Aron Neu's Page

Though I already wrote a post about my chosen hero in social innovation, Jason Aramburu of re-char definitely deserves an honorable mention. I discovered his project through PopTech, courtesy of the suggested links on UrgentEvoke. He was working in a "clean coal" lab at Princeton when it occurred to him that coal, no matter how much you clean it up, will always be dirty - even before… Continue

The hero I finally chose for this mission is Michal Kravcik, a Slovakian hydrologist brought to my attention by the excellent doc**entary Blue Gold: World Water Wars. Though the Goldman Prize for Europe he won in 1999 is a bit dated, his work is just as relevant today as it was then (if not more so). The short version of his story follows (this is… Continue

Based on my current situation, I can reasonably predict that in ten years I'll be working for either an energy efficiency consulting and design company or possibly a wind energy company. I'm not even sure which I'd prefer at the moment, since our country needs so much of both in my opinion. Regardless, with those options, I'll be enjoying my day job, which means I won't be so stressed out after work that I won't have motivation for other pursuits (and time for a potential family). I'd like to… Continue

As simple as it is, "Make it inexpensive" was the 'secret' of social innovation that resonated most with me. Due to an innovation competition that I've recently been attempting to take part in, I've spent a lot of time in the last couple weeks coming up with new ideas that would combat climate change in one way or another. One of the aspects of our favorite design (I worked with a partner) that I didn't consider until most of the other details were worked out was cost. In my defense,… Continue