Is it possible for energy infrastructure to be a work of public art? Elizabeth Monoian and Robert Ferry think so.

The husband-and-wife team behind the Land Art Generator Initiative believes that by merging the line between public art and energy infrastructure, we can erase the notion of “not in my backyard,” creating communities that welcome and celebrate their energy infrastructure.

The couple spoke at Shelter Dubai, outlining the initiative, and looking forward to the 2012 competition, taking place in New York City.

The Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) is an international design competition launched in 2010 in the United Arab Emirates. Contestants from across the globe competed to design proposals for three sites in the UAE: two in Abu Dhabi and one in Dubai.

Their mission was to create an installation that would “continuously distribute energy into the electrical grid, with each having the potential to provide power to thousands of homes.”

A panel of judges representing local and international energy providers and artists elected three winners. Prizes were awarded at the 2011 World Future Energy Summit. MASDAR hosted the ceremony and sponsored the prizes.

In its second iteration, the competition moves to Staten Island.

Working closely with New York City Parks and Recreation and the New York City Department of Sanitation, along with the Freshkills Park Alliance and other supporters, the 2012 LAGI participants will compete to design an aesthetic renewable energy project for Freshkills Park on Staten Island.

The park, previously known as the Fresh Kills Landfill, is a the final resting ground of sixty-plus years of the detritus of the great city, holding everything from broken-down washing machines to debris removed from the Twin Towers.

Landfill operations have been suspended at the site since 2001, and the former garbage heap – which once stood taller than the Statue of Liberty – is being converted into a public park.

When the reclamation projected is completed, the city hopes to construct the winning design.

The site provides opportunities as well as challenges to contestants. Despite the tonnage of potential biochemical energy trapped in the fill, city ordinances forbid tapping directly into the casement. Designers wishing to incorporate biological or chemical energy into their proposals will have to access the potential within the landfill from a series of pipes and vents radiating outwards from the central container.

Even for those contestants interested in above ground energy sources, the shallow foundation will provide a challenge for installing and anchoring structures.

In order to assist contestants in overcoming or out-maneuvering these challenges, the New York Sanitation Department has provided extensive blueprints of the landfill.

The 2012 competition is the second in what Ms. Monoian and Mr. Ferry hope will be a global movement. They are already working on plans for more competitions in North America and in Southeast Asia.

As the project grows, the mission of the Land Art Generator Initiative is expanding. The couple will publish a book of the first competition, which will be available in late February of this year. Furthermore, they are building educational components into the initiative’s offerings.

Already, college professors in the United States are using papers that Ms. Monoian and Mr. Ferry have produced on the topic of aesthetic energy infrastructure. And some architecture programs are requiring students to submit designs for the competition as an element of their studio work. All content produced by the initiative holds a creative commons license, meaning that educators and students have free access to the material and are able to adapt the information to fit their curriculum.

In the UAE, educational programming is taking the form of a children’s book. The team is working with a former intern to produce  content for elementary students that can be used to teach renewable energy and sustainability concepts.

Back at Shelter, audience members encouraged the couple to push harder to get the designs built.

“Share the pricing information on your website,” one attendee suggested. “There are governments [China and India] who will be interested in these projects, and they will be willing to pay.”

In time, we hope to see the ideas generated from the competition evolve beyond sketches and CAD drawings and emerge into our daily lives. With increasing recognition and support from foundations, cities and governments, the Land Art Generator Initiative comes closer to answer the question:

“Can energy infrastructure be both beautiful and sustainable?”

“Yes.”

-Mary

mary@shelter.ae
Warehouse 30, Al Serkal, Al Qouz
Phone: +04-380-9040
Fax: +04-380-9041
Mobile: +971-55-653-2084

Stay tuned for an interview for Joi, coming in the new year!

-Mary

mary@shelter.ae
Warehouse 30, Al Serkal, Al Qouz
Phone: +04-380-9040
Fax: +04-380-9041
Mobile: +971-55-653-2084

On December 16th, Shelter Dubai will be hosting the open-source-social-media-lab-MIT-global-business-entrepreneur-guru-hacker-investor-scuba-instructor-guild-custodian Joichi Ito for a conversation on “Innovation in Open Networks.” The event will be free and open to the public. Doors will open at 7pm. Following a brief, 30 minute presentation, Joichi will take questions from the audience on any topic falling under his realm of expertise (which is, well, just about everything).

