OG25 Innovative Green Startup finalists will be showcased at this year’s Opportunity Green conference, September 23rd – 24th at Los Angeles Center Studios.

Mobile voting will be provided by MobileGive, whose innovative texting solutions are being utilized again this year.

Watch this site for the voting widget.

Location technologies are transforming how we experience, navigate, and ultimately better our world. From the global to the local, here are #10Ways geolocation is a positive force for good.

Social media has changed the world. It has revolutionized communications on a global scale, and the transformation continues with every status update, blog post, and video stream. The global citizenry has become a global network.

Since becoming widely adopted just a couple years ago, social media has supercharged social action, cause marketing, and social entrepreneurship. Indeed, the true value hasn’t been the technology itself but how we’ve used it. Today, a second wave of innovation is defining a new era and setting the stage for change over the coming decade.

Mobile technologies will extend the global online network to anyone with a mobile device while enabling countless local networks to form in the real world. We’ve decentralized media production and distribution. We’re doing the same for energy. And we’ll continue this trend for social networking, social action, and commerce.

The combined forces of smartphones, mobile broadband, and location-aware applications will connect us in more meaningful ways to the people, organizations, events, information, and companies that matter most to us—namely, those within a physical proximity of where we live and where we are. Can location-based services (LBS) change the world? Here are #10Ways:

1. Checking in for Good: If Gowalla and Foursquare have taught us anything, it’s that people respond to simple incentives. By offering badges, mayorships, and other intangible rewards, millions of people are checking in to the places they go. Apps like Whrrl take this a step further and enable like-minded “societies” to form on a local basis. The next step is for these apps to add greater purpose by encouraging more meaningful checkins and offering corresponding badges and stamps, thus mapping the cause universe. Or for a dedicated app to be developed that rewards conscious consumption, social responsibility, and civic engagement. Yes, the CauseWorld app features a cause element, but it’s not about cause-worthy places.

2. Eating Locally: Sustainability demands that we source our food as close to its point of production as possible. Many so-called locavores subscribe to the 100-mile diet, which requires that one “eat nothing—or almost nothing—but sustenance drawn from within 100 miles of their home.” Given the difficulty of accessing and verifying this information in order to live by this standard, there’s a geo-powered Locavore app. It gives you info on in-season foods, those coming in-season, farmer’s markets, and links to recipes. This rather simple app is clearly just the start. In time, location-aware apps will guide us not only to the grocery store or farmer’s market but through them. All the while identifying foods based on our particular diet or sensibility.

3. Political Organizing: In the next presidential election, politics will not only be local but location-enabled. We saw the power of social media in Obama’s 2008 landslide victory. In 2012, location-based apps and technologies will play a central role in how campaigns are organized, managed, and ultimately won. Much of this will be visible through mobile apps and location-aware browsers. Activists and volunteers will be more empowered. Voters will be more engaged in the moment, right down to casting their votes. Behind the scenes, though, we’ll see massive new sets of data available to campaigns for targeting, empowerment, and optimization. The party, candidate, and/or cause that has the best handle on geolocation will have a measurable advantage. (The Elections app will soon be updated for 2010.)

4. Finding Green Businesses: The web has effectively replaced the paper Yellow Pages as a way to find local businesses and services. However, this “stationary web” experience is quickly being supplanted by the mobile web and mobile applications, which give us access to this information when we most need it. The Yelp and Around Me apps are popular ways to find restaurants, coffee shops, or hotels wherever you are, but what about green-rated businesses? Greenopia has transformed its printed, local guides into a dynamic, nationwide mobile application that lets you find local, green-rated businesses in any category. No more paper and a much better experience. The Green Map app is another that facilitates discovery and connects us to local green environments.

5. Traveling More Efficiently: We’ve had access to GPS navigation systems and static traffic information for some time, but only now are we seeing the full potential of these technologies. With access to more detailed traffic information that is specific to your route and updated in real time, we can minimize congestion and maximize traffic flow (as much as physically possible). The new turn-by-turn MapQuest 4 Mobile app is a good start, as you can get traffic alerts specific to the route you program. However, user-generated information from apps like Trapster and Waze can crowdsource more specific details, such as whether to avoid an intersection due to a toxic chemical spill. Or, if you want to avoid automobiles altogether, Google Maps makes it easy to use public transportation and take a bike.

6. Scanning for Ethical Products: With online shopping, we’ve become accustomed to reading reviews and making comparisons before we buy. This can now be done in the physical world through games like MyTown and services like Stikybits. By scanning a product barcode using a smartphone camera, you can unlock a treasure of additional information (not to mention deals) that can help with your purchase. This might include where it was produced, how far it traveled, the reputation of the manufacturer, chemical contents, carbon footprint, or the full lifecycle analysis. Location-aware applications can also transform commerce itself by giving us better access to local inventories and locally-produced goods. Whether it’s fruits and vegetables or books and electronics, if something can be found within blocks of your current location, it makes no sense to ship it from afar.

