Gaming Trends: Kunal Malik, SF 49ers CTO Creating a Green and Software-Driven Stadium

Kunal Malik

Kunal Malik, San Francisco 49ers CTO, keynoted at the December 5 2013 SV Forum Technology Meets Sports Conference and shared how he's creating a Green and Software-Driven Stadium.

Check out my Gaming Trends Article for further details.

Carbon markets reached a value of $216 million in 2012 according to State of the Forest Carbon Markets 2013

Source: Ecosystem Marketplace

Carbon markets reached a value of $216 million in 2012, according to "State of the Forest Carbon Markets 2013" published by Forest Trends' Ecosystem Marketplace.

The Executive Summary key findings are:

• Over time, this report series has tracked 513 forest and land-use carbon projects. Developers representing 162 projects responded in 2013, including 62 projects never before reported.

• The global markets for offsets from agriculture, forestry, and other land-use projects transacted 28 MtCO2e, a 9% increase from 2011. Market value reached $216 million in 2012, 8% shy of 2011’s record $237 million. Forestry offsets’ average price fell slightly to $7.8/tonne (tCO2e).

• Voluntary offset buyers drove 95% of all market activity (27 MtCO2e) and 92% of value ($198 million), as corporate buyers renewed or pursued new climate targets, while buyers in California and Australia sought forestry offsets to prepare for compliance carbon markets.

• This report series has tracked a cumulative 134 MtCO2e of offsets transacted from forest carbon projects, valued at an estimated $0.9 billion over time from the carbon management of 26.5 million hectares.

• The private sector remained the largest source of demand, responsible for 19.7 MtCO2e or 70% of market activity. Two out of every three offsets were sold to multinational corporations. Businesses were motivated by offset-inclusive corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, or to “demonstrate climate leadership” in their industry or to send signals to regulators.

• Demand for offsets from A/R projects remained high (8.6 MtCO2e) but fell from the prior year, while REDD offset demand grew for the fi rst time since the project type’s all-time high in 2010.

• The forest carbon markets extended project development to 58 countries, up from 54 locations in 2011. North American projects generated one quarter of all offsets transacted, while project developers in the Global South transacted half of overall market share.

• Projects seeking or achieving certifi cation to the Verifi ed Carbon Standard (VCS) transacted 15.7 MtCO2e, or 57% of all market activity. Around 12.2 MtCO2e of these sales were from projects seeking dual certification to VCS and the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Standards (CCB Standards).

Al Gore Chicago Climate Leadership Training and Next Steps

Al Gore & Chicago Climate Leaders

Mary Vincent & Al Gore

I'm very grateful to have attended Al Gore's Chicago July 2013 Climate Reality Leadership Training. I highly recommend you try to apply for a future training, and the next one is in South Africa March 2014.

A video clip from his closing presentation is below. A few quotes include: "This is our home; it is in danger. You are the key to making that change! We have everything we need; we need to inspire political will and political will is a renewable resource".

As many of you know I've been applying my knowledge in tech to the climate challenge since May 2008 by starting out in Green IT/Data Center Energy Efficiency, co-creating a Facebook app called Green Facts, experimenting with a variety of online green stores, leveraging Blogs such as Smart Tech News and other digital media platforms to feature inspiring business, technology and entrepreneurial use cases, and creating Gratitude Gourmet to address Food, Climate and Health Issues.

Due to my global mobile health application work, I was recently asked to co-lecture at the Stanford School of Medicine to Global Health for Residents & Physicians For Social Responsibility classes, and in addition to talking about mobile health application development, I introduced 2 slides on Health & Climate Change, inspired by New Brunswick, Canada's Public Health Nurse, Marg Milburn's Health & Climate Change presentation at the Chicago Climate Reality Training. Examples include increased asthma, and heat, cold, and flood related mortality cases.

Here's the Closing Video Clip from Al Gore. How are you addressing climate change?

Video: Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook Product Development at Mobile Dev Day

Photo Credit: Mary Vincent

As a creator and co-creator of a variety of software products and services, I find great value in listening and learning from many people making creative, evolutionary and revolutionary products and services.

I attended Mobile Dev Day at Facebook this week, and Mark Zuckerberg gave us great insight on his Product Development Process in the video and steps below.

1. Listen to folks' qualitative and quantitative feedback and figure out what people want and want from us and what we're in a position to provide

2. Take that external and top-down perspective and try to couple that with bottom-up culture. Number one success criteria Mark predicts whether a project is going to work is whether there is someone at Facebook that's excited about doing it; I can't just decide we're going to do something and get feedback from the market that we should do something and pull a group of people together and alright now you're going to do that; without inspiration stuff just doesn't work very well.

3. Try to match up what people internally are very passionate about doing with what the market needs seem to be from whoever the segments of customers are, whether they're people using our services, developers, or advertisers

4. Prioritize what we think will have the biggest impact based on how well we think we can execute those things. It's a very fluid process.

Smart Tech News & Bitcoins

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Video: Tom Steyer Keynote Clean Tech Open

Photo Credit: Tom Steyer by Mary Vincent

Tom Steyer, a successful asset manager, entrepreneur, and co-founder of thenextgeneration.org, shared some powerful messages during his Clean Tech Open Western Region Awards Keynote today, and the video is below.

Cleantech Group Releases Latest Global Cleantech 100 List and Report

Cleantech Group has released the fifth annual Global Cleantech 100 list and report.

