Many of my readers know I'm involved in a variety of ventures to help reduce climate emissions. Gratitude Gourmet and Green Star Solution are my main ventures. I recently co-founded the Green Software Unconference which took place last week, August 19, 2009 at the Computer History Museum to bring together engineers, entrepreneurs, sustainability professionals, and venture capitalists to collaborate and innovate for business and reduce climate emissions.
Here is a portion of my Welcome Address to the Attendees in case you're interested:
"There were several Drivers for creating the Green Software Unconference:
- Global Warming: Big disconnect between the seriousness of global warming and the actions being taken to quickly reduce emissions.
- Silicon Valley Talent Base of tech and business professionals
- Venture Capitalists looking for low capital investments and green and clean-tech opportunities
- Entrepreneurs looking for innovative projects
- Great Software Initiatives which need to be Shared:
Some of you are very familiar with many websites, facebook and mobile applications, virtualization software, and carbon accounting software that are educating people and businesses on their own carbon emissions, and encouraging people to act quickly. Many are also receiving a huge ROI and some are also positively impacting the bottom line by improving engineering and business processes.
- International, governmental, and company regulations and policies are also driving many software opportunities, including carbon accounting software. (CSRware was our conference Silver Sponsor and provides carbon accounting software).
- A Fast Company article deemed the Sustainability Systems Developer one of the Ten Best Green Jobs for the next decade.
The article states: "The green economy needs a cadre of specialized software developers and engineers who design, build, and maintain the networks of sensors and modeling that underpin smart energy grids and other systems substituting intelligence for natural resources. Coders with experience using large scale enterprise resource planning have an edge here, as well as developers familiar with open source and web 2.0 applications."
The Green Software Unconference was created with the mission of bringing together all these stakeholders to foster communication and collaboration and increase innovation opportunities for businesses, share best practices, and tackle climate change head on and reduce climate emissions as quickly as possible.
The 'Challenge' and 'Opportunity' Today is to 'Be Bold' and remember... the Leading Source of Change is the Individual'. "

The Event was as Green as possible by encouraging attendees to bring a reusable water bottle, the cups were compostable, the Whole Foods Lunch was sustainable and low carbon (vegetarian and vegan), much of the paper was recycled and recyclable, Holme Grown Brand, our wine reception sponsor provided organic wine, and we planted a tree for each attendee via MokuGift, a United Nations Environmental Partner.

I created a Wiki for the Green Software Unconference in case you want to see more information on the Break-Out Sessions, Pictures, and Videos.