In preparation for the event, I invited Mr. Ito, known to friends and fans as “Joi,” to submit a brief biography of his accomplishments. The bios of such well-travelled and well-recognized men or women are often quite extensive, and Joi’s was no exception. I was surprised to find, however, that Joi’s biography, in addition to being chock-full of remarkable accomplishments, was also a glimpse in the humorous anecdotes of life as a Renaissance (or Millennium?) Man.

Copied below is the submission I received from Joi. How many of the services that you use every day are included in the list of business that Joi has had a hand in?

“Joichi Ito is the Director of the MIT Media Lab (http://www.media.mit.edu/). He is also General Manager of Neoteny Labs, a startup fund focusing on Asia and the Middle East. He is the Chair of Creative Commons (http://www.creativecommons.org), co-founder and board member of Digital Garage JSD:4819 (http://www.garage.co.jp/), and on the boards of CCC TYO:4756 (http://www.ccc.co.jp/eng/) and Tucows AMEX:TCX (http://www.tucows.com/). He is a Senior Visiting Researcher of Keio Research Institute and the Internet & Society Lab ( http://www.kri.sfc.keio.ac.jp/en/lab/society.html ) at Shonan Fujisawa Campus in Japan. He is an affiliate of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University (http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/people/jito ). He is on board of a number of non-profit organizations including The Mozilla Foundation, WITNESS (http://www.witness.org/) and Global Voices (http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/). He has created numerous Internet companies including PSINet Japan, Digital Garage and Infoseek Japan and was an early stage investor in Twitter, Six Apart, Wikia, Technorati, Flickr, SocialText, Dopplr, Last.fm, Rupture, Kongregate, Fotonauts/Fotopedia, Kickstarter and other Internet companies. He is an adviser to Twitter, Zynga and DeNA. He maintains a weblog (http://joi.ito.com/) where he regularly shares his thoughts with the online community. He is the Guild Custodian of the World of Warcraft guild, We Know (http://weknow.to/). He is a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor, an Emergency First Responder instructor and a Divers Alert Network instructor. Ito was listed by Time Magazine as a member of the “Cyber-Elite” in 1997. Ito was listed as one of the 50 “Stars of Asia” by BusinessWeek and commended by the Japanese Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications in 2000. He was selected by the World Economic Forum in 2001 as one of the “Global Leaders for Tomorrow”, chosen by Newsweek as a member of the “Leaders of The Pack” in 2005, and listed by Vanity Fair as a member of “The Next Establishment” in 2007. Ito was named by Businessweek as one of the 25 Most Influential People on the Web in 2008. In 2011, Ito received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Oxford Internet Institute in recognition of his role as one of the world’s leading advocates of Internet freedom.”

RSVP on Facebook.

-Mary

mary@shelter.ae
Warehouse 30, Al Serkal, Al Qouz
Phone: +04-380-9040
Fax: +04-380-9041
Mobile: +971-55-653-2084

In October, Shelter hosted a Master Class series for young, independent fashion designers and retailers in Dubai. Four upstart designers presented their brand and product line to a panel of local industry leaders. Read on for a summary of the advice and insights shared at the event:

Prepare. Prepare. Prepare.

The biggest first-step for a small designer is the initial meeting with a potential buyer. To make an impact, it is important to be prepared. You will need to be ready to show buyers your stock, complete with color alternatives, tell the story of your brand, and describe your target client. Debi Simcox advised designers to “take that extra couple of weeks to prepare” for the meeting.

Know Your Customer

In retail, the customer is king. The same rings true in independent fashion. To grow a successful brand, you need to know your customer. A strong client base is the crucial first step for growing your brand – whether the goal is to be picked up by a buyer for the first time, or to expand into a global market.

You Will Lose Money at First

Launching any business requires an initial investment, and a fashion line is no different. “Be prepared to lose money when you are starting out,” cautioned Leila Al Marashi. But there are steps you can take to ensure that you don’t lose too much. “Do not demand exclusivity,” says Ms. Al Marashi. And don’t be worried about a store only picking up a few of your pieces. “Even if you only have five pieces at Harvey Nichols, your name is out there,” Ms. Al Marashi adds.

Grow Your Brand Regionally First

 The goal of many young fashion brands is to be successful on an international stage. But the first step is to grow your brand locally.  Ms. Al Marashi recommends young designers to “take these first two years to grow your brand locally and regionally.”

