Author: Mah S.

Twitter-Like Tech For First Responders

Mah S.Leave a comment

Area: Health

Description:

Hospitals and First responders tend to have communication problems due to poor connection and surrounding noises at incidence scenes.

Twiage is a web-based app that enables first responders to easily snap and send photos to hospitals, as well as communicate important information regarding patients. This helps hospital better prepare and evaluate situations before patients are transported or before they arrive at the hospital.

In the latest version, the app is connected to Google glasses which makes the process even more user-friendly responders don’t need to use their hands to activate the function. They can easily send photos or messages using a voice-controlled option.

Sources:

http://www.twiagemed.com/

https://www.fastcompany.com/3035654/emergency-room-communication-sucks-could-this-twitter-like-tech-save-lives

Stakeholders: Hospital / First Responders / Google

Implementation:

  • The company needs to contact hospital that are early adopters of technology to have them try Twiage
  • In parallel, the company needs to start working with major ambulance companies
  • The company should work with Google to help market their product and join they R&D efforts regarding Google glasses

 

Comment on other technology :

This technology has an interesting feature: the leaves are not static which means that they can get solar rays coming from more directions than regular panels.

https://makeasmartcity.com/2017/11/25/solar-ivy-the-new-future-of-sustainable-design/

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New 3D Printed Tire From Biodegradable Materials

Mah S.Leave a comment

 

Capture d’écran 2017-11-25 à 12.59.13.png

Area : Waste, Energy

Description:

75% of tires are made of petroleum (needed for the production of the rubber used). At the end of the products’ life most of them end up in landfills .

Michelin, thanks to a new concept, 3D printed a new kind of tire. The tires are made out of molasse (sugar paste), then turned into ethanol which is used to produce rubber replacing petroleum. Since the tire is only made of natural sources (molasse, bamboo,…), the tire is fully biodegradable.  Although, thanks to the new design of the tires, their useful life should be greatly extended. Indeed, instead of changing tires when a problem arises, the new Vision tire can be modified with a 3D printer.

Sources:

https://www.michelin.com/eng/media-room/press-and-news/michelin-news/Innovation/MICHELIN-Visionary-Concept

https://www.fastcompany.com/40449277/this-new-tire-has-no-air-and-is-3d-printed-from-biodegradable-materials

Stakeholders: Car manufacturers / City officials / Car owners

Implementation:

  • Michelin needs to research markets to find countries/ citis which are early adopters of new technologies;
  • They need to contact the government of this country/city to run some test in the city and have approval of their technology being used
  • They need to find car manufacturers that are also early adopters to pilot their technology

Other article comment: The tiles are also gathering data that can be used for better understanding pedestrians habits and crowd flows . This type of information is useful to commerces but also for cities.

https://makeasmartcity.com/2017/11/09/energy-generating-walkway-no-footstep-wasted/

 

 

Commercial Electric Plane

Mah S.2 Comments

Capture d_écran 2017-11-24 à 01.07.38

Area : Transportation, energy, carbon emission

Description: If the international aviation sector was a country, its emission would place it amongst the top 10 biggest polluters (Fern Institute).

Due to international treaties and the complexity surrounding airlines carbon emissions, the aviation sector aren’t included during negotiations at the COP and therefore no specific targets were set.

Wright Electric is building a plane that would be powered by a battery. Because their technology is depending on the advances in term of energy storage, their plan is to have a fully autonomous plane in the next 10 years (or a hybrid motor if it can’t be fully battery-powered).

The technology would be used for short-haul trips and could potentially reduce personal emissions by 75%. For airlines, this would also lower drastically their costs since the need for fuel and maintenance would be greatly reduced.

 

Sources:

https://weflywright.com/

Wright Electric unveils its commercial electric plane business

Stakeholders:

-Airlines / International Civil Aviation Organization / Airplane manufacturers

Implementation:

  • Wright needs to map the major players in the energy storage industry
  • Wright needs to work closely with those players in the energy storage (R&D partnerships)
  • Wright needs to work closely with airlines and run tests along the development of its technology

A Powder To Help Prevent Children’s Food Allergies

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[Photo: Flickr user Boudewijn Berends]

Sustainability issue: Health

Description: 

The journal Pediatrics states that about 30% of children have food allergies.  Studies show that introducing allergenic foods at an early stage of a child’s life can help reduce the future development of allergies.

To tackle this issue, company Before Brands has developed a product called SpoonfulOne. SpoonfulOne is a protein supplement powder that help “support and educate the immune system”. The body will then get accustomed to proteins found in several allergenic food such as different nuts, milk, soy and more.

The powder is sold through a subscription based model where parents receive the powder that they can then mix into their children’s food.

Sources:

https://www.spoonfulone.com/

https://www.fastcompany.com/40483090/can-a-spoonful-of-this-powder-help-prevent-childrens-food-allergies

 

Stakeholders:

-FDA/Parents/Pediatricians/Pharmacists/Schools

Implementation: 

-Map areas that have the biggest numbers of kids with food allergies and work in this areas

-Reach out to hospitals and pediatricians and pharmacists to work with them and have them recommend the product to their clients

-Reach out to schools to let them know about the products. Having a reduction in food allergies is definitely going to help make their life easier so they should be interested in any preventive measures

 

 

 

Turning Climate Pollution Into Fish Feed

Mah S.3 Comments

 

p-1-this-startup-turns-climate-pollution-into-ingredients-for-fish-feed

Area of focus: Safety and Health

Description:

Overfishing is a global issue that causes environmental and social problems. From an environment standpoint, it not only affects fish stocks around the world which are declining at an alarming rate but also represent an important source of water pollution due to massive fishing boats deployed in various locations. Those big scale exploitations then affect small scale fishermen by decreasing the amounts of fish reaching the coasts. Also, a lot of fish caught by the bigger boats are exported, leaving local population with a reduced quantity of food available.

