Green Tech http://injoos.com/blog/greentech Saving the environment through Technology Thu, 22 Apr 2010 10:28:34 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6 en Earth Day http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/04/22/earth-day/ http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/04/22/earth-day/#comments Thu, 22 Apr 2010 10:28:34 +0000 praveen http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/?p=169 April 22nd reminds us of one important job that we have been neglecting from the time human race started his industrial revolution. This day is celebrated as the “Earth Day” all over the globe. “Earth Day” was started in the year 1970 and is being celebrated till date. Analysis shows that our planet is getting [...]]]>

April 22nd reminds us of one important job that we have been neglecting from the time human race started his industrial revolution. This day is celebrated as the “Earth Day” all over the globe. “Earth Day” was started in the year 1970 and is being celebrated till date. Analysis shows that our planet is getting hotter and hotter each passing year. Yes, there are talks being held among the nations to reduce the effect of global warming but, the results are not promising enough. Everyone just wants to get on to the top spot.

Let us all join hands in saving our only hope of survival and step forward to save our planet. Even a small thing like switching off a fan when not in use, planting a tree in our surrounding, switching off the vehicle engine in the signal lights can makes lot of difference. So, lets roll up our sleeves to do our bit , which can make a huge impact on the environment. Each of our efforts put together can make wonders and have great impact on our Mother Earth like little drops of water makes the mighty ocean.

Lets join our hands together to save the only Blue planet in this universe, she’s our only hope..

]]> http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/04/22/earth-day/feed/ Wild Transect http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/04/12/wild-transect/ http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/04/12/wild-transect/#comments Mon, 12 Apr 2010 10:13:01 +0000 praveen http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/?p=162

It was one of my dream and passion, to walk in the forest and see the wild animals roaming freely in their natural habitat. This dream came true when I got selected by WCS(Wildlife Conservation Society) to assist them in the annual line transect survey at Bandipur Tiger Reserve.

It was one of my dream and passion, to walk in the forest and see the wild animals roaming freely in their natural habitat. This dream came true when I got selected by WCS(Wildlife Conservation Society) to assist them in the annual line transect survey at Bandipur Tiger Reserve.

Line transect survey is similar to human census but, only difference being that here, wild animals will be counted in the forest range that they live in. The total prey count is taken to calculate the predator count using a unique mathematical formula. To perform this survey, complete reserve forest area is classified and marked with number of unique sections. Each of this section is called a “line” whose length will be between 2-3 km. A marked line can be in shape of a ‘triangle’ or ‘rectangle’ so as to make the start and end points the same(this will help in drop and pickup). A compass and a range finder is provided to note down the angle of the animal seen and distance at which the animal is sighted respectively. Along with this line transect survey various other surveys like:

  1. Scat route survey (to get a  count of carnivorous)

  2. Human conflict survey (to check the human conflict with the nature in and around the Tiger reserve and national parks)

  3. Camera trapping (to get the count of carnivorous, specifically tigers) is being carried out in all the national parks and tiger reserve all over India.

I had been to this line transect survey for a period of one week. And it was one of the best thing happened in my life. Got to see many of the wildlife species lurking about freely in the wild.

A person needs good amount of skill to walk in the forest without making much noise along with a fare amount of knowledge about the wild species living in that geographical and fare amount of luck to see some of the wild species like the bear, tiger, leopard etc.. I think I had my part of luck as, I could watch many of these magnificent species at a very close range.

We were around 15 people and many of them had come all the way from Pune, MP etc.. This shows the amount of interest shown by them to participate in these events. Everyone used to walk in their assigned lines each day.

First walk will be in the morning 06:15 hrs to 8:15 hrs and later, the evening walk would extend from 16:00 hrs to 18:00 hrs.

