Sunday, June 29, 2014

Energy (and Other) Events - June 29, 2014

Energy (and Other) Events is a weekly mailing list published most Sundays covering events around the Cambridge, MA and greater Boston area that catch the editor's eye.

Hubevents  http://hubevents.blogspot.com is the web version.

If you wish to subscribe or unsubscribe to Energy (and Other) Events email gmoke@world.std.com

What I Do and Why I Do It:  The Story of Energy (and Other) Events
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html

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Event Index - full Event Details available below the Index

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Monday, June 30
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9:30am  The Brain-Computer Interface

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Tuesday, July 1
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Climate Change in Four Dimensions
12:30pm  MOOCs and the Science of Learning

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Wednesday, July 2
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12pm  Reading Frederick Douglass: Communal Reading on Boston Common of "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?”
6pm  Millennium Conversation on "Standing Our Ground: Civil Rights, Justice, and the Law”

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Tuesday, July 8
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8am  Boston TechBreakfast: Inwiter, Senseware, Codeship, Howler, and More!
12pm  Freecycle and Farmers' Market on the Plaza
12:30pm  w4m: The End of the American Red Light District
7pm  Music-Tech Meetup 7/8 – Learn. Teach. Demo. Eat!

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My rough notes on some of the events I go to and notes on books I’ve read are at:
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com

Why the Nazis Never Built an Atomic Bomb
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/28/1310235/-Why-the-Nazis-Never-Built-an-Atomic-Bomb

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Monday, June 30
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The Brain-Computer Interface
Monday, June 30
9:30am - 2:30pm
Northeastern, Room TF378, 140 The Fenway, Boston
RSVP at https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/354802/BCIWS3006.pdf

Christoph Guger, CEO, g.tec medical engineering GmbH.   

Talks and a hands-on seminar.   

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Tuesday, July 1
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Climate Change in Four Dimensions
online course
RSVP at https://www.coursera.org/course/4dimensions
Cost:  free

This course views climate change from a variety of perspectives at the intersection of the natural sciences, technology, and the social sciences and humanities.

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MOOCs and the Science of Learning
Tuesday, July 1
12:30pm ET
Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett Street, 2nd Floor, Cambridge
RSVP required for those attending in person at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2014/07/reich#RSVP
This event will be webcast live on http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2014/07/reich at 12:30pm ET

with Berkman Fellow, Justin Reich
Millions of learners on platforms like edX and Coursera are generating terabytes of data tracking their activity in real time. Online learning platforms capture extraordinarily detailed records of student behavior, and now the challenge for researchers is to explore how these new datasets can be used to advance the science of learning.  This talk will examine current trends and future directions in research into online learning in large-scale settings.

About Justin
Justin Reich is an educational researcher interested in the future of learning in a networked world. He is the Richard L. Menschel HarvardX Research Fellow, based in the Office of the President and Provost at Harvard University, exploring the possibilities and limits of online learning through the HarvardX platform. He is also a Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and a visiting lecturer in the Scheller Teacher Education Program at MIT. Justin is the co-founder of EdTechTeacher, a professional learning consultancy devoted to helping teachers leverage technology to create student-centered, inquiry-based learning environments. He earned his doctorate from Harvard University, where he led the Distributed Collaborative Learning Communities project, a Hewlett Foundation funded initiative to examine how social media are used in K-12 classrooms. He writes the EdTechResearcher blog for Education Week, and his writings have appeared in Educational Researcher, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, and other publications. Justin started his career teaching wilderness medicine, and later taught high school world history and history electives, and coached wrestling and outdoor activities.

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Wednesday, July 2
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Reading Frederick Douglass: Communal Reading on Boston Common of "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?”
Wednesday, July 2
12pm
54th Regiment Memorial, Boston Common (Across from State House)

Join us for an alternative 4th of July celebration, a communal reading of Frederick Douglass' famous 1852 speech, "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?"
This even will give an opportunity for community members to gather and read the speech together, and to reflect upon the meaning of the speech in the current day.
This event is hosted by Community Change, Inc., Mass Humanities, and the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, and is co-sponsored by several community organizations. The full list can be found at http://communitychangeinc.org/node/344

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Millennium Conversation on "Standing Our Ground: Civil Rights, Justice, and the Law"
WHEN  Wed., July 2, 2014, 6 – 8 p.m.
WHERE  Museum of African American History, 46 Joy Street, Beacon Hill, Boston
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Education, Humanities, Law, Lecture, Social Sciences, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Museum of African American History
SPEAKER(S)  Charles Ogletree, moderator - Harvard Law School Jesse Climenko Professor of Law, and Founding and Executive Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice.
Michael Curry - President of the NAACP Boston Branch; recently elected to serve on the NAACP National Board.
Avi Green - Co-chair of Scholars Strategy Network Working Group on Protecting and Expanding the Right to Vote; former Executive Director of MassVote.
Mariama White-Hammond - Co-founder of Project Hip Hop and the Civil Rights Tour for Greater Boston area youth
COST General admission: $5; youth (13 - 17) and seniors (62+): $3; MAAH members and children 12 years and under: free.
CONTACT INFO rsvp@maah.org or 617.725.0022 x22
NOTE   Join Professor Charles Ogletree for the 2014 'Millennium Conversation' with on the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, signed by President Lyndon Baines Johnson on July 2, 1964. A distinguished panel will share critical perspectives on the Civil Rights Act and other landmark decisions, and shed new light on a growing number of controversial "Stand Your Ground" laws. Add your voice during this important forum. Hosting the conversation in the African Meeting House will honor the memory of black and white abolitionists who stood their ground for human rights, just laws, and equal education centuries before the modern civil rights movement.
LINK www.maah.org

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Tuesday, July 8
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Boston TechBreakfast: Inwiter, Senseware, Codeship, Howler, and More!
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
8:00 AM
Microsoft NERD - Horace Mann Room, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA (map)
RSVP at http://www.meetup.com/Boston-TechBreakfast/events/155722952/

Interact with your peers in a monthly morning breakfast meetup. At this monthly breakfast get-together techies, developers, designers, and entrepreneurs share learn from their peers through show and tell / show-case style presentations.
And yes, this is free! Thank our sponsors when you see them :)

Agenda for Boston TechBreakfast:
8:00 - 8:15 - Get yer Bagels & Coffee and chit-chat
8:15 - 8:20 - Introductions, Sponsors, Announcements
8:20 - ~9:30 - Showcases and Shout-Outs!
Inwiter - Prabhakar Bellamkonda
Senseware - Serene Almomen
Codeship - Florian Motlik
Howler - Hunter
*** OPEN ***
~9:30 - end - Final "Shout Outs" & Last Words

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Freecycle and Farmers' Market on the Plaza
Tuesday, July 8
12–6 pm
Harvard, Science Center Plaza, One Oxford Street, Cambridge

Join the Harvard Law School, SEAS, FAS Green Program and the Food Literacy Project for a FreeCycle at the Harvard Farmer’s Market. Clean out your home or office for the summer, bring reusable items you don’t want, and take away new treasures. Donations welcome from 9 am onward, and items will be available to take away from 12-2pm.

Shop the Harvard Farmers' Market every Tuesday through October on the Science Center Plaza!

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w4m: The End of the American Red Light District
Tuesday, July 8
12:30pm ET
Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett Street, 2nd Floor, Cambridge
RSVP required for those attending in person at

with Journalist and author, Melissa Gira Grant
The history of the American red light district is quite brief – from railroad signal lights to hotel bathroom selfies – and clouded in myth. Soon it may be lost. In this talk, journalist Melissa Gira Grant (author of Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work) will reconsider how communication technologies shape sex-for-sale, proposing that sex work has merged with the network. We'll surveil the police, missionaries, media, and politicians who created and command this space, and discuss what we can learn from how sex workers have remained a step ahead.

About Melissa:
Melissa is a writer and freelance journalist, covering sexuality, politics, and technology. Her book, Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work (Verso, 2014) challenges the myths about selling sex and those who make them. Her reporting and commentary appears in The Nation, Wired, The Atlantic, Glamour, The Guardian, In These Times, The Washington Post, Dissent, Slate, Salon,The American Prospect, Reason, Jezebel, and Valleywag, among other publications, and she is a contributing editor at Jacobin.

She speaks regularly to audiences worldwide at institutions such as Duke University, the New School, Third Wave Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, Eyebeam Art + Technology Center, and the UC Berkeley Labor Center, and at events including South by Southwest Interactive (SXSW), re:publica (Berlin), NEXT (Copenhagen), and the International AIDS Conference.

Melissa has been a member of the Exotic Dancers’ Union (SEIU Local 790), and a staff member at St. James Infirmary (the only occupational health and safety clinic in the United States run for and by sex workers).

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Music-Tech Meetup 7/8 – Learn. Teach. Demo. Eat!
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
7:00 PM to 9:00 PM
Cambridge Innovation Center, One Broadway, Cambridge
RSVP at http://www.meetup.com/Boston-Music-Technology-Group/events/189351182/

Free pizza and drinks will be provided.
Breakaway Group Networking/Music Ideation Exercise
Featured Presentation
3-4 product demos by meetup group members and music-tech startups
Free mingle and network

DEMO/PITCH YOUR PRODUCT
As per usual, the second hour of the meetup will be dedicated to product demos. This should be a product you've built, or are in the process of building but is demonstrable. For consideration, email [masked] and include:
Your Name
Name of product/app/technology/etc
High level description of product
Link to the product
Demo Format: 5 minutes plus 5 mins for Q&A. Think more live demo, less pitch. We'll have a mobile connectors and DVI/HDMI/VGA ports. If you've demoed before you're welcome to submit and pitch a different product.

Thanks and we'll see you on July 8th! RSVP now! 

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Upcoming Events
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Wednesday, July 9
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OpenBio Codefest 2014 
Wednesday, July 9 and Thursday, December 10
hack/reduce, 275 Third Street, Cambridge

This is a great opportunity for open source bioinformatics developers to meet and work collaboratively. We hope to have developers from projects such as BioPerl, BioJava, Biopython, BioRuby, Galaxy and GenomeSpace in attendance. Everyone is welcome to attend.

More information at http://www.open-bio.org/wiki/Codefest_2014

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Explorations of human disease: The bacterial frontier
WHEN  Wed., July 9, 2014, 6 – 7 p.m.
WHERE  Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, 7 Cambridge Center, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Health Sciences, Lecture, Science
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
SPEAKER(S)  Ami Bhatt
COST  Free; registration required
TICKET WEB LINK  http://bacterialfrontier.eventbrite.com
CONTACT INFO events@broadinstitute.org
NOTE   How do you unravel the cause of a new human disease? For Ami Bhatt, the answer involved solving a DNA puzzle. Faced with a human disease of unknown bacterial origin, Ami used a combination of DNA fragments from diseased tissue and several computational methods to piece together an explanation. What she discovered was the genome of a new species of bacteria believed to have caused the disease. Ami will talk about her discovery and its possible implications for the future of infectious disease.
LINK http://www.broadinstitute.org/partnerships/education/midsummer-nights-science/midsummer-nights-science-2014

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Crafty Bastards: Beer in New England from the Mayflower to Modern Day
Wednesday, July 9
7pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Brookline

Lauren Clark
Making beer in New England hasn’t always been easy, with the challenges of scarce ingredients, legal hurdles, and public indifference. Freelance journalist and former bartender Lauren Clark (founder of drinkboston.com) truly deepens our appreciation for the perfect pint with the history of New England brewing, going back four centuries and starting with the Pilgrims.

