Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say, and it's also widespread in Paraguay, where some 300,000 families lack adequate housing. Motivated by that fact--and by the severe deforestation that has been wrought upon the land--a local Paraguayan activist has devised a way to create recyclable housing materials without using wood.

Social activist Elsa Zaldívar has found a way to mix loofah, the cucumberlike vegetable that gets dried into a scratchy sponge for use in bathing, along with corn and palm husks into a soup of melted, recycled plastics to form strong, lightweight panels suitable for use in houses and furniture. Loofah are already readily available in Paraguay thanks to a project Zaldívar, as head of nonprofit organization Base ECTA, initiated to empower local women. Working with Zaldívar, industrial engineer Pedro Padrós then devised a machine to combine the vegetable materials and plastics into panels that can be produced with varying strength, flexibility, weight, insulating qualities and colours. The lightweight composite panels are not only easier to handle than lumber or brick, but also much better in an earthquake or other natural catastrophe; if destroyed, they are fully recyclable, too. Combining a melting unit, mixer, extruder and cutting unit, Padrós' machine can produce a half-metre-wide panel 120 metres long in one hour. Costs have already fallen to less than about USD 3 per square metre, making the material competitive with existing construction materials.

A newly granted Rolex Award will finance a promotion centre, the construction of three model houses and a video that will be used to describe the project, which has already attracted commercial interest as well. One to sponsor, test out, or otherwise get involved in? (Related: Instead of Styrofoam, fungus and rice hulls.)

Website: www.rolexawards.com/en/the-laureates/elsazaldivar-the-project.jsp
Contact: baseecta@baseecta.org.py

Unreliable electricity and spotty internet access are a fact of life in many parts of the developing world--and part of the reason the digital divide still persists today. A new, solar-powered innovation from Florida-based GNUveau Networks, however, is bringing computers and the internet to places that have no connectivity, no phone service and no electricity.

Functioning as a sort of "ISP in a box," SolarNetOne is a terminal network system that uses photovoltaic solar electrical systems and a variety of open source technologies to make internet access a reality in the remotest areas. Included in the system are a small-footprint server and five terminals (expandable to as many as 48) that come loaded with web browsing, email, office, multimedia, software development and web development capabilities, with more than 15,000 other applications--including VoIP--to choose from as well. SolarNetOne's terminals operate as thin clients--meaning that the majority of the workload is handled by the server--and the system's Ethernet hub provides both network connection and electrical power to the terminals and their LCD monitors over a single wire. A power subsystem including an array of photovoltaic solar panels, an advanced charge controller and ample battery storage, meanwhile, provides for all of the electrical needs associated with 24/7 server operation and 8 hours per day of terminal access. Wifi coverage spans a 2-mile radius, with no fuel costs, no polluting emissions and a long lifespan of up to 20 years with proper maintenance. The entire system, in fact, operates on about the same amount of power as a 100-watt light bulb, GNUveau says. The technology has already been installed at Katsina State University in Nigeria, and a video explanation is available here.

Helping to bridge the digital divide is undeniably a worthy effort, particularly when it's done in an ecologically responsible way. The SolarNetOne project is open to collaborators; one to sponsor, assist with, or otherwise get involved in? (Related: Open source software for low bandwidth consumers -- Solar-powered cellphone kiosks for Ugandan women.)

Website: www.solarnetone.org -- www.gnuveau.net
Contact: scott@gnuveau.net

Spotted by: Kevin Rombe

A shining example of crowdsourcing at work, Ushahidi is mobilizing citizens to report and map conflicts. The project began as a way for Kenyans to log reports of violence during the post-election fallout of early 2008; a period when mainstream media was banned. A new Ushahidi engine is currently in development that will allows users to SMS, email or an online form to submit reports that are then flagged on a map that anyone can view to gain a speedy understanding of where issues are happening. Reports are broken down into categories that include deaths, looting and peace efforts. Ushahidi works with NGOs to verify reports, helping ensure that content is as accurate and complete as possible. Reporting in this way promotes peace efforts, increases awareness of violence and provides a permanent log of events, referral to which may help in future conflicts and ensure that what happened is not forgotten.