One of the drivers of overfishing is the need for small fish used as feed (usually for bigger fish productions and livestock).  As the Fast Company’s article mentions : “NovoNutrients wants to replace that fish food with something more sustainable: microbes grown with carbon dioxide”.

The company uses carbon dioxide to feed microbes that become protein used for animal feed production. A pipe is connected to water where the gases are dissolved.

During the process, Hydrogen is also being produced thru (solar-powered) hydrolyse which helps power the installation.

Sources:

https://www.novonutrients.com/

https://www.fastcompany.com/40480856/this-startup-turns-climate-pollution-into-fish-feed

http://www.allaboutfeed.net/New-Proteins/Articles/2017/8/More-fish-meal-but-growing-interest-in-alternatives-165917E/?cmpid=NLC%7Callaboutfeed%7C2017-08-02%7CMore_fish_meal,_but_growing_interest_in_alternatives#comments

 

Stakeholders :

  • Animal feed manufacturing companies
  • Livestock and aquaculture farms
  • Government officials

Implementation:

  • Research countries with the highest concentration of aquaculture farms
  • Approach farmers to show them the product
  • Work with government officials to integrate the use of the product in best management practice guides for farmers

Other technology:  Fighting fire with math and maps (https://blog.nature.org/science/2016/08/03/technology-to-the-rescue-for-foresters-in-the-thick-of-it/)

This technology is interesting as it could help cities with diseases spreading among trees. By mapping the type of trees available around the city, officials would be able to better diversify the kind of new trees planted making “greening” efforts more efficient.

 

Mah S.1 Comment

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Sustainability issue: Health

Based on The American Diabete Association’s statistics, “About 1.25 million Americans have type 1 diabetes and an estimated 40,000 people will be newly diagnosed each year in the U.S.”
Type 1 Diabete is a disease that causes body not to’t produce insulin and it is usually diagnosed in children and young adults.

Scientific have been working at developing a vaccine called bacillus Calmette-Guérin. The vaccine, which is still being tested, would reverse the effects of Type 1 Diabete. The way it works is by destroying the defective white blood cells (beta cells) which are hindering the release of insulin the blood.
The vaccine showed very promising results and is being tested on humans.

Stakeholders: – Hospitals, Medical research centers, the FDA, Patients

Source : http://time.com/3911000/the-vaccine-for-type-1-diabetes-is-moving-forward/

Steps:

1-Vaccine needs to be FDA-approved

2-Start manufacturing

3-Quality control

 

Adaptive traffic signals

Mah S.Leave a comment

 

cars.jpg

Source: Mashable

 

Sustainability area: Safety, Energy and Health

Cities have a hard time dealing with congestion. It impacts GHG emission, air quality and energy consumption.  Adaptive traffic signals enable the city to adapt their traffic lights automatically based on real data (how many cars, accidents, pedestrian crossing).

Traffic is regulated based on actual road usage and habits. Thanks to sensors and camera, companies such as KLD developed algorithms that learn from patterns and can adapt or redirect traffic.

Sources :

FORTUNE

TIME

Stakholders: City officials

Implementation:

Conduct a research on the cities that have the most pressing problmes related to congestion

Find areas in those cities where city official will be able to test the technology (enough traffic but not too much, and be careful to not use an area with too many pedestrians)

Record data before the technology is implemented and after it is inplace to compare and follow the progress achieved

 

 

 

Water Recycling Shower

Mah S.1 Comment
water-recycling-shower-schematic
water-recycling-shower-graphic Source: CINTEP

Sustainability problem: Water scarcity / Reduction of waste water / Energy consumption

It’s estimated that the average American person uses between 2 and 5 gallon of fresh drinkable water per minute while showering everyday (sometimes twice a day).

While places such as California are experiencing increasing periods of drought, water usage needs to be managed more carefully.

As well, cities experience combined sewage overflow. Usually due to high quantities of stormwater getting to treatment plants, the amount of waste water being treated could always be reduced to help solve the problem.

Solution: CINTEP, an Australian company came up with a a shower that recycles water.

The system delivers less than 1 gallon of fresh water at the beginning and then the water is collected, filtered and treated using pasteurisation (purification through to a heating process).

Water is treated in less than 30 seconds and recirculated which reduces the total amount needed by 70%.

The way the shower functions it also uses a heat exchanger to heat the water at the beginning of the process but then the heat produced is also used during the pasteurisation. This also permits energy savings from 40 to 70% compared to a shower with a regular heating system.

Articles:  Business Insider    Sustainability Matters

Stakeholders: – City regulators, Real estate developers, home owners

Technology Implementation:

  1. Find real estate developers working on sustainable projects to have them implement the showers.
  2. Get in touch with city officials to show them how the technology reduces the amount of water needed on a daily basis as well as the amount of waste water produced.
  3. Work with city officials to incentivize home owners to install the showers.