Contact: 617-566-6660

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Thursday, July 10
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Future Energy Supply and Security in Switzerland
Thursday, July 10, 2014
4:15p–5:45p
MIT, Building 6-120, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Doris Leuthard, Federal Councillor, Head of the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications DETEC
Lino Guzzella, Rector and President-elect, ETH Zurich
Alexander Wokaun, Head, General Energy Research Department, Paul Scherrer Institut
Introduction by Susan Hockfield, President Emerita, MIT

Web site: http://mitei.mit.edu/calendar/future-energy-supply-and-security-switzerland
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Initiative
For more information, contact:  Jameson Twomey
617-324-2408
jtwomey@mit.edu 

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Friday, July 11
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Watt d’Or:  Best Swiss-Made Energy Projects
July 11- September 14
Northeastern University International Village, 1155-1175 Tremont Street, Boston

More information at http://wattdor.swissnexboston.org

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US-Swiss Energy Innovation Seminar
Friday, July 11
Northeastern University, Boston

Swissnex Boston is proud to bring a selection of Swiss energy projects to Northeastern University. This event will showcase information and products honored by the Watt d'Or, recognizing projects that are helping build a more sustainable future. Energy innovations fall in five categories including: society, energy technologies, system and appliances, renewable energy, energy-efficient mobility, buildings and space.

Speakers:
Doris Leuthard, Swiss Federal Councilor and Minister for Energy, Environment, Transportation and Communication
Steve Director, Provost of Northeastern University
Lino Guzzella, Incoming President ETH Zurich
Richard Schmalensee , Dean Emeritus, MIT Sloan School of Management
Walter Steinmann, State Secretary for Energy, Switzerland
Barbara Kates-Garnick, Undersecretary, Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Massachusetts
Alexander Wokaun, Deputy Director, Paul Scherrer Institut
Anton Gunzinger, Founder, Super Computing Systems
David Thiel, CEO, Industrial Werke Basel
Donald Sadoway, Professor, MIT
Tom Eischen, Government Commissioner for Energy, Luxembourg
Tony Kaiser, President, Swiss Federal Energy Research Commission
Robert Armstrong, Director, MIT Energy Initiative
Jennifer Rupp, Professor, ETH Zurich
Sanjeev Mukerjee, Professor, Northeastern University
Julien Bailat, Sector Head, CSEM, PV-Center
Tod Hynes, Lecturer, Martin Trust Center, MIT Entrepreneurship
Karin Ammon, Head Promotion Competence Centers for Energy SCCER, CTI
Maren Cattonar,  Innovation Manager for, MIT Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation
Tiwari Ayodhya, Head, EMPA, Photovoltaic Laboratory
David Bradwell, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Ambri
Dina Pomeranz, Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School
Jim Matheson, CEO, Oasys Water
Pierre Alain Graf, CEO, Swissgrid
Peter Pauli, CEO, Meyer Burger Technology AG
Grant Allen, Head of Technology, ABB Technology Ventures

If you wish to participate, please apply at info@swissnexboston.org with a CV or LinkedIn profile and “Watt d’Or” in Subject line.

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Saturday, July 12
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Social Media for Community Empowerment: tools & best practices for building successful digital engagement
Saturday July 12
11am-2pm
District Hall, 75 Northern Avenue, Boston

The first session of Mayor Walsh’s Civic Academy with presentations from City officials, open discussions and a chance to help shape the future of the Civic Academy initiative
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Monday, July 14
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Coasts and Communities with Introduction to Coastal Environmental Science Lab:  A Free Online Course from UMass Boston
July 14 - August 21, 2014
Register at https://umb.umassonline.net/bbcswebdav/users/rrezarta.hyseni/map/index.html

Coasts and Communities is an open online course by the School for the Environment and College of Advancing and Professional Studies at University of Massachusetts Boston. This six-week course aims to introduce participants to fundamental concepts in coastal environmental science and shows how to collect and evaluate data to solve real-world local environmental problems.

Registration is now open for the Summer '14 offering of the course. Course runs from July 14 to August 21, is delivered online in CourseSites LMS, and can be taken for credit by registering through UMass Boston. This summer the course has been redesigned and expanded to include a hands-on online laboratory component through which students will be able to apply in practice concepts from a broad range of topics introduced in this course.

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The Future of Retail
Monday, July 14
5:30 PM to 8:00 PM (EDT)
Harvard University, Knafel Building, 1737 Cambridge Street, Room K262, Cambridge
RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-future-of-retail-with-stefanos-polyzoides-and-robert-gibbs-tickets-11969265395
Cost:  $15-25

Bringing Retail Back: Reviving the Urban Market Share
Post War American commercial development has focused on developing in greenfield locations, ignoring many main streets and historic downtowns. While city centers have successfully rebuilt neighborhoods and attracted new residential growth, American downtowns lack even the most basic retail goods and services, and public policy often impedes positive development. Lacking access to basic necessities, urban dwellers must leave the downtown and drive to surrounding shopping centers for their desired shopping needs.
Speakers Bob Gibbs and Stefanos Polyzoides will show that sustainable development and vibrant community life are only possible with a thriving urban economy. In order to make our towns and cities more livable, we need to revive the urban market share - and soon. During this talk the speakers will review case studies including Cambridge, Charleston, and Old Town Alexandria, to discuss the future of urban retail, and the practical role tactical urbanism can play in advocating for widespread economic change.

About the Speakers
Stefanos Polyzoides
Stefanos Polyzoides is a cofounder of the Congress for the New Urbanism and, with his wife Elizabeth Moule, a partner in Moule & Polyzoides, a Pasadena, California practice since 1990. From 1973 until 1997, he was an Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Southern California. His professional experience includes the design of educational, institutional, commercial and civic buildings, historic rehabilitation, housing, and the urban design of university campuses, neighborhoods and districts.
Mr. Polyzoides has led such projects throughout the United States and around the world, in Canada, South America, Australia, China and the Middle East. He was born and educated in Athens, Greece, and later earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in Architecture and Planning from Princeton University. His career has engaged a broad span of architecture and urbanism, its history, theory, education and design.
Robert Gibbs, ASLA
Robert Gibbs, founder of Gibbs Planning Group, is considered one of the foremost urban retail planners in America and has been active in developing innovative yet practical methods for applying modern trends in commercial development to more than 300 town centers and historic cities here and abroad. Profiled in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Urban Land, Gibbs has, writes The Atlantic Monthly, "a commercial sensibility unlike anything possessed by the urban planners who usually design downtown-renewal efforts."
Gibbs believes that sustainable development and vibrant community life are only possible with a vital commercial life, and that new and old towns alike need intelligent strategies for its survival. These strategies include a well-planned retail mix, advantageous pedestrian and vehicular circulation patterns, and arresting storefront designs. Gibbs has authored many publications, including the books "Principles of Urban Retail Planning and Development" and the SmartCode Retail Module. For nearly 20 years, he has taught a course in planning and designing urban retail in the Executive Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

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Boston New Technology July 2014 Product Showcase #BNT43
Monday, July 14, 2014
6:00 PM to 9:00 PM
NGIN Workplace, 210 Broadway Suite 201, Cambridge
Take the elevator up to the second floor and sign in at the registration table
RSVP at http://www.meetup.com/Boston_New_Technology/events/188735482/

Free event! Come learn about 7 innovative and exciting technology products and network with the Boston/Cambridge startup community! Each presenter gets 5 minutes for product demonstration and 5 minutes for Questions & Answers. Please follow @BostonNewTech and use the #BNT43 hashtag in social media posts: details here.
Agenda:
6:00 to 7:00 - Networking with dinner and beverages
7:00 to 7:10 - Announcements
7:10 to 8:20 - Presentations, Questions & Answers
8:20 to 9:00 - Networking

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Tuesday July 15
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Tech, Drugs, and Rock n' Roll
Tuesday July 15
4:00PM to 8:00PM EDT
BU, Metcalf Ballroom, 775 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215
RSVP at https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07e8rq49v25fabc5c3&c=76b43cf0-aa86-11e3-8fdb-d4ae528eb27b&ch=77bf1d40-aa86-11e3-9011-d4ae528eb27b

Boston University's Office of Technology Development announces the 5th annual Tech, Drugs, and Rock n' Roll networking event.

You and your colleagues are invited to attend!  Forward to friends that may want to attend.

In honor of our 5th anniversary we've expanded and gone all digital! This is a great event that celebrates the intersection of the business and science communities. Join us for a cold drink, hot food, smooth music and a chance to meet the people behind for some exciting new discoveries. This year's event will include:

Presentation of the Innovator of the Year Award by Boston University Provost Jean Morrison.

Exhibits by various applied and translational research centers.

An array of all digital posters displaying the latest advancements and technologies in their field.

Music by Poor Old Shine, an emerging alternative americana band. For more information, visit their website athttp://pooroldshine.com

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GreenPort Forum:  An Urban Foraging Walk 
Tuesday, July 15 
6:30pm
Meet at Gallery 263, located at 263 Pearl Street, Cambridge
with David Craft
Join us for a fascinating walk to identify wild edible plants growing in and near Cambridgeport. Learn the uses and best ways to prepare plants that grow in our own environment. David Craft is an artist, musician, wild edible plant forager, scientist, and a Cantabridgian since 2002. He is the author of Urban Foraging and a board member of Gallery 263.

This is a free event. Donations to Gallery 263 are welcome.

GreenPort envisions and encourages a just and sustainable Cambridgeport neighborhood

For more information, contact Steve Wineman at steven.wineman@gmail.com 

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From The Cell to Cancer
Tuesday, July 15
7:00 PM 
Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway, Cambridge

Ana Soto, M.D., Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine, Integrative Physiology & Pathobiology
Carlos Sonnenschein, M.D., Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine, Integrative Physiology & Pathobiology
Despite decades of research, there is still uncertainty about the biological mechanism that triggers cancer. There are several rival hypotheses, and genuine progress in cancer research will depend on determining the correct one. 

The prevailing hypothesis is that the accumulation of mutations in the genome of a single normal cell transforms the cell to a neoplasm. In this view, cancer is a cell-based, genetic and molecular disease. But this hypothesis does not explain all cancers, and the theory has required ad hoc arguments that, for a number of researchers, suggest a basic weakness.
Since 1999, the acclaimed Tuft University cancer researchers Drs. Ana Soto and Carlos Sonnenschein have developed a different hypothesis. In contrast to the dominant theory, they argue that proliferation is the default state of the cell, and they posit that cancer is a breakdown of tissue organization involving many cells from different embryological layers.

In this presentation, Drs. Soto and Sonnenschein explain the major cancer theories and how the differences impact research. They discuss experimental evidence for the rival hypotheses, and how such evidence leads –or not— to an explanation of carcinogenesis.

This lecture is the fourth in our 4-part series on health and environment at Cambridge Library.

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Wednesday, July 16
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New Discovery Tools for Digital Humanities and Spatial Data
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
12:00p–1:00p
MIT, Building E25-401, 45 Carleton Street, Cambridge

Speaker: Lex Berman, Web Service Manager & GIS Specialist, Center for Geographic Analysis, IQSS, Harvard University
The library catalog has evolved from the description of items in physical collections into a wide-reaching net of services and tools for managing both physical collections and networked resources. The line between descriptive metadata and actual content is becoming blurred. Librarians and catalogers are now in the position of being not only docents of collections, but innovators in digital research, and this opens up a number of opportunities for retooling library discovery tools. This presentation will present a survey of methods and projects that have extended traditional catalogs of libraries and museums into online collections of digital objects in the field of humanities. In particular, projects that use historical place names and geographic identifiers for linked open data will be discussed.

