Heritable Innovation Trust

Encouraging Economic Empowerment and Community Engagement. Visit us at heritableinnovationtrust.org

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Here's to the Perfectly delicious, Perfectly enigmatic, oddly shaped goodness from the Earth!

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Viet Tran and Seth Robertson, two engineering students for George Mason University, have proposed and are currently testing a new technology that uses sound waves to extinguish fires. DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) has conducted a number of experiments in this field, but they have not yet developed a practical device to utilize the sound waves effectively. Tran and Robertson began their focus on this area of study during their senior research project. “The two students started with the idea that sound is a mechanical wave that can affect objects…if the burning material and the oxygen around it got separated by sound waves, the reaction between these two would stop and the fire would go out.” The students have transformed this idea into a practical device and have eliminated the necessity for the chemicals and water normally required to put out fires, making it a cleaner, greener method. They say there are still some technical issues they want to work through before the extinguisher is used in real life situations.

Check out Tran and Robertson’s development thus far HERE.

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The international non-profit, originally known as the World Land Trust, but now known as Rainforest Trust, has launched its most ambitious project yet: the conservation of 5.9 million acres of tropical forest in Peru. For the last 25 years, the non-profit's goal has been to protect tropical forests through land purchase and partnering with local groups. Dr. Paul Salaman, the CEO of Rainforest was interviewed on the matter of the project in April of 2014 and touched on the essence of why it is important to protect this spectrum of land. “The range is the source of at least 10 rivers and supplies water to over 40,000 people…it also holds ancestral territory for at least two uncontacted indigenous groups, and is the missing gap in multi-million-acre wildlife corridor.” Salaman also shared that Rainforest Trust is working alongside their Peruvian partner CEDIA (Center for the Development of an Indigenous Amazon) to make the protection endeavor even stronger. What an amazing mission for the Heritable Innovation Trust to recognize!

Check out Paul Salaman’s full interview Stay updated on Rainforest Trust news through HERE.

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We have some wonderful updates from the Spring of 2015 on The Kevin Rohan Memorial Eco Foundation (KRMEF). Among the community's continued progress, the sustainable jewelry workshop program has been thriving this year and has officially opened a permanent shop in the Babar Mahal Revisited shopping center in Kathmandu, Nepal. On the development side, KRMEF’s health clinic has expanded by adding a full-time nurse as well as a general physician and OBGYN that make weekly visits to the clinic. The Waldorf-inspired Kindergarten has even expanded by completing registration for their very first Year One classroom beginning this month! It is always great to hear about the wonderful developments of our friends in Nepal.

Stay updated on The Kevin Rohan Memorial Eco Foundation’s news through their website.

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In December of 2013, Kristie Wolfe bought a plot of land in Hawaii for $8,000 and only spent $11,000 more to build herself a tiny, sustainable house. Wolfe’s house is built on 15-foot tall stilts and the roof is built from bamboo thatching (a layering of bamboo). The house is left open for sunlight and fresh air. What is also incredible about this tiny house is that it includes a full size bathroom with a natural rock sink, toilet and shower, which are all run by rain water.

Check out the cool images of Kristie’s Hawaii get away and her youtube video HERE.

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All eyes will be on Papua New Guinea (PNG) after an overnight decision for the nation to host the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in 2016. Honorable Peter O’Neill CMG MP, the Prime Minister of PNG explains that, "Being awarded the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup in 2016 is a major victory for Papua New Guinea as a country that can host world events.” The tournament will run in November 2016 for twenty days and will bring around 1,000 players and officials as well as excited spectators. This will be an awesome way for Papua New Guinea to display its great hospitality and culture to the watchful eyes that tune in to this World Cup adventure.

Check out the announcement HERE.

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As of July 2014, our friends at Runa tea have released an Ethnobotony report on the Amazonian super-leaf, Guayusa. As of yesterday the Heritable Innovation Trust added it to our website and we think you should check it out!

Follow this LINK to check out the Guayusa trust item. To request a username and password email us at [email protected].

Read the report HERE.

