The Gates Foundation $100,000 in Grants for Global Health

 Originally published Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at 9:02 PM

 SEATTLE TIMES

By DONNA GORDON BLANKINSHIP

Associated Press

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation plans to announce more than 100 cutting-edge global health grants to fund projects ranging from unmanned drones to deliver vaccines to using temporary tattoos to monitor pregnant women in remote areas.

In an announcement Wednesday, the foundation will name scientists from around the world, but mostly in the United States, who will be getting $100,000 Grand Challenges Exploration grants to see if their highly speculative ideas have potential to save lives in the future.

Another six ideas have passed the initial stage and will be given $1 million each to advance their projects, the foundation said.

Over the past four years, the foundation has funded more than 600 projects from more than 20,000 proposals submitted by researchers in 44 countries. Foundation officers consider the money a kind of startup fund for the future of global health and development research. They do not expect all the ideas to pan out but are hoping one or two eventually will change millions of lives.

The projects that get $1 million to continue work remain highly speculative. Among the six getting larger grants are a breathalyzer test for tuberculosis and various efforts toward developing AIDS and cholera vaccines.

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Taking the leap into a green energy future

 

Repost from: TroyMedia
May 14, 2012

Fossil fuels will be with us for quite some time

The leap Turner is referring to is the next industrial revolution, that is, replacing non-renewable energy with renewable energy in the next 50 years. “We need to move to wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, some small scale hydro, maybe some large scale hydro and maybe some nuclear.”

Galvanized by the attention that wasn’t being paid to climate change, Turner started writing about solutions instead of problems.

Turner inspired many people with his first book, The Geography of Hope. Like his latest book The Leap, it’s focused on telling the stories of the people who are not simply dabbling in green energy solutions, but taking the leap and “going all the way in their thinking.”

“The grand narrative of the industrial revolution is in some ways about people seizing opportunity,” said Turner. Today that opportunity is in renewable energy where not only can we seize a sizable economic opportunity but avoid catastrophe at the same time. 

David Dodge is the host and producer of Green Energy Futures, a multi-media series presented at www.greenenergyfutures.ca. The series is supported by TD, Suncor Energy and the Pembina Institute.