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Dell’s Green Design Idea Contest

Dell’s “ReGeneration” ProjectScary news: Electronic waste is growing at three times the rate of other household waste, and at a higher toxicity. With the rapid and widespread use of computers and electronic technology in the past thirty years, the impact of all the heavy metals (arsenic, mercury, cadmium, copper, lead, etc.), batteries, plastics, LCD and other screens, etc. going into our landfills and water tables has yet to be determined.

What we do know for sure is that computer companies have to start designing with more environmental concern and foresight.

Good news: Dell has sponsored a “green” design competition, and we get to choose the winner. As part of their “ReGeneration” program, Dell invited design students and individuals “to create a broad range of design concepts and innovations for technology products that demonstrate refreshed approaches and responsible solutions for green computing technologies.”

The five finalists’ designs run the gamut from “Lawnpc,” which creates all the power it needs to operate, to “Sense,” an in-store scanning system that tells you everything about a product’s sustainability and green quotient by its bar code. Take a look, cast your vote (before May 7), and find out more about Dell’s “ReGeneration” aspirations.

Let’s hope Dell puts their considerable power behind even more green solutions when creating their next computing solutions.

[Photo courtesy of Dell, Inc.]

Written by Deb Hiett

Deb Hiett spent several years in New York City, where she was an actress, dancer, musician, and playwright. In reviewing her first original one-woman show, The Village Voice called her "the bold new voice in solo . . . a sure-shot writer." Her work has won The Carl Cherry Center for the Arts “One on One” Writing Competition and The Western Stage's “Starving Artist” Playwriting prize, and her short stories have appeared in several literary journals.

Deb’s love of writing married her passion for healthful, organic, and environmentally-conscious living once she moved to Los Angeles a few years ago. She has spent the past year planning her wedding, writing screenplays, and applying a variety of broad-spectrum sunscreens.

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