Bio: Merrick Lex Berman manages Chinese and Japanese geographic information projects such as CHGIS, the Skinner Archive, and JapanMap. He studied Asian Languages and GeoSciences at UMASS - Amherst and was a Fullbright Scholar at Academia Sinica (Taipei) in Chinese Geography. In addition to developing placename databases, web services and digital collection tools, Lex works on GIS Data Portals, geographic ontologies, and a curriculum for Quantum GIS training.

MIT Libraries Information Science Brown Bag Talks
Information Science Brown Bag talks, hosted by the Program on Information Science, consists of regular discussions and brainstorming sessions on all aspects of information science and uses of information science and technology to assess and solve institutional, social and research problems. These are informal talks. Discussions are often inspired by real-world problems being faced by the lead discussant.

Open to: the general public
Cost: 0
Sponsor(s): MIT Libraries
For more information, contact:  Shapiro, Randi
6173244988
shapiror@mit.edu 

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Thursday, July 17
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Enchanted Objects:
Design, Human Desire, and the Internet of Things
Thursday, July 17
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
This event is free; no tickets are required.

David Rose
Harvard Book Store welcomes award–winning entrepreneur and CEO of Ditto Labs DAVID ROSE for a discussion of his book Enchanted Objects: Design, Human Desire, and the Internet of Things.  In the tradition of Who Owns the Future? and The Second Machine Age, an MIT Media Lab scientist imagines how everyday objects can intuit our needs and improve our lives.

We are now standing at the precipice of the next transformative development: the Internet of Things. Soon, connected technology will be embedded in hundreds of everyday objects we already use: our cars, wallets, watches, umbrellas, even our trash cans. These objects will respond to our needs, come to know us, and learn to think on our behalf. David Rose calls these devices—which are just beginning to creep into the marketplace—Enchanted Objects.

Some believe the future will look like more of the same—more smartphones, tablets, screens embedded in every conceivable surface. Rose has a different vision: technology that atomizes, combining itself with the objects that make up the very fabric of daily living. Such technology will be woven into the background of our environment, enhancing human relationships and channeling desires for omniscience, long life, and creative expression. The enchanted objects of fairy tales and science fiction will enter real life.

Groundbreaking, timely, and provocative, Enchanted Objects is a blueprint for a better future, where efficient solutions come hand in hand with technology that delights our senses. It is essential reading for designers, technologists, entrepreneurs, business leaders, and anyone who wishes to understand the future and stay relevant in the Internet of Things.

General Info
(617) 661-1515
info@harvard.com 

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Tuesday, July 22
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Current and Emerging Uses for Wikipedia in Research
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
1:00p–2:00p
MIT, Building 14N-132, 160 Memorial Drive, Cambridge

"Well, actually..." you begin when the topic of Wikipedia's accuracy comes up in conversation. If you've found yourself in this position, come share ways you have effectively used Wikipedia in your own research or in consultation with students and professors. Learn how to use complementary applications to guide you to valuable library resources. Join the discussion on the future of Wikipedia and the information landscape.

Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MIT Libraries
For more information, contact:  Stacey Snyder
ssnyder@mit.edu 

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Thursday, July 24
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Addressing Climate Change through Community Engagement and Behavior Change
Thursday, July 24 
12pm
webinar
RSVP at https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/870393638

featuring David Gershon of the Empowerment Institute

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Silicon: The Most Perfectly Engineered Material
Thursday, July 24, 2014
4:00p–5:00p
MIT, Building 6-120, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Speaker: Dr. Takao Abe, Shin-Etsu Handotai
Lecture by recipient of 2014 Harry C. Gatos Prize

Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering, EECS

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Tuesday, July 29
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Democratizing Ideologies and Inequality Regimes in Digital Domains
Tuesday, July 29
12:30pm ET
Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett Street, 2nd Floor, Cambridge
RSVP required for those attending in person at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2014/07/cottom#RSVP
This event will be webcast live on http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2014/07/cottom at 12:30pm ET

Tressie (McMillan) Cottom, Microsoft Research & PhD Student, Sociology, Emory University
Internet studies tends to conceptualize groups as collectivities anchored by shared ideas, interests, and information. Sociologists understand groups as also anchored by identity, social location, and power relationships. It's a tension between groups of affiliation versus ascription. The difference is meaningful for how we understand inequality across digital domains. How can we theoretically and methodologically understand both concepts of group in social media generally and specifically in a case study of informal learning spaces on Facebook and Twitter?

About Tressie
Tressie McMillan Cottom is completing her PhD in the Sociology Department at Emory University in Atlanta, GA.

As a stratification scholar, Tressie considers what inequality means both experientially and empirically when corporations are people, supranational corporations like Facebook and Twitter shape the public square, and education is increasingly privatized. Her research primarily mines organizational arrangements and structural processes to better understand inequality across rapidly changing social domains. Her current work examines for-profit college credentials and inequality. She also has a developing research agenda that examines the political economy of emerging “new” media organizations.

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Opportunity
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Intern with Biodiversity for a Livable Climate!
Biodiversity for a Livable Climate (BLC) is a nonprofit based in the Cambridge, MA area. Our mission is to mobilize the biosphere to restore ecosystems and reverse global warming.
Education, public information campaigns, organizing, scientific investigation, collaboration with like-minded organizations, research and policy development are all elements of our strategy.

Background: Soils are the largest terrestrial carbon sink on the planet. Restoring the complex ecology of soils is the only way to safely and quickly remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the ground, where it’s desperately needed to regenerate the health of billions of acres of degraded lands. Restoring carbon to soils and regenerating ecosystems are how we can restore a healthy hydrologic cycle and cool local and planetary climates safely, naturally, and in time to ensure a livable climate now and in the future.

Our Work: immediate plans include
Organizing the First International Biodiversity, Soil Carbon and Climate Week, October 31-November 9, 2014, and a kick-off conference in the Boston area, “Mobilizing the Biosphere to Reverse Global Warming: A Biodiversity, Water, Soil Carbon and Climate Conference – and Call to Action” to expand the mainstream climate conversation to include the power of biology, and to help initiate intensive worldwide efforts to return atmospheric carbon to the soils.
Coordination of a global fund to directly assist local farmers and herders in learning and applying carbon farming approaches that not only benefit the climate, but improve the health and productivity of the land and the people who depend on it.
Collaboration with individuals and organizations on addressing eco-restoration and the regeneration of water and carbon cycles; such projects may include application of practices such as Holistic Management for restoration of billions of acres of degraded grasslands, reforestation of exploited forest areas, and restoring ocean food chains.

Please contact Helen D. Silver, helen.silver@bio4climate.org for further information.
781-316-1710
Bio4climate.org
SharedHarvestCSA.com

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Climate Stories Project
http://www.climatestoriesproject.org

What's your Climate Story?
Climate Stories Project is a forum that gives a voice to the emotional and personal impacts that climate change is having on our lives. Often, we only discuss climate change from the impersonal perspective of science or the contentious realm of politics. Today, more and more of us are feeling the effects of climate change on an personal level. Climate Stories Project allows people from around the world to share their stories and to engage with climate change in a personal, direct way.

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Where is the best yogurt on the planet made? Somerville, of course!

Join the Somerville Yogurt Making Cooperative and get a weekly quart of the most thick, creamy, rich and tart yogurt in the world. Membership in the coop costs $2.50 per quart. Members share the responsibility for making yogurt in our kitchen located just outside of Davis Sq. in FirstChurch.  No previous yogurt making experience is necessary.

For more information checkout.
https://sites.google.com/site/somervilleyogurtcoop/home

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Cambridge Residents: Free Home Thermal Images

Have you ever wanted to learn where your home is leaking heat by having an energy auditor come to your home with a thermal camera?  With that info you then know where to fix your home so it's more comfortable and less expensive to heat.  However, at $200 or so, the cost of such a thermal scan is a big chunk of change.

HEET Cambridge has now partnered with Sagewell, Inc. to offer Cambridge residents free thermal scans.

Sagewell collects the thermal images by driving through Cambridge in a hybrid vehicle equipped with thermal cameras.  They will scan every building in Cambridge (as long as it's not blocked by trees or buildings or on a private way).  Building owners can view thermal images of their property and an analysis online. The information is password protected so that only the building owner can see the results.

Homeowners, condo-owners and landlords can access the thermal images and an accompanying analysis free of charge. Commercial building owners and owners of more than one building will be able to view their images and analysis for a small fee.

The scans will be analyzed in the order they are requested.

Go to Sagewell.com.  Type in your address at the bottom where it says "Find your home or building" and press return.  Then click on "Here" to request the report.

That's it.  When the scans are done in a few weeks, your building will be one of the first to be analyzed. The accompanying report will help you understand why your living room has always been cold and what to do about it.

With knowledge, comes power (or in this case saved power and money, not to mention comfort).

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Free solar electricity analysis for MA residents
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHhwM202dDYxdUZJVGFscnY1VGZ3aXc6MQ

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HEET has partnered with NSTAR and Mass Save participating contractor Next Step Living to deliver no-cost Home Energy Assessments to Cambridge residents.

During the assessment, the energy specialist will:

Install efficient light bulbs (saving up to 7% of your electricity bill)
Install programmable thermostats (saving up to 10% of your heating bill)
Install water efficiency devices (saving up to 10% of your water bill)
Check the combustion safety of your heating and hot water equipment
Evaluate your home’s energy use to create an energy-efficiency roadmap
If you get electricity from NSTAR, National Grid or Western Mass Electric, you already pay for these assessments through a surcharge on your energy bills. You might as well use the service.

Please sign up at http://nextsteplivinginc.com/heet/?outreach=HEET or call Next Step Living at 866-867-8729.  A Next Step Living Representative will call to schedule your assessment.

HEET will help answer any questions and ensure you get all the services and rebates possible.

(The information collected will only be used to help you get a Home Energy Assessment.  We won’t keep the data or sell it.)

(If you have any questions or problems, please feel free to call HEET’s Jason Taylor at 617 441 0614.)

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Resource
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Sustainable Business Network Local Green Guide

SBN is excited to announce the soft launch of its new Local Green Guide, Massachusetts' premier Green Business Directory!

To view the directory please visit: http://www.localgreenguide.org
To find out how how your business can be listed on the website or for sponsorship opportunities please contact Adritha at adritha@sbnboston.org

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Free Monthly Energy Analysis

CarbonSalon is a free service that every month can automatically track your energy use and compare it to your past energy use (while controlling for how cold the weather is). You get a short friendly email that lets you know how you’re doing in your work to save energy.

https://www.carbonsalon.com/

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Boston Food System

"The Boston Food System [listserv] provides a forum to post announcements of events, employment opportunities, internships, programs, lectures, and other activities as well as related articles or other publications of a non-commercial nature covering the area's food system - food, nutrition, farming, education, etc. - that take place or focus on or around Greater Boston (broadly delineated)."

The Boston area is one of the most active nationwide in terms of food system activities - projects, services, and events connected to food, farming, nutrition - and often connected to education, public health, environment, arts, social services and other arenas.   Hundreds of organizations and enterprises cover our area, but what is going on week-to-week is not always well publicized.
Hence, the new Boston Food System listserv, as the place to let everyone know about these activities.  Specifically:
Use of the BFS list will begin soon, once we get a decent base of subscribers.  Clarification of what is appropriate to announce and other posting guidelines will be provided as well.

