Innovations Empower Women to Get Educated, Break Free From Poverty

In a new study released by the International Centre for Research on Women they asked the question “How can we harness innovation’s power to empower women and promote greater gender equality?” The findings showed some innovations had a greater impact on women than others. The mobile phone has allowed women in impoverished communities to make a good living whereas surprisingly, an innovation such as the electric scooter, which has been around for quite sometime,  has been found to make a big difference in womens’ lives, especially making education more accessible. In India, 60% of all scooters sold are being bought by women. Read more here.

The Water Footprint Manual

The Water Footprint Network has released their Water Footprint Manual. The cover of the manual states  “People use lots of water for drinking, cooking and washing, but even more for producing things such as food, paper, cotton clothes, etc. The water footprint is an indicator of water use that looks at both direct and indirect water use of a consumer or producer.”

Here are a few examples of water usage that may surprise you:

• The production of one kilogram of beef requires 16 thousand litres of water.
• To produce one cup of coffee we need 140 litres of water.
• The water footprint of China is about 700 cubic meter per year per capita. Only about 7% of the Chinese water footprint falls outside China.
• Japan with a footprint of 1150 cubic meter per year per capita, has about 65% of its total water footprint outside the borders of the country.
• The USA water footprint is 2500 cubic meter per year per capita.

To peruse the newly released manual go to  the Water Footprint Network website.

Gil Friend

Gil Friend, president & CEO of Natural Logic Inc, is a noted thought leader on sustainable business, with more than 37 years of experience and clients including Agilent Technologies, Coca-Cola, Dean Foods, Hewlett Packard, Levi Straus & Co, Nike and Sun MicroSystems.

He is Adjunct Faculty at Presidio Graduate School. He has written more than 100 articles, contributed chapters to several books, including Worldchanging: A Users Guide to the 21st Century, Sustainable Enterprise Report, Sustainable Enterprise Fieldbook, and is the author of the forthcoming books: The Truth About Green Business (FT Press) and Risk, Fiduciary Responsibility and the Laws of Nature.

World Education Council announces Seal of Excellence

WEC establishes global standards and certification for online educational courses

GENEVA (February 1, 2010) — The World Education Council (WEC) has established the global standard of excellence for online education.  To maintain that standard, WEC now certifies educational courses that meet specific criteria for quality and value to learners. The WEC Seal of Excellence is awarded to online educational courses that pass a rigorous independent evaluation based on transparent, objective standards.

“Online education is a rapidly growing field, and it can be a powerful tool for spreading the benefits of education,” said Laura Lewis, president of WEC. “However, there is often no way for learners to be sure a course is thorough, competently prepared, and respected by educational or industry experts. The WEC seal will become the globally recognized benchmark for quality and integrity in online education.”

Leading online educators and industry practitioners appreciate the value of objective certification. “After nearly twenty years in the elearning industry I have come to appreciate how challenging it can be for a customer to make good decisions relating to quality and effectiveness due to the many options and lack of quality standards. An international body with the goal of providing this unbiased Quality Mark would be invaluable,” observed Steve Gatlin, president of Gatlin International, a company that provides and manages online programs for major universities.