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Winners of MIT Sloan's Climate CoLab Contest AnnouncedCAMBRIDGE, Mass. --(Business Wire)-- MIT (News - Alert) Sloan School of Management's Climate CoLab announced today the winners of its 2013 round of contests, which seek creative new ideas to address global climate change. The eighteen simultaneous contests covered a broad set of sub-problems that lie at the heart of the climate change challenge, including: decarbonizing energy supply, changing social attitudes and behavior, adapting to climate change, geoengineering, transportation efficiency, and others. Some contests were hosted in collaboration with organizations such as Carbon War Room, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Transition US and ICLEI: Local Governments for Sustainability. The 28 winning proposals will be presented by their authors at the MIT Crowds and Climate conference on November 6-8. "Systems like Linux and Wikipedia have shown that by allowing people around the world to think and work together, solutions to complex problems can be developed that otherwise would not have been possible," says MIT Sloan Professor Thomas Malone, director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence (CCI (News - Alert)), and principal investigator for the Climate CoLab project. "We are using this approach in the Climate CoLab to create solutions to one of the most complex and challenging problems of our time-climate change." Rob Laubacher, the CCI Associate Director who manages the Climate CoLab, was impressed by the variety and expertise of the teams who submitted proposals. "Winning authors included staff members of global organizations like the UN Development Programme and eBay (News - Alert); climate scientists and university researchers; professionals in the oil, gas and mining industries; and Executive Directors of NGOs in India, Nicaragua, Canada, and South Africa," he says. "Once again we need to thank our more than 90 Advisors, Fellows, and Judges who directed the contests and selected these winners from a large pool of strong proposals. They put much time and effort into their selection and it was not an easy task." The Crowds and Climate conference, where the winners will present, will be held at the MIT campus on November 6-8, and will explore the role that new technology-enabled approaches-such as crowdsourcing, social media, and big data-can play in developing creative new ideas and taking action on climate change. The conference will have a strong interactive component, and will feature top speakers from innovative businesses, government initiatives, and NGOs who are incorporating crowd-based approaches in their projects and operations. "The project's growth is very exciting," says Malone. "The Climate CoLab community and activity has been doubling or tripling with each annual contest, and there are now over 10,000 registered members. This shows that there are many smart and creative people around the globe engaging with these issues, and we're very proud of this year's winners. "We're also looking forward to next year when we can partner with more organizations and companies to tailor contests, and when we expect participants to be able to create integrated combinations of proposals at the national and global levels. "By bringing together experts, policy makers, business people, and many others, we hope the Climate CoLab can help plan-and gain support for-better climate actions than anything we humans would otherwise have done." For more information, please visit the following links: Climate CoLab and this year's winners: http://climatecolab.org The upcoming Crowds & Climate Conference, on Nov. 6-8: http://climatecolab.org/conference2013 MIT Center for Collective Intelligence: http://cci.mit.edu Professor Thomas Malone: http://sloan.mit.edu/faculty/detail.php?in_spseqno=41335&co_list=F Rob Laubacher: http://cci.mit.edu/people/laubacher2.html |
