Whatever happened to green IT?

Sustainability and eco-awereness were a high priority for tech chiefs a few years ago, but it's rarely raised as an issue anymore.

By Mark Samuels | June 22, 2015 -- 09:30 GMT (02:30 PDT) | Topic: CXO  ZDNet

"Asking 'whatever happened to green IT' is a bit like asking whatever happened to the Loch Ness monster," says Andrew Donoghue, European research manager at 451 Research. Image: iStock

Five-or-so years ago, sustainability was a common theme for CIOs and tech suppliers, but it's now something that is rarely heard about.

So is it simply that the fashion has changed and the emphasis has moved onto new hot topics, or has the agenda of tech chiefs and tech vendors shifted so that green IT is no longer a relevant issue?

Sustainability has become part of best business practice

Ashurst LLP CIO Bruna Pellicci says that technology is now inherently greener. Awareness has grown, too. A raft of regulations means that, in many cases, green IT has become subsumed within broader best practice.

"When it comes to acting in an environmentally-sensitive manner, executives simply have to act green," she says. "It's become natural - great business is all about acting in the most efficient manner possible."

Ian Cox, a former CIO turned consultant at Axin, agrees that most businesses now see sustainability as accepted best practice. At the same time, he says the focus on green IT issues has definitely reduced - something that might cause unease for those who believe in sustainability as a necessary business objective.

"Green IT was a fad," he says. "Boards probably aren't as interested, but companies are now much more sustainable than they were five or ten years ago. Green IT has become more embedded in good business practice."

For reference, Cox points to changes in the way that businesses procure and use IT. He says internal data centres used to be a key concern for IT managers dealing with green IT. The move to the cloud during the past five years has reduced a great deal of the pressure for sustainability.

"By going on-demand, CIOs have reduced their internal data centre operations and outsourced many of their green concerns to providers," says Cox. "In many cases, targets for sustainability will be part of the contract and providers will be expected to comply."

Abi Somorin, senior IT manager at beachwear retailer Orlebar Brown, agrees that the move to on-demand has changed the way firms procure IT and, in effect, how they think about sustainability. He says his firm does not have an explicit strategy for green IT. "I don't think it's ever really been factored into the equation because our business has always been cloud-based," he says.

His approach suggests - once again - that many of the responsibilities for sustainability have been pushed from end user to supplier. "It's not happened directly; it's happened by design - it's just the way that the industry has developed," says Somorin.

Business matters when it comes to caring for the environment

Said Business School CIO Mark Bramwell says the standalone concept of green IT started to get lost as sustainability was over-hyped by IT marketing executives and green became accepted as a standard business practice. Like some of his other peers, he believes the concept of sustainability has been subsumed into the concept of forward-thinking technology leadership.

"Much of what we used to see as green IT is now accepted as common sense," he says, referring to concerns like the ethical sourcing of materials. Ethics, however, are not the only concern. The economic downturn, says Bramwell, was also crucial in terms of CIOs attempting to create business cases for their technology initiatives, especially in terms of sustainability.

"As economic conditions altered, green IT was no longer necessarily seen as best value. In fact, there are cases where businesses could sometimes be charged a premium for sustainability. But good IT departments don't re-invent the wheel. If someone else is doing something better than you, you're not scared of using his or her technology," he says.

"When I was CIO at the Wellcome Trust, we examined our use of technology in regards to sustainability on a regular basis. What we found as time moved on was that a large majority of our IT kit was green. Sustainability concerns started to be written into policy and major providers had to fulfil their obligations in regards to sourcing and recycling components."

It, therefore, seems as if a confluence of factors - the rise of cloud computing, the governance placed on providers, and the change in economic conditions - have helped to push green IT into the background. In fact, Andrew Donoghue, European research manager at 451 Research, doubts whether green IT was, in fact, ever relevant at all.

He says 451 Research has always avoided using the term 'green' in reference to sustainable technology. He says the researcher prefers the term 'eco-efficient IT', where eco refers to 'economical' foremost, but with some 'ecological' benefits.

"Asking 'whatever happened to green IT' is a bit like asking whatever happened to the Loch Ness monster," he says. "The truth is it never really existed, apart from a few unsubstantiated sightings. True green IT means building or managing IT in a way that is environmentally altruistic, no matter the cost to the business; effectively incurring costs in order to minimise environmental damage."

The reality, says Donoghue, is that most examples of so-called green IT were, and are, about capital or operating cost reduction. For senior executives, it just so happened that some of these measures could be spun as having environmental benefits as a by-product.

He says that even high-profile examples - such as Google's and Apple's multi-billion dollar investments in renewable energy for their data centres and offices, which have significant upfront costs - are expected to result in long-term savings as the cost of fossil fuel increases over time.

