An exciting idea, a passionate entrepreneur and an example of a firm dedicating significent resources to innovation within a specific cause. GE