Creating risk takers

While reading about an interaction between Thomas Friedman and the prince of Bahrain in "Hot, Flat and Crowded" (written by Thomas Friedman), it intrigued me as to what would be an ideal school to create a pool of entrepreneurs. It would probably be a school where children are taught to take risks and fail, where they are first allowed to experiment and do things on their own before they are taught the theory. May be the children could have a class to write poetry, to read novels, to see TED presentations.

In order to build a society of free thinkers and free wheeling tinkerers we need to start looking into the way we impart education. How do you teach risk taking and failure in school?

By the way here is a clip where Dov Seidman is in conversation with Thomas Friedman. Dov is the founder and CEO of LRN.

Energy conservation ideas

I recently read a post about a clever way of reducing energy consumption. Some things require cooling systems while for others heating is the keyword. Helsinki is experimenting with putting huge data centers underground, and the heat generated by these data centers will be supplied cover for the heating requirements of the city's residents. Aint it cool. the data center now dont need to have the cooling systems which carry with them a huge energy cost associated.

Original article here.

Algae Fuel

A new form of fuel generation that i recently discovered. Algae Fuel. Sounds interesting.

Rex W. Tillerson chairman of the ExxonMobil Corp. recently put in $600 million for algae farms that turn sunlight into fuel.

Hole in the wall

In 1999, Sugata Mitra and his colleagues dug a hole in a wall bordering an urban slum in New Delhi, installed an Internet-connected PC, and left it there (with a hidden camera filming the area). What they saw was kids from the slum playing around with the computer and in the process learning how to use it and how to go online, and then teaching each other.

In the following years they replicated the experiment in other parts of India, urban and rural, with similar results, challenging some of the key assumptions of formal education. The "Hole in the Wall" project demonstrates that, even in the absence of any direct input from a teacher, an environment that stimulates curiosity can cause learning through self-instruction and peer-shared knowledge. Mitra, who's now a professor of educational technology at Newcastle University (UK), calls it "minimally invasive education."

SELCO India .. lighting rural india

http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/06/15/solar-energy-india-tech-science-cz_kad_0616solar.html

Social Entrepreneurship : Solar Power

Vaccine shot killed 4 children in tamilnadu

Vaccine shot killed 4 children in tamilnadu.
It is sad thing to happen, since this incident could cause people all over the country to skeptical about free vaccinations clinics, denting the role that free vaccination clinics have played in reducing diseases in the country.