"Those deals also have payback in terms of tax incentives, marketing benefits, and potentially mitigating against future carbon regulation," says Donoghue. "So green has always been a pretty meaningless term. It's really always been about efficiency and effectiveness of IT development and management."

Mountain of Electrical Waste Reaches New Peak

APR 19, 2015 09:55 AM ET // BY AFP  Discovery


Less than one-sixth of all e-waste is properly recycled.
A record amount of electrical and electronic waste hit the rubbish tips in 2014, with the biggest per-capita tallies in countries that pride themselves on environmental consciousness, a report said Sunday.

Last year, 41.8 million tons of so-called e-waste -- mostly fridges, washing machines and other domestic appliances at the end of their life -- was dumped, it said.

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That's the equivalent of 1.15 million heavy trucks, forming a line 23,000 kilometers (14,300 miles) long, according to the report, compiled by the United Nations University, the UN's educational and research branch.

Less than one-sixth of all e-waste was properly recycled, it said.

In 2013, the e-waste total was 39.8 million tons -- and on present trends, the 50-million-ton mark could be reached in 2018.

Topping the list for per-capita waste last year was Norway, with 28.4 kilograms (62.5 pounds) per inhabitant.

It was followed by Switzerland (26.3 kg per capita), Iceland (26.1 kilos), Denmark (24.0 kilos), Britain (23.5 kilos), the Netherlands (23.4 kilos), Sweden (22.3 kilos), France (22.2 kilos) and the United States and Austria (22.1 kilos per person each).

The region with the lowest amount of e-waste per inhabitant was Africa, with 1.7 kilos per person. It generated a total of 1.9 million tons of waste.

In volume terms, the most waste was generated in the United States and China, which together accounted for 32 percent of the world's total, followed by Japan, Germany and India.

Waste that could have been recovered and recycled was worth $52 billion (48.5 billion euros), including 300 tons of gold -- equal to 11 percent of the world's gold production in 2013.

But it also included 2.2 million tons of harmful lead compounds, as well as mercury, cadmium and chromium, and 4,400 tons of ozone-gobbling chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases.

"Worldwide, e-waste constitutes a valuable 'urban mine' -- a large potential reservoir of recyclable materials," UN Under Secretary-General David Malone said.

"At the same time, the hazardous content of e-waste constitutes a 'toxic mine' that must be managed with extreme care."

Almost 60 percent of e-waste by weight came from large and small kitchen, bathroom and laundry appliances.

Seven percent was generated by thrown-out mobile phones, calculators, personal computers and printers.

iFixit CEO Encourages a Disrupt of the IT Repair Industry

by Michelle Peterson Monday, September 08, 2014  CompTIA

iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens, center, spoke at CompTIA’s annual Academy Educator Conference to share ways his company is creating a "repair jobs revolution."
Back in 1990, “when dinosaurs roamed the earth,” joked Kyle Wiens, CEO of iFixit, people fixed things through trial and error, printed repair manuals or they went to a trade school to learn their skills. In today’s world — thanks in part to the online repair community he cofounded in his Cal Poly college dorm room — it’s Repair 2.0.

“You learn from the world,” he said. “iFixit wants to teach you how to fix everything in the world,” Wiens said to a room of educators at CompTIA’s Academy Educator Conference, describing his online repair community, internationally known for its open source repair manuals and product teardowns.

Like Wikipedia, iFixit uses collective knowledge for its community-contributed teardown and rebuild manuals. The site includes user-sourced repair manuals and troubleshooting help, plus hands-on lessons and learning tools. All of the manuals are available for free as online documents and downloads.

Wiens and his college roommate started the project because they were frustrated that many devices didn’t come with repair guides. “I believe that the knowledge of how to repair products belongs to mankind,” Wiens said.

Since its launch, iFixit has empowered millions of people to repair their broken technology – iPhones, vacuum cleaners, tablets. The site has 533 cell phone repair manuals, for example, and guides to repair 100 types of Macintosh products, plus a variety of PCs.

“We’re geeks and we like getting inside things and taking them apart,” he said. “I liked it enough that I figured out how to make it my job.”

iFixit is open source and free, and makes money by bits, screws, suction cups and other helpful tools, like a magnetic whiteboard that holds your parts plus your notes. “When you get down to phones these sizes, it can be more like watch repair than computer repair,” he said.

According to iFixit’s numbers, 91 percent of users said the site enabled them to fix their devices. “And 95 percent said a successful repair would make them more likely to buy the same kind of product again,” Wiens said. “That helps when we go to companies and say, ‘It’d be nice if your products were easier to fix.’”

