Awesome Stories 1.76

/ June 22, 2014

This week Awesome Stories brings you creative adaptation, passionate service, family fun, piano prodigy and repurposing plastic.

New Legs, New Life

Aimee Mullins blew my mind in a good way with her TED Talk. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m inspired and touched by people that overcome their challenges. Aimee totally changes the game from one of overcoming disabilities, to being a person of creative abilities that she chooses. Her back story is fascinating too. These new abilities come with her 12 pairs of legs, in their power to reveal not only new capabilities, mindsets, but possibilities to live literally by design. A great metaphor for living. We often forget how powerful choice can be. Here’s my take on the power of choice.

Repurposing Plastic

The Plastic Bank has found a very clever way to reuse plastic. The founders connected the problems of plastic waste with helping poor people via their idea to create Plastic Banks to collect plastic waste and use it as a resource for the poor. There are giant islands of plastic in the oceans, rivers and lakes choking our ecosystems. Their goal is to demand that companies use what they call “social plastic”, which is plastic made from plastic recycled and reclaimed from those islands of plastic waste. I like the idea and also believe it’s even more important to start making products from materials (like bioplastics and biofibers) that eliminate waste.

Maggie’s Family

Koppa Valley School, Awesome Stories

Maggie and women from the Kopila Valley Center

Maggie Doyne is a special young woman with a heart of gold. While backpacking in India during a break from college, she was touched by the suffering of Nepalese refugees in the Himalayan mountains. She decided to do something for the children, many of whom had no homes, so she took her life savings and started a school, that became a home, a family, a clinic and a foundation to support the local women and children. Maggie has found her passion and calling! The Kopila Valley Children’s Home and School has grown to 40 children with many programs for women too. Learn more about her BlinkNow Foundation and the work they do.

Electric Ferry

I applaud the move to electric cars, boats, planes and motors. Of course, we still need to generate the electricity to run them, and currently in the US most of that still comes from coal, but renewable energy is growing rapidly. And using electric vehicles greatly reduces both fossil fuel use and CO2 emissions. Read about this fun new startup called Echandia Marine operating in Stockholm, a land of many islands and boats to navigate them. I’m amazed that a large ferry can recharge in 10″! Read the rest of the story about Stockholm’s Supercharging Ferry.

Piano Passion from Emily

Emily Bear has a passion and gift for playing piano. Emily is what most would call a child prodigy. She plays many different styles from classical to jazz, improvises and composes too. Enjoy!

What feeds your passion?

Mine is sharing inspiration from around the web. Thanks for reading, please enjoy and share freely! Thank you.

 

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15 thoughts on “Awesome Stories 1.76”

  4. Thanks Lorrie, I try for an interesting mix. Human interest stories are my favorite, while taking care of the planet is the most important to me and I believe possibly the most important issue facing our world. 🙂

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  5. Brad, it is a special service you provide each week with these posts. I enjoy them so much and look forward to seeing what inspiration you are spreading:) I have helped to bring Lama’s over from Nepal to Canada so they work on their English so I have a special place in my heart for that part of the world, I look forward to checking out Blink Now. Light & love.

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  9. Passion and calling. A powerful coupling. Once one has clarity about both, it’s tough to catch the train as it leaves the station. Maggie Doyne found hers and has inspired others to follow in her simple yet profound footsteps. Good story to share, Brad.

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  11. Great stuff as always, Brad. I couldn’t help but get pulled into the electric boat article. While people often fail to fully consider the source of the electric power (e.g. the “big picture”), (which you yourself mentioned 🙂 ), I think something like this probably makes a huge difference to the local environment, and the connections between humans and water is profound. That’s an environment well worth keeping pristine I think.

    I think the future of energy is probably a pretty wide open and exciting field. I remember reading about Buckminster Fuller’s idea to connect North America to Asia across the Bering Straight with some sort of high-efficiency grid, and then to connect to Europe, etc., so you basically had a huge, worldwide grid. One benefit being you would always have sunlight hitting solar generating stations somewhere on the grid. Not sure it makes sense right now, for a variety of reasons perhaps, but cool thoughts like that give my heart a tickle. I like when people “dream big” like that.

    Michael

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  12. Thanks for your thoughtful reflections Michael.
    I love big dreams too and there are many exciting ideas out there. Though I must admit to concern about the future. I wonder if tech really can get us to where we need to be. Most of these new technologies require pretty big consumption to transition. If we could do it as things wore out, instead of just wanting new. And yet, I agree that electric vehicles and ferries are much better for the environment, especially locally. I drove an electric conversion vehicle years ago and the biggest thing I noticed was the quiet. To me, it made driving peaceful. Same on the waters, we have a local lake that is overrun with power boats and noise so I don’t go. I would love the quiet as well as reduced emissions.

    Let’s hope and work towards a more sustainable future. 🙂

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