Virginearth.com: a Linux style collaborative community to pursue/deliver climate stability?

May 5th, 2008

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Richard Branson has also offered a $25m prize to promote research into climate change.

“The Virgin Earth Challenge will award $25 million to the individual or group who are able to demonstrate a commercially viable design which will result in the net removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases each year for at least ten years without countervailing harmful effects. This removal must have long term effects and contribute materially to the stability of the Earth’s climate.”

A science prize is an important motivator. It does not, however, provide the resources for research and cause research to occur. It relies upon individuals and groups to assemble and coordinate their own efforts.

There is an opportunity for a Linux style online community to coordinate the individual contribution of scientists, government, corporations, philanthropists and the community to pursue/deliver climate stability. Virginearth.com would be an ideal forum for this initiative. Richard Branson and Al Gore could inspire an global online community and encourage government and corporations to contribute essential intellectual property to a solution and deliver climate stability. I am an internet entrepreneur and have applied open source software and principles (like those that created Linux) to create a collaborative hub for the financial market. The software that I created for the financial market collaborative hub could be easily modified to create a Virginearth.com online community. Please see the screenshot below (click to enlarge). I am hoping a picture is worth a thousand words.

You can see the Virgin Earth system above at [private] . This operates on Amazon Bookstores grid computer which provides unlimited storage and processing capability.

The system above is for demonstration purposes and was created in less than two hours. It is not, ofcourse, built for purpose - but it only needs to be modified. We could create a working system for Virginearth.com within 6-8 weeks (see Turnkey online network ). With right people around the table, It might only take 1-2 hours to “brainstorm” the general structure of this collaborative hub.

I would love to help with this! Does anyone know Richard Branson, Al Gore or the other Virginearth.com judges? Does anyone know someone that might be interested in building this? One problem! How do we assemble a community (ie; Marketing!)?

Entry Filed under: Online networks vs. industries, Economic development, online social networks, Community knowledge vs. Intellectual property, Online political networks