Sunday, September 5, 2010 Two Brothers, Two Buckets, and World Hunger  Teenagers Grant and Max Buster are proposing a solution to world hunger that anyone can do. All you need are 2 buckets, a few square meters of ground or rooftop, sunlight, and a some water. Distraught by the hunger in the world, the Buster brothers spent their summer vacation designing this simple garden in a bucket. They placed two five gallon (20 liter) buckets set inside one another, to which they added some soil, water, bits of plastic pipe. and some strategically placed holes. Turns out this simple system for food growing can reduce water usage between 50 and 80 percent, with a 100 percent reduction in weeds (and hence herbicides)! And they figure you can use it anywhere, from rooftops to industrial wastelands. With a bountiful rooftop garden, the brothers are now researching even more efficient and low-impact gardening systems that don't require the buckets, which are considered very valuable in some remote communities of developing countries. Read More >>
back to top  Saturday, September 4, 2010 Restorer of Slums  Santosh Thorat, a young father of five, was grateful to have picked up an extra day's work. That morning, he left his home, which he shared with 17 others in an East Mumbai slum, to help a bulldozing crew ward off protesters as they demolished a nearby slum. "That day when I went to work, I thought, 'I don't want to do this,'" Thorat recalls. Three days later, Thorat's bosses demolished his home. Lucky for Mumbai's slums, Thorat was not one to just sit there and obey the status quo. "If all they want is to make Mumbai slum free and tidy... then instead of spending money on demolishing they should have given them money for restoration," Thorat proposed. Today, that's just what the government of India is doing. And Thorat has become a leader in the movement, rebuilding and revitalizing his own 3,000-household slum. Read More >>
back to top Friday, September 3, 2010 Outdoors and Out of Reach: Studying the Brain  Todd Braver emerges from a tent nestled against the canyon wall with a slight tan. For the first time in three days in the wilderness, Braver is not wearing his watch. It is the kind of change many vacationers notice in themselves as they unwind and lose track of time. But for Braver and his companions, these moments lead to an important question: What is happening to our brains? A psychology professor at Washington University in St. Louis, Braver was one of five neuroscientists who spent a week in remote southern Utah, rafting the San Juan River, camping on the soft banks and hiking the tributary canyons. It was a primitive trip with a sophisticated goal: to understand how heavy use of digital devices and other technology changes how we think and behave, and how a retreat into nature might reverse those effects. Read More >>
back to top Thursday, September 2, 2010 Outside the Box, Inside the Cubicle  There are certain kinds of creative, off beat ideas that are simply obvious when you hear them. Tarak Shah and Sabina Nieto came up with one. With the economic downturn, every office building in the country probably has unrecognized resources: vacant cubicles. No doubt many are utilized as storage spaces for disabled copy machines, extra office supplies and the like, but here's an inspired possibility: how about the vacant cubicle as art gallery? Now after you read that last sentence, didn't you immediately smile? Read More >>
back to top Wednesday, September 1, 2010 A Transformative Moment  When we look back on our lives, sometimes the smallest gesture can have enormous effects. For George Hill, one man's act has made all the difference. Today, Hill works with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and studies computer information systems at Cal State University. But things weren't always so smooth. After leaving the Marines, Hill found himself homeless and addicted to drugs and alcohol. One day, Hill was sitting on a bag of his belongings when a homeless man approached him. He recalls, "His hands were black... he had rags tied to his feet. And his hair was matted in two big, nasty dreads." The stranger reached into his pocket and offered Hill all that he had: one dollar, in coins. "Here, man. I feel sorry for you." That was all it took. Read More >>
back to top Tuesday, August 31, 2010 But Will It Make You Happy?  She had so much. A two-bedroom apartment. Two cars. Enough wedding china to serve two dozen people. Yet Tammy Strobel wasn't happy. Working as a project manager with an investment management firm in Davis, California, and making about 40K a year, she was, as she put it, caught in the "work-spend treadmill." So one day she stepped off. Inspired by books and blogs about living simply, Strobel and her husband began downsizing and donating their things. Clothing, a television, and even cars disappeared. Now, three years later, the two live happily, modestly, and debt-free on Strobel's 24K annual salary. Working less, she has time to be outdoors and volunteer. Read More >>
back to top Monday, August 30, 2010 Six Keys to Excellence  Until recently, Tony Schwartz accepted the myth that the potential to excel is predetermined by our genes- that some people are born with special talents while others aren't. Lately though, his work with dozens of executives reveals that it's possible to build any given skill or capacity in the same systematic way we build a muscle: push past your comfort zone, and then rest. Talent, then, may actually be a simple reflection of how hard we're willing to work. Encouraging us to take ownership of our desired talents, he explains, "If you want to be really good at something, it's going to involve relentlessly pushing past your comfort zone, along with frustration, struggle, setbacks and failures." To help us, Schwartz offers six keys to achieving excellence: Pursuing what you love, practicing intensely, taking regular breaks, and doing the hardest work first. Read More >>
