustration, complacency and laziness. Most designers are seduced by design trends. They’re easy to appropriate, and even easier to imitate. The challenge is to innovate. To be new. We decided the best (and most enjoyable) approach was to identify and document the most common trends we felt we had to avoid. Before long we found ourselves with a checklist of DON’Ts and a new aim: to try to be new. We may fail, but we will try.”

Visit: http://trynotto.com.au/

“Happy Planet Index (2006 data) – Green is Highest Rating, Brown is Lowest.

How should we evaluate the success of our economy? The primary method now is GDP, or Gross Domestic Product, but that measures wealth creation not real well-being. In fact it assumes that creating wealth creates well-being without any regard to who is getting wealthy and who’s not.”

Via Good

charity: water 2010 September Campaign: Clean Water for the Bayaka from charity: water on Vimeo.

Breathing Earth is a real-time simulation displays the CO2 emissions of every country in the world, as well as their birth and death rates.

Visit: http://breathingearth.net/

“It’s not just our country that’s a little over-crowded – our whole solar system is too. A fascinating colour-coded video illustrates how we have become increasingly aware of the number of asteroids flying close to Earth as telescopes improve. The footage shows the discovery of every new asteroid over the past three decades and charts it on an increasingly congested map of the solar system.”

“Created by British astronomer Scott Manley, the three-minute clip – which is the equivalent of two months per second – starts with a sprinkling of white ‘dust’ around the edge of the planets.”

Via. Mail Online

Living Wall by High-Low Tech will display at the Fuller Craft Museum. This project experiments with interactive wallpaper that can be programmed to monitor its environment, control lighting and sound, and generally serve as a beautiful and unobtrusive way to enrich environments with computation.

Visit: Fuller Craft Museum

Bicycle Portraits – everyday South Africans and their bicycles. from Bicycle Portraits on Vimeo.

South Africans Stan Engelbrecht and Nic Grobler are currently spending as much of their time as possible traveling through South Africa by bicycle to meet and photograph as many fellow cyclists out there as they can find. They are looking at who rides bicycles, why they ride them, and if they love using bicycles as a primary method of transport. Visit their constantly growing, frequently updated site –

www.bicycleportraits.co.za

The Bicycle Portraits project has raised over $15,000 though the pledge-for-reward social-network Kickstarter during their first successful fundraising effort.

For Bicycle Portraits / Part II they are raising an additional $7,500 to get them closer to realizing their goal of printing 3000 copies of the Bicycle Portraits photographic book. To find out more please visit -

www.bicycleportraits.co.za/kickstarter

Help them bring Bicycle Portraits to life and promote cycling as a means of independence for all.

Music : ‘Utata Uyadlala’ (Papa was a Rolling Stone) by African Noise Foundation

www.myspace.com/africannoisefoundation

This is one of the best minimal hand made radio I’ve ever seen. You can find a lot of sustainable inventions in Africa at Afrigadget. The site was selected “50 Best Websites in 2008″ by Time Magazine.

Visit Afrigadget