Wiens said 26 percent of iPhones break within 24 months. “There’s a huge market opportunity for your students to get into mobile device repair,” he said. “If people can fix things, more things will get fixed and we can reduce the environmental impact of the IT industry.”

To get into an iPad, for example, you need heat. A factory professional might use a heat gun, but iFixit shows you tricks you can do at home to unglue the glass and pry it off using suction cups. “Suction cups aren’t in your usual PC repair tools, but they’re pretty useful for working in glass,” he said.

A Repair Jobs Revolution
“iPads are supposed to be the great textbook replacement, but they’ve got about three to four years of lifespan — if the student doesn’t drop it and break the screen first,” he said. Textbooks, on the other hand, are usually refreshed every five years. If teachers want to be able to use tablets instead of books, people are going to have to start learning to repair them — or spend a lot more money on equipment upgrades.

Wiens was hinting at an announcement made later in the week: A partnership between iFixit and the Microsoft Registered Refurbisher Program called the Pro Tech Network, a free, comprehensive program designed to make it easy for people to start new businesses fixing cell phones, tablets and computers. iFixit and Microsoft aim for this to create thousands of new repair businesses around the world.

“If we’re going to be training students to be iPad repair folks, what we need is a resource of training materials to show them how to run a business that can adapt,” he said. “It’s time for a repair jobs revolution.”

iFixit also includes an educational pillar, helping engineering students improve their English department scores by giving them hands-on projects that involve technical writing.

“We go to these poor, suffering literature professors and say, ‘What if we gave you a practical, hands-on project that students will get?’” he said. Having students write repair manuals, for example, lets them practice writing on something they’re actually excited about. Partner schools include SUNY Cortland, Ohio State University and the University of Louisville.

iFixit has also written a technical writing handbook, which includes everything from how to write to how to take clear, usable images. “It’s all publicly listed and open sourced because that’s just the way I think the world ought to be,” he said.

Later in the week, Wiens led Track4Techs: Not Your Father’s A+ at ChannelCon. Tune in to hear his talk, highlighting the importance of CompTIA A+ certification and how it’s changing along with the needs of the industry.

Michelle Peterson is a communications specialist for CompTIA.

Smartphone charging spews out megatons of greenhouse gases

Juniper Research finds that worldwide carbon dioxide emissions from cell phone charging will more than double by 2019.

by Dara Kerr @darakerr  CNET
July 23, 2014 4:17 PM PDT

Josh Miller/CNET

For the first time, smartphone shipments have reached 1 billion. That probably means a lot of calling, texting, and app use. It also means a lot of phones being plugged into the grid and charging.

Currently, the world is generating 6.4 megatons of greenhouse gases from smartphone charging. By 2019, Juniper Research predicts, that amount will be more than 13 megatons. Those 13 megatons are equivalent to the current annual emissions of 1.1 million cars. Almost half of those 2019 greenhouse gases will come from coal-fired electricity grids that are mostly used in Asia, according to Juniper Research.A new study by analyst Juniper Research found that smartphone charging could soon be a massive generator of carbon dioxide, which is one of the greenhouse gases thought to cause global warming. According to the study, greenhouse gas emissions from mobile devices will more than double within five years.

While Juniper Research is predicting 13 megatons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2019, smartphone makers could reduce that number by working to make their products greener and more energy efficient. Companies could also pressure energy suppliers to use more renewable energy, rather than coal and oil. Additionally, app makers could work to make their products more energy efficient to prolong phone battery life.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dara Kerr
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Dara Kerr, a freelance journalist based in the Bay Area, is fascinated by robots, supercomputers and Internet memes. When not writing about technology and modernity, she likes to travel to far-off countries. See full bio

Cable TV boxes become 2nd biggest energy users in many homes

LA Times



RALPH VARTABEDIANcontact the reporter

Cable TV boxes could be as energy efficient as smartphones, experts say

The technology exists to make giant strides in energy efficiency, but economic incentives are often missing
Total energy use is projected to grow 29% by 2040 in the U.S.

In the middle of the night, when most Americans are sound asleep, their lights and appliances off, a power hog is wide awake and running at nearly full throttle: the boxes that operate their cable or satellite television service.

The seemingly innocuous appliances — all 224 million of them across the nation — together consume as much electricity as produced by four giant nuclear reactors, running around the clock. They have become the biggest single energy user in many homes, apart from air conditioning.

Cheryl Williamsen, a Los Alamitos architect, has three of the boxes leased from her cable provider in her home, but she had no idea how much power they consumed until recently, when she saw a rating on the back for as much as 500 watts — about the same as a washing machine.


