Nathan P. Wallace's Blog (21)

Jim Henson once said coming up with good ideas is “just a matter of figuring out how to receive the ideas waiting to be heard.” In my hometown of Buffalo, NY many good ideas are not being heard. Decisions that affect our city are being made with limited

information to draw upon for inspiration and strategic planning. Therefore, the goal of ReBuffalo.org is to revitalize Buffalo, NY…

One of the biggest problems in Buffalo, NY is vacant housing. Buffalo has one of the highest rates of vacant housing in the Unites States, and the problem is not going to go away without better information sharing and collaboration between goverment, non-profits, and citizens.…

The news story that I chose to focus on covers a report about worldwide gender inequality in the workplace (http://bit.ly/bzixm6). The statistics from this report clearly show that some progress is still being made in this area. However, there is still a long way to go in achieving gender equality in the workplace, and in some regions of the world very little progress is being made. For example, the article states that "In some regions, there are still less…

In You Are Not a Gadget (http://amzn.to/2Lqkpf) Jaron Lanier devotes several chapters to the future of money. Lanier suggests that formal financial expression is a potential preventative measure that might help us avoid another worldwide financial catastrophe like the one that began in 2008.

I am by no means a expert on finance, but the basics of Lanier's solution sound plausible. He suggests that we need financial inventiveness if…

I just purchased a book called The Great Lakes Water Wars, by Peter Annin, from the Buffalo Niagara Riverkeeper online store (http://bit.ly/cH0j2L). This book details the politics and policy battles that have protected the abundant supply of fresh water found in the Great Lakes. I've been meaning to purchase this book for quite a while but never got around to it. Thanks to this Evoke mission I finally bought the book and I will soon know more about…

With its proximity to one of the world's Great Lakes (Lake Erie), Buffalo, NY is very fortunate to have access to plentiful and clean drinking water. Nevertheless, our local rivers and lakes are contantly threatened by pollution that, if left unchecked, could quickly contaminate our water.

Fortunately, a local group called Buffalo Niagara River Keeper (http://bnriverkeeper.org/) has been hard at work protecting our water since 1989. None…

It's Earth Day 2020. A lot has changed on planet Earth in the last ten years. Some things for the better, and some for the worse. We've lost some islands due to climate change (http://bit.ly/cj7xw3) and we've had some catastophic storms and droughts, but we've also made huge progress. This year alternative energy will no longer be the alternative because it will surpass fossil fuels as the world's primary source of energy, which is why this year Earth Day…

A lot of people have heard of Buffalo Wings. They are Buffalo, NY's claim to culinary fame (http://www.anchorbar.com). Last year, however, there was an issue in Buffalo that involved a different sort of chicken wing... the live and flapping kind. A local couple that was keeping several hens in their backyard were told by a City of Buffalo Animal Control Officer that they could not keep their chickens (…

Food security is often thought of as a problem of developing countries. Sadly, however, it is also a problem in American cities like my hometown of Buffalo, NY. Many Buffalo neighborhoods contain very few business establishments (e.g. supermarkets, farmers markets, etc.) that sell affordable and healthy food. Even when such businesses are fairly close by the difficulty of getting there if one doesn't have a car makes it much more likely that a busy mother will pick up some groceries at a…

In 2020 I will still be living in my hometown of Buffalo, NY, but many parts of the city will be barely recognizable. The vacant and boarded up homes that once littered neighborhoods will be renovated. The poverty that once plagued our streets will be nearly eradicated. The political inertia that keeps us from finding innovative solutions to problems will be a thing of the past.

Many of the new initiatives that will bring about these changes will be the result of a new kind of…

I have chosen Beth Simone Noveck, author of Wiki Government, as my social innovation role model. Ms. Noveck is a professor of law at New York Law School. Her bio on the school's web site lists quite a few achievments and projects that she is currently working on, but what makes her my choice for a role model is her work on the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's Peer to Patent program. This program, detailed in her book, improves the efficiency, productivity,…