The Green Frog from Silicon Valley

The second generation of water technology innovators in Israel

Two months ago, I gave a talk in Silicon Valley on proven and emerging water technologies in the Middle East. As the population grew rapidly in the last century, the Middle East became an early adapter of new desalination solutions. To date, over 50% of the world’s reverses osmosis (RO) plants are deployed in this region.

On my flight from Israel, I remembered when I was first exposed to desalination as a child. My father, Haim Cohen, worked on the first desalination pilot plant outside the US in the 1960’s to provide drinking water in the Negev desert. Close to fifty years later, I joined a new water treatment company, Emefcy, after a first career in IT start-ups. It is fascinating to me how much the two projects have in common despite being half a century apart.

Ontario skating ahead of smart grid market

Smart grid is a strategic initiative for many developed countries with an aging electric infrastructure. For the Canadian Province of Ontario, it has already become a reality after its utilities deployed smart meters (picture right) to more than 80% of its 5 million electricity users. And this was done despite a sparse geography and a challenging climate. The determination can be traced back to its political leadership in green sector that wants to transform a massive infrastructure challenge into a vector of economic development.

The Minister of Energy, Chris Bentley, noted during my recent visit in Toronto that great hockey players "skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been". Blue Chip companies like GE and IBM have long been in Ontario, which benefits from an advanced manufacturing industry and world-class research & education institutions. But Canadians have more difficulty to commercialize innovation than their US neighbors. Are people in Ontario up to the challenge?

From social justice to lighting society: do you know Warner Philips?

Lemnis Lighting made news again this week by announcing the first LED bulb light under $5. The company was started in 2006 by a new kind of cleantech incubator in the Netherlands called Tendris. It was the first company to go after the consumer lighting market with an LED replacement bulb available then for $50. It got quickly kuddos from governmental organizations in the Netherlands and the Clinton Foundation, and Lemnis has since shipped more than 5 million Pharox lights. I sat down on wednesday with the co-founder of Lemnis Lighting and Managing Director of its US operations, Warner Philips.

As many media outlets often pick up, Warner is the great grand-son of the co-founder of the electronic consumer giant Philips. I was expecting to hear the story of the Philips family offspring seeking fortune with cleantech innovation. What I got was much more interesting: the journey of a lawyer hungry for social justice, who later reconciled his passion for design with his high-tech heritage to make the world a better place.