The Green Frog from Silicon Valley

From educated entrepreneur to innovating in education: do you know Geoff Ralston?

The word “education” in California is usually associated with teacher unions who supported the election of Jerry Brown against the former CEO of eBay, Meg Whitman.   Innovation in education seems to be an oxymoron. Actually, the most viewed TED Talk today with 10 million hits is from Sir Ken Robinson who contends that schools kill creativity.

A number of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are trying to help schools do the contrary. And the trend is starting to hit the media with the recent inclusion of Salman Khan among Time’s 100 most influential people. Geoff Ralston (picture above) is a business angel who would like to see more education start-ups popping out of garages. After he sold his last company to Apple in 2009, he launched Imagine K12 along with two other start-up veterans who believe that technology can transform education.

As consumer electronics gets bigger, the economy and the environment are in quetion

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was bigger than ever this year with close to 2 million net square feet of exhibit spaces, more than 3,100 companies and 140,000 attendees. The Show is changing and its relevance debated as Microsoft scaled back its presence and Apple not attending for years. If Smart TV sets were the big news last year, 3D rendering amazed the audience this week with an energy on the floor that I have not seen at tradeshows since the Internet bubble.

It is difficult to think green though with such a deluge of new gadgets, particularly with their shortening life-time. The organizers made an honest effort though to be eco-friendly by recycling 24 thousand square feet of signs at CES 2011 to create all the badge holders at CES 2012. And the Consumer Electronic Association (CEA) is pushing for stronger eCycling programs with a commitment to recyle 1 billion pounds of electronics annually by 2016. On the contrary, I don't quite buy the argument that an event is green by saving air travel during the year with one international tradeshow. A centralized model of doing business with offshore manufacturing is at the center of the US innovation model and can be questioned.

From rocket science to organic wine-making: do you know Jonathan Frey?

With the holiday season comes good food, fine wine and warm family gatherings. I thought to cover the wine making industry part of our profile series: many vineyards were early adopters of solar panels, and wine making often remains a family business. I expected to visit one of the cutting-edge wineries in Napa Valley. To my surprise, I came across California's hidden organic wine region. 

Nestled among the red woods, two hours north of San Francisco, Mendocino County hosts some of the greenest vineyards. It benefits from ideal farming climate and easy access to water. More than 25% of the grapes produced across the county are organic. I decided to visit Jonathan Frey who started with his wife the first organic winery in America thirty years ago, way before the word sustainability became mainstream.