Last month I blogged about pump manufacturer Grundfos opening a sim in Second Life devoted to environmental issues (click here to teleport.) It looks like the company has made good on their promise and opened a pretty cool island focusing on different environmental issues, only somewhat connected to their products and brand. On Wednesday, October 24, Grundfos will be hosting three live events on their island to commemorate UN World Development Day from 12-1:30PM PST:
- 12 noon: Panoramic Photography of JonnPano Novi. Jon is a real life 360 degrees panoramic photographer. Among his clients are WWF and Greenpeace, Publicis, and Renault.
- 12:30: Ryan, Jimmy and the Waterwell, A Fairytale for the 21st Century, with Michel Manen. This is a true story that started with one nine-year-old boy determined to help, and has blossomed into a foundation that has so far built 319 clean water wells in remote african communities. Michel founded and runs a nonprofit organization whose aim is to re-think what it means to be an active citizen in the 21st Century.
- 1:30: The Opok Farms Project in northern Uganda, with Tixeon Chowderhead and Delia Lake. The vision of the Opok Farm Project is the creation of a community based learning center that will target disadvantaged groups in Northern Uganda's post-war population, teaching them farm, household and personal skills for living on and adding value to their own land, as the resettlement process in Northern Uganda continues.
Hit the jump for a quick tour of the island...
Grundfos has created some pretty neat resources educating avatars about different sustainable development issues.
The exhibits include simple tips that people can use to reduce their energy consumption, such turning down the thermostat by a couple of degrees, taking shorter showers, unplugging devices that aren't being used, and riding a bicycle instead of driving a car. All of these exhibits are presented with entertaining little animations as well as web links for more information.
I like how the exhibits include both information about problems like air pollution and lack of clean drinking water, as well as technologies and public policies that can help address with these problems, such as better emission standards and new kinds of water pumps.
You can buy a virtual tree, that funds the planting a real tree, similar to other initiatives I've written about previously.
And you can donate to a fund to purchase an new kind of solar pump that will bring clean water to a remote village in Africa.
All-in-all, a well-executed sim that I hope continues to be developed and added to. Definitely worth a visit, along with other environmentally conscious spaces like the NOAA sim, WWF's Conservation Island and Svarga.