7. Networking Neighborhoods: One of the hottest categories in geolocation is neighborhood networking. The vision for many of these apps is to strengthen the very fabric of our communities. With DeHood, you can keep track of what’s happening in your neighborhood, share your favorite places, and grease the wheels for actually meeting people. After all, if you’ve made contact through the app, it’s a lot easier to say “Hello” in the real world. Blasterous is another that lets you share information locally, whereas BlockChalk does this on an anonymous basis. Finally, NeighborGoods uses your street address to facilitate one-to-one borrowing and trading of useful stuff. In the end, making connections with your neighbors can lead to safer, more productive, and more sustainable communities.

8. Tracking Environmental Disasters: The size and scope of environmental disasters appears to be growing. In 2008, we had the Tennessee coal ash spill, which was billed as “the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States.” And that was before we realized it was three times bigger than originally estimated. More recently, the BP oil spill set daily records for “largest environmental disaster in the U.S. ever.” In each case, geolocation technologies can be used by engaged citizens to monitor and track the effects. They can be used by response teams to coordinate containment and cleanup efforts. Ultimately, these technologies can be used to accurately measure the size and impact of a disaster in order to better understand its damages and costs.

9. Viewing the World Through an Eco Lens: Augmented reality (AR) follows geolocation as one of the hot trends in mobile technology. It enables you to view the world through a smartphone camera (or similar device) and see layers of geo-specific content or information. One of the most popular apps is Layar, an augmented reality browser/platform that lets you choose specific data layers or experiences. The potential for green- and cause-related content is tremendous. You might view green-rated businesses, LEED-certified buildings, or virtual GHG emissions as they enter the atmosphere. Combined with smart meter technology, you could see the most efficient and inefficient homes around you in real time. And for the cynics among us, you could view our mountains, forests, rivers, and oceans as they once were…before the effects of climate change and so many environmental disasters.

10. Capturing the Moment: Better access to information about what’s happening around us—right now—can dramatically improve quality of life. This sense of “geospatial awareness” is possible through today’s smartphones, whereby a piece of content or information—a moment—is captured and preserved based on the unique time and place in which it occurred. It is essentially to document spacetime. Protests, natural disasters, sporting events, parties, political crises…real-time information about anything happening anywhere at any time, as well as the history of what happened. This will take several years and a number of different applications to realize. In the end, though, it will revolutionize how we access and consume content. It will complete the democratization and decentralization of news and information…based on time and location.

Cautionary note: Privacy is the single biggest issue in the LBS industry. It’s important to understand what information you are sharing with regard to your location and with whom.

Rob Reed’s note: We’ll be hosting geolocation events for Social Media Week in Los Angeles this September. This is the third in Max Gladwell‘s #10Ways series of distributed blog posts. It was published simultaneously on as many as 300 blogs.

Last Friday Apple CEO Steve Jobs stepped in front of the world to address the widespread iPhone 4 antenna issues that effectively made the smartphone lose reception when a user engaged in the “iPhone death grip.” He addressed his wide consumer saying, “You know, we’re not perfect. We know that, you know that. And phones aren’t perfect either.” Most iPhone 4 owners claimed they didn’t experience these problems but once notorious tech media writers got a hold of Jobs acknowledging the claims, word spread like wildfire.

Thus the wildfire led to the press conference last Friday. Many skeptics brewed over what they could possibly announce. Some thought they would issue a recall, which incidentally would amount to a $1.5 billion cost to recover 600,000 iPhone 4s. Meanwhile, others thought they would receive an apology from Jobs for overhyping the amazing antenna. Finally, some analysts thought the Cupertino-based company should offer bumpers, rubber cases that mitigate the issue at hand.

In the end, Jobs announced they were offering free bumpers to users this week until the end of September. During the Q&A a member of the press asked if the company considered a recall but Jobs avoided answering the questions. In any case, had the company issued a recall they would not only have a large operating cost on their hands, they would have created physical waste with unused new iPhone 4s. Some of the parts could be reused or refurbished. However, given all the packaging that would be used, fuel required for shipping the phones to and fro and the paperwork needed to account for all items, Apple may have just done the greenest thing possible.

While some iPhone 4 owners are unpleased and others are happy to get their bumpers, Apple shows that a common business decision can inadvertently promote corporate social responsibility for both the enterprise and the consumer.

Does shipping the bumper make them environmentally friendly or not? Does Apple still need to address their factory conditions before they claim to be the greenest device maker around? We’d like to hear your thoughts!

Photo courtesy of Engadget

SAN DIEGO will be the place to be this summer for an estimated 10,000 of the nation’s top professionals in the energy, water, transportation and environmental industries. EngEx 2010, taking place at the San Diego Convention Center from July 29 – 31, will make America’s Finest City home to some of the top technologists, researchers, policy makers, governmental agencies and investors all looking to collaborate together under one roof.

“We are looking forward to having a great conference that really creates some strong business and innovation opportunities for our nation’s future,” said Kris Ellis, VP of Operations, with EngEx 2010. “The plan is to evolve some big ideas into action from this conference.”

