As the world careens ahead into a more globalized and interconnected reality, the pace of innovation continues to accelerate. We’re entering a period of increasing flux and ambiguity for the foreseeable future.

This has huge implications for the way organizations function, favoring the more agile and adaptive entities – It begs the trillion dollar question:

How will the US system of government navigate this generation of flux?

Seth Resler, Internet radio host, and advocate of social media leadership, will moderate a panel discussion on the current state of innovation in American politics. From the Republican Presidential Primary to the Occupy Wallstreet Movement, we’ll explore game changing insights being applied to elections, government, and political protest.

Current Panelists:

Dr. Nicole Velasco – A recent Political Science Phd graduate of Stanford University, Velasco’s research focuses on democratization and its relationship with interest group politics and power dynamics in legislative bodies.

Stay tuned for more!
Or, suggest a panelist!

Robert E. Horn, Stanford University, shares powerful examples of innovation visualizations — from Leonardo da Vinci to contemporary innovative work. Together, we explored how these examples illustrate the power of vision and visualization in a wide range of innovation fields.

He not only discusses Leonardo – but appears dressed and talking as Leonardo! Leonardo’s lessons that Bob presents and illustrates are:

1. Have wild ideas
2. Think big
3. Fail early and often
4. Have many ideas.
5. Observation – study nature
6. Visual representation
7. Everything can be designed
8. Empower innovation
9. Rapid prototypes
10. Multiple experts
11. Keep focus

Bob is a political scientist with a special interest in policy communication, social learning, and knowledge management, with specialties in biotechnology and national security affairs. He was CEO of Information Mapping, Inc. an international consulting firm which he founded after years of interdisciplinary research and practice. He has taught at Harvard, Columbia, and Sheffield universities. He is currently a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Human Science and Technology Advanced Research Institute (H-STAR).

The subjects of Bob’s innovation visualization projects over the years range from visual analytics for public policy (strategic science, national missile defense, genetically modified food), to NSF’s “human cognome” initiative, to analyzing a variety of what he calls “social messes”. His latest book, Visual Language: Global Communication for the 21st Century, shows how the wide gulf between the verbal and visual worlds is at last being bridged by the tight integration of words and images into a “visual language”.

His most recent project is a 14 foot information mural that he did for the World Business Council for Sustainable Development’s project Vision 2050,  entitled “Towards a Sustainable 2050.”

The City of Palo Alto is currently considering options for how to manage its organic waste stream. An anaerobic digester is being proposed to replace the current incinerator.

The methane producing bacteria living inside anaerobic digesters do break down a lot organic material, but not cellulose (the compound that makes up the cell walls of plants) Yet cellulose is the ideal feedstock for making biochar via pyrolysis. The integration of biochar production with AD facilities holds the promise of producing a rich, dark, carbon sequestering soil amendment, full of nutrients from the digestate and structurally enhanced by the highly porous biochar.

John Miedema is an internationally recognized expert on biochar systems. As founder of the Pacific Northwest Biochar Initiative (PNW Biochar), John has been taking a leadership role in biochar advocacy and research. He is the Director of Biomass Energy for Thompson Timber and Starker Forests in Corvallis, Oregon where John operates an integrated pyrolysis and gasification facility that produces biochar.

Howards Sprouse is an expert in the remediation industry. He has served as a
consultant to Battelle’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory assisting with their efforts at developing mycoremediation technology, (the use of fungi to clean a variety of organic contaminants.)

He is the founder of The Remediators Incorporated, an environmental service company specializing mycoremediation and other biological remediation systems.

John and Howard are a founding members of the Oregon Biochar Corp, who’s focus is integrating biochar production into biogas plants and composting systems.

Come on out to dinner and explore how high-tech compost has become!

Register right here with mogotix or here via Eventbrite

Location
Bay Cafe Ballroom (by the Palo Alto Golf Course)
1875 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto, CA

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Schedule
6:00 – Doors Open (Networking)
6:45 – Dinner Starts
7:00 – SVII Business
7:15 – Program Starts
9:00 – Wrap-Up (Networking till close at 9:30)

Location
Bay Cafe Ballroom
1875 Embarcadero Road Palo Alto, CA

Schedule
6:00 – Doors Open (Networking)
6:45 – Dinner Starts
7:00 – SVII Business
7:15 – Program Starts
9:00 – Wrap-Up (Networking till close at 9:30)

Dr. James Caldwell shares his experience working with sustainability planners in China to develop actionable strategies for creating Eco Cities. Topics include the need to measure the actual performance of buildings, international joint ventures, livability and scalability. Chinese eco-cities covered include Suzhou, Tianjin and Nansha.

