"In opening remarks at the Web 2.0 Summit 2008 in San Francisco, Tim O’Reilly took a moment to highlight the bright side of a stormy economic outlook. Sure, there’s been some chatter about the demise of the startup world, how economic forces will impact the venture capital world and, subsequently, the startup culture. But O’Reilly, founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media and a co-producer of the three-day event, said the fate of startups isn’t as black-and-white as some might think."

"Tough times tend to clear out the clutter and force the industry to focus again on solving problems. We’ve seen it before - copycat startups that tap into an idea that’s showing signs of growth - think social networks, online music businesses and so on. But the true entrepreneurial spirit has less to do with finding a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, O’Reilly said, and more to do with solving the world’s problems.'

Web 2.0 Summit: Focus on Solving Problems, not Overnight Fortunes

"The cloud was omnipresent at the Web 2.0 Summit as industry executives discussed the migration from the client to millions of virtualized servers as the information pipe. 'There is a lot of hype. We think about the cloud as the next evolution in computing,' said Cisco Chief Technology Officer Padmasree Warrior. 'It's a way of abstracting the services and applications from the physical resources and using a more on-demand layer.' Warrior believes that cloud computing will evolve from private and stand-alone clouds to hybrid clouds, which allow movement of applications and services between clouds, and finally to a federated 'inter-cloud.'"

Business Tech - The Future of the Cloud

Making a strange analogy between Web 2.0 and a puppy he bought back when he was a reporter, Gore told an audience of entrepreneurs and Internet junkies that -- similar to that puppy -- "Web 2.0 has to have a purpose."

"The purpose I would urge all of you, or as many of you that are willing to take it up, is to bring about a higher level of consciousness of our relationship with this planet and the imminent danger and opportunity we face.

"We have everything we need to save it and in the process create millions of new jobs, reduce national security exposure, and solve the climate crisis," said Gore.

"Just as Barack Obama would have been impossible without a new dialogue and new ways of interacting on the Web, the only way this is going to be solved is by addressing the democracy crisis. We have to take this issue and raise it in the awareness of everyone."

One way Gore is trying to help further democracy along is with his media company Current.tv which aims to bring the democracy of the Internet to television -- a movement he compared to the role of the printing press in creating a "reign of reason."

http://www.internetevolution.com/author.asp?section_id=466&doc_id=167582

At the recent Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Al Gore introduced a five point plan that "...would simultaneously move us toward solutions to the climate crisis and the economic crisis–and create millions of new jobs that cannot be outsourced".

From the Live Earth website:

Gore claims that the two major crisis’s we currently face can be alleviated through the same steps:
1. Incentives for construction of concentrating solar-thermal power plants in the southwest, wind farms in the Midwest, and plants in geothermal “hot spots.”
2. A $400 billion investment over 10 years to build a “national smart grid” to distribute renewable energy.
3. Aid to automakers to convert to the production of plug-in hybrids. Smart-grid technology that enables the cars to be charged during off-peak hours.
4. A nationwide effort to retrofit buildings, which account for 40 percent of carbon dioxide emissions, to be more energy-efficient.
5. Climate regulations to cap carbon dioxide emissions.

A lesson here for local politicians and policy makers? A feed-in tariff would be a logical first step.

Article re-printed under Creative Commons license
Source: http://www.urbansprout.co.za/month/2008/11