Husk Power Systems

Born To Be Good - Mirror Neurons Help Us Empathize

Kaihan Krippendorff — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 07:53:07 -0400

Several months ago, I was browsing through a bookstore in Seattle looking for something to read on my flight back across the country. After having spent eight hours on stage working to keep a mental step ahead of 250 smart executives, I was really looking for something mindless. Perhaps a murder mystery or maybe even something from the vampire genre, which seems to be expanding beyond all logical propositions these days.

Power Comes From Coordination

Kaihan Krippendorff — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:01:58 -0400

I’ve interviewed hundreds of business outthinkers, and one of the most common patterns of success is “coordinate the uncoordinated.”

Go Dumpster Diving For New Strategies

Kaihan Krippendorff — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 10:20:25 -0400

A Chinese phrase advises that you “borrow a corpse for the soul’s return.” This metaphor points to the fact that we tend not to dig through garbage. Once we’ve thrown something away we mentally label it “trash” and so we stop wondering if it is still useful.

Good Cause, Good Ideas, Good Money

Kaihan Krippendorff — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:37:50 -0400

When I pull up to the village in which my mother grew up in Bangladesh, I feel like I'm on the set of a cowboy movie. Two long streets cross in the center, each bordered by a well-planned lineup of storefronts.

From this intersection, you might think this is a city, with concrete walls, paved roads, and running water. But peer beyond the intersection of storefronts and there is nothing more than a patchwork of small farm plots, separated by dirt pathways and grass-roofed huts.

Rice Power: Cisco, DFJ Award Seed Money to Husk Power Systems

Ariel Schwartz — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:45:07 -0400

Social Enterprises of the Year

Fast Company staff — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:30:07 -0500

Enterprise Community Partners, has invested $9 billion in equity capital, pre-development lending, mortgage financing, and development grants to house low- and moderate-income Americans. It also helped create the low-income-housing tax credit that for 25 years has provided a way for the business world to address the need for affordable housing while still making a profit. That credit has accounted for some 90% of the affordable rental housing in the U.S. Now it is taking on the credit crunch with innovative financing and a green-building initiative.

Husk Power Systems: Rice-Fired Electricity

Sara D. Anderson — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 15:15:11 -0500

In India's Rice Belt, 350 million people live without reliable electricity. But they do have lots of rice -- and rice husks discarded from harvest. So University of Virginia business students Chip Ransler and Manoj Sinha recently devised a way to give them their own form of energy independence by turning husks into biogas, which fuels mini power plants. Hundreds of homes in five rice-growing communities now have affordable power. And the ash from generating the gas isn't wasted: It can be used as fertilizer or as a low-cost ingredient for cement.

The 10 Best Social Enterprises of 2009

Fast Company Staff — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 05:00:15 -0500

We have found them: Nine bold and timely ideas that wow us -- and that have earned these organizations a place alongside Enterprise Community Partners on our honor roll of 2009 Social Enterprises of the Year. Will all of these notions work in the long run and on a grand scale? Perhaps not. But they represent the kind of innovative thinking that can transform lives and change our world.

Do Something: An IPO