This event was a collaboration between Sustainovation and Silicon Valley Innovation Institute (SVII).

SVII and CAST Labs joined forces for an end of the year celebration. The program featured live jazz, opera arias, a tango dance performance, and a dinner-debate. The theme of the evening – art, creativity and innovation, a collaborative exploration.

Here is an excellent blog post by Theral Timpson about the evening.

A multi-talented panel of accomplished left-and-right-brainers lead a panel discussion moderated by CAST Labs founder Sylvie Leotin. A wide range of opinions, talents and personality made for a stimulating discussion that involved the whole room. Here are some images and videos of the event:

Panelists:

• Sylvie Leotin – CAST Labs founder and moderator, ballerina, computer scientist, blogger and entrepreneur.
• Michael Killen -  Artist, filmmaker, and serial entrepreneur, driving awareness and change for sustainability through art and TV programs.
• Howard Lieberman - SVII founder, DARPA senior science & technology advisor, serial entrepreneur, composer and jazz musician.
• Indre Viskontas - Singer and neuroscientist, specializing in contemporary opera and the intersection between memory and creativity.

The premise of this dinner was that to be relevant, you have to move past contemplation and cross the threshold to actually CREATE something that can be shared. To jump out of the box, and JUST GO DO.

The focus was on the creation of a Green Community Center in North Fair Oaks, CA. Activist architect Morton Frank presented a social venture to manufacture green certified, prefabricated housing units, onsite, in the community and for the community.

The is aim to demonstrate a scalable model of neighborhood improvement through energy efficiency.

Elements of this multifaceted vision include: creating livable and eco-friendly low income housing, green jobs training, energy efficiency, renewable energy generation, community communications infrastructure, and bridging socio-economic divides in Silicon Valley.

Three SVII’ers served as “lenses” to guide the group dialog:

David Allen Foster – Mutlifarious Designer & Parallel Entrepreneur

Gary Shamshonian - Corporate Green Building Champion

Bill Veltrop – Architect of Generative Change

Sheridan Tatsuno and Suzanne Connolly facilitated an inspiring dialog on converging trends in technology and society that are creating huge opportunities for the art of storytelling. As the evening progressed, diners began to share their own stories.

Topics ranged from the use of storytelling by children to document and expose corrupt government practices to unlocking the increasingly woman driven consumer economy. SVII is looking forward to further collaboration in capturing and creating stories to support innovation advocacy.

origional description
Storytelling is a core competency of innovators and innovation advocates – what better way to transmit insight and provide context? A convergence of trends is now creating tremendous new opportunities for the art of storytelling.

“The Stage” – The entire world is several orders of magnitude more connected connected than only 5 years ago. And, the rapid growth of social networks, mobile devices and cloud computing isn’t slowing down anytime soon. The barriers to doing business internationally, particularly for communications-centric ventures, are drastically lower than ever before.

“The Play” - Stories take on many forms, eg. writing, music, film, drama, fashion or game design.  These are the “Plays” on this new digital “Stage”.

What are the storytelling opportunities for global ventures and digital studios right now? How can small businesses leverage global networks? What are the kinds of stories that businesses should master?

Sheridan Tatsuno is a worldly man fluent in four languages. A longtime Silicon Valley market researcher, business strategist, and visionary thinker, he has touched the lives of many with his involvement with things like the “Intel Inside” campaign and AMD’s sub $1000 PC. He is also a screenwriter with several of his writings on Japan that have been subsequently produced into documentaries. Today, he champions the arts with two Silicon Valley initiatives via Facebook:

Silicon Valley Global Network – focuses on global entrepreneurship and collaboration (the IT and business platforms, or “the stage”).

RENAISSANCE: SF – promotes transmedia storytelling in Silicon Valley (the “plays”).

Suzanne Connolly is the co-founder RENAISSANCE SF. She will also be participating in this dinner program. As a writer, editor, filmmaker, advisor to startups, and political advocate for technology and telecommunications, she has a passion for the convergence of storytelling and the democratization of technology.

We are pleased to have Sheridan Tatsuno and Suzanne Connolly share their vision that the current social media IT platform boom (mostly run by engineers and programmers) will soon lead to an explosion in Web/mobile storytelling (led by liberal arts and humanities grads).  The left brain will finally connect with the right brain! — the only way the U.S. can compete against left-brained China and India that offer much cheaper labor in the hundreds of millions.