The 224 million cable boxes across the nation together consume as much electricity as produced by four giant nuclear reactors, running around the clock. (Patrick T. Fallon / Bloomberg)

A set-top cable box with a digital recorder can consume as much as 35 watts of power, costing about $8 a month for a typical Southern California consumer. The devices use nearly as much power turned off as they do when they are turned on.

"I could yank the power supply cord," Williamsen said, "but that's not a very consumer-friendly way to reduce energy consumption."

The boxes have been at the center of a battle between the cable industry and conservationists who believe the devices could be far more efficient.

"It is a classic case of market failure," said Andrew McAllister, a member of the California Energy Commission. "The consumers have zero information and zero control over the devices they get."

The industry agreed recently to voluntarily reduce the power consumption of new devices,which it said would save consumers $1 billion annually. But experts say the deal will provide only a fraction of the potential gains and take years to realize.

The fight over set-top boxes is a stark illustration of the difficulty of wringing energy efficiency improvements even in an era when Americans are trying to reduce their energy footprint over concerns about global warming and family budgets are strained by rising electricity prices. The recent announcement by the Obama administration of plans to reduce carbon emissions from power plants by 30% and reduce electricity costs to the nation by 8% will require unprecedented improvements in efficiency.

Electricity demand is growing far more slowly today, thanks to conservation over the last decade. But total use is still projected to grow 29% by 2040, according to the Energy Department. Slower growth could reduce the pressure to build new gas-fired power plants as the nation retires low-cost coal-fired generators that cannot meet pollution standards.
It is a classic case of market failure. The consumers have zero information and zero control over the devices they get.- Andrew McAllister, a member of the California Energy Commission


While the technology exists to make giant strides in energy efficiency, the economic incentives are often missing. In many cases, there is no connection between who pays for electricity and who decides how much electricity gets used.

Steve Kelley, a senior vice president at Green Charge Networks, a Santa Clara, Calif., electronics firm that produces devices that help businesses lower their power bills, offers a case in point. The nation's shopping malls annually use hundreds of millions of dollars of electricity, he said, but their owners are often indifferent about reducing power consumption because tenants pay the bills.

"The mall owners often won't consider spending $50,000 on a system that would pay for itself, because they don't share in the savings," Kelley said.

Similarly, tenants in millions of apartments pay for electricity, but landlords decide whether they get efficient appliances, modern air conditioning systems and good building insulation. Many landlords, particularly those who rent modest apartments to working-class families, do not believe they can charge higher rents for units with improved efficiency, studies show.

The opposite problem exists at workplaces, where employees control much of the power use but do not pay the bills. Employees commonly use energy intensive space heaters under their desks, plug in incandescent lights or leave computers running all night.

It has fallen to the federal and state governments to clamp on mandatory standards in many cases, though they are fiercely opposed by the industry. Federal standards on refrigerators and televisions have driven down their energy use by 75%, even while the retail prices have dropped, said Ralph Cavanagh, an energy expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"There are still lots of $20 bills lying on the sidewalk," he said. "The potential is huge."

The set-top box issue is part of a much larger group of personal electronic devices in homes that represent one of the fastest-growing parts of residential electricity use. Americans are spending more than $12 billion a year on electricity to run computers, smartphones, game consoles, modems and other devices in their homes — one price of the nation's connected culture, according to estimates by the Consumer Federation of America.

"It is a very tough case to make to tell consumers don't use these devices," said Severin Borenstein, director of the UC Energy Institute. "People, as they get wealthier, are getting new toys and almost all of the things we do use electricity."

The set-top boxes consume power when turned off because of spinning hard drives, program guide updates and software downloads, leaving consumers with one choice to reduce that load: Unplug the device. The downside is that turning the system back on requires a convoluted reboot.

Energy experts say the boxes could be just as efficient as smartphones, laptop computers or other electronic devices that use a fraction of the power thanks to microprocessors and other technology that conserves electricity. Ideally, they say, these boxes could be put into a deep sleep mode when turned off, cutting consumption to a few watts. At that rate, a box could cost less than $1 a month for power, depending on how much it is used.

McAllister said the commission was closely watching the voluntary agreement and may still impose binding state standards.

The deal signed late last year by 11 cable and satellite companies, which control the bulk of the nation's communications services, calls for a power reduction in the range of 10% to 45% by 2017. It requires an independent audit of the program, detailed public reports and disclosures to consumers.

Brian Dietz, a spokesman for the National Cable & Telecommunications Assn., said that by 2017 about 90% of the boxes would meet a standard set by the federal government, though a more ambitious standard was already being established. Dietz said the new boxes would provide all the current functionality for consumers, allowing them to program their television watching and to record shows, while still saving energy.

But Mark Cooper, research director of the Consumer Federation of America, takes a dim view of the deal, saying, "This voluntary agreement is very modest, to say the least."