It's easy to subscribe right now at https://elist.tufts.edu/wws/subscribe/bfs

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Artisan Asylum  http://artisansasylum.com/

Sprout & Co:  Community Driven Investigations  http://thesprouts.org/

Greater Boston Solidarity Economy Mapping Project  http://www.transformationcentral.org/solidarity/mapping/mapping.html
a project by Wellesley College students that invites participation, contact jmatthaei@wellesley.edu

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Bostonsmart.com's Guide to Boston  http://www.bostonsmarts.com/BostonGuide/

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Links to events at 60 colleges and universities at Hubevents   http://hubevents.blogspot.com

Thanks to

Fred Hapgood's Selected Lectures on Science and Engineering in the Boston Area:  http://www.BostonScienceLectures.com

MIT Events:  http://events.mit.edu

MIT Energy Club:  http://www.mitenergyclub.org/events/calendar/

Harvard Events:  http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/harvard-events/events-calendar/

Harvard Environment:  http://www.environment.harvard.edu/events/calendar/

Sustainability at Harvard:  http://green.harvard.edu/events

Mass Climate Action:  http://www.massclimateaction.net/calendar/events/index.php

Meetup:  http://www.meetup.com/s

Eventbrite:  http://www.eventbrite.com/

Microsoft NERD Center:  http://microsoftcambridge.com/Events/

Startup and Entrepreneurial Events:   http://www.greenhornconnect.com/events/calendar

High Tech Events:  http://harddatafactory.com/Johnny_Monsarrat/index.html

Cambridge Civic Journal:  http://www.rwinters.com

Cambridge Happenings:  http://cambridgehappenings.org

Boston Area Computer User Groups:  http://www.bugc.org/

Arts and Cultural Events List:  http://aacel.blogspot.com/

Boston Events Insider:  http://bostoneventsinsider.com/boston_events/

Nerdnite:  http://boston.nerdnite.com/

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Energy (and Other) Events - June 22, 2014

Energy (and Other) Events is a weekly mailing list published most Sundays covering events around the Cambridge, MA and greater Boston area that catch the editor's eye.

Hubevents  http://hubevents.blogspot.com is the web version.

If you wish to subscribe or unsubscribe to Energy (and Other) Events email gmoke@world.std.com

What I Do and Why I Do It:  The Story of Energy (and Other) Events
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-i-do-and-why-i-do-it.html

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Event Index - full Event Details available below the Index

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Monday, June 23
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PV America East
1pm  Introduction to Regenerative Practice for Social and Environmental Impact:  Environmental Leadership Program
3pm  House Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change: Oversight hearing on the implementation of the GreenDOT Policy Directive
5:30pm  Roundtable/Working Meeting on Cambridge Climate Mitigation and Preparedness Planning

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Tuesday, June 24
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Free Ferry to Boston Harbor Islands
12:30pm  (In)Security in Home Embedded Devices
6pm  Boston Businesses Acting on Rising Seas Launch: Climate Adaptation Strategies for Small Business

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Wednesday, June 25
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8am  Beyond LEED: what marketers should know about the future of sustainable design
3pm  BCSEA Webinar: Germany's Path Towards 100% Renewable Energy Regions
5pm  Exploring Google Glass:  Amazon’s Digital Products Team
6pm  Cambridge Net Zero Task Force
6pm  EdTech Hack Night 2 - Community Projects
6:30pm  A New Network for Boston Area Creative Workers?

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Thursday, June 26
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9am  Using Multiplayer Games in the High School Math and Biology Classroom
12pm  Lunch & Learn: Modeling and Managing Risk in Large Desalination Projects
12pm  Fabien Cousteau's Mission 31:Special Program with Northeastern University
2pm  Monetizing Water Assets & the Unfunded Public Pension Liability Problem
6pm  Opening Reception, Urban Timber: From seed to city
7pm  (In)Security in Home Embedded Devices

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Friday, June 27
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8:15am  Bioinspired Adaptive Materials: From Molecules to Buildings - Wyss Institute's 5th Annual Symposium
9am  The New England Electricity Restructuring Roundtable Presents:  The Utility of the (Near?) Future; and The Promise of Storage for Renewables
10am  Harvard Solar Garden Ribbon Cutting and Grand Opening
1:30pm  Media Lab Conversations Series: National Geographic's Katy Croff Bell in Conversation with Joi Ito
7pm  Cambridge Dance Party
8:30pm  Movie Night - Queen of the Sun: What are the Bees Telling Us?

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Saturday, June 28
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10am  Silver Maple Forest Day of Action!

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Tuesday, July 1
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Climate Change in Four Dimensions
12:30pm  MOOCs and the Science of Learning


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My rough notes on some of the events I go to and notes on books I’ve read are at:
http://hubeventsnotes.blogspot.com

New Bottle Caps for Coke:  Second Life Design
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/22/1307778/-New-Bottle-Caps-for-Coke-Second-Life-Design

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Monday, June 23
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PV America East
June 23-25 
Boston Convention and Exhibition Center

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Introduction to Regenerative Practice for Social and Environmental Impact:  Environmental Leadership Program
Monday, June 23
1:00 PM to 5:00 PM (EDT)
Sustainable Business Network of Massachusetts, 99 Bishop Allen Drive, Suite 100, Cambridge
RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/introduction-to-regenerative-practice-for-social-and-environmental-impact-tickets-11763443777

Introduction to Regenerative Practice for Social and Environmental Impact
Regenerative Development is a way of thinking and working through which the long-term and large-scale effect of an organization, project or community is considered. The ultimate goal of regenerative practice is that a project or organization will add value in a social, environmental, cultural and economic sense that goes beyond just remaining sustainable, and that has a continual ripple effect by design.

Please join Senior Fellow Andrea Atkinson and Bill Reed, regenerative development expert, in a session to explore how regenerative thinking can help you to bring a new perspective and energy to an aspect of your work and/or life. The goal will be to work individually and in small groups to tackle a challenge and begin to transform it into a viable opportunity that inspires you and engages others. Bring a community or work project in mind in order to apply basic principles of regenerative thinking.

About the Workshop Leaders
Andrea Atkinson
Andrea Atkinson is a sustainability professional with a background in international relations, non-profit management and sustainable program development. Andrea now manages her consulting entity, Scopa Group - providing sustainability solutions and programming for communities and companies. Previous to her current role, Andrea worked with The Green Roundtable, a green building organization, launching and managing NEXUS Green Building Resource Center, and educational center in downtown Boston. She has a degree in International Relations with a focus on sustainable development, Latin America and Africa.  Andrea grew up in Brazil, Bolivia and Niger and has travelled extensively, always with an eye for intercultural relationship-building and social and environmental perspectives.

Bill Reed
An internationally recognized proponent and practitioner in sustainability and regeneration Bill is a principal in three firms, the Integrative Design Collaborative, Regenesis, Inc., and Delving Deeper – green building consulting, living system design, and education organizations working to lift building and community planning into full integration and co-evolution with living systems. His work centers on creating the framework for and managing an integrative, whole-systems design process. The objective: to improve the overall quality of the physical, social and spiritual life of our living places and therefore the planet.
http://youtu.be/BFzEI1rZG_U 

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House Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change: Oversight hearing on the implementation of the GreenDOT Policy Directive
Monday, June 23rd 
3:00 PM
MA State House, Room 437, Boston

GreenDOT: Massachusetts Department of Transportation sustainability initiative, launched in July 2010 and driven by three primary goals: to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the transportation sector; to promote healthy transportation options of walking, bicycling, and public transit; and to support smart growth development. MassDOT released the GreenDOT Implementation Plan in 2012. The committee has invited Ned Codd, Undersecretary for GreenDOT, to update the legislature on their progress and discuss any obstacles faced during the first two years of implementation. The implementation plan can be viewed at (pdf alert) http://www.massdot.state.ma.us/Portals/0/docs/GreenDOT/finalImplementation/FinalGreenDOTImplementationPlan12.12.12.pdf

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Roundtable/Working Meeting on Cambridge Climate Mitigation and Preparedness Planning
Monday, June 23
5:30 PM
Henrietta S. Attles Meeting Room, 459 Broadway, Cambridge

No public comment.  No votes will be taken.  Meeting will not be televised.
Contact: Office of the City Clerk, 617-349-4260, tty/TDD 617-349-4242
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Tuesday, June 24
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Free Ferry to Boston Harbor Islands
Boston Harbor Event http://www.bostonharborislands.org/event-details?rid=1984

"Visit either Georges or Spectacle Islands on Tuesday, June 24 and enjoy a free boat ride to get there. Ferries depart every half hour from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. A return time will be assigned based on departure time when tickets are allocated. Tickets are to one designated island, and if visitors depart Boston by 3:00 PM, there will be approximately two or two and a half hours to explore either Spectacle or Georges. Due to high demand, all tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Tickets are available starting at 8:00 am on the day of the trip at Boston's Harbor Cruises Long Wharf-North Ferry Center. No advance reservations. Parties are limited to five."

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(In)Security in Home Embedded Devices
Tuesday, June 24
12:30pm ET
Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett Street, 2nd Floor, Cambridge
RSVP required for those attending in person at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2014/06/gettys#RSVP
This event will be webcast live on http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2014/06/gettys at 12:30pm ET

Jim Gettys
We now wander in Best Buy, Lowes and on Amazon and buy all sorts of devices from thermostats, hi-fi gear, tablets, phones, and laptops or desktops as well as home routers to build our home networks.  Most of these we plug in and forget about. But should we?

"Familiarity Breeds Contempt: The Honeymoon Effect and the Role of Legacy Code in Zero-Day Vulnerabilities",  by Clark, Fry, Blaze and Smith makes clear that ignoring these devices is foolhardy; unmaintained systems become more vulnerable, with time.

Structural issues in the market make the situation yet worse, as pointed out in Bruce Schneier's Wired editorial in January: "The Internet of Things Is Wildly Insecure — And Often Unpatchable", which I instigated and fed Bruce the ammunition. "Binary blobs" used in these systems have the net effect of "freezing" software versions, often on many year old versions of system software.  Even if update streams are available (which they seldom are), blobs may make it impossible to update to versions free of a vulnerability.

There are immediate actions you can personally take, e.g. by running open source router firmware in your network, but fixing this problem generically will take many years, as it involves fundamental changes and an attitude change in how we develop and maintain embedded systems, and hardest, changes in business models to enable long term support of popular hardware.

About Jim
Jim Gettys is an American computer programmer. He coined the term "bufferbloat" and has organized efforts to combat it in the Internet (see gettys.wordpress.com), and has been working on home routers. He was the Vice President of Software at the One Laptop per Child project, working on the software for the OLPC XO-1. He is one of the original developers of the X Window System at MIT and worked on it again with X.Org, where he served on the board of directors. He previously served on the GNOME foundation board of directors. He worked at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and was the editor of the HTTP/1.1 specification in the Internet Engineering Task Force through draft standard. Gettys helped establish the handhelds.orgcommunity, from which the development of Linux on handheld devices can be traced.

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Boston Businesses Acting on Rising Seas Launch: Climate Adaptation Strategies for Small Business
Tuesday, June 24
6:00pm - 8:00pm
District Hall, 75 Northern Avenue, Boston, MA. 02210

CALC would like to invite you to our celebratory launch for our exciting project, Boston Businesses Acting on Rising Seas, BostonBARS!

Climate Action Liaison Coalition will be convening a discussion on climate adaptation strategies for small business and the City of Boston’s preparedness efforts in response to rising sea levels. The conversation will start with high profile speakers and a focus on moving data storage to the cloud for remote access to mitigate disruption during the fallout from an extreme weather event.