Ushahidi plans to release the tool as a downloadable application that is both open source and plug-in friendly, meaning it can be customized for different needs and locations. As we've seen before, crowds are more than ready to adopt applications like this when the cause is right, fully aware that it increases the transparency of events receiving limited or skewed media coverage. (Related: Front page rivalry--pros versus citizen journalists.)

Website: www.ushahidi.com -- legacy.ushahidi.com

Spotter: Kevin Rombe

Marathons and races have long been used as a way to raise money for charity, but opportunities to participate in such fundraising efforts are typically few and far between. A new site dedicated to combining exercise and charity, however, aims to help consumers get corporate sponsorship for their everyday exercise activities.

Plus 3 Network, based in California, lets consumers turn every step, turn of the pedal or stroke in the pool into a fundraising effort for the cause of their choice. Consumers begin by signing up at no cost and choosing the cause they'd like to support. Plus 3 then matches that cause with a corporate sponsor who is willing to make donations for each mile of exercise activity logged. Consumers then simply record their walking, running, biking or swimming activities on Plus 3--either by manually entering them on the site, or by uploading GPS data that includes the course, the pace, the distance and the date. Corporate sponsors donate anywhere from USD 0.0033 to USD 0.2 per mile, with GPS data earning three times as many rewards as those entered by hand. Social networking features allow users to form groups and add friends for joint activities, and participants can also earn prizes, discounts and swag ranging from trinkets to junkets, the site says. Plus 3, meanwhile, is paid by its sponsors for the opportunity to connect with members, thereby keeping the site ad-free.

With benefits for consumers, corporate sponsors, charitable organizations and itself, Plus 3 offers an all-too-rare, four-way win-win-win-win proposition. It doesn't get much better than that! ;-) (Related: Tricycle race benefits social entrepreneurs.)

Website: www.plus3network.com
Contact: plus3@plus3network.com

Spotted by: Chris Matthews

When consumers buy fair-trade products, it's typically because they are motivated more by ethical considerations than by price--which tends to be higher for such goods. Fair-trade exporter CraftNetwork, however, is focusing on long-term sustainability with an approach that aims to make fair-trade goods more competitive with other alternatives.

CraftNetwork provides export-facilitation and enterprise-development services to Indonesian artisans with the goal of increasing sales, strengthening ethical trading practices, building organizational capacity, generating employment and improving the artisans' standard of living. In Etsy-like fashion, CraftNetwork offers an online marketplace for jewelry, paintings, sculpture, home decor and accessory items crafted by more than a thousand disadvantaged Indonesian artisans. Going beyond just a B2C marketplace, however, CraftNetwork also helps the artisans it represents compete with large-scale factory producers in global wholesale markets, according to an article in BusinessWeek. Specifically, by helping the artisans produce goods to common specifications, it enables them to offer volumes and uniformity that are competitive with those of factory-based counterparts, BW reported. A recent deal with Carnival Cruise Lines, for example, calls for CraftNetwork's artisans to produce 50,000 books woven out of banana leaves, employing an entire Indonesian village and bringing in USD 70,000 per month. CraftNetwork also offers its artisans business training and resources including a pool of money that they can reportedly borrow from to finance their operations while waiting for payments. CraftNetwork is supported by the Grassroots Business Initiative of the World Bank's International Finance Corporation group.

Ethical consumers notwithstanding, true sustainability--particularly during tough economic times--still comes down to the fundamental ability to compete on basic considerations like quality and price. CraftNetwork's is a model to watch--and emulate.