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September 11 is a loaded day. It marks the ninth anniversary of the World Trade Center bombings in New York City, the 103rd birthday of Gandhi's concept of Satyagraha ("clinging to truth" in Sanskrit), as well as 117 years after Swami Vivekenanda's stunning speech on interfaith dialogue at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago. This year, 9/11 also coincides with Eid al-Fitr, a Muslim holiday that marks the conclusion of Ramadan. Today there will be prayers, vigils, moments of silence. There will be large rallies and intimate family memorials. And there will be service. For many, 9/11 has become a day to volunteer, and organizers of social media have spearheaded a new website - 911dayofservice.org - to facilitate the process. Having engaged 300,000 people from 165 countries during last year's 9/11, the website mobilizes and reflects the growing movement of volunteerism. [ 
These days, it seems like new technologies are cropping up around every corner we turn. Hardly a month goes by without the announcement of some new and exciting media project or application. A new web tool or project may be exciting, but Christian Madera reminds us that for each new app or initiative that gets launched, there are probably dozens that failed, or never even fully began. And it is in these failures where great potential lies. Nonprofit MobileActive noticed that failure really wasn't getting the recognition it deserved. So they invented a model for airing the success of failure: FailFaires. These informal gathering bring people together to share past projects, outcomes, and reasons for failure. By chiseling away the stigmas of failing, FailFaires increase transparency, openness, and valuable yet humble insights into the process of innovation. [ 
In today's era of high technology and endless information, in a culture where cell phones, computers and the internet seem to infuse every corners of our lives, "79 percent of the people on our planet digitally are excluded," reveals Ashoka Fellow Rodrigo Baggio. Armed with the vision to empower low-income youth with computer skills, Baggio founded CDI: The Center for Digital Inclusion. Starting from one of the most dangerous, poverty-stricken communities of Brazil, Baggio and his team have spearheaded a technological and cultural transformation across 13 countries. Teens who were once headed for gangs and drugs have found new outlets for their energies: making videos about social issues. "I never thought I had a future in front of me," says Wanderson da Silva Skrock who, at fourteen, was dealing drugs. "I believe you can rescue someone, even from the very bottom," the now CDI teacher states. [ 
If you see a co-worker catching 40 winks in her cubicle or a student dozing in the library, don't roll your eyes. New research from the University of California, Berkeley, shows that an hour's nap can dramatically boost and restore your brain power. Indeed, the findings suggest that a biphasic sleep schedule not only refreshes the mind, but can make you smarter. Conversely, the more hours we spend awake, the more sluggish our minds become. In a recent sleep study, participants who napped performed noticeably better and actually improved their capacity to learn. Researchers suggest that napping digests and clears information in the brain's hippocampus, where fact-based memories are temporarily stored. It's like clearing your inbox, describes lead investigator Matthew Walker, "It's as though the email inbox in your hippocampus is full, and until you sleep and clear out those fact emails, you're not going to receive any more mail." [ 
It all started when his mother came to visit from Italy. Before then, Bruno Serato, owner of an upscale restaurant in California, admits he had a pretty carefree life- hosting and hobnobbing with Orange Country's most rich and famous. At the time, Serato was on the board of the local Boys and Girls Club, and thought his mother would like to see it. During the visit, he informed her that the club serves a lot of homeless children who sometimes go hungry. Grabbing his arm, she exclaimed, "Why don't you feed them pasta?!" So he did. And he did it again the next night. And again every weeknight for the past five years. Now, Bruno serves 150 meals a night to his favorite "customers." It was "the biggest gift of my life," he sums up. [ 
There are some things you have to see to believe, and Faith is one of those. She's a labrador-chow mix born without one front leg and another that was severely deformed and then removed. What's truly amazing about Faith is that, despite having only her two hind legs, she can still walk! In fact, she's lived almost her entire life on those two legs. Something of a celebrity, Faith appeared on Oprah a few years ago, and she's even an honorary sergeant. The US Army gave her the title because she's helped disabled veterans trying to overcome injuries, even donning a military jacket when she visits bases or hospitals. "She shows what can be achieved against great odds," remarks her owner, Jude Stringfellow. [ 
