Tech Tuesday: Green Cement and Customized Learning Experience

Exceptionally, this week’s Tech Tuesday will be published on Wednesday since yesterday we wanted to feature Tech Pioneer Obopay, who was blogging from the Forum’s India Economic Summit.

Tech Tuesday is an on-going series profiling the Forum’s Technology Pioneers. The Tech Pioneers are companies that have been recognized by the Forum for ground-breaking and innovative approaches in tackling some of the world’s most wicked problems. Each week leading up to the Annual Meeting in Davos, we will be showcasing some of the 2011 Tech Pioneers. You can learn more about the Technology Pioneer Program on the Forum’s website.

 

1.    Energy and Environment: Eco-Friendly Cement

The Wicked Problem:

The cement industry alone is responsible for 5% of man-made CO2 emissions and, up until now, has not had low-carbon solutions to deploy at scale.

The Tech Pioneer: Novacem

Location: London, United Kingdom

Number of employees: 18 Year

Founded: 2008

Origins:  Spin-off from Imperial College

The Wicked Solution: 

Novacem, which has developed a new type of cement which absorbs more CO2 than it emits during production. Since production of Novacem’s cement requires lower temperatures, biomass can be used instead of fossil fuel energy. And, the magnesium carbonates are strongly carbon negative so their inclusion in the cement composition makes the cement carbon negative overall.

Other options being considered to reduce cement industry emissions offer less than half the benefits of Novacem’s cement, which could reduce emissions by an estimated 750-900 kilograms per ton compared to current technology.

2.    Information Technologies and New Media: Customized Learning

The Wicked Problem:

With the over-abundance of information, students are required to learn more than ever before and at a faster pace. As each person learns differently, how can we ensure that information being taught is delivered in a way that optimizes the student’s ability to retain it?

The Tech Pioneer: Knewton

Location: New York, NY, USA

Number of employees: 60

Year Founded: 2008

Origins: Entrepreneurial start-up

The Wicked Solution: 

Knewton works by tagging all content down to the atomic concept level. The system further tags the resulting learning objects by structure, difficulty level and media format. The Knewton platform includes a real-time proficiency engine that determines the unique profile of each student. Based on that learning fingerprint, the system can then dynamically generate for each individual a bundle of content based on exactly which concepts the student already knows and how she or he learns each concept best.

Knewton is developing a complex set of algorithms that reference all previous students’ data to develop recommendations about the best content. The more students and content in the system, the smarter the recommendations.

Knewton’s technology has the potential to significantly improve and democratize education. Its mission is to be sufficiently commercially successful in the industrialized world so that it can give away its services in the developing world.

Know an innovative start-up that’s solving a wicked problem? Nominate them.