Live up to your product’s mission

We know that when you post a photo on Facebook, or a tweet on Twitter, you are saying something about yourself to your friends, family and employers. When you sell a brand, your lifestyle will be tied to the image of your brand.

Sell Your Story

Who you are as a brand is as important as what your products are, especially when you are just starting out. Buyers and customers want to know the story behind the brand. “Tell your story,” Ms. Al Marashi says. “Have a photo shoot… build up a following. When there is a lot of demand for it, then you can penetrate the market.”

For a full report on the event, read here: 6 Tips on How to Make it in Fashion.

-Mary

mary@shelter.ae
Warehouse 30, Al Serkal, Al Qouz
Phone: +04-380-9040
Fax: +04-380-9041
Mobile: +971-55-653-2084

What does it mean to be “Made in the UAE?” What does it take to stitch that logo into your clothes, stamp it on your product, and claim it on your business report?

The Emirates are booming with business, but when it comes to local brands, the fight is on. How do local clothing stores, magazines, airlines and investors compete with their global counterparts?

Promise of a Generation is teaming up with Shelter Dubai to raise these questions, and hopefully answer them, during a Panel Discussion this Thursday, November 3rd, at Shelter. Join with HH Sheikha Hend Al Qassemi of Velvet Magazine, Thatcher Brown of Jumeirah, Olivier Auroy of BQ, the women behind BoumApp and Effa Al Dabbagh of EFFA Abayas for an evening of conversation about what it is to be Made in the UAE.

- Mary
mary@shelter.ae
Warehouse 30, Al Serkal, Al Qouz
Phone: +04-380-9040
Fax: +04-380-9041
Mobile: +971-55-653-2084

In September, Shelter Dubai hosted a panel discussion with regional experts in online business in the Middle East. What follows is a report on the conversation that unfolded:

Why online? Why Now?

To kick off the panel discussion, event moderator Danish Farhan, CEO and founder of Xische, questioned the panelist about the current boom in online business in the Middle East.

Michael Mansour, Group Director of Development and Platform Technologies for Microsoft in the Middle East, attributed the rise in Internet use among UAE residents to “the increase availability of internet-enabled phones, giving large swaths of the population access to the Internet by default,” Mansour said.

Akram Assaf, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Bayt.com, encouraged entrepreneurs to take advantage of the groundwork that has already been laid by web pioneers. “The pipes have been built. Start thinking about what can be put through those pipes, and how it can be monetized.” Assaf said.

Hot Topic: Social Media

As the discussion turned to social media and marketing, the panelists began to reveal some of the challenges and opportunities presented by the breakthrough technology.

“In two years, our advertising budget changed from being 90% spent on print advertising to 90% spent on digital ads,” said Narain Jashanmal, CEO of Voila Dubai.

Omar Kassim, Founder of JadoPado was quick to point out that social media is a requisite, not an option. “Every business is online,” Kassim said, “because someone [online] is talking about you.”

Hurdles Ahead

One challenge left unresolved by the discussion was consumer confidence in buying online. Customers in the Middle East are wary of online credit card transactions. The technology has not reached the level of ease and security as in Western markets and instances of fraud are not uncommon.

Further complicating the online purchasing process is the decidedly unclear postal system in the region. Lacking standardized street addresses, customers are asked to give their location using physical landmarks and neighborhood or building names.

Mr. Kassim shared a story of one customer who listed his location as simply “Al Barsha.” (Al Barsha is a sprawling neighborhood, encompassing apartment towers, villas, schools and the Mall of the Emirates).

To read the full report, including an overview of online business trends in the region, click here: The Case for Digital Start-Ups.

-Mary

mary@shelter.ae
Warehouse 30, Al Serkal, Al Qouz
Phone: +04-380-9040
Fax: +04-380-9041
Mobile: +971-55-653-2084

Coming to Shelter?

Search “Shelter Dubai” on Google Maps to find your way here. We are on 8th Street in Al Quoz, the second right after Manara St., in Al Serkal Avenue

Shelter Dubai is a free community workspace. Between the hours of 9am and 6pm, Saturday though Thursday, all members of the community are welcome to use our space for their work, free of charge.

During evening hours, Shelter hosts a series of community-focused educational events. Our mission is to provide a nurturing environment for entrepreneurs. Our events focus on areas of need in across the region. We offer free programming ranging from panel discussions to simulations.

-Mary