Highlights include:

Company of the Year was awarded in each of three regions to the highest-ranked company from that region:

•  North America: Nest, designer of a networked “learning” thermostat for the home
• Europe & Israel: Organica Water, provider of Fixed-Bed Biofilm Activated Sludge (FBAS) wastewater treatment plants in urban and residential population centers
• Asia Pacific: Hydrexia, developer of solid hydrogen storage systems based on magnesium alloys

Other categories:

• Rising Star of the Year, given to the highest-ranked new entrant on this year’s list: Ambri, developer of an all-liquid metal battery technology for grid-scale energy.
• Continued Excellence, given to the highest-ranked of companies that have made it onto the Global Cleantech 100 list for at least the last three consecutive years: LanzaTech, developer of a process that increases industrial energy efficiency by capturing waste gases (CO, CO2) and converting them to fuels and chemicals.
• Early Stage Company of the Year, given to the highest-ranked product development stage company: Alphabet Energy, developer of low-cost thermoelectric technology for waste heat recovery.

Awards were also given in three investor categories:

• Corporate Investor of the Year, given to the corporate investor with the largest percentage of its cleantech venture portfolio in the 2013 Global Cleantech 100 (with a minimum of three on the list, and a minimum of eight qualifying portfolio companies overall): GM Ventures
• Financial Investor of the Year, given to the financial investor with the largest percentage of its cleantech venture portfolio in the 2013 Global Cleantech 100 (with a minimum of four on the list, and a minimum of 10 qualifying portfolio companies overall): VantagePoint Capital Partners
• Graduate of the Year, given to the company the most impressive exit (as rated, by the financial investors in the expert panel) of a Global Cleantech 100 alumnus company (i.e. that has at one time been on the Global Cleantech 100 list). The exit must have happened in the 12 months prior to the cut-off date (in 2013 that meant pre-July 31): SolarCity

2013 Global Cleantech 100 Quick Facts:

• 18 countries are represented in the 2013 list. The United States is the most highly represented country with 56 companies.
• Energy Efficiency remains the hottest and growing sector within cleantech, with 27 companies on the list, up from 22 in 2012 and 19 in 2011.
• Solar’s representation in the 100 falls again, down from 20 companies in 2011, nine companies in 2012 to six companies in 2013. Those that remain on the list are primarily solar financing companies.
• Corporations continue to be ever more active in global cleantech innovation as investors, partners, licensees, customers, and acquirers of Global Cleantech 100 companies. GE is the most active overall partner with 2013 Global Cleantech 100 companies, followed by Waste Management, Siemens, Google, and IBM.
• Over 400 investing entities, from 26 different countries, have a shareholding in the 100 companies. Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers is the most prolific shareholder of 2013 Global Cleantech 100 companies. It has invested in 19 companies in the list, unchanged from 2012. 

Palo Alto Requires New Homes Be Pre-Wired for Electric Vehicles

Here's a great example where forward-thinking government and citizens work together for the betterment of the community and the planet.

Palo Alto City Council adopted a proposal that requires new homes be pre-wired for electric vehicles, specifically 240 Volt 2 Level Charging Stations. The City also streamlined the permitting process of installing a charger.

Vice Mayor Nancy Shepherd says the initiative was inspired by resident Sven Thesen, an Evergreen Park resident, who installed a curbside charger outside his home for public use per this San Jose Mercury News article.

Do you want your city to adopt a similar program? Here's Palo Alto's Guideline and keep me posted if you decide to approach your city and your city adopts similar requirements.

If you're interested in reading more about electric vehicles, here are my past car reviews:
- Chevy Volt
- Plugin Prius Hybrid
- Nissan Leaf
- BMW ActiveE 

as well as California Governor Jerry Brown's 2012 Announcement to fund electric charging stations across California.

 Palo Alto’s city council adopted a proposal that requires new homes be pre-wired for electric vehicles – new homes must include the installation of 240-Volt Level 2 charging stations.
Read more at http://cleantechnica.com/2013/10/02/palo-alto-requiring-new-homes-ready-electric-cars/#MRMCjrlvmgrYd8tk.99

 Palo Alto’s city council adopted a proposal that requires new homes be pre-wired for electric vehicles – new homes must include the installation of 240-Volt Level 2 charging stations.
Read more at http://cleantechnica.com/2013/10/02/palo-alto-requiring-new-homes-ready-electric-cars/#MRMCjrlvmgrYd8tk.99

Streamlining the permitting process of installing a charger in an existing home was another move Palo Alto’s city council approved to develop more interest in electric vehicles and increase their use.
The vote for the package of electric-car policies was a clear 9-0. It is easy to see a unanimous vote for such an EV-supportive requirement in progressive areas such as Silicon Valley. Hopefully it won’t take long for others to follow on with such a move.
The San Jose Mercury News reports that Vice Mayor Nancy Shepherd added that the memo was spurred by a recent phone call from Sven Thesen, an Evergreen Park resident who has installed a curbside charger in front of his home for public use. “The thing that caught me is how simple and easy and fairly inexpensive it is to rough-in the wiring,” Shepherd said.

Read more at http://cleantechnica.com/2013/10/02/palo-alto-requiring-new-homes-ready-electric-cars/#MRMCjrlvmgrYd8tk.99

Video: Mark Zuckerberg TechCrunch Disrupt 2013 Highlights

Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Arrington TechCrunch Disrupt -Photo M. Vincent

Mark Zuckerberg discussed his Facebook:
1. Platform Strategy
2. Thoughts on Privacy
3. Moving Fast and Slowing Down and 
4. Five to Ten Year Plan 
during his TechCrunch Disrupt 2013 interview with Michael Arrington.

Video highlights are below. 










1. Platform Strategy


2. Privacy


3. Moving Fast and Slowing Down


4. Five to Ten Year Plan