Speakers Include:
Jim Newman, LEED AP, Principal, Linnean Solutions
Susan Labandibar, President and CEO, Tech Networks of Boston
Brian R. Swett, Chief of Environment and Energy, City of Boston

Light refreshments (beer/wine) and snacks will be provided!
http://www.eventbrite.com/e/bostonbars-launch-climate-adaptation-strategies-for-small-business-tickets-11635956459

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Wednesday, June 25
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Beyond LEED: what marketers should know about the future of sustainable design
June 25
8:00 AM
BSA Space, 290 Congress Street, Boston
RSVP at https://online.architects.org/bsassa/censsareqauth?p_url=evtssarsvp.display_page%3Fp_cust_id%3D__CUSTID__%26p_event_id%3D1362%26p_item_id%3DCTE_RSVP
Meetings are free and open to all, but rsvp's are required. Click "Register" above to login and rsvp for this event.

As an industry, architecture has made a commitment to reduce the environmental impact of our projects while improving the health and comfort of those who occupy our buildings. The LEED rating system is familiar to all of us, but there are new changes in the recently released LEED v4. Furthermore, the cutting edge of sustainable thinking keeps shifting – from resilient design to Zero Net Energy buildings, and new green rating systems like the Living Building Challenge or Green Globes.

At June’s meeting, we discuss what these changes mean for how we talk about sustainability and how we can avoid the trap of “Greenwashing” our projects.  Join us for a roundtable discussion with the Co-Chairs of the BSA Sustainability Education Committee, Blake Jackson Assoc. AIA from Tsoi Kobus & Associates, and Peter Papesch AIA of Papesch Associates.

Marketing/PR Wizards

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BCSEA Webinar: Germany's Path Towards 100% Renewable Energy Regions
Wednesday, June 25 
3:00 PM EDT (12pm PDT)
Webinar
RSVP at https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/115088378

In recent years, Germany has experienced a boom in local energy initiatives aiming at 100% renewable energy. The webinar will offer an overview of progress, and highlight the strategies that have worked, including successful political decision-making, networking, courageous entrepreneurship, and citizen-led organizing.

It will showcase the best practices, and explain how Germany’s Renewable Energy Act and national climate protection program have enabled the 100% renewable energy regions to make progress.

Beate Fischer M.A. received her degree in business administration at the Professional Academy in Mannheim, and her degree in political sciences and economics at the universities of Heidelberg and Manchester. After her studies, she did research at the University of Heidelberg on the institutional challenges of sustainable land use in Germany.

Since 2010, she has worked for the Institut dezentrale Energietechnologien, in Kassel, Germany, consulting and networking for regions that are aiming at a 100% renewable energy supply. Her focus is financial and non-financial civic participation in renewable energy projects, sustainable lifestyles, and regional/municipal climate protection.
See 100 RE Regions in Germany, Europe and the World (in English and German)

http://100ee.deenet.org/fileadmin/redaktion/100ee/Downloads/broschuere/Good-Practice_Broschuere_Inhalt_Web.pdf

This webinar is being presented in partnership with CanREA - the Canadian Renewable Energy Alliance.

See BCSEA's previous webinars at http://www.bcsea.org/past-webinars 

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Exploring Google Glass:  Amazon’s Digital Products Team
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
5:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Firebrand Saints, 1 Broadway, Cambridge
RSVP at http://www.meetup.com/Exploring-Google-Glass/events/189929782/
Remind you that you sign-up you show-up rule applies.

We have a generous offer from Amazon folks in Cambridge.

Let’s kick off the summer at the Firebrands Saints with a BBQ, appetizers and sandwiches along with draught beer, sangria and wine.

This event is sponsored by Amazon’s Digital Products Team in Cambridge which is responsible bringing the Kindle Fire tablets with breakthrough software technology, Kindle e-readers that have revolutionized reading, and Amazon Fire TV, a tiny yet powerful way to watch the best movies and TV shows in the comfort of your living room.

We hope you will take this opportunity to join me and get to know more folks.

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Cambridge Net Zero Task Force
Wednesday, June 25
6:00 pm
Citywide Senior Center, 806 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

This is a regular meeting of the Getting to Net Zero Task Force which is charged with coming up with recommendations by the end of the year on how to move Cambridge toward being a net zero greenhouse gas emissions community in terms of building energy use.  For more information, http://www.cambridgema.gov/cdd/projects/climate/netzerotaskforce.aspx

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EdTech Hack Night 2 - Community Projects
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
6:00 PM to 10:00 PM
LearnLaunch Campus, 31 St. James Avenue, 9th floor, Boston
RSVP at http://www.meetup.com/Boston-EdTech-Hack-Night/events/188357692/

Join other members of the edtech community in building 2 projects!

This time around we will present 2 projects to the group and then split into teams to begin working. These will be ongoing,  open source projects that will be built over time during a series of Meetups. The goal is that when complete, these projects will be very usable and also scalable.

At this meetup we will:
Hear an introduction to each project from a representative of 2 different organizations with tech needs.
Split into teams to start work on your project of choice.
Complete a set of deliverables, given to each team, by the end of the night.

We are looking for all types of people to bring their experience in building product to this event. We will be starting from scratch with both projects and while it is imperative that we have coders present, we also need UX designers, UI designers, anyone who has scoped and built an MVP, and people who deeply understand education and can help dig into requirements.

As always, you are welcomed to bring your own projects to work on if you prefer. :) There will be food and beverages for all.

** More details on the projects soon

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A New Network for Boston Area Creative Workers?
630pm-9pm
Lesley University - Brattle Campus, Sherrill Library, Third Floor, Room 350, 89 Brattle Street, Harvard Square, Cambridge

Boston area creative workers - visual artists, designers, musicians, dancers, actors, writers, filmmakers, videographers, audio specialists, architects, makers, and every conceivable hybrid of same - are cordially invited to an important meeting.

Attendees will decide if an new independent creators network is needed to take action on critical issues relating our individual and collective survival like jobs, grants, housing, healthcare, education, environment, etc. We'll also discuss practical steps to coming up with solutions to these issues.

The meeting will start by taking testimony from creators about our political economic needs. All existing local, state and national creators organizations and institutions are also invited to send representatives and will be encouraged to talk about the scope of their current activities.

At the end of the meeting, attendees will ask ourselves whether we would like to form a new network or not. This will not be a vote, but a simple "stay or go" decision. Those who agree that a new network is needed will indicate their support and commit to further meetings.

Come join us on June 25th so we can start addressing these issues!

contact: tdevin@yahoo.com
FB event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1433263693601957

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Thursday, June 26
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Using Multiplayer Games in the High School Math and Biology Classroom
Thursday, June 26, 2014
9:00a–3:30p
RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/using-multiplayer-games-in-the-high-school-math-and-biology-classroom-tickets-11663540965
Cost:  $20

Speaker: Susannah Gordon-Messer, Education Content Manager, The Education Arcade at MIT
This one-day professional development session is designed for high school math, biology and technology teachers interested in using The Radix Endeavor, a new online, multi-player game. that will address many of your questions about using an online game for STEM learning within the classroom environment. This fun, hands-on workshop on the MIT campus will address:
How games can be used to set the context for or reinforce difficult concepts
The learning standards addressed in The Radix Endeavor
How scaffolding is addressed within specific quest lines
In-game assessments
Reports and built-in teacher monitoring tools
Options for enrolling in the Radix Pilot

PDPs available upon request.

Web site: http://www.eventbrite.com/e/using-multiplayer-games-in-the-high-school-math-and-biology-classroom-tickets-11663540965?aff=eac2
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Scheller Teacher Education Program, Comparative Media Studies/Writing, The Education Arcade
For more information, contact:  Carole Urbano
617-324-8217
radixhelp@mit.edu

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Lunch & Learn: Modeling and Managing Risk in Large Desalination Projects
Thursday, June 26 
12pm 
MIT, Building 4-159, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Vivek Sakhrani, a PhD Candidate in MIT's Engineering Systems Division, who will be speaking about his research on modeling and managing risk in large desalination projects.  
Summary: Large desalination projects face a number of risks such as water demand uncertainty and energy price volatility. Risk increases the variance of project value and can lead to undersizing, overbuilding, or underutilization. This work investigates how flexibility in technical design and contract design can be used to manage this risk and enhance project value.

Bio: Vivek Sakhrani studies project design and organization in large infrastructure projects. He is a PhD Candidate in MIT’s Engineering Systems Division, a researcher in the KACST-MIT Center for Complex Engineering Systems, and a MIT Tata Fellow for Technology & Design. 

Waterclub@mit.edu

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Fabien Cousteau's Mission 31:Special Program with Northeastern University
Thursday, June 26 
12:00 – 4:00 pm
Gordon Current Science & Technology Center, Museum of Science, 1 Science Park Boston
Free with Exhibit Halls admission

Help celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jacques Cousteau's 30-day mission in the Red Sea! Years later we are not living in villages under the sea — why not? What has changed, and what is still a challenge for marine scientists?

Learn about Mission 31, starting this June off the Florida coast. Aquanauts led by Fabien Cousteau (Jacques Cousteau's grandson) venture to the underwater Aquarius laboratory for 31 days of marine biodiversity and climate impacts research. Florida International University and Boston's Northeastern University are participating, with Northeastern's Brian Helmuth leading a team for part of the excursion.

Hands-on activities invite you to see and discuss the corals, sponges, and animals being studied. You'll also learn about the technology that allows the aquanauts to survive in a 24-hour marine environment. Guest presenters include members of the dive team and scientists from the Marine Science Lab (see below for more information).

Sponsored by Northeastern University Marine Science Center.

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Monetizing Water Assets & the Unfunded Public Pension Liability Problem
Thursday, June 26
2 pm Eastern
Webinar
RSVP at https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/155129598

featuring Eugene Anderson of United Water. 

American cities and towns need to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in their public water and sewer systems. Investors are keen to invest in efficiently operated systems that will provide a steady return on their investment. Communities face a variety of challenges such as unemployment, public safety, old infrastructure, just to name a few. Unfunded and underfunded public pension liabilities are a huge problem for many cities and towns, causing poor credit ratings, budget shortfalls and even bankruptcy in some cases.

This webinar will feature Eugene N. Anderson, director of market development for United Water, who will discuss this problem and explore a few examples of how cities have used their water assets to realize much needed capital to improve the quality of life of the residents.

If you know anyone who might benefit from this presentation, please forward this on to them.

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Opening Reception, Urban Timber: From seed to city
Thursday, June 26
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
BSA Space, 290 Congress Street, Boston
RSVP by emailing rsvp@architects.org with "Urban Timber 6/26” in the subject line
Free and open to the public.

This exhibition will celebrate wood as the region’s most sensible and abundant choice of material for urban building while highlighting its flexibility and technical qualities.

Yugon Kim, founding partner of IKD, Associate/Director of TSKP Boston, and co-curator of the exhibition explains “We now know that timber is a superior structural building material that should be considered alongside steel and concrete. The carbon offset and sustainability benefits of wood make it an ever-relevant and timely building material in the urban landscape."

Urban Timber: From Seed to City will show that recent developments—including numerous successful implementations of timber as primary structural for midrise buildings in Europe—point to a different future

The exhibition will include a number of case studies, examples of existing wood technology and recent material innovations in the many kinds of engineered timber available to the building industry today.

Refreshments will be served, click "Register" to RSVP to this event. 

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(In)Security in Home Embedded Devices
Thursday, June 26, 2014
7:00p–9:00p
MIT, Building E51-325, Tang Center, corner of Wadsworth and Amherst Streets, Cambridge

Speaker: Jim Gettys
We now wander in Best Buy, Lowes and on Amazon and buy devices from thermostats, hi-fi gear, tablets, phones to laptops as well as home routers to build our home networks. Most of these we plug in and forget about. But should we?

"Familiarity Breeds Contempt: The Honeymoon Effect and the Role of Legacy Code in Zero-Day Vulnerabilities", by Clark, Fry, Blaze and Smith makes clear that ignoring these devices is foolhardy; unmaintained systems become vulnerable over time.