To learn more about the transect survey, please watch this videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa4V9NbiphU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnew1fyXp4Y

After completing the successful week in the line transect survey, we got a opportunity to visit one of the zoo. What we saw there was totally disturbing.. Few wild animals who need a area of 100 sq.km to survive was concealed in 20*20 cage.. and many animals which live in social harmony were alone.. We just couldn’t take this bitter truth and we just walked out of the zoo.. When questioned, many said “we need people to get right information about the wild animals and there behavior” and few say “ its one of the major source of attraction for tourist”.. Should this speechless animals suffer for the benefit of human race..? we, humans are yet to answer this question.

]]> http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/04/12/wild-transect/feed/ Vote for Earth ! http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/03/25/vote-for-earth/ http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/03/25/vote-for-earth/#comments Thu, 25 Mar 2010 07:20:26 +0000 praveen http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/?p=149 Bangalore is grappling with heat and lack of power as the government scrambles to fill up the shortfall. Still electricity and more broadly energy is the privilege of few who live in urban India. We at Injoos are participating again the upcoming chapter of Earth Hour. A Global initiative to make people aware of the [...]]]>

Bangalore is grappling with heat and lack of power as the government scrambles to fill up the shortfall. Still electricity and more broadly energy is the privilege of few who live in urban India. We at Injoos are participating again the upcoming chapter of Earth Hour. A Global initiative to make people aware of the challenges of energy shortage and the need for conservation.

On March 27th 2010, 20:30 to 21:30 local time will be celebrated as Earth Hour. Lets join hands in this cause and switch off all the lights during this hour. Lets joins hands to this cause and save our planet Earth from rapid climate change, De-forestation, Pollution etc..

Earth and Wildlife do not vote. Lets raise OUR voices, so that THEY are heard.

Other interesting Links:

Organize your earth hour

The Earth Hour Blog

Get yourself off that grid

Top 10 things to remember during Earth Hour

60 Things to do during Earth Hour

]]> http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/03/25/vote-for-earth/feed/ Get Yourself Off that Grid! http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/02/28/get-yourself-off-that-grid/ http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/02/28/get-yourself-off-that-grid/#comments Sun, 28 Feb 2010 20:00:20 +0000 Jagdish http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/?p=136 While I write this blog post the serviceman came and took away the faulty Inverter from my home in Bangalore, the silicon alley of India. In this hitech city there are constant power cuts and in this month it has gone up to 4 Hours a day. The UPS with battery sells like hot cakes [...]]]>

While I write this blog post the serviceman came and took away the faulty Inverter from my home in Bangalore, the silicon alley of India. In this hitech city there are constant power cuts and in this month it has gone up to 4 Hours a day. The UPS with battery sells like hot cakes so that affluent home owners can get their fans running when the local utility BESCOM stops the power supply. Large IT companies use highly polluting and energy inefficient generator sets, guzzling huge amounts of fuel. I wish I could get off the public power grid and generate my own power and live happily ever after. That is still a pipe dream as the current technologies using clean energy sources like Solar and Bio are very expensive and also very inefficient.

When I saw the press release of BloomEnergy, a new Silicon Valley startup whose CEO Sridhar, an emigrant from India indicated that with his new Solid Fuel cell technology his Bloom boxes will help us get off that grid. The first customer trying his boxes is Google who has been using it for the last 18 months to power one of its data centers. So what is this new technology? How is it different?
Solid fuel cells have been used for a long time now in various space technologies by organizations like NASA, the difference being that this time around the technology does not use expensive metals or corrosive liquids but inexpensive sand. Yes, sand gets transformed into a ceramic sheet which gets coated and becomes the core of the solid fuel cell. The bloom box which is of the size of a refrigerator could power up to four houses in Bangalore.
One of the analogies I liked is bloom boxes could do what Laptops did to large computers and mobile phone did to landline phones. Literally make you self sufficient.
Watch this video as Sridhar demonstrates the use of his technology and the companies which are trying it out.


