Word: bents
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...years ago Bent formed SunNight Solar to manufacture and distribute inexpensive solar-powered flashlights. His BOGO (for "Buy One, Give One"; buy one in the U.S., and SunNight sends one to Africa) lights were a perfect fit for sun-rich Africa, providing five hours of illumination - with energy-efficient light-emitting diodes (LEDs) - after a 10-hour charge. Bent designed the flashlights himself - even making one model in pink, to discourage men from seizing the products from women. (They wouldn't want to be seen with the feminine-looking lights.) But he ran into a problem: unlike kerosene lamps, which...
...Mark Bent had a bright idea. The former U.S. diplomat and oilman had spent years in Africa, and as his working career wound down, he wanted to give back. The continent has no shortage of persistent problems, but Bent tackled one that was both simple and pervasive: the lack of artificial light. Many Africans lack access to regular electricity, leaving them at the mercy of expensive battery-powered flashlights, polluting kerosene lamps - or simply in the dark. No electric light may mean that a child can't study after the sun sets, or that young girls need to spend more...
InnoCentive was looking to expand beyond industrial research into philanthropy; Bent needed a better light for the developing world. With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and the New York venture capital firm Spencer Trask - launched over a century ago by the man who helped finance Thomas Edison's first light bulb - Bent put up a challenge on InnoCentive's network to improve on his BOGO light. It was answered in short order by a engineer in New Zealand named Russell McMahon, who came up with a new design that makes better use of both the solar battery and the LEDs...
Innovation on the wikinomics model has already made a difference for Bent and the tens of thousands of African families using his solar-powered light. The company recently passed $1 million in sales, and Bent expects to expand his line, adding a solar-powered UV water-filtration system. "I know that somewhere some kid is using my light, and that's a cool feeling," says Bent. "I want to take it all the way." In the new wikiworld, he can count on lots of help...
...Over the embargo’s long history, each of its clauses has been bent, tweaked, removed, or renamed. The argument for its maintenance is old, tired, and in fact, far less nuanced than we might think. Any geopolitical excuses we once had for this vengeful act of soft imperialism have disappeared with the downfall of communism; its harsh measures are today propped up only by stubbornness and spite. Any moral argument surely cannot justify the suffering of the Cuban people, which in some respects is no one’s responsibility...