Issues in the market make the situation worse, see Bruce Schneier's Wired editorial: "The Internet of Things Is Wildly Insecure --- And Often Unpatchable", which I instigated and fed Bruce the ammunition. "Binary blobs" used in these systems have the net effect of "freezing" software versions. Even if update streams are available, blobs make it impossible to use these streams.

There are actions you can take, e.g. by running open source router firmware in your network, but fixing this problem will take years, as it involves fundamental changes and an attitude change in how we maintain small systems, and changes in business models to enable long term support of hardware.

Jim Gettys is an American computer programmer. He coined the term "bufferbloat" and organized efforts to combat it in the Internet(gettys.wordpress.com). He was the VP of Software at One Laptop per Child. He is a developer of the X Window System at MIT. He worked at W3C and helped establish the handhelds.org community.

IEEE/ACM Joint Seminar Series
Exploring the edge of computing technology.

Web site: http://ewh.ieee.org/r1/boston/computer/gettys.html
Open to: the general public
Cost: 0
Sponsor(s): ACM & IEEE/CS
For more information, contact:  Dorothy Curtis
dcurtis@csail.mit.edu 

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Friday, June 27
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Bioinspired Adaptive Materials: From Molecules to Buildings - Wyss Institute's 5th Annual Symposium
Friday, June 27, 2014
8:15am - 6:30pm
Joseph B. Martin Conference Center, Amphitheater, Harvard Medical School, 77 Avenue Louis Pasteur, Boston, MA
RSVP at https://www.regonline.com/Register/Checkin.aspx?EventID=1525735

The Wyss Institute's 5th international annual symposium will focus on the development of innovative materials inspired by Nature that respond to the environment by adapting their shape and function to continuously optimize energy efficiency, thermal gain, and other properties critical for sustainability or other high value applications. Organized by Wyss Institute Core Faculty members Joanna Aizenberg, Jennifer Lewis and Don Ingber, the day will include a number of distinguished speakers and a keynote presentation by Peter Vikusic from the University of Exeter.

Session Topics*
Programmable Fabrication
Built Environment
Bioinspired Surfaces: To stick or not to stick
Smart, Adaptive Materials

*The complete program will be available in the coming weeks.

Confirmed Speakers
Martin Bechthold, Ph.D., Wyss Institute, Harvard University
Lei Jiang, Ph.D., Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Jeff Karp, Ph.D., Brigham and Women's Hospital Harvard Medical School
Hod Lipson, Ph.D., Cornell University
Achim Menges, Ph.D., Universitat Stuttgart
Fiorenzo Omenetto, Ph.D., Tufts University
Neri Oxman, Ph.D., MIT Media Lab
Ozgur Sahin, Ph.D., Columbia Universitykm
Stephen Selkowitz, MFA, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
George Whitesides, Ph.D., Wyss Institute, Harvard University

Contact information:
info@wyss.harvard.edu
617.432.7038

This symposium is free, however, registration is required:  https://www.regonline.com/Register/Checkin.aspx?EventID=1525735

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The New England Electricity Restructuring Roundtable Presents:  The Utility of the (Near?) Future; and The Promise of Storage for Renewables
Friday, June 27, 2014
9 am to 12:30 pm
Foley Hoag LLP, 155 Seaport Boulevard, 13th Floor, Boston

In this, our 141st Roundtable, we explore how the utility of the not-so-distant future will need to adapt and transform to accommodate a brave new world of ubiquitous distributed generation, storage, technology-enabled demand response, and electric vehicles. Such a utility will be required to manage more complex two-way power
flow, while facing greater load, and hence, cost-recovery uncertainty. How should
our utilities of the (near) future best be structured, what services will they need to provide to their customers, and how can costs be recovered from ratepayers, while compensating shareholders - without sparking massive load and customer defection?

While many states, such as Massachusetts and New York, have commenced proceedings to modernize the electric grid, it's essential to simultaneously consider both regulatory and business models to enable the utility of the future.  To provide deeper insight into these issues, we go straight to the source - the leaders of our
two largest PUCs in the Northeast, and the region's two largest utilities:

Chair Audrey Zibelman, New York Public Service Commission
Chair Ann Berwick, Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities
Tom King, Executive Director US, National Grid
David McHale, Chief Administrative Officer & EVP, Northeast Utilities

Preceding The Utility of the (Near) Future panel, we are pleased to be presenting
two directly relevant, recently released studies related to The Promise of Storage
for Renewables. First, Jon Creyts, Managing Director, Rocky Mountain Institute,
will present on RMI's study, "The Economics of Grid Defection: When and Where Distributed Solar Generation Plus Storage Competes With Traditional Utility Storage." In it, RMI looks at falling PV and battery storage prices and explores the tipping
point in five places around the U.S., including NY. In the second presentation, Paul Hibbard, Vice President at Analysis Group, discusses their findings in their recent study, "Project Vigilance: Functional Feasibility Study for the Installation of Ambri Energy Storage Batteries at Joint (military) Base Cape Cod." In this study, Analysis Group explores the economic and self-reliance benefits of various combinations of renewables and battery back-up.

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Harvard Solar Garden Ribbon Cutting and Grand Opening
Friday, June 27, 2014
10:00 AM to 12:00 PM (EDT)
Harvard Solar Garden, 285 Ayer Road, Harvard, Massachusetts
RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/harvard-solar-garden-ribbon-cutting-and-grand-opening-tickets-11806486519

"To all interested in Community Shared Solar as a way for the 85% of non solar friendly roof people may participate in the Massachusetts solar miracle!”

Editorial Comment:  A little farther afield than my usual events but I know one of the organizers of this event and Community Shared Solar is an important aspect of our renewable future.

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Media Lab Conversations Series: National Geographic's Katy Croff Bell in Conversation with Joi Ito
Friday, June 27, 2014
1:30p–3:30p
MIT, Building E14-300, MIT Media Lab, Third-Floor Atrium

Speaker: Dr. Katy Croff Bell, Expedition Leader, National Geographic Nautilus Live, Vice President & Chief Scientist, Ocean Exploration Trust
Dr. Katy Croff Bell is an ocean explorer, using deep sea technology to explore what lies at the depths of the ocean. Over the past 13 years, she has participated in or led more than 25 oceanographic and archaeological projects. Her current work involves the utilization of telepresence technology on ocean exploration projects for remote science and education. She is chief scientist of the Nautilus Exploration Program, working with a large team to implement this technology on multidisciplinary expeditions to the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea. The expedition will be shared with the world live, revealing the wonders of the undersea world in real time. Bell received her BS from MIT in ocean engineering, after which she was a John A. Knauss Marine Policy Fellow in the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration. She received her master's degree in maritime archaeology at the University of Southampton. In 2006, she was named a National Geographic Emerging Explorer. She completed her PhD in geological oceanography at the University of Rhode Island Graduate School of Oceanography.

MIT Media Lab Conversations Series
http://www.media.mit.edu/events/conversations
All talks at the Media Lab, unless otherwise noted, are open to the public.
This talk will be webcast. Join the conversation on Twitter: #MLTalks

Web site: http://www.media.mit.edu/events/2014/06/27/media-lab-conversations-se
ries-national-geographics-katy-croff-bell
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Media Lab
For more information, contact:  Jess Sousa
events-admin@media.mit.edu

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Cambridge Dance Party
Friday, June 27
7-11pm
Massachusetts Avenue in front of City Hall, Cambridge

Join thousands of Cambridge residents and visitors for the City’s annual Dance Party.  This portion of the street, between Inman and Bigelow at the heart of Central Square, will be closed to traffic from 7-11 p.m.  This event is free and open to the public.  MBTA: Red Line to Central Square.

The annual dance extravaganza with DJ spun music is a special opportunity for the entire Cambridge community to celebrate summer.  After dark, colorful lights will be launched, adding to the magic of the evening.

Originally conceived in 1996 as part of the 150th anniversary celebration of Cambridge, the Dance Party returns each year attracting young and old to join in the festivities!  The event is free and open to the public. 

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Movie Night - Queen of the Sun: What are the Bees Telling Us?
Friday, Jun 27
8:30 pm - 10:00 pm
Boston Nature Center, Mattapan

Join neighbors and friends at the BNC to view this cinematic adventure outdoors! Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us? is a profound, alternative look at the global bee crisis from Taggart Siegel, director of The Real Dirt on Farmer John. Taking us on a journey through the catastrophic disappearance of bees and the mysterious world of the beehive, this engaging and ultimately uplifting film weaves an unusual and dramatic story of the heartfelt struggles of beekeepers, scientists and philosophers from around the world including Michael Pollan, Gunther Hauk, and Vandana Shiva. Together they reveal both the problems and the solutions in renewing a culture in balance with nature. Free.

This program is supported in part by a grant from the Boston Cultural Council, a local agency which is funded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council administrated by the Mayor's office of Arts, Tourism, and Special Events.

Registration not required.

Boston Nature Center, 500 Walk Hill Street, Mattapan, MA 02126
bnc@massaudubon.org

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Saturday, June 28
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Silver Maple Forest Day of Action!
Saturday, June 28
10:00am - 2:00pm
Alewife T Station, Cambridge

Friends of Alewife Reservation, Green Cambridge, Belmont Citizen Forum and other local environmental organizations will rally and parade in front of the MBTA Alewife Station and to the silver maple forest (also known as the Belmont Uplands) Saturday, June 28th from 10am to 12pm to bring attention to the location of the T station which is only five feet above sea level. Speakers will include elected officials and spokespersons for the forest. The groups will be attending a Belmont Selectmen’s meeting in behalf of these requests demanding they be considered and be honored for our health and safety, and for the sake of future generations. They ask for protection of the eco-services the forest provides as a wildlife refuge, carbon sink, and for pollution, temperature and flooding mitigation.

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Tuesday, July 1
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Climate Change in Four Dimensions
online course
RSVP at https://www.coursera.org/course/4dimensions
Cost:  free

This course views climate change from a variety of perspectives at the intersection of the natural sciences, technology, and the social sciences and humanities.

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MOOCs and the Science of Learning
Tuesday, July 1
12:30pm ET
Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett Street, 2nd Floor, Cambridge
RSVP required for those attending in person at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2014/07/reich#RSVP
This event will be webcast live on http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2014/07/reich at 12:30pm ET

with Berkman Fellow, Justin Reich
Millions of learners on platforms like edX and Coursera are generating terabytes of data tracking their activity in real time. Online learning platforms capture extraordinarily detailed records of student behavior, and now the challenge for researchers is to explore how these new datasets can be used to advance the science of learning.  This talk will examine current trends and future directions in research into online learning in large-scale settings.

About Justin
Justin Reich is an educational researcher interested in the future of learning in a networked world. He is the Richard L. Menschel HarvardX Research Fellow, based in the Office of the President and Provost at Harvard University, exploring the possibilities and limits of online learning through the HarvardX platform. He is also a Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, and a visiting lecturer in the Scheller Teacher Education Program at MIT. Justin is the co-founder of EdTechTeacher, a professional learning consultancy devoted to helping teachers leverage technology to create student-centered, inquiry-based learning environments. He earned his doctorate from Harvard University, where he led the Distributed Collaborative Learning Communities project, a Hewlett Foundation funded initiative to examine how social media are used in K-12 classrooms. He writes the EdTechResearcher blog for Education Week, and his writings have appeared in Educational Researcher, the Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, and other publications. Justin started his career teaching wilderness medicine, and later taught high school world history and history electives, and coached wrestling and outdoor activities.