Website: www.craftnetwork.com
Contact: info@craftnetwork.com

Spotted by: BusinessWeek

We at Springwise are always happy to chronicle the spread of a good idea, but never more so than when those doing the spreading are part of the Springwise community themselves. So it's with great pleasure that we bring our readers one more tale of free photocopying for students, this time launched by one of our very own Springspotters in his home country of the Philippines.

At the Philippines' Prime University Ateneo De Manila, Matthew Cua is project manager of Celadon, the university's official Chinese-Filipino organization. Charged with the task of planning the group's Mid-Autumn Gratia faculty appreciation day celebration for this fall, Cua says he was inspired by our free love coverage to incorporate free photocopying for students into the event. Scouting around for sponsorship, Cua found a receptive audience in Dr. Diana Cua-Balcells, a local breast cancer surgeon and alumna of the university, who picked up on the idea as a way to promote breast cancer awareness on behalf of nonprofit organizations including Bosom Buddies, I Can Serve, Pink for Life, Carewell Community and the Cuabang Foundation. Accordingly, among the festival's many offerings was a free photocopying kiosk that aimed both to promote breast cancer causes and to help support Celadon. Equipped with just a single photocopier, the outdoor stand in the middle of campus produced 8,200 free photocopies over the course of the five-day festival, serving some 500 students plus a number of faculty who made copies for their entire classes. Celadon even took the free copies idea one better by designing the paper used to serve as notepaper on the reverse side, allowing it to do double-duty in class or be reused afterwards.

Celadon made minimal profit on the event, Cua says--aiming mainly to cover its costs--but the group is planning a similar effort for November, this time with commercial sponsorship, that it expects will be more lucrative. And because "moist paper doesn't work in a photocopying machine," Cua also notes that better precautions will be taken next time to keep the paper dry in Manila's humid open-air environment, using heaters and special packaging. More projects are planned for Chinese New Year as well. Is there any mountain free love can't climb? We think not. :-) Be inspired!

Website: www.freelovephilippines.com
Contact: ateneo.celadon@gmail.com

It's a tragic fact of life today that one in five African children die before their fifth birthday from simple causes like dehydration from diarrhoea. Basic medicines could save those children's lives, yet no means has been found to make them readily available. A new grassroots project, however, aims to tap into the formidable distribution network of none other than Coca-Cola to get life-saving medicines to the children who need them.

The ColaLife project aims to distribute oral rehydration salts and educational materials to people in developing countries through a partnership with Coca-Cola by which its distributors carry medicine in addition to soft drinks. The concept actually dates back 20 years, when its originator--Simon Berry, who was then an aid worker in Zambia--was struck by the realization that one could buy a Coke virtually anywhere on the planet, yet medicine was hard to come by. He proposed designating one compartment in every 10 Coke crates as "the life saving" compartment to transport medicines. His idea fell on deaf ears back then, but today the power of social networking is giving it new life.

Specifically, Berry's ColaLife project has tapped the power of Facebook and other social networking tools to amass a group of more than 6,000 supporters, garner widespread media coverage and--at least as important--get the attention of Coca-Cola. Berry has since met with high-ranking officials at the company, and talks are under way to push the idea further. Meanwhile, ColaLife groups have been added on Google and Flickr, and a YouTube video was created earlier this month to promote the project's submission to Google's Project 10^100 initiative. Currently, ColaLife is seeking an NGO to participate in the project as well.

The web is facilitating social change in ways that simply weren't possible before, uniting like-minded activists and gathering support from around the globe. Will Coca-Cola jump in with both feet? That remains to be seen. In the meantime, one to watch--and learn from. (Related: Activism site ensures participation -- Customers deliver donated TOMS shoes.)

Website: www.colalife.org
Contact: sxberry@gmail.com

Spotted by: Sarah Nill

Since moving its not-for-profit venture online in 1995, New York-based Green Map System has made online maps of sustainable initiatives accessible to keen greens everywhere. Its selection of hand-picked mapmakers in 50 countries are responsible for the site's 450+ maps, facilitating global sustainability from a grassroots level. Ethical stores, green spaces and recycling sites are just some of the sites the maps help people discover.

