Creative thinkers wanted: Sony and WWF call for your ideas on how technology can help preserve our planet’s resources

Sony, with WWF’s support, is calling on designers, inventors and creative thinkers to contribute to stage two of the Open Planet Ideas project by sharing ideas on how Sony technology can be utilised to help us sustain the planet’s resources. The expert panel, along with the community, will select the most promising concepts. Once the winning concept is chosen, its contributors will work together with these experts, advancing the idea to the proof of concept stage to demonstrate its feasibility.

Open Planet Ideas is a truly collaborative project whereby the ideas put forward will be built upon and evolved by the community, and everyone is invited to participate and contribute. Involvement can range from applauding other people’s concepts to refining them further or even contributing a totally new concept.

In the first stage of the project, more than 300 ‘inspirations’ – in the form of comment, videos and images - were shared by the public. The expert panel made up of representatives from Sony and WWF explored and analysed the ‘inspirations’, identifying resource management – and specifically how we shape a cleaner, more sustainable future for our planet - as the underlying community concern. Based on this finding, the expert panel identified six key themes for stage two of the Open Planet Ideas project:

· More with less: How can technology help us use our natural resources more efficiently?

· Make it real: How can technology close the gap between our actions and their impacts?

· Waste not: How can technology turn waste into something more useful?

· Cleaner by design: How can technology help us design products, services and infrastructure with fewer environmental impacts in their manufacture, use and disposal?

· Recycling revisited: How can technology help us get better at recycling?

· Changing behaviour: How can technology help to make a less resource-intensive lifestyle not just the ‘right’ choice, but the more desirable option too?

The public has until 29 November to respond to these questions, by sharing and evolving creative ideas on how Sony technology can be used to tackle these key issues.

Jean-Paul Jeanrenaud, Corporate Relations Director at WWF International, said: “Open Planet Ideas is an exciting project that aims to tap into the creative imagination of people everywhere. We are excited by the prospect of how ideas, evolved and advanced by the community, may result in new ways in which technology can help address the challenge of One Planet Living.”

Emily Nicoll, general manager of environmental communications, Sony Europe said: “We are thrilled by the amount of inspirations we have received during the first stage of the project. We are now looking forward to receiving people’s ideas on how our technology can be re-purposed to tackle the challenge areas. We are confident that technology can play a leading role in solving vital environmental issues”.

Open Planet Ideas was put into action by Sony and WWF in collaboration with global design consultancy, IDEO. Its aims are to use the power of the ‘community’ for environmental and social good.

For more information see www.openplanetideas.com or visit our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/openplanetideas