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Upcoming Events
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Wednesday, July 2
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Reading Frederick Douglass: Communal Reading on Boston Common of "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?”
Wednesday, July 2
12pm
54th Regiment Memorial, Boston Common (Across from State House)

Join us for an alternative 4th of July celebration, a communal reading of Frederick Douglass' famous 1852 speech, "What to the Slave is the 4th of July?"
This even will give an opportunity for community members to gather and read the speech together, and to reflect upon the meaning of the speech in the current day.
This event is hosted by Community Change, Inc., Mass Humanities, and the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, and is co-sponsored by several community organizations. The full list can be found at http://communitychangeinc.org/node/344

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Wednesday, July 9
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Crafty Bastards: Beer in New England from the Mayflower to Modern Day
Wednesday, July 9 
7pm
Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard Street, Brookline

Lauren Clark
Making beer in New England hasn’t always been easy, with the challenges of scarce ingredients, legal hurdles, and public indifference. Freelance journalist and former bartender Lauren Clark (founder of drinkboston.com) truly deepens our appreciation for the perfect pint with the history of New England brewing, going back four centuries and starting with the Pilgrims.

Contact: 617-566-6660

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Tuesday, July 8
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Boston TechBreakfast: Inwiter, Senseware, Codeship, Howler, and More!
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
8:00 AM
Microsoft NERD - Horace Mann Room, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA (map)
RSVP at http://www.meetup.com/Boston-TechBreakfast/events/155722952/

Interact with your peers in a monthly morning breakfast meetup. At this monthly breakfast get-together techies, developers, designers, and entrepreneurs share learn from their peers through show and tell / show-case style presentations.
And yes, this is free! Thank our sponsors when you see them :)

Agenda for Boston TechBreakfast:
8:00 - 8:15 - Get yer Bagels & Coffee and chit-chat
8:15 - 8:20 - Introductions, Sponsors, Announcements
8:20 - ~9:30 - Showcases and Shout-Outs!
Inwiter - Prabhakar Bellamkonda
Senseware - Serene Almomen
Codeship - Florian Motlik
Howler - Hunter
*** OPEN ***
~9:30 - end - Final "Shout Outs" & Last Words

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Freecycle and Farmers' Market on the Plaza
Tuesday, July 8
12–6 pm
Harvard, Science Center Plaza, One Oxford Street, Cambridge

Join the Harvard Law School, SEAS, FAS Green Program and the Food Literacy Project for a FreeCycle at the Harvard Farmer’s Market. Clean out your home or office for the summer, bring reusable items you don’t want, and take away new treasures. Donations welcome from 9 am onward, and items will be available to take away from 12-2pm.

Shop the Harvard Farmers' Market every Tuesday through October on the Science Center Plaza!

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w4m: The End of the American Red Light District
Tuesday, July 8
12:30pm ET
Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett Street, 2nd Floor, Cambridge
RSVP required for those attending in person at

with Journalist and author, Melissa Gira Grant
The history of the American red light district is quite brief – from railroad signal lights to hotel bathroom selfies – and clouded in myth. Soon it may be lost. In this talk, journalist Melissa Gira Grant (author of Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work) will reconsider how communication technologies shape sex-for-sale, proposing that sex work has merged with the network. We'll surveil the police, missionaries, media, and politicians who created and command this space, and discuss what we can learn from how sex workers have remained a step ahead.

About Melissa:
Melissa is a writer and freelance journalist, covering sexuality, politics, and technology. Her book, Playing the Whore: The Work of Sex Work (Verso, 2014) challenges the myths about selling sex and those who make them. Her reporting and commentary appears in The Nation, Wired, The Atlantic, Glamour, The Guardian, In These Times, The Washington Post, Dissent, Slate, Salon,The American Prospect, Reason, Jezebel, and Valleywag, among other publications, and she is a contributing editor at Jacobin.

She speaks regularly to audiences worldwide at institutions such as Duke University, the New School, Third Wave Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, Eyebeam Art + Technology Center, and the UC Berkeley Labor Center, and at events including South by Southwest Interactive (SXSW), re:publica (Berlin), NEXT (Copenhagen), and the International AIDS Conference.

Melissa has been a member of the Exotic Dancers’ Union (SEIU Local 790), and a staff member at St. James Infirmary (the only occupational health and safety clinic in the United States run for and by sex workers).

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Wednesday, July 9
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Explorations of human disease: The bacterial frontier
WHEN  Wed., July 9, 2014, 6 – 7 p.m.
WHERE  Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, 7 Cambridge Center, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Health Sciences, Lecture, Science
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
SPEAKER(S)  Ami Bhatt
COST  Free; registration required
TICKET WEB LINK  http://bacterialfrontier.eventbrite.com
CONTACT INFO events@broadinstitute.org
NOTE   How do you unravel the cause of a new human disease? For Ami Bhatt, the answer involved solving a DNA puzzle. Faced with a human disease of unknown bacterial origin, Ami used a combination of DNA fragments from diseased tissue and several computational methods to piece together an explanation. What she discovered was the genome of a new species of bacteria believed to have caused the disease. Ami will talk about her discovery and its possible implications for the future of infectious disease.
LINK http://www.broadinstitute.org/partnerships/education/midsummer-nights-science/midsummer-nights-science-2014

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Thursday, July 10
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Future Energy Supply and Security in Switzerland
Thursday, July 10, 2014
4:15p–5:45p
MIT, Building 6-120, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

Doris Leuthard, Federal Councillor, Head of the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications DETEC
Lino Guzzella, Rector and President-elect, ETH Zurich
Alexander Wokaun, Head, General Energy Research Department, Paul Scherrer Institut
Introduction by Susan Hockfield, President Emerita, MIT

Web site: http://mitei.mit.edu/calendar/future-energy-supply-and-security-switzerland
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Initiative
For more information, contact:  Jameson Twomey
617-324-2408
jtwomey@mit.edu 

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Friday, July 11
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Watt d’Or:  Best Swiss-Made Energy Projects
July 11- September 14
Northeastern University International Village, 1155-1175 Tremont Street, Boston

More information at http://wattdor.swissnexboston.org

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US-Swiss Energy Innovation Seminar
Friday, July 11
Northeastern University, Boston

Swissnex Boston is proud to bring a selection of Swiss energy projects to Northeastern University. This event will showcase information and products honored by the Watt d'Or, recognizing projects that are helping build a more sustainable future. Energy innovations fall in five categories including: society, energy technologies, system and appliances, renewable energy, energy-efficient mobility, buildings and space.

Speakers:
Doris Leuthard, Swiss Federal Councilor and Minister for Energy, Environment, Transportation and Communication
Steve Director, Provost of Northeastern University
Lino Guzzella, Incoming President ETH Zurich
Richard Schmalensee , Dean Emeritus, MIT Sloan School of Management
Walter Steinmann, State Secretary for Energy, Switzerland
Barbara Kates-Garnick, Undersecretary, Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Massachusetts
Alexander Wokaun, Deputy Director, Paul Scherrer Institut
Anton Gunzinger, Founder, Super Computing Systems
David Thiel, CEO, Industrial Werke Basel
Donald Sadoway, Professor, MIT
Tom Eischen, Government Commissioner for Energy, Luxembourg
Tony Kaiser, President, Swiss Federal Energy Research Commission
Robert Armstrong, Director, MIT Energy Initiative
Jennifer Rupp, Professor, ETH Zurich
Sanjeev Mukerjee, Professor, Northeastern University
Julien Bailat, Sector Head, CSEM, PV-Center
Tod Hynes, Lecturer, Martin Trust Center, MIT Entrepreneurship
Karin Ammon, Head Promotion Competence Centers for Energy SCCER, CTI
Maren Cattonar,  Innovation Manager for, MIT Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation
Tiwari Ayodhya, Head, EMPA, Photovoltaic Laboratory
David Bradwell, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Ambri
Dina Pomeranz, Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School
Jim Matheson, CEO, Oasys Water
Pierre Alain Graf, CEO, Swissgrid
Peter Pauli, CEO, Meyer Burger Technology AG
Grant Allen, Head of Technology, ABB Technology Ventures

If you wish to participate, please apply at info@swissnexboston.org with a CV or LinkedIn profile and “Watt d’Or” in Subject line.

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Monday, July 14
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The Future of Retail
Monday, July 14
5:30 PM to 8:00 PM (EDT)
Harvard University, Knafel Building, 1737 Cambridge Street, Room K262, Cambridge
RSVP at http://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-future-of-retail-with-stefanos-polyzoides-and-robert-gibbs-tickets-11969265395
Cost:  $15-25

Bringing Retail Back: Reviving the Urban Market Share
Post War American commercial development has focused on developing in greenfield locations, ignoring many main streets and historic downtowns. While city centers have successfully rebuilt neighborhoods and attracted new residential growth, American downtowns lack even the most basic retail goods and services, and public policy often impedes positive development. Lacking access to basic necessities, urban dwellers must leave the downtown and drive to surrounding shopping centers for their desired shopping needs.
Speakers Bob Gibbs and Stefanos Polyzoides will show that sustainable development and vibrant community life are only possible with a thriving urban economy. In order to make our towns and cities more livable, we need to revive the urban market share - and soon. During this talk the speakers will review case studies including Cambridge, Charleston, and Old Town Alexandria, to discuss the future of urban retail, and the practical role tactical urbanism can play in advocating for widespread economic change.

About the Speakers
Stefanos Polyzoides
Stefanos Polyzoides is a cofounder of the Congress for the New Urbanism and, with his wife Elizabeth Moule, a partner in Moule & Polyzoides, a Pasadena, California practice since 1990. From 1973 until 1997, he was an Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Southern California. His professional experience includes the design of educational, institutional, commercial and civic buildings, historic rehabilitation, housing, and the urban design of university campuses, neighborhoods and districts.
Mr. Polyzoides has led such projects throughout the United States and around the world, in Canada, South America, Australia, China and the Middle East. He was born and educated in Athens, Greece, and later earned B.A. and M.A. degrees in Architecture and Planning from Princeton University. His career has engaged a broad span of architecture and urbanism, its history, theory, education and design.
Robert Gibbs, ASLA
Robert Gibbs, founder of Gibbs Planning Group, is considered one of the foremost urban retail planners in America and has been active in developing innovative yet practical methods for applying modern trends in commercial development to more than 300 town centers and historic cities here and abroad. Profiled in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and Urban Land, Gibbs has, writes The Atlantic Monthly, "a commercial sensibility unlike anything possessed by the urban planners who usually design downtown-renewal efforts."
Gibbs believes that sustainable development and vibrant community life are only possible with a vital commercial life, and that new and old towns alike need intelligent strategies for its survival. These strategies include a well-planned retail mix, advantageous pedestrian and vehicular circulation patterns, and arresting storefront designs. Gibbs has authored many publications, including the books "Principles of Urban Retail Planning and Development" and the SmartCode Retail Module. For nearly 20 years, he has taught a course in planning and designing urban retail in the Executive Education Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

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Tuesday July 15
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Tech, Drugs, and Rock n' Roll
Tuesday July 15
4:00PM to 8:00PM EDT
BU, Metcalf Ballroom, 775 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215
RSVP at https://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/eventReg?oeidk=a07e8rq49v25fabc5c3&c=76b43cf0-aa86-11e3-8fdb-d4ae528eb27b&ch=77bf1d40-aa86-11e3-9011-d4ae528eb27b

Boston University's Office of Technology Development announces the 5th annual Tech, Drugs, and Rock n' Roll networking event.

You and your colleagues are invited to attend!  Forward to friends that may want to attend.