The project's impact will hit a whole new level with the introduction of Open Green Map: a community site that makes the project accessible to all, letting users add new locations as well as exploring the recommendations of others. Participants can bring entries to life with Flickr photos or YouTube videos to support their text descriptions. The site has also boosted its usefulness with the development of applications for mobile devices. Users can now upload content the moment they discover it, and log in to find the nearest fair-trade coffee shop or ethical fashion store whilst out and about.

Combining the expansion of the mobile internet and the desire to live green, Open Green Maps uses technology to connect communities in the real world. As well as making it much easier for users to track down world-changing initiatives in their own neighbourhoods, the site might help foreign ecopreneurs discover new ideas to introduce to their home markets. As the tagline goes, 'Think global, map local'. (Related: The big city guide to going green.)

Website: www.opengreenmap.org
Contact: www.greenmap.org/greenhouse/en/contact

Spotted by: Emma Crameri

Theyworkforyou.com, the site that helps the British public keep tabs on their politicians, has just made the government's goings-on even more transparent and accessible. Its full archive of video clips of debates in the House of Commons can now be searched, thanks to a new initiative to link parliament transcripts with video footage.

The website created a timestamping application in June 2008 to match up each clip--recorded from BBC Parliament, the British equivalent of C-SPAN--to the correct transcript. Even though all of the timestamping needed to be done manually without a budget, two months after launch all 42,018 video clips were fully searchable. The non-profit site managed this by involving the general public, creating a small incentive by naming its top taggers, one of whom is responsible for over 8,000 entries. It also encouraged participation by making it incredibly easy for anyone to pitch in: all users need to do to get started is to click the 'Give me a random speech that needs timestamping' link. They're then shown a video, and just need to press the 'now' button when they hear the words displayed below the player. The Houses of Parliament are currently in their Summer Recess, but when they get back to work in October, Theyworkforyou.com will be able to match up videos and transcripts as soon as they become available.

By relying on the simple system of text search, finding important parts of debates in seemingly endless sequences of video suddenly becomes much less daunting. The project's aim is to make it easy for citizens to watch relevant footage, and to remind politicians of the promises they've made. While Google and other tech behemoths work on making video searchable, the fact that this low-tech project was completed so quickly demonstrates the power of harnessing the crowds, and how ready and willing those crowds are to help create a greater degree of transparency. Politicians, beware: there's no place to hide ;-)

Website: www.theyworkforyou.com/video
Contact: team@theyworkforyou.com

Spotted by: Simon Blair

As the US presidential election winds up to a fever pitch in these last few campaign months, there's no doubt passionate supporters in both camps are looking for ways to give their side an edge. One such tool now comes in the form of a custom e-mail signature that proudly displays the allegiance of its user.

Austrian E-Mail Charity specializes in the creation of e-mail signatures to support a variety of charitable causes, including Care and Doctors without Borders. Users simply enter their contact information as they'd like it to appear, and the company's specialized installer creates and automatically installs a signature widget including that and a banner advertising the charity of their choice. Now the same can be done to support either Obama or McCain in the presidential race. On the Obama side, available banners include Latinos for Obama, Republicans for Obama and Americans Abroad for Obama, while opposing banners include "McCain Stands for Experience" and "McCain--Country First." Creating and using E-Mail Charity's signatures is free, and virtually all e-mail clients are supported; text-only versions are available for webmail users. As the company explains, "If only a few of your friends join in on using E-mail Charity, a viral marketing effect for your cause/charity is launched."

The election signatures appear to be E-Mail Charity's first effort targeting e-mail users outside of Austria. One to help localize in a market near you to harness consumer marketeers for the change you believe in? (Related: Viral music sales through widgets.)

Website: election08.emailcharity.com
Contact: office@emailcharity.com

Spotted by: Lukas Z.