NYC’s Greener Gadgets Conference

By Kevin Young 2/20/10 | www.samaritanmag.com

Greener Gadgets
2009 Greener Gadgets Conference panel
New York City’s third annual Greener Gadgets Conference, taking place February 25 at the McGraw-Hill Conference Centre, explores viable sustainable alternatives for the electronics we use at home, work and in between.

As a forum for discussing green technology solutions, Greener Gadgets aims to attract gadget users and electronics companies, giving them an opportunity to discuss the role gadgets play in our lives and how we might diminish their environmental impact with more sustainable designs. From eco-friendly products to energy efficient gear, the conference showcases concepts and products that both encourage and inspire us all to be greener citizens.

Register on-site with a credit card, beginning at 9 a.m. Regular attendee price is $395 and students (with proper ID) are $75. Press and bloggers (bring proper credentials) are free. For further details on the conference, including presenters/speakers,  go to www.greenergadgets.com.

The 2010 installment kicks off with a panel that starts right where we live. Entitled Green Living Begins At Home, the session will detail how a green home, whether it’s located in a rural area, a major urban center, or well off the grid, can also be a smart home. Other topics of discussion will range from the role that sustainable design can play in improving people’s lives, to personal responsibility for energy consumption, to means for companies to track their own carbon footprint.

As in the past, the grand finale of the one-day conference will be the popular Greener Gadgets Design Competition, featuring a field of cutting-edge sustainable product concepts that run the gamut from those that create their own energy to those that minimize the need for any electricity at all.

Finalists in this year’s field include: the Orange Solar Tent by Kaleidoscope (U.S.), the Go Mechanical Charger from Elephant design (India), and the Turbine light from TAK Studio (United States of America). For descriptions of these and other finalists, go to the “design competition” tab on the web site.

The final phase of the competition kick’s off after a keynote speech by Robert Fabricant, VP of creative for Frog Design Inc., which was responsible for designing the world’s first $100 “XO” laptop for One Laptop Per Child, an initiative to bring education and technology to the poorest of the world’s children.

Online voting in the Greener Gadgets Design Competition closed February 12, but will be a factor when a finalist is chosen by a panel of judges featuring Julian Lwin, owner of Lwindesign; Sarah Rich, senior editor of Dwell; and Andrew Wagner, editor-in-chief of ReadyMade.

The first place winner receives $3000; second place, $2000, and third, $1000.

Nike

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