In honor of our 5th anniversary we've expanded and gone all digital! This is a great event that celebrates the intersection of the business and science communities. Join us for a cold drink, hot food, smooth music and a chance to meet the people behind for some exciting new discoveries. This year's event will include:

Presentation of the Innovator of the Year Award by Boston University Provost Jean Morrison.

Exhibits by various applied and translational research centers.

An array of all digital posters displaying the latest advancements and technologies in their field.

Music by Poor Old Shine, an emerging alternative americana band. For more information, visit their website athttp://pooroldshine.com


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Thursday, July 17
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Enchanted Objects:
Design, Human Desire, and the Internet of Things
Thursday, July 17
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
This event is free; no tickets are required.

David Rose
Harvard Book Store welcomes award–winning entrepreneur and CEO of Ditto Labs DAVID ROSE for a discussion of his book Enchanted Objects: Design, Human Desire, and the Internet of Things.  In the tradition of Who Owns the Future? and The Second Machine Age, an MIT Media Lab scientist imagines how everyday objects can intuit our needs and improve our lives.

We are now standing at the precipice of the next transformative development: the Internet of Things. Soon, connected technology will be embedded in hundreds of everyday objects we already use: our cars, wallets, watches, umbrellas, even our trash cans. These objects will respond to our needs, come to know us, and learn to think on our behalf. David Rose calls these devices—which are just beginning to creep into the marketplace—Enchanted Objects.

Some believe the future will look like more of the same—more smartphones, tablets, screens embedded in every conceivable surface. Rose has a different vision: technology that atomizes, combining itself with the objects that make up the very fabric of daily living. Such technology will be woven into the background of our environment, enhancing human relationships and channeling desires for omniscience, long life, and creative expression. The enchanted objects of fairy tales and science fiction will enter real life.

Groundbreaking, timely, and provocative, Enchanted Objects is a blueprint for a better future, where efficient solutions come hand in hand with technology that delights our senses. It is essential reading for designers, technologists, entrepreneurs, business leaders, and anyone who wishes to understand the future and stay relevant in the Internet of Things.

General Info
(617) 661-1515
info@harvard.com

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Tuesday, July 29
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Democratizing Ideologies and Inequality Regimes in Digital Domains
Tuesday, July 29
12:30pm ET
Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett Street, 2nd Floor, Cambridge
RSVP required for those attending in person at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2014/07/cottom#RSVP
This event will be webcast live on http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2014/07/cottom at 12:30pm ET

Tressie (McMillan) Cottom, Microsoft Research & PhD Student, Sociology, Emory University
Internet studies tends to conceptualize groups as collectivities anchored by shared ideas, interests, and information. Sociologists understand groups as also anchored by identity, social location, and power relationships. It's a tension between groups of affiliation versus ascription. The difference is meaningful for how we understand inequality across digital domains. How can we theoretically and methodologically understand both concepts of group in social media generally and specifically in a case study of informal learning spaces on Facebook and Twitter?

About Tressie
Tressie McMillan Cottom is completing her PhD in the Sociology Department at Emory University in Atlanta, GA.

As a stratification scholar, Tressie considers what inequality means both experientially and empirically when corporations are people, supranational corporations like Facebook and Twitter shape the public square, and education is increasingly privatized. Her research primarily mines organizational arrangements and structural processes to better understand inequality across rapidly changing social domains. Her current work examines for-profit college credentials and inequality. She also has a developing research agenda that examines the political economy of emerging “new” media organizations.

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Opportunity
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Intern with Biodiversity for a Livable Climate!
Biodiversity for a Livable Climate (BLC) is a nonprofit based in the Cambridge, MA area. Our mission is to mobilize the biosphere to restore ecosystems and reverse global warming.
Education, public information campaigns, organizing, scientific investigation, collaboration with like-minded organizations, research and policy development are all elements of our strategy.

Background: Soils are the largest terrestrial carbon sink on the planet. Restoring the complex ecology of soils is the only way to safely and quickly remove carbon from the atmosphere and store it in the ground, where it’s desperately needed to regenerate the health of billions of acres of degraded lands. Restoring carbon to soils and regenerating ecosystems are how we can restore a healthy hydrologic cycle and cool local and planetary climates safely, naturally, and in time to ensure a livable climate now and in the future.

Our Work: immediate plans include
Organizing the First International Biodiversity, Soil Carbon and Climate Week, October 31-November 9, 2014, and a kick-off conference in the Boston area, “Mobilizing the Biosphere to Reverse Global Warming: A Biodiversity, Water, Soil Carbon and Climate Conference – and Call to Action” to expand the mainstream climate conversation to include the power of biology, and to help initiate intensive worldwide efforts to return atmospheric carbon to the soils.
Coordination of a global fund to directly assist local farmers and herders in learning and applying carbon farming approaches that not only benefit the climate, but improve the health and productivity of the land and the people who depend on it.
Collaboration with individuals and organizations on addressing eco-restoration and the regeneration of water and carbon cycles; such projects may include application of practices such as Holistic Management for restoration of billions of acres of degraded grasslands, reforestation of exploited forest areas, and restoring ocean food chains.

Please contact Helen D. Silver, helen.silver@bio4climate.org for further information.
781-316-1710
Bio4climate.org
SharedHarvestCSA.com

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Climate Stories Project
http://www.climatestoriesproject.org

What's your Climate Story?
Climate Stories Project is a forum that gives a voice to the emotional and personal impacts that climate change is having on our lives. Often, we only discuss climate change from the impersonal perspective of science or the contentious realm of politics. Today, more and more of us are feeling the effects of climate change on an personal level. Climate Stories Project allows people from around the world to share their stories and to engage with climate change in a personal, direct way.

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Where is the best yogurt on the planet made? Somerville, of course!

Join the Somerville Yogurt Making Cooperative and get a weekly quart of the most thick, creamy, rich and tart yogurt in the world. Membership in the coop costs $2.50 per quart. Members share the responsibility for making yogurt in our kitchen located just outside of Davis Sq. in FirstChurch.  No previous yogurt making experience is necessary.

For more information checkout.
https://sites.google.com/site/somervilleyogurtcoop/home

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Cambridge Residents: Free Home Thermal Images

Have you ever wanted to learn where your home is leaking heat by having an energy auditor come to your home with a thermal camera?  With that info you then know where to fix your home so it's more comfortable and less expensive to heat.  However, at $200 or so, the cost of such a thermal scan is a big chunk of change.

HEET Cambridge has now partnered with Sagewell, Inc. to offer Cambridge residents free thermal scans.

Sagewell collects the thermal images by driving through Cambridge in a hybrid vehicle equipped with thermal cameras.  They will scan every building in Cambridge (as long as it's not blocked by trees or buildings or on a private way).  Building owners can view thermal images of their property and an analysis online. The information is password protected so that only the building owner can see the results.

Homeowners, condo-owners and landlords can access the thermal images and an accompanying analysis free of charge. Commercial building owners and owners of more than one building will be able to view their images and analysis for a small fee.

The scans will be analyzed in the order they are requested.

Go to Sagewell.com.  Type in your address at the bottom where it says "Find your home or building" and press return.  Then click on "Here" to request the report.

That's it.  When the scans are done in a few weeks, your building will be one of the first to be analyzed. The accompanying report will help you understand why your living room has always been cold and what to do about it.

With knowledge, comes power (or in this case saved power and money, not to mention comfort).

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Free solar electricity analysis for MA residents
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHhwM202dDYxdUZJVGFscnY1VGZ3aXc6MQ

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HEET has partnered with NSTAR and Mass Save participating contractor Next Step Living to deliver no-cost Home Energy Assessments to Cambridge residents.

During the assessment, the energy specialist will:

Install efficient light bulbs (saving up to 7% of your electricity bill)
Install programmable thermostats (saving up to 10% of your heating bill)
Install water efficiency devices (saving up to 10% of your water bill)
Check the combustion safety of your heating and hot water equipment
Evaluate your home’s energy use to create an energy-efficiency roadmap
If you get electricity from NSTAR, National Grid or Western Mass Electric, you already pay for these assessments through a surcharge on your energy bills. You might as well use the service.

Please sign up at http://nextsteplivinginc.com/heet/?outreach=HEET or call Next Step Living at 866-867-8729.  A Next Step Living Representative will call to schedule your assessment.

HEET will help answer any questions and ensure you get all the services and rebates possible.

(The information collected will only be used to help you get a Home Energy Assessment.  We won’t keep the data or sell it.)

(If you have any questions or problems, please feel free to call HEET’s Jason Taylor at 617 441 0614.)

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Sustainable Business Network Local Green Guide

SBN is excited to announce the soft launch of its new Local Green Guide, Massachusetts' premier Green Business Directory!

To view the directory please visit: http://www.localgreenguide.org
To find out how how your business can be listed on the website or for sponsorship opportunities please contact Adritha at adritha@sbnboston.org

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Free Monthly Energy Analysis

CarbonSalon is a free service that every month can automatically track your energy use and compare it to your past energy use (while controlling for how cold the weather is). You get a short friendly email that lets you know how you’re doing in your work to save energy.

https://www.carbonsalon.com/

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Boston Food System

"The Boston Food System [listserv] provides a forum to post announcements of events, employment opportunities, internships, programs, lectures, and other activities as well as related articles or other publications of a non-commercial nature covering the area's food system - food, nutrition, farming, education, etc. - that take place or focus on or around Greater Boston (broadly delineated)."

The Boston area is one of the most active nationwide in terms of food system activities - projects, services, and events connected to food, farming, nutrition - and often connected to education, public health, environment, arts, social services and other arenas.   Hundreds of organizations and enterprises cover our area, but what is going on week-to-week is not always well publicized.
Hence, the new Boston Food System listserv, as the place to let everyone know about these activities.  Specifically:
Use of the BFS list will begin soon, once we get a decent base of subscribers.  Clarification of what is appropriate to announce and other posting guidelines will be provided as well.

It's easy to subscribe right now at https://elist.tufts.edu/wws/subscribe/bfs

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Artisan Asylum  http://artisansasylum.com/

Sprout & Co:  Community Driven Investigations  http://thesprouts.org/

Greater Boston Solidarity Economy Mapping Project  http://www.transformationcentral.org/solidarity/mapping/mapping.html
a project by Wellesley College students that invites participation, contact jmatthaei@wellesley.edu

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Bostonsmart.com's Guide to Boston  http://www.bostonsmarts.com/BostonGuide/

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Links to events at 60 colleges and universities at Hubevents   http://hubevents.blogspot.com

Thanks to

Fred Hapgood's Selected Lectures on Science and Engineering in the Boston Area:  http://www.BostonScienceLectures.com

MIT Events:  http://events.mit.edu

MIT Energy Club:  http://www.mitenergyclub.org/events/calendar/

Harvard Events:  http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/harvard-events/events-calendar/

Harvard Environment:  http://www.environment.harvard.edu/events/calendar/

Sustainability at Harvard:  http://green.harvard.edu/events

Mass Climate Action:  http://www.massclimateaction.net/calendar/events/index.php

Meetup:  http://www.meetup.com/

Eventbrite:  http://www.eventbrite.com/

Microsoft NERD Center:  http://microsoftcambridge.com/Events/

Startup and Entrepreneurial Events:   http://www.greenhornconnect.com/events/calendar

High Tech Events:  http://harddatafactory.com/Johnny_Monsarrat/index.html

Cambridge Civic Journal:  http://www.rwinters.com

Cambridge Happenings:  http://cambridgehappenings.org

Boston Area Computer User Groups:  http://www.bugc.org/

Arts and Cultural Events List:  http://aacel.blogspot.com/

Boston Events Insider:  http://bostoneventsinsider.com/boston_events/

Nerdnite:  http://boston.nerdnite.com/