Husk Power
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fOundErs: Manoj Sinha & Chip Ransler
In India’s rice Belt, 350 million people live without reliable electricity.
But they do have lots of rice—and rice husks discarded from harvest. So
University of Virginia business students Chip ransler (above, right) and
Manoj Sinha recently devised a way to give them their own form of energy
independence by turning husks into biogas, which fuels mini power plants.
Hundreds of homes in fve rice-growing communities now have affordable
power. And the ash from generating the gas isn’t wasted: It can be used as
fertilizer or as a low-cost ingredient for cement. With 125,000 Indian villages lacking power, “there’s a lot of work to be done,” says ransler. In the
next 18 months, Husk Power hopes to light up 100 more of them. ºH96
=DE: A 6 7
VIDeo gAMeS
For HeAlTH
PrEsidEnt and CEO: Pat Christen
Cancer-afficted teens sugar: video games. Two
often have a hard time years ago, HopeLab,
sticking to their meds. Omidyar’s not-for-proft,
So Pam Omidyar—a tech released I\$D`jj`fe, a
enthusiast with a shooter game in which
background in immunol- players destroy cancer
ogy and wife of eBay cells. But it wasn’t until
founder Pierre—came up this past summer that
with a spoonful of new clinical evidence was
published showing that
the game actually works.
According to a paper in
the journal G\[`Xki`Zj,
patients who played for
at least an hour a week
were more likely to
follow their drug regimen. HopeLab president
and CEO Pat Christen
says the video-game
therapy can be applied
to other diseases and
conditions. Right now,
she says, they’re working
on technology to help
vanquish childhood
obesity. º?K
116 Fast company December 2008 / January 2009