Noah Horowitz, research director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, which was one of the organizations that signed the deal, said, "It is a good first step, but a lot more needs to be done." It does not require the devices go down to a trickle when turned off, for example. And the agreement has no penalties for noncompliance.

Horowitz said the council agreed to the deal because a federal standard could have taken eight years.

"The industry was putting up a big fight," he added, "threatening litigation."

ralph.vartabedian@latimes.comCopyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

BBC: Amazon's 'dirty cloud' criticised in Greenpeace report

3 April 2014 Last updated at 08:26 ET  BBC

More tech firms are striving to have cleaner clouds
A Greenpeace report into the green credentials of tech firms has singled out Amazon as having the "dirtiest cloud" services.
Apple, Facebook and Google were praised for "significant improvements" in energy transparency and attempts to move to 100% renewable energy.

But Amazon Web Services (AWS), which powers many net firms, only uses 15% clean energy, according to the report.

The retail giant hit back, branding the report "inaccurate".

Blacklist
The green activist group warned that more needed to be done to make the internet greener, particularly in countries experiencing huge net growth such as China.

The electricity demand of internet and cloud services has grown exponentially, according to the report, Clicking Clean: How Companies are Creating the Green Internet.

And it is expected to increase by 60% or more by 2020 as reliance on the internet increases.

The league table of green tech firms

"Apple, Facebook and Google are powering our online lives with clean energy and building a greener offline world for everyone in the process," said Gary Cook, Greenpeace's senior IT analyst.

It represents a turnaround for Apple which two years ago was criticised in a 2012 Greenpeace report, How Green is Your Cloud.

The firm went from a 35% use of renewable energy in 2010 to 75% by the end of 2012.

Amazon though has remained on Greenpeace's blacklist.

Amazon Web Services, which hosts a large part of the internet including for companies such as Netflix, Spotify, Tumblr, AirBnB and Pinterest, currently only sources 15% of its electricity demand with clean energy, according to the report.

Coal powers 28% of the company's cloud, nuclear 27% and gas 25%.

Facebook's data centre in Lulea, Sweden runs entirely on renewabale energy
"By continuing to buy dirty energy, Amazon Web Services not only can't seem to keep up with Apple, but is dragging much of the internet down with it," Mr Cook said.

Greenpeace also criticised Amazon and Twitter for their refusal to reveal any details about their energy footprint to their customers or the public.

In response, Amazon told the BBC: "Greenpeace's report misses the mark by using false assumptions on AWS operations and inaccurate data on AWS energy consumption."

It was not able to elaborate on what the inaccuracies were but said that two of its data centres use 100% carbon-free power

"Running IT infrastructure on the AWS Cloud is inherently more energy efficient than traditional computing that depends on small, inefficient, and over-provisioned data centres," it said.

Wind energy

More technology firms are turning to wind energy to power their data centres
Of the 19 leading internet companies evaluated by Greenpeace, only five have committed to a goal of powering their operations with 100% renewable energy.

Apple was the first firm to achieve its 100% renewable energy goal. It operates the largest privately owned solar installation in the US at its North Carolina data centre.

Meanwhile Facebook is powering its utility in Iowa with wind energy, which in turn prompted energy firm MidAmerican to invest $1.9bn (£1.1bn) in wind power energy.

Google has also used wind energy to provide electricity for services such as Gmail and YouTube.

Free Green IT Workshop 4/26 at Mission College

Two percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are currently attributed to IT operations.  That does not include power drains from consumer electronics in homes.  "Green IT" efforts to reduce those emissions are increasingly important strategically to all kinds of organizations and efforts.

Additionally, ICT is a key strategic element of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in most industries. "Smart Grid" are efforts to integrate sensors, controls and information systems into electricity distribution systems to make them more efficient and reduce associated greenhouse gases.  "Smart Buildings" are efforts to integrate sensors, controls and information systems into building management systems to make them more efficient and reduce associated greenhouse gas emissions.  "Smart Transportation" are efforts to integrate sensors, controls and information systems into traffic management and control systems to make them more efficient and reduce associated greenhouse gas emissions...

Green ICT is a set of values, goals and efforts to use ICT to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, and Green ICT is increasingly a part of the mindset and jobs of many ICT workers.

Following is information on a free Green IT workshop at Mission College in Santa Clara, CA on April 26th, 2012, from 6 to 9pm.

West Valley College Center for Advanced Transportation Technology & Energy

Free Green IT Workshop 4/26 at Mission College

Two percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are currently attributed to IT operations.  That does not include power drains from consumer electronics in homes.  "Green IT" efforts to reduce those emissions are increasingly important strategically to all kinds of organizations and efforts.

