Sustainable Transport - a foldable scooter ?

How about a fold-able scooter as your transport? Yeah, that was the great invention that made MIT students to win the Year 2009 BuckMinster Fuller Challenge. I was and am always fascinated by the ingenuity and creativity of people around the world in general.

This group of students actually invented/proposed more than just a fold-able electric scooter. Their invention was really about a "comprehensive system", whereby the scooter is just one part of it. But the scooter is what astonishes me the most :-) especially because you can fold it.

Actually it would be much better if we can fold it into a comfortable chair. That way, we can stop under a shelter during heavy rain and sit on this comfy chair while waiting for the rain to stop or subside before continuing our journey.

Read more about the invention here ..

Wazzup Toyota ??

Looks like Toyota is kind of hesitant to move forward quickly on electric cars.

I wonder why?

The reasons they give does not really make any sense to me especially when Toyota is one of the most innovative and successful car makers around. I am sure Toyota can work around any obstacles especially the technical ones. Car makers should share and learn from each other about this new (I mean electric vehicle) technology. It makes more business and environment sense to come up with a good electric vehicle.

Read more on this here ..

The Atlas of the Real World

I stumbled upon this cool atlas website this morning .. it depicts the nations of the world by their demographic importance on a range of subjects .. check it out here

Sustainable Transport - A2B Metro

What happens when you combine electric and pedal power ? You get A2B Metro bicycle or two-wheeler. Unfortunately for us Malaysians, Ultra Motor don't sell any of its cool two-wheeler products here yet. This product ins only available in a few countries - US, UK, Germany and India.

Is it because there is no demand for it ??? I don't think so. According to this website article, the largest number of motorcycles per person is in Malaysia & Greece.

There are few more cool environment friendly two-wheeler products by Ultra Motor ... read more here

Or perhaps, we could develop our own electric-pedal power product ?? With Malaysians being more aware and concerned of being more environment friendly, I believe this will be a very fruitful venture. Of course, the quality must be good. I have came across few online articles on a electric bicycle product which is imported from China and sold in Malaysia but it didn't look very good.


Update on 21-08-2009.

Looks like i was about 1 year too late to stumble upon A2B .. thestar motoring article actually carried an story on this about a year ago. You knwo what they, better late than never to find out something useful or interesting :-)

Sustainable Transport - Busycle

What a superb innovation !

Beside being a sustainable transport and reducing waste, this transportation also creates a great opportunity for teamwork among communities or colleagues. Probably organizations can use this as part of their team building efforts. Very large organization should start looking into pedal power as a mode of transportation between its nearby building/campuses.

The Busycle is a 15-person pedal-powered bus that travels in neighborhoods throughout the United States. The Busycle runs solely on the energy of its passengers. Anyone willing to pull their weight and pedal can be a Busycle passenger. The Busycle requires individuals to use their own will and physical strength to come together as a group to go from point A to point B .. read more here

Critical success factors to achieve sustainability

Malaysian corporations are still in its infancy with regards to achieving a truly sustaining phase. There is still more to learn and do. It is a long journey to achieve the sustaining phase but the rewards are great.

There are a few critical success factors to achieve sustainability as listed below.

1. Integration of the local community and environment as key stakeholders of the corporation.

Corporations must include the local community and the environment as a key stakeholder with the highest priority. By doing so, the profit oriented corporation will be able to balance their profit orientation with their social responsibility which includes the betterment of society as well as the protection of the environment

2. Being very clear on WHAT exactly to achieve (to be spelled out as the mission & vision) and more importantly, HOW to achieve it from sustainability point of view. Check out at Interface's Mission Zero.

Currently many organizations have Corporate Social Responsibility policy or statements which seems more like a public relations activity. This has to change if the corporation is serious about being a sustaining organization. Sustainability must be the core of the corporate strategy.

3. Continuous and active involvement of employees.

It is critical that employees understand how they can contribute positively to help the organization to achieve the sustaining phase. It is also critical they are motivated to do so. Otherwise it will be just a greenwash. Having their performance related compensation is one way to achieve this. There will be also spillover effect whereby the employees will in turn educate their family members on sustainability.

4. Ensure both our products and process including raw materials incorporates people and environmental friendliness. For example, what's the point of using electricity that was generated by burning coal or utilizing nuclear technology !!! We should go for renewable energy instead.

Book Review: Leadership and the One Minute Manager

This is not a latest book. In fact, it was it was written and published some 23 years ago. I just got the chance to read the book quite recently because it was kind of mentioned in my MBA text reading.

But it was a very good read. I like it very much because it was written in a dialog between experts in Situational Leadership and a curious person. I like it because it was written in a very simple and interesting language. It was like reading a story book !! I wish we can have more of similar format books.

And you know what, the concepts can be applied in our everyday life, be it at office or home. However, it may be a bit difficult at home because of sibling rivalry and jealously. You can't really treat kids differently unless they reach certain age to really understand what is happening.

One interesting quote from this book :

"Everyone is a potential high performer. Some people just need a little help along the way"