Recently, the Guardian hosted Rewired State, 10:10, Carbon Culture and a handful of other organisations in the inaugural Carbon and Energy Hack weekend. The purpose of the weekend was to create websites and applications that would help people, government and organisations realise their energy use and carbon emissions. 5 different ideas emerged:
A website that shows the UK’s energy use as it fluctuates from week to week
An EV charging point finder app
A game that allows you to guess the carbon impact of specific activities and behaviours
An API that lets people access all of the data from the 10:10 pledges
and a website that shows CO2 savings by the government.
The app that allows people to find out about the range of their vehicle relative to the distance of nearby charging points seems quite promising. If seen into fruition, this is the kind of idea that may just be enough to get some people to take the leap to EVs.
A couple of years ago Green Thing attended Social Innovation Camp, a weekend long experiment in web-based technology for social good. Similar to the Guardian Carbon and Energy Hack weekend, this camp style hothouse of good people and passion shows much can be achieved in a weekend and how some ideas come to see the light of day.
Katherine Hui is currently the Social site editor at Green Thing, a web-based public service in London that inspires people to lead greener lives through creative content.
Before this, she worked as the Development Manager at Social Innovation Camp, an organization that encourages people to use web and mobile-based technology to mobilise social change. She oversaw 300 ideas submission and helped build 20 prototypes – five of which have gone on to get further funding or investment.
Katherine’s came over to the UK form Canada in 2007 for an MSc program at the London School of Economics. Before arriving in London, she managed a small environmental start-up in Vancouver called the Canadian Climate Change Alliance.
Katherine is football mad. She is a loyal supporter of Arsenal FC, plays for Islington Borough Ladies FC and coaches for Gunners in Islington in her spare time. Her second favourite hobby is kite surfing and she can sometimes be found chasing the wind.