9 Government agencies hosting workshops to help businesses grow:

* How to get government contracts? $500 Billion Given Annually!
* How to get access to government grants? $2.2 Billion Given Annually!
* BLM: How to access Gov’t lands for Oil/ Gas/Wind/Solar/Geothermal projects
* How to export and tap government resources to find international buyers?
* Learn how to work with utility companies to commercialize products!
* Keynote Speaker: Shell Energy North America President “Counting Carbon”
* Alternative Fuels Vehicle Showroom!

[read more]

more from CNNMoney.com staff writer David Goldman:

Tesla Motors will offer up its shares to the public for the first time on Tuesday, testing investors’ faith in a company that has proven it can make functional and stunning electric cars but has never had a profitable quarter.

PayPal founder Elon Musk’s seven-year old auto company lost $55.7 million last year and $260.7 million since its inception. The company has performed so poorly from a financial standpoint that Musk recently said he lost his entire personal fortune on Tesla.

But investors are giddy about the Palo Alto, Calif.-based automaker’s initial public offering, prompting Tesla on Monday to increase the number of shares it plans to offer by nearly a fifth to 13.3 million.

Tesla, which plans to trade on Nasdaq under the symbol “TSLA,” expects shares to be priced in a range of $14 to $16. That would allow Tesla to raise more than $185 million in the IPO and give it a market value of nearly $1.5 billion.

Much of the excitement is pegged to Tesla’s launch of the Model S, an electric sedan that the company says will sell for a minimum of $50,000 in 2012. That’s much more reasonable and practical for most consumers than the vehicle that Tesla currently sells, the $100,000 Roadster sports car.

The electric automaker plans to acquire a plant where it will produce 20,000 new Model S sedans each year starting in 2012. That’s a significant increase from the 1,063 Roadsters it has sold — total. But until 2012, Tesla said it will continue to pile up hefty losses.

read more at CNNMoney

The Ricoh Eco Board, which is 47 feet high by 126 feet long, is the first billboard in Times Square to be totally lit by solar energy. It is powered solely by 62 solar panels and 24 thin-film PV solar modules, and illuminated by 16 LED floodlights. Ricoh made a promise not to use conventional electricity from the grid to light the Eco Board and will allow it to go dark due to lack of sunlight. By using only solar power to light the sign, Ricoh is playing a part in reducing the amount of carbon emissions released by conventional electrical power sources. A special ceremony to celebrate the completion of the Eco Board will take place on June 8 in New York’s Times Square.

“When Ricoh decided to advertise in Times Square, we wanted to do so in an environmentally-responsible way that would have minimal negative impact on the environment. Our hope was that the Eco Board would become a powerful symbol of Ricoh’s commitment to green practices and would challenge others to become more active,” said Jason Dizzine, Director, Corporate Communications, Ricoh Americas Corporation. “Most billboards deliver a message, but this billboard is itself the message. For Ricoh, if the sign goes dark, that is ok. What is more important is that Ricoh is sharing in the bettering of our planet for everyone.”

Ricoh chose Rec Solar, one of the pioneers of the solar industry, to equip the top of the Eco Board with a high-quality series of solar modules optimized for low-light conditions. In addition, Ricoh worked closely with Cooley Group, which has been at the forefront of polymer technology and coatings on flexible reinforced substrates for nearly a century, on the thin-film PV solar modules, manufactured by Xunlight Corporation.

“Ricoh’s commitment to sustainable management is reflected not just in this solar billboard but in the products and services we offer our customers,” said Ike Kakegawa, Vice President, Environmental Sustainability, Ricoh Americas Corporation. “We are making significant environmental contributions on a global scale through Ricoh’s Total Green Office Solution, which takes a holistic approach to document management, combining green consultative services, energy-saving imaging equipment and software solutions to help customers meet their sustainability goals such as saving energy and paper, and reducing waste.”

The United States has invested considerable amounts of taxpayer dollars to try to revive our economy. Too often, though, resulting jobs are being created overseas, as other countries invest in green technology deployment. As a result, the opportunity to improve our economic competitiveness is lost. Targeting our policies to help small U.S. technology producers is essential to keeping these jobs in the United States.

The United States is a leader in the research and development of green technologies, but to translate innovation into products for the market place, small businesses need private capital. Small companies introducing innovative new technology often face long odds in finding sufficient capital to fully develop new products and secure their place in the market. What government can do to help is encourage that private investment. If policies fail to do this, then innovation and jobs will likely go elsewhere.

To read the full article, visit Renewable Energy World here.

More cyclists are taking to city streets and the “Ride the City” iPhone app helps them find their way.

While studying to become city planners at New York University in 2003, Vaidila Kungys and Jordan Anderson wanted to explore the city by bike, but neither knew the streets that well. Anderson got clipped by a cab on one outing and grew tired of pulling paper maps out of his backpack and finding them a disheveled mess. Kungys, a former competitive rider, did a better job navigating the moving obstacles and tight spaces of the city’s streets, but learning the best bike routes was a different matter.

After hearing similar stories from their fellow bikers, the friends came up with an idea: How about a HopStop for cyclists?

For the full story, please visit OnEarth.