Watch CBS News Videos Online

The technology is yet to be commercialized and I am hoping that Sridhar and team will be able to keep the costs down to the level people in Asian countries will be able to afford it.
]]> http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/02/28/get-yourself-off-that-grid/feed/ How Green Is Your IT Infrastructure? http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/02/24/how-green-is-your-it-infrastructure/ http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/02/24/how-green-is-your-it-infrastructure/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 07:43:34 +0000 sneha http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/?p=110

Companies today are realising that they need to be aware of how ‘Green’ they really are. There is consciousness among corporate that green is the way to go. All around us there is talk about companies not only looking at reducing their own carbon footprint, but also that of their clients. A number of IT [...]]]>

Companies today are realising that they need to be aware of how ‘Green’ they really are. There is consciousness among corporate that green is the way to go. All around us there is talk about companies not only looking at reducing their own carbon footprint, but also that of their clients. A number of IT leaders are introducing innovations in their products to ensure that they are low emitters of carbon. Well here is a simple solutions by one such company called ‘GREENTRAC’ that help you save your business energy cost and carbon emission.

  • Reduce PC Energy Consumption.
  • Meet Green IT Targets.
  • Save Money

An enterprise’s PC fleet generally accounts for between one-third and half of the IT energy use, with the remainder used by printers, PABX, servers and the data centre. Savings achievable from the PC fleet can be almost equal to the total data centre energy use!

Current generation power management tools generally do not recognize the individual as the most appropriate form of power management decision making and tend to be IT-centric.

  • Users and groups do not receive comparative information allowing them to understand and compare their PC energy efficiency efforts to others, as individuals or as groups.
  • Current generation PC power management tools tend to be driven by system administrators on a batch basis and not by the users in real time.
  • Users do not currently receive the necessary acknowledgment or feedback regarding their individual efforts in supporting the sustainability initiatives within their enterprise.

For many Greentrac users, even enterprises using PC shutdown products, the savings from the PC fleet represented 10% - 40% of total enterprise green initiatives last year and Greentrac almost always achieved the fastest payback of any initiative.

Here is how Greentrac Works

Step One: Deployment.

Greentrac appliance is deployed. This usually takes less than one hour.

Step Two: Install Client Software.

Desktop Monitoring Agents (DMAs) are deployed to all workstation PCs, laptops and Macs.


DMAs are ultra-light - less than 300KB compared with 20MB or larger for traditional agents.

Step Three: Get The Results.

Workstation DMA provides profile (CPU, speed, memory, disks, monitors) to appliance upon installation.

Subsequently the DMA provides summary operating data required to calculate energy use on a preset interval (e.g. every 1 minute) using almost no network resources.

Appliance calculates energy use based on PC profile and updates energy, energy cost and CO2 used by PC in real time. Information is available to users in real time from appliance portal.

So ready to go green and make a difference to the world?

Interesting Blogs:

http://injoos.com/blog/newway2work/

]]> http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/02/24/how-green-is-your-it-infrastructure/feed/ Let us stop burning down the forests ! http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/02/22/let-us-stop-burning-down-the-forests/ http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/02/22/let-us-stop-burning-down-the-forests/#comments Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:52:13 +0000 praveen http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/?p=105 Wanted to share with you about a recently conducted awareness campaign for Rural School students in the dense forest region of Karnataka; Biligiri Rangana Forest Range which I was lucky to be part of. Ashwin who heads the “Growing Wild” organization came down to Injoos and spoke to us regarding this awareness campaign and the [...]]]>

Wanted to share with you about a recently conducted awareness campaign for Rural School students in the dense forest region of Karnataka; Biligiri Rangana Forest Range which I was lucky to be part of. Ashwin who heads the “Growing Wild” organization came down to Injoos and spoke to us regarding this awareness campaign and the Injoos team members got kicked and decided to join hands for this noble cause.

Belive me, those 3 days that I spent at the the awareness camp among the rural school students was one of the best days in my life. We split up into 2 teams 4 in each to cover wider area. Talking about the response from the students, it was unexpected. We had a plan to cover over 50 schools that was in and around the Biligiri Rangana Forest range and spend around 15 minutes at each school to convey our thoughts but, seeing the response from the students and their willingness to save our forests we could not stop ourselves from spending more time with the students interacting and answering their questions and queries. We were amazed to see and hear from students the amount of information that they knew about the forests and the animals living within those forests and not to mention their willingness to save the forests.

