Ideas for things we’d love to support
- A carbon calculation plugin for Google’s Power Meter program
- An excellent Ruby 1.9 quantities (numbers with units) library
- A mirror of the EPA’s U.S. Greenhouse Gas Inventory in some kind of more open, useful format
- Carbon calcs on Google Maps
- A significant-digits management library for Ruby
- Initial development on a carbon model we haven’t made yet
- A programmable data-extraction tool for PDFs
- TripIt itinerary carbon footprints
- CM1 library in a non-Ruby language (e.g. Python, Java)
Brighter Planet developer fellowship program
- Application deadline
- Rolling
- Sponsorship amount
- Typically $1,000–$3,000
- Eligible parties
- Individual developers, informal teams, established organizations
- To apply
- Describe your project in whatever way works best (text, links, code, etc.) in an email to fellowship@brighterplanet.com.
From our primary language (Ruby) to our application framework (Rails) to our toolset (vagrant, rvm, bundler, etc.), Brighter Planet’s technology platform makes extensive use of truly irreplaceable open source software packages. It’s important to us to give back to the community. The first way we do this is by contributing our own open source projects to the commons. The second way takes a cue from Engine Yard’s Community Grant program: we sponsor developers of important tools in order to accelerate and intensify their development.
Developer fellows
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The Oroeco Team What you buy makes a difference
About Oroeco Based out of San Francisco, Oroeco is working on helping folks track their personal impact based on what they purchase. The team is developing a web application that dynamically links personalized consumer spending data to social and environmental lifecycle assessment data.
Follow along at Brighter Planet’s blog Safety in Numbers, where Oroeco will be writing about their progress.
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Matt Colyer smartermeter: Liberating PG&E energy use data
About Matt Matt Colyer is a developer with a passion to understand how things work. This has led him to be interested in a wide variety of things including making the iPhone work on Linux, creating a USB receiver for the Black and Decker Energy Meter and retrieving smart meter data from PG&E using
smartermeter. When he’s not at a computer, he enjoys riding his rebuilt fixed gear bike or backpacking in one of California’s many parks.About
smartermetersmartermeter, currently on version 0.2.1, is primarily a Ruby library for accessing (scraping) PG&E energy use data. Future plans include carbon calculations by CM1 and a UI for PG&E customers.Follow along at Matt’s blog, where he’ll be writing about his ongoing experience with
smartermeter. -
Scott Bulua TripCarbon: Carbon footprints of TripIt itineraries
About Scott Scott’s an old hand at both climate and computers, having led the climate campaign at Middlebury College which later became the Sunday Night Group—the foundation for the globally successful 350.org campaign—and having served as a developer at both EchoDitto and our favorite media conglomerate GOOD.
About TripCarbon As an early beta user of the awesome TripIt travel-itinerary-tracking app, Scott’s been itching to bring his climate interest to the travel space with a plugin that calculates the carbon footprint of entire trips.
Follow along at Brighter Planet’s blog Safety in Numbers, where Scott will be writing about his experience.