In honor of Frank Lloyd Wrights birthday (June 8) Google SketchUp partnered with The Guggenheim Museum to launch a competition to design a simple shelter. By using Google SketchUp and Google Earth you can choose any site and create any basic dwelling (without water, gas or electricity). While it is a great creative initiative, it could go one step further by challenging participants to design with purpose.
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Originally Published on the Huffington Post on May 28, 2009
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If Hurricane Katrina taught us the aid community anything it was that when the perceived systems of support broke down the local residents turned to organizations and community groups willing to step up - whether they had the capacity of not. In many areas along the Gulf Coast it was not a disparate band of 'do-gooders' but a highly networked group of organizations collaborated and tag-teamed on everything from housing reconstruction, volunteer coordination and social service support.
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NB: Originally published on The Huffington Post
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On Sunday I sat in a small room with 40 or so Young Global Leaders during the 2009 World Economic Forum on the Middle East. Among us were Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians and a host of international and regional figures. This was the last event after four days in the Dead Sea talking about the regional economic outlook, Obamas upcoming trip (with Valerie Garrett), sustainable development to low-cost housing in the region (disclosure: I spoke on the later).