“We have got a strong response from various other school children around other sanctuaries like Nagarahole Forest Range, Bandipur Forest Range etc to which the information is being conveyed in the same way from past few years.. “This was the 1st strong and successful effort to convey information on the conservation of forest around the Biligiri Rangana forest range..” shared one of the ‘Growing Wild’ member enthusiastically.

As per the latest state of forests report by the Forest Survey of India the actual forest cover of India is 19.27% of the geographic area, corresponding to 63.3 million hectors. In the absolute term, out of the 63 million hectors of forests an area of around 3.73 million can be presumed to be affected by fires annually. This figures are alarming as 3.73 million hectors of forest cannot be regrown in few years.

Early this year a strong roar across the country was sounded to save the national animal of our country, for the lovers of the wild and the creatures living within it, this news was a bolt of fire that had hit their life as if a huge forest fire had burst out. Until 1970 poaching was legal across India and Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 was enforced to ban hunting. Until a century back there were more than 40,000 odd tigers roaming across India alone which was around 60% of the complete world’s tiger population and now the count is less that 1400. Alarming isn’t it.?

]]> http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/02/22/let-us-stop-burning-down-the-forests/feed/ Don’t expect a miracle, be the miracle http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/02/15/dont-expect-a-miracle-be-the-miracle/ http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/02/15/dont-expect-a-miracle-be-the-miracle/#comments Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:39:53 +0000 pramodh http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/?p=132
A news item appeared in Times of India on Feb 1 about a green initiative by Assystem, a company in 19 countries and with 10,000 employees. The first line screamed about being the change that people wanted to be. Well, looked like there were lot of motivated employees, who took initiative to “change our system not by just talking about it but by doing something,” and “a simple approach to contribute to the society by doing things which are well in our control.”
The initiative has:
  • Got people to take oath,
  • Demonstration of e-bike,
  • Designing an eco-friendly car
  • Rarely take print-outs,
  • Awareness on e-waste,
  • Established an e-waste bin,
e-Waste
Quodos to all who are involved in this initiative. I am with you. Being inquisitive, I searched for the Company website and started looking for more information about the green initiative. Well it was a shock to me. The News page was “Under Construction.” Could not believe that an organisation with 10,000 employees did not have one to update their best “Online Asset” they had, and in-turn loose an opportunity to capitalize the event.
In this era of interactive media like the internet, this was one big opportunity that Assystem missed.
The reason for writing about this event is that most of the times, employees are ready for change. Not just ready, they embrace change. But it’s the leadership that takes it’s time, and stays put in comfort zones.
Let’s look at what more could be done for a green earth.
  • Use less paper,
  • Travel less,
Yes two simple things. We can save a lot of greenery.
If businesses start doing these two things, there may be substantial efforts that they would have put for a green initiative. Not to say about the revenue saved from these. You may ask what’s are alternative ? There are new ways of working.
How ? The key to today’s businesses is having the right information at the right time. Putting the information contextually, and making it available for people across the globe, in one seamless way for accessing from the internet can make a lot of difference. Whether it’s the news, blog posts, events, meetings, documents and library resources, project management and real-time web conference, having access to all these from one online place is important.
]]> http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/02/15/dont-expect-a-miracle-be-the-miracle/feed/ Get on that Bus! - Bengaluru Bus Day http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/02/03/get-on-that-bus-bengaluru-bus-day/ http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/02/03/get-on-that-bus-bengaluru-bus-day/#comments Wed, 03 Feb 2010 05:59:29 +0000 Jagdish http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/?p=97 For people familiar with the Bangaluru traffic will understand when I say that it would be great when all the cars, two wheelers are off the road. Maybe that pipe dream is closer to reality if we all Bangaloreans contribute and enjoy the Bangalore Municipal Bus service for a day on February 4th which is [...]]]>

