UP FRONT

By Richard Mandel
Editor in Chief

Winter Green

There’s an annual gathering held around February in Silicon Valley, known as the TED Conference. For those unfamiliar with the name, that’s Technology, Entertainment and Design. The five-day program, initiated 10 years ago, offers a remarkable cross section of thinkers and designers to gather and talk about the very latest in tech, science, the arts and maladies of the modern world. The first TED included the public unveiling of the Macintosh computer and the Sony compact disc, while mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot demonstrated how to map coastlines with his newly discovered fractals and AI specialist Marvin Minsky outlined a new model of the mind. In the mid-1980s it brought together early innovators who knew that, one day, everyone would use laptops and PalmPilots and cell phones; in the 1990s it was among the first to showcase inflators of the dot-com bubble and decoders of DNA and the genome.

The 2003 program did not disappoint, either. The roster included Freeman Dyson and Jeff Bezos, Paul MacCready and Jane Goodall, Marvin Minsky, Brian Eno and Jeffrey Katzenberg. Or, industrial design, internet marketing, human-powered flight, wild gorilla study, AI, hi-tech music and movies, if they’re to be pigeon-holed by their renown. It was difficult to imagine what would be discussed in positive, futurist tones, with impending war in Iraq, rising bioterror fears in the U.S. and a tech crash that was still smoldering. 

As it turned out, the theme, Rebirth, signaled an intention to bypass any discussion of the present pain, instead focusing on things to come. Interestingly, many of the presenters traditionally tied to “hi-tech” were talking ideas that were decidedly low-tech. As reported by the New York Times, “Instead of jargon like personal bandwidth, killer app, and clicks and mortar, the notions floating around this year were sustainability, the ecology of terror and H.I.V. One of the most popular presentations came from Dean Kamen…(who) showed a water purifier that also generates electricity… He said he would leave in the next few weeks for Africa to explore distribution for his invention…Bill Gates, the Microsoft chairman, sat on a panel whose theme was ‘Science for the Global Good,’ and discussed his foundation’s work in bringing immunization programs to developing countries.” Bill Gross, founder of Idealab, used his time onstage to introduce one new Idealab venture, called Energy Innovations, which is making inexpensive solar collectors to sell in places needing cost-effective power.

Coupled with all talk in recent years about fuel cells, hybrid vehicles and the like, it is apparent that there is a growing, viable marketplace in the design of globally sensible, globally practical products. To this end, we are introducing a new monthly column called “The Green File,” dedicated to presenting companies contributing ideas and products to this marketplace. We anticipate that “world design” may be mutating from a product merely made to fit a local market, to one that meets the needs of a particular market. Up until now, many products have emerged with the sense that there’s no tomorrow. Perhaps consideration should now be made to ensure that the tomorrow that comes will be one that doesn’t require protection from what we have already made of the world. 

This month in Design History: Invention of Greenwich Mean Time — creators celebrate at Happy Hour.