Additionally, ICT is a key strategic element of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in most industries. "Smart Grid" are efforts to integrate sensors, controls and information systems into electricity distribution systems to make them more efficient and reduce associated greenhouse gases.  "Smart Buildings" are efforts to integrate sensors, controls and information systems into building management systems to make them more efficient and reduce associated greenhouse gas emissions.  "Smart Transportation" are efforts to integrate sensors, controls and information systems into traffic management and control systems to make them more efficient and reduce associated greenhouse gas emissions...

Green ICT is a set of values, goals and efforts to use ICT to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, and Green ICT is increasingly a part of the mindset and jobs of many ICT workers.

Following is information on a free Green IT workshop at Mission College in Santa Clara, CA on April 26th, 2012, from 6 to 9pm.

West Valley College Center for Advanced Transportation Technology & Energy

Free Green IT Workshop 4/26 at Mission College

Two percent of global greenhouse gas emissions are currently attributed to IT operations.  That does not include power drains from consumer electronics in homes.  "Green IT" efforts to reduce those emissions are increasingly important strategically to all kinds of organizations and efforts.

Additionally, ICT is a key strategic element of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in most industries. "Smart Grid" are efforts to integrate sensors, controls and information systems into electricity distribution systems to make them more efficient and reduce associated greenhouse gases.  "Smart Buildings" are efforts to integrate sensors, controls and information systems into building management systems to make them more efficient and reduce associated greenhouse gas emissions.  "Smart Transportation" are efforts to integrate sensors, controls and information systems into traffic management and control systems to make them more efficient and reduce associated greenhouse gas emissions...

Green ICT is a set of values, goals and efforts to use ICT to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions, and Green ICT is increasingly a part of the mindset and jobs of many ICT workers.

Following is information on a free Green IT workshop at Mission College in Santa Clara, CA on April 26th, 2012, from 6 to 9pm.

West Valley College Center for Advanced Transportation Technology & Energy

Southern California Information Technology (IT) Innovation Summit to focus on IT and New Media Jobs and Education for California

Please join other leading Information Technology (IT) and New Media employment experts and education professionals to discuss perspectives on local jobs and how to promote IT and education pathways, December 9, 2011, at the L.A. County Office of Education in Downey, CA.

With a financial downturn in the economy, higher than average unemployment and shrinking governmental budgets, it is imperative that policy decision makers and educators address the knowledge and skills required for students to compete in a global market.  

Organized by the WebProfessionals.org WhyITNow.org initiative, a grass roots coalition of industry and education professionals, IT Innovation Summit supporters include Monster.com, CompTIA, State of California Department of Education, the L.A. County ROP and the new California Community College ICT Collaborative.

Summit speakers will focus on local jobs, partnerships and innovative strategies and conversations for California. Featured speakers include:

•         Gary Page, California Department of Education

•         Bill Cullifer, WebProfessionals.org

•         James Jones, Mid-Pacific ICT (MPICT) Center and

California Community College ICT Collaborative

•         Andy Vaughn, Monster.com

•         Alan Rowland, CompTIA.

Participants will discuss the growing demand for IT and New Media Jobs, skills required by employers, the latest employment labor market information for California and connecting students with industry jobs in some of the nation's fastest growing economic sectors.

“This important event brings together insightful IT and New Media industry and educators from throughout Southern California to get the latest information on Information Technology and New Media jobs and to discuss how we can best focus our efforts working together to cause positive outcomes for students,” said Gary Page, Consultant, California Department of Education.

The Summit will include four panel discussions that will explore the challenges higher education and America face today.

•         The first panel, “What Surveys are telling us about IT and New Media Jobs,” will focus on where the IT and New Media Jobs are, workforce job growth estimates, salary information, skills in the highest demand, and the latest in Green IT, Health IT, Computer Science and Web Technologies

•         The second panel, “Building IT Programs that Work for All Students” will focus on the latest in Green IT, Health IT, Computer Science and Web Technologies.

•         The third panel, “IT Pathways, Articulation and Vision for the Future” will focus on available resources, including academic and technical standards for IT and New Media, curriculum frameworks and online resources, professional development options, exploring options for IT articulation in your community, trends in CTE, advocacy tools, funding resources, How Career Technical Student Organization (CTSO) can benefit you and your students,  and resources for successful 2+2+2 connections.

•         The fourth panel, “Building Effective Partnerships and Community Relationships” will focus on Tool Kits and how to use them to your advantage, articulation agreements and templates, and key strategies for implementing them today.

