Massachusetts Institute of Technology has undertaken a very interesting initiative called Colab. The intention is to engage interested individual people from all over the world in thinking of ideas for ameliorating the effects of climate change. Currently there are 25 topics on different types of activity, in each of which contributors are competing for a cash prize (currently $10,000) with the possibility to attend a conference in USA and address the congregation of scientists, businessmen, politicians, educators and others. If anyone has any ideas in this area, join up as a member and await the next set of contests (the current one ends on 13th June 2015).

I have put forward a proposal called “A Powerful Tool For Worldwide Adaptation Initiatives” in the contest titled “Adaptation”. For anyone who would like to take a look, the link is

http://climatecolab.org/web/guest/plans/-/plans/contestId/1301411/planId/1318804

Sign up to make comments (helpful ones, hopefully) or if you have appropriate material already developed, select the most appropriate contest and join in.

Now, here is an update on my proposal. I did not get into the semi-final, which is not surprising as I think my proposal was a bit off topic. However, the judges were quite complimentary and suggested that I move my proposal to a general work area where I can improve it with a view to entering another contest or (given that my proposal describes a tool) join up with other contestants where my proposal may enhance theirs.

The really good thing is that I have made contact with some really great people both in the USA and here in Australia who are all being very helpful and supportive.

My next task is to set up the maths for identifying the BEU (Basic Earth Unit) where a given set of GPS co-ordinates will reside and to clarify the numerical relationships between BEUs and any XEUs (Extended Earth Units) they reside in. Watch this space!