Go Runa and Keep your energy clean :D

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Once every eighteen years a supertide hits parts of northern France and southern England. Over the weekend the supertide rolled through and cut off access to a 11th century abbey from the mainland by making the connecting bridge impassable. NBC News explains that the tidal surge of the supertide is linked to the rare alignment of celestial bodies that also resulted in the solar eclipse on Friday. Check out the phenomenal photos shared by the Huffington Post HERE.

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Check out the awareness UN brought through the World Water Day celebration on March 22!

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A recent article release of destruction done to Rome's Colosseum sparks our message of historical and cultural appreciation and awareness.

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The Perils of Microcredit - Development or Debt?

Microcredit refers to the practice of providing small loans to non-traditional borrowers.  The loans, usually no more than a few thousand dollars, are provided by microfinance institutions (MFIs) to individuals and groups who do not have access to traditional bank loans because of financial or geographical barriers.  Many microcredit borrowers live in rural areas and most lack the collateral required to get a loan from a bank.  The practice drew more attention in 1976, when Bengali economist Muhammad Yunus founded Grameen Bank, the first MFI.  

In recent years, microcredit crowdfunding has proliferated, with sites like kiva.org using the internet to link borrowers and lenders.  On most of these sites, however, the loan is not transferred directly from lender to borrower, but instead is actually disbursed by a local partner MFI.  These operations have overhead costs that they cover by charging interest on the microcredit loans.  

Even those microcredit platforms that do not work with interest-charging partner institutions face a serious fundamental challenge to their effectiveness and appropriateness. This is the difficulty of communicating realistic information about a borrower’s productivity.  Without this knowledge, a lender simply cannot know the appropriate amount to lend.  Although the internet allows for direct communication between the two parties, there are typically language and cultural barriers that can impede understanding and, most importantly, the lender is usually not an expert in the borrower’s business.  

Microcredit crowdfunding is not confined to the internet.  In January, 2015 President Barack Obama and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) announced the Indian Diaspora Investment Initiative. The idea behind the initiative is to give Indians and people of Indian descent living outside of India a way to invest in small- and medium-sized enterprise in India.  To this end, the program will create interest-bearing notes that investors can purchase which will fund up to $10 million in loans through local partner banks. In this case, the interest rates charged must be high enough to cover not only the overhead costs to the banks but also the interest payments to investors.

The problem with the microcredit model is not that the borrowers fail to repay their loans, but that the loans often fail to have the intended effect, which is to build economic capacity and foster long-term, sustainable growth.  A recent report from The Guardian cited a 2013 study conducted by the Cambodia Institute of Development which found that many microcredit borrowers in Cambodia were juggling multiple loans to stay afloat and sacrificing basic necessities in order to make loan payments.

Credit is a tool that can be used to great effect, but only when it is employed in context and within a framework that accounts for all of the elements actually present in a system. Without this grounding in a borrower’s economic reality, a credit system is more likely to become a debt system than to achieve any long-term transformation.

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'Heroic' giant rats sniff out landmines in Tanzania | Sam Jones

A patrol of rookie rats show they are man’s best friend after being trained to scent TNT on minefields

“I placed myself in the situation of subsistence farmers in Africa, those populations affected by the problem, and looked at the resources these people have at hand to develop a tool that would empower them to address this life-threatening problem more independently from expensive imported know-how and technologies,” he says.

Another really cool example of finding solutions by taking account of abundance!

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We loved the latest episode of PBS Digital Studios' The Art Assignment featuring New Orleans street artist Brandan Odums.

His assignment to work some transformative artistic alchemy on an old object or structure challenges you to see the infinite possibilities within the everyday things and places around you.  It's a great way to practice looking through the lens of Integral Accounting!

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Moles dig for history in Denmark

Check out how Denmark's Viborg Museum is getting some help from nature's excavators at an archaeological dig site.  A cool example of how to find solutions through abundance!

'Mr Hjermind has dubbed the practice "moleology", and says it can be as effective as more technical research methods. "The huge reward is that we haven't destroyed anything at the historical mounds in order to get a lot of important information," he says.'

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Sustainability in Ireland has been a huge success!

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Read more about this empowering movement!

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A list of the world's most eco-friendly cities!