“By maximizing the power of technology, we can strengthen the quality and affordability of our health care, advance climate friendly energy development and deployment, improve education throughout the country, and ensure that America remains the world’s leader in technology,” said President Obama. Bill Cullifer, Executive Director, WebProfessionals.org and WhyITNow.org, agrees and together with business and industry leaders, trade and professional associations and education the event speakers will share experiences and innovation ideas in the areas of Health IT, Green IT, Web design and development, New Media and IT pathways in education.

Event website:           http://itinnovationsummit.org/.

Agenda:                      http://itinnovationsummit.org/agenda

Free Registration:      http://itinnovationsummit.org/register

Where:                        Los Angeles County Office of Education Room 281
9300 Imperial Highway Downey, CA 90242

Accommodation:       Nearby Hotels           

Closest Airport:          LAX

Gartner's top ten strategic technologies for 2012

"Gartner has highlighted the top 10 technologies and trends that it believes will be strategic for most organizations in 2012.

"Gartner defines a strategic technology as one with the potential for significant impact on the enterprise in the next three years. Factors that denote significant impact include a high potential for disruption to IT or the business, the need for a major dollar investment, or the risk of being late to adopt. A strategic technology may be an existing technology that has matured and/or become suitable for a wider range of uses. It may also be an emerging technology that offers an opportunity for strategic business advantage for early adopters or with potential for significant market disruption in the next five years. These technologies impact the organization's long-term plans, programs and initiatives.

""These top 10 technologies will be strategic for most organizations, and IT leaders should use this list in their strategic planning process by reviewing the technologies and how they fit into their expected needs," said David Cearley, vice president and Gartner fellow."

eChannelLine

Dimension Data Wins Award for Innovation in Information Technology

Dimension Data, a $4.7 billion global ICT services and solutions provider, won the 2011 Golden Bridge Award for its Adoption Management Program (AMP), in the "Best Unified Communications Service" category. This service allows organizations and businesses to maximize their returns on technology investments by promoting internal awareness and end-user adoption among employees.

"One of the biggest roadblocks to the success of emerging technologies, such as unified communications, within today's enterprises is the lack of adoption among employees. This award is further testament to Dimension Data's commitment to helping enterprise clients get the most out of their technology investments through an end-to-end strategic adoption roadmap that assesses specific requirements and promotes awareness, understanding and ultimately usage," said Mitchell Hershkowitz, national practice manager of consulting, Dimension Data Americas.

Dimension Data's Adoption Management Program uses the strategies it developed during the company's own expansion of unified communications and collaboration technologies across its Americas offices, spanning 21 locations with more than 1,000 employees, which resulted in a 95% user adoption rate in just two months. Based on the vivid achievement of this deployment, Dimension Data developed the Adoption Management Program procedure, which is now helping clients around the world to realize the full potential of their technology investments.

The yearly Golden Bridge Awards program includes the world's best in executives and management teams, women in business and the professions, innovations, case studies, product management, organizational performance, products and services, public relations and marketing campaigns and customer satisfaction programs from every major industry in the world. Organizations and businesses from all over the world submit nominations; public and private, for-profit and non-profit, large and small companies, and start-ups. Winners were honored in New York on Wednesday, August 10, 2011.

On September 8, 2011, Dimension Data announced the launch of Sustainable Solutions, a suite of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) solutions and services that help organizations to hasten their sustainability strategy and manage their greenhouse gas emissions. Dimension Data, which placed among the leaders in the 2010 Carbon Disclosure Leadership Index for the third consecutive year, created the suite to focus solely on the reduction of enterprise travel, energy and waste.
Colin Curtis, director of sustainability at Dimension Data said, "Business leaders are looking to technology to help them reduce costs and address stakeholder and corporate governance requirements. They recognize the need to better plan, implement, monitor and report on their IT operations. As a result, they are calling on their suppliers and vendors to provide information on their sustainability strategies and carbon management, proving that they're not only aware, but also taking action."

While the ICT industry is a significant contributor to the world's CO2 emissions, research by The Climate Group found that by changing the way people and businesses use technology, this sector could lessen yearly man-made global emissions 15% by 2020.

"Sustainable strategies should be treated as an extension of existing ICT best practices to minimize energy usage, reduce travel and decrease waste," said Curtis. "Although Dimension Data is not a manufacturer of goods, as a multi-national corporation, we recognize our business responsibility to do all we can to improve our sustainability posture -- and that of our clients."

"Sustainability is not simply about the environment: it's about cost reduction, increased productivity, supply chain optimization and improved business opportunity, and it's high on not only our own environmental agenda, but those of our clients and other external stakeholder groups."
"Numerous governments have initiated programs that incentivize IT organizations to hit targets. In addition, investors want to understand whether the impact of the environment adds risk to their investments, while non-governmental organizations and the media focus heavily on how 'green' companies are performing," explains Curtis.

Headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, Dimension Data was founded in 1983 at the beginning of networked communications. The business had a simple vision – to do great things. Dimension Data is a specialist IT services and solution provider that helps clients plan, build, support and manage their IT infrastructures. The company has spread to 49 countries on five continents around the world. In October 2010, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT), one of the largest global telecommunications service providers, acquired Dimension Data, making it a wholly-owned subsidiary of the NTT Group.

By continually building on their knowledge and proficiency in IT infrastructure technologies, Dimension Data has become a global leader in the delivery and management of specialist IT infrastructure services and solutions. They have a 12,383 strong employee base, backed by a clean track record of 28 years, Dimension Data applies its expertise in networking, converged communications, security, data center solutions, and Microsoft and contact center technologies. Their unique skills in consulting, integration and managed services to create customized solutions guarantees that their over 6,000 clients achieve their stated business goals.

Author Bio:
This is a guest post from Laura Backes, she enjoys writing about all kinds of subjects and also topics related to internet service providers in my area. You can reach her at: laurabackes8 @ gmail.com.

Faculty Forum on Smart Grid at CCSF on 9/30

The Bay Area Community College Consortium is hosting its next Energy Faculty Forum on Friday September 30th at City College of San Francisco. The topic will be "Smart Grid".
Presentations and discussions will address the issue of Smart Grid and how Community Colleges can respond to the need for preparing the workforce for jobs in this field. MPICT supports this effort and encourages ICT Faculty from our region to attend. The event is free but you have to register.
Friday, September 30, 2011
9:00AM - 2:00PM (breakfast available 9:00AM, meeting starts 9:30AM)
City College of San Francisco
Multi-Use Building - Room #140
City College Map - Multi-Use Bldg off Phelan
Parking permit forthcoming
Tentative Agenda
Please RSVP using this link

Excellent NRDC Green IT Report on Set-Top Box Energy Consumption Issues

"In 2010, set-top boxes in the United States consumed approximately 27 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, which is equivalent to the annual output of nine average(500 MW) coal-fired power plants. The electricity required to operate all U.S. boxes is equal to the annual household electricity consumption of the entire state of Maryland, results in 16 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and costs households more than $3 billion each year. Fortunately, there is great potential for improving the efficiency and reducing the cost of operating these electronics relied upon by so many viewers."

MPICT highly recommends reading this report and infusing Green IT concepts and values in all students.

National Resource Defense Council

That set-top box drains power nonstop

"Even when TV is off, home entertainment devices may hog more electricity than a refrigerator.

"Set-top boxes are energy hogs because they generally run full tilt 24 hours a day.

"Those little boxes that usher cable signals and digital recording capacity into televisions have become the single largest electricity drain in many U.S. homes.

"Some typical home entertainment configurations eat more power than a new refrigerator and even some central air-conditioning systems.

"There are 160 million so-called set-top boxes in the United States, one for every two people, and that number is rising. Many homes now have one or more basic cable boxes as well as add-on DVRs, or digital video recorders, which use 40 percent more power than the set-top box.

"One high-definition DVR and one high-definition cable box use an average of 446 kilowatt hours a year, about 10 percent more than a 21-cubic-foot energy-efficient refrigerator, a recent study found.

"These set-top boxes are energy hogs mostly because their drives, tuners and other components are generally running full tilt, or nearly so, 24 hours a day even when not in active use.

"The study, by the Natural Resources Defense Council, concluded that the boxes consumed $3 billion in electricity per year in the United States - and 66 percent of that power is wasted when no one is watching and shows are not being recorded. That is more power than the state of Maryland uses over 12 months.

"People in the energy efficiency community worry a lot about these boxes, since they will make it more difficult to lower home energy use," said John Wilson, a former member of the California Energy Commission, now with the San Francisco-based Energy Foundation. "Companies say it can't be done, or it's too expensive. But in my experience, neither one is true. It can be done, and it often doesn't cost much, if anything."

"The perpetually "powered on" state is largely a function of design and programming choices made by electronics companies and cable and Internet providers, which are related to the way cable networks currently function in the United States.

"Fixes exist, but they are not currently being mandated or deployed in the United States, critics say.

"Similar devices in some European countries, for example, can automatically go into standby mode when not in use, cutting power drawn by half. They can also go into an optional "deep sleep," which can reduce energy consumption by about 95 percent compared to when the machine is active...

This is an excellent article on a major issue affecting "Green IT," a mindset that should be infused across all ICT courses. IT accounts for 2-3% of global greenhouse gas emissions today. What can we do to improve this? This is an issue important to everyone in the field.

Read more: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/06/26/2408055/that-set-top-box-drains-power.html#ixzz1QUarh7bA