ecoTech™ Grants were created to combat the notion that students needed to choose between "the screen" or "the green" and to encourage educators and students to explore the role technology can play in designing and implementing solutions to some of our most pressing environmental challenges. We believe that technology can present innovative ways to address environmental challenges - and that when dealing with digital natives, we do ourselves a disservice by asking them to unplug.
Originally developed in partnership with the Ray C. Anderson Foundation and now funded with ongoing support from Voya Financial Foundation, ecoTech™ Grants are specifically offered to engage children in inquiry-based, STEM-related projects that leverage technology and/or use nature-based design to address environmental problems in local communities.
Examples of previous ecoTech™ Grant funded projects have involved: the integration of robotics and sensors to explore water bodies, collect data, and organize clean-ups; the development of aquaponic and hydroponic systems using arduinos and remote sensing; renewable energy design challenges; biotechnology research; nature-based design applications; and many others.
ABC Wildlife humanely manages urban wildlife and insects in the interest of human health and safety from an environmental sustainability perspective with a love of nature and a deep respect for all living things. ABC Wildlife has offered humane wildlife removal services to the Chicagoland area for over 35 years.
As a woman-owned corporation operating in a largely male field, ABC Wildlife understands the remarkable impact women can have when allowed to break through. We want to pave the way for other women pursuing their dreams in the scientific world, which is why ABC Wildlife is introducing a scholarship designed to increase the number of women studying and influencing the future of science, including technology, engineering and math.
National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) of Japan have agreed to embark on a collaborative research program to address compelling research challenges that arise from networks supporting future demands of device proliferation and data objects. This NSF solicitation parallels an equivalent NICT solicitation. Proposals submitted under this solicitation must describe joint research with Japanese counterparts who are requesting funding separately under the NICT solicitation.
This research and development program addresses three specific challenges that arise when environments with trillions of device and information objects are connected via networks. Trillions of network-connected objects are expected to emerge in the global network around 2020. This trend will require novel approaches for network design and modeling, new technologies to manage and control object mobility, and new and more flexible networks with the speed, capacity and environmental characteristics needed to accommodate communications among objects in the emerging world.
This program seeks joint Japan-US research projects that leverage each nation's expertise and address these challenges via work in three areas:
1. Network Design and Modeling: Addressing the design, modeling and component interaction challenges associated with increasingly dynamic and heterogeneous network technologies and applications at scale.
2. Mobility: Addressing issues such as security, control, provisioning, naming, discovery, and fast mobility in a world in which mobility is driven by factors such as social networks, the Internet of things, and cyber-physical systems.
3. Optical Networking: Finding novel approaches for sustainable high‐speed, high‐capacity, and energy-efficient networks that will accommodate communications required in "beyond trillions of devices and information objects" situations.