SXSW Goes Solar
Sun-powered "SolarPumps" help concertgoers keep phones, laptops and even scooters charged up.
Erika Jonietz 03/18/2010
- 1 Comment
SXSW is a marathon event, from the Interactive conference to the music festival--and it can be hard to keep all your gadgets charged and running.
So the conference organizers have collaborated with Austin-based Sol Design Lab to make the firm's SolarPumps available at locations around downtown Austin.
The SolarPump is a free, solar-powered charging station for electric bikes, scooters, cell phones, and laptops--basically anything that uses a standard electric cord to charge. Beth Ferguson created the pump in February 2009 as her project for her MFA at the University of Texas at Austin. Ferguson combined the reclaimed body of a 1950's gas station pump with solar panels to get people thinking about solar energy.
"We've used kind of a fun combination of 1950's gas pumps with solar panels for people to really start questioning and seeing the humor and really start thinking about a new form of transportation and energy for the city," she told Austin's KVUE News.
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dancrissco
54 Comments
Solar Philanthropy
Great idea. Very creative philanthropy. The way to go for Future cities. Maybe every car should have a solar panel built on top to help our fellow citizens recharge. The next stage to a jumper cable. And I am sure some entrepreneurs will have a coin slot in the solar panel on their clunker and dole out charge by the dime. Park and charge at the beach :-) Cruising Chargers?
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