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TiE Silicon Valley, a not for profit organization dedicated to "fostering entrepreneurship in the Bay Area and globally," has announced an upcoming hackathon event focused on tackling three real-world issues within the "smart city" space: smart parking, waste disposal management and water access management. The event will begin in January 2016 and will last for two weeks. Winners will be invited to attend TiECon 2016, TiE's largest annual conference, and will also have an opportunity to win prizes and publicity.

Ford Motor Company announced intentions to deliver a fully autonomous vehicle for ride sharing by 2021. The company also announced 4 new investments and collaborations that expand its autonomous vehicle research, and set out plans to double its Silicon Valley Research and Innovation Center team by the end of 2017.

The acclaimed fashion company behind Gucci and Saint Laurent teams with a startup accelerator to find the next big thing in circular, durable and decarbonized fashion.

The iPhone maker's master plan features extensive green space, aggressive water conservation and one of the largest corporate solar arrays in the world.

Photovoltaics made from organic semiconductors that can be 3D printed to cover large areas also turn out to be better than their silicon-based counterparts at capturing solar energy in cloudy environments, writes Jenny Xie. The key is the ability of organic photovoltaics to generate electricity regardless of the angle of the sun's rays

As we close out 2014, here are Silicon Valley Community Foundation's predictions for what's ahead for CSR in the coming year:

General Electric Aviation will invest more than $200 million to construct two factories that will mass-produce silicon carbide (SiC) materials used to manufacture ceramic matrix composite components (CMCs) for jet engines and land-based gas turbines. The factories will be built adjacent to one another on 100 acres in Huntsville, Alabama.

The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition released its 2015 Solar Scorecard, a ranking that scores solar PV module manufacturers on a scale of 0-100 points based on their environmental, sustainability, and social justice factors. The 5 companies recognized as industry leaders included the following:  1. SunPower 2. SolarWorld 3. Trina 4. REC 5. Yingli

The team, at the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in Genoa, is using coffee grounds to clean water, turning the grounds into a foam that can remove heavy metals like mercury. "We actually take a waste and give it a second life," says materials scientist Despina Fragouli. Her team took spent coffee grounds from IIT's cafeteria, dried and ground them to make the particles smaller. They then mixed the grounds with some silicon and sugar. Once hardened, they dipped it in water to melt away the sugar, which leaves behind a foam-like material.

Forget the romantic image of a lonely fisherman chasing his catch on the open water. Fishing supply chains have become sprawling, technology-driven operations rife with overfishing and human rights abuses.

Palm oil production is a big business in Malaysia and Indonesia, but environmental pollution is one of the industry's biggest problems. A Silicon Valley company hopes to turn that problem into a profit by converting wastes from palm oil production into fuel