Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

Search Results

You searched for: -

There are 907 results  for your search.  View and Refine Your Search Terms

  • Preserving forests while emptying trash cans? The story of a Burkinese green charcoal

    To preserve the millions of trees that are cut down just to produce coal in Burkina Faso, a Burkinese engineer created "green charcoal that would not only protect forests but also help fight against the proliferation of garbage." This ecological fuel is made from carbonized collected garbage and coconut husks, which in turn has reduced the amount of garbage that has to be managed by the authorities in charge of sanitation.

    Read More

  • ‘It's like paradise for us': the Cree Nation's fight to save the Broadback Forest

    Canopy works to preserve the untouched Broadback Forest, which stores twice as much carbon as the Amazon and is central to the Cree Nation. The nonprofit works with 750 corporations, including fashion brands, commercial printers, and publishers to reduce the amount of packaging they use and eliminate sourcing from biodiverse, ancient, and endangered forests. They help source waste from grain and other food harvests for packaging, paper, and fabric production and enlist companies’ support of conservation initiatives. They also partner with other groups to lobby the government to protect the Broadback forest.

    Read More

  • With the Hippo Roller, a revolution in fetching water rolls on

    After realizing the difficulty that people in South Africa were facing when carrying water back to their communities, two South African engineers devised a machine "that brings all the water back in one trip by rolling it." Users report that while it does not perform well on steep terrain, it can carry much larger amounts of water "effortlessly and in a single trip." So far, 60,000 of these large plastic drums have been sold, but the cost of the machine is often a barrier for those who live below the poverty line.

    Read More

  • The Lobstermen of the Eastern Yucatán

    A collective of fishers have adopted sustainable fishing practices to catch spiny lobsters in Maria Elena Bay in Mexico, while also protecting the species. To keep future lobster populations healthy, fishers will measure the tails of their catch and if it’s too small, they will toss them back to sea. Because of their efforts, lobster numbers have risen over the years, though they haven’t reached the levels seen in the 1980s.

    Read More

  • This AI startup is tackling the coronavirus disinformation deluge

    Logically is a fact-checking app that combines AI technology and human research to assess and label the truthfulness of news articles. The app has about 20,000 users after a soft launch in the UK, with a full launch planned for late 2020. The AI technology, a feature that makes the app unique, tries to match news claims to other sources and then human researchers take over to make a final judgment. The app has been busy fact-checking the extensive Covid-19 related misinformation. Some aspects, like technology glitches and slow fact-checking responses from researchers, still need to be worked out.

    Read More

  • A taste of honey: how bees mend fences between farmers and elephants Audio icon

    As the habitats of wild elephants shrink, conservationists in India are developing safer ways to reduce the number of conflicts between humans and the animal. The Wildlife Research and Conservation Society uses chili smoke and beehive fences as natural ways to divert elephants away from farmers’ crops. Since they started, there have been no casualties related to human-elephant conflict. The nonprofit Wildlife SOS uses radio collars to track the herd’s movement and alerts local villagers via WhatsApp of any potential conflicts. However, the success of some methods vary depending on the time of year.

    Read More

  • Prison Voicemail: Messages from behind bars

    Prison Voicemail is a smartphone app that lets incarcerated people in the UK stay connected to their families, improving their mental outlook while imprisoned and their chances of success once they're released. The fee-based app closes gaps left by ordinary pay phones and other means of communication by letting people communicate through recorded messages, rather than when they both happen to be available. Sound clips of families talking in this podcast drive home the profound personal impact of children and parents sharing the routine news of their lives across the barrier of prison walls.

    Read More

  • Through PIF^2's social impact mobile game platform, users are playing it forward for charity

    The startup PIF^2 is a “social impact mobile game platform” that partners with charities to raise money through ad revenue and in-game purchases. It hosts “game-a-thons” that target a younger demographic who can generate money for a charity by downloading and playing a game. The “game-a-thons” usually last about a week, after which charities receive a check from PIF^2 for up to 50% of the revenue that was generated. The game apps are currently created by independent developers, but the startup hopes to create its own games so that it can donate even more of the revenue proceeds to charity.

    Read More

  • Could carbon-removal tech make travel more sustainable?

    Climeworks, a Swiss start-up, is using technology to suck carbon out of the air and turning it into stone, essentially cutting greenhouse gas emissions from the atmosphere permanently. Their plant in Iceland is able to turn 50 tonnes of carbon to stone per year. While that amount of carbon won’t solve the climate crisis, they are expanding their work to other countries and are launching a personal carbon removal subscription service as a way for the travel industry to help offset the carbon that they emit each year.

    Read More

  • Is underground farming the future of food?

    There’s a subterranean, organic farm in one of Seoul’s subway stations that could be another way to approach sustainable urban farming. The “vertical” farm, known as Metro Farm, uses a mineral nutrient solution instead of regular soil, and has an automated tech network to control the underground ecosystem’s temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide levels. While Farm8, the tech startup in charge of the venture, hasn’t made much of a profit yet, the farm produces about 30 kilograms of vegetables per day at a rate that is 40 times more efficient than traditional farming.

    Read More