For people familiar with the Bangaluru traffic will understand when I say that it would be great when all the cars, two wheelers are off the road. Maybe that pipe dream is closer to reality if we all Bangaloreans contribute and enjoy the Bangalore Municipal Bus service for a day on February 4th which is being celebrated as Bangaluru Bus Day. BTW, Bangalore has the best public bus service in the country and it is the only profitable public transport enterprise in the nation. It boasts the only and the biggest fleet of air-conditioned Volvo buses. I definitely plan to be on the bus to the office on Thursday (even though my house is pretty close to office as a symbolic gesture). Share your experiences on the day you left that vehicle behind and help reduce the pollution levels in a city which we still like to call the “Garden city”.

Some interesting factoids and opinions on Bengaluru Bus day.

http://aravind-krishnaswamy.blogspot.com/2010/01/feb-4th-bangalore-bus-day.html

Map of Premium Bus service in Bangalore

Respond to the BMTC (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation) survey

See what people are tweeting on Bangalore Bus Day

]]> http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2010/02/03/get-on-that-bus-bengaluru-bus-day/feed/ Know the carbon emissions of your Business travel http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2009/12/21/know-the-carbon-emissions-of-your-business-travel/ http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2009/12/21/know-the-carbon-emissions-of-your-business-travel/#comments Mon, 21 Dec 2009 10:12:38 +0000 Jagdish http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/?p=92 To start appreciating any issue first it is good to quantify the same in some manner. I found this useful tool from cabonfound.org which helps you put a number to the amount of pollution you and your team members could be causing due to business travel a.k.a your Carbon Footprint.

Obviously as anyone would know business [...]]]>

To start appreciating any issue first it is good to quantify the same in some manner. I found this useful tool from cabonfound.org which helps you put a number to the amount of pollution you and your team members could be causing due to business travel a.k.a your Carbon Footprint.

Obviously as anyone would know business travel is a definite must to meet customers, prospects et. al. but then having this back of your mind can let us optimize those travels and maybe find alternate ways of achieving the same. For example you could use web conferencing as an alternative to traveling to the customer site. There any many web conferencing tools which are available today and are very easy to setup and use.

DimDim (Currently DimDim provides free web conferencing upto 20 Users)

Webex

GotoMeeting

You can work with you co-workers remotely and with the use of cloud applications. Checkout our Blog on New Way to Work.

]]> http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2009/12/21/know-the-carbon-emissions-of-your-business-travel/feed/ Welcome to the Injoos Green Tech Blog http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2009/12/21/welcome-to-the-injoos-green-tech-blog/ http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2009/12/21/welcome-to-the-injoos-green-tech-blog/#comments Mon, 21 Dec 2009 07:37:52 +0000 Jagdish http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/?p=90 Dear Professional,

Welcome to the Blog!. This blog does not intent to replace many of the informative blogs on how Green technologies work and the likes. We have a view that in todays work mobile professionals like you can do your bit to help achieve the larger goals of greening our planet. Things like “Do I [...]]]>

Dear Professional,

Welcome to the Blog!. This blog does not intent to replace many of the informative blogs on how Green technologies work and the likes. We have a view that in todays work mobile professionals like you can do your bit to help achieve the larger goals of greening our planet. Things like “Do I need to travel for project meetings?”, “What are the advantages of remote working”, “Ho do I conserve power” etc.

With todays cloud based applications and cheap mobile devices you can conduct your business form Antime-Anywhere with ease. Couple this with the social media you get a sense of belonging without the need to be physically together with your team members.

Through this blog we would want to highlight the impact you can create on the environment by tele-working, remote working, cloud computing and greener technologies.

Pelease collaborate with us to make this blog enriching for your fellow professionals.

Thanks,

Team Injoos

]]> http://injoos.com/blog/greentech/2009/12/21/welcome-to-the-injoos-green-tech-blog/feed/