This week, I’ve been involved with Entrepreneurship Week at Stanford University. Along with lots of lectures, panels, and events, there was a big innovation challenge in which students from around the globe participated. The students were given an everyday object and then asked to create as much value as they could by innovating around it. Value could be defined and measured monetarily, socially and even environmentally. Students had to produce a video on Youtube to document their project and what impact it had. This year, the object was a rubber band and while there were a lot of interesting projects, I was most interested in those that dealt with the environment. Some of my favorite went on to be recognized:

Rubber Band Resistance
In this video, students used rubber bands to force faucets in university bathrooms to shut off when pressure was not being applied. I thought it was an effective use of a pretty difficult object that tackled a very timely subject. One of the judges (Jeff Hawkins, inventor of the Palm Pilot) didn’t like the fact that they made people work (bad user interface design I guess). Isn’t solving environmental problems going to be slightly painful (I thought to myself)? Techie geniuses are great at making our lives easier, but will solving environmental crises be an easy task? Later, I was comforted to see Jeff ride away from our building on a bike… probably not the primary means of transportation for every Silicon Valley big shot.

Use the rubber!
Another great video (albeit non-environmental) with a social message that touches on rubber bands, cooking and sex:

My buddy Justin just sent me a DVD of the film Ecosutra, a Russel Berns documentary about issues like permaculture, sustainability, and renewable energy. I don’t know if this guy is related to Ken Burns or not, but the preview on youtube looks pretty cool.

Here is a Video Blog (Vlog) response to some feedback we got about our logo. Enjoy:

In this episode, the Green Rapper heads to Redwood Creek in Marin County to talk water quality with Doug Kern. Doug is a scientist and teacher who is involved with restoration of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. Doug shows us how to collect critical data about this precious resource. Find out how clean your tap water is compared with filtered water and water from a creek. Also, the Green Rapper finally gets confronted on his bathroom manners and then freestyles about it.

Here are the results of our water quality monitoring:

Water Type	Total Dissolved Solids (mg/L)
Bottled Water	300
City Tap Water	209
City Tap Water (Brita filtered)	61.5
Redwood Creek	84.4

For our first episode, we visit our good friends at the Crissy Field Center. The Center is a certified green business and an awesome place where kids learn how to protect the environment.

As a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic, I used to take bucket baths and pour a bucket of water into the toilet to flush in lieu of running water. I had to chase down cistern trucks just like everyone else and then carry buckets of water indoors. Various government aqueduct projects came and went, and after two years passed, I really wanted to do something about the problem. Though I had neither the resources nor the time to build an aqueduct, I was able to borrow a video camera from a fellow volunteer and shoot a documentary to raise awareness.

My goal was to spread word about the precarious water situation in the community where I lived. After returning to the states, I edited the documentary, sent it around, and posted it to Google Video. Later, a friend of mine in Oviedo, D.R informed me that the water situation had improved. I don’t believe my documentary had much effect, but it was screened at several film festivals and perhaps helped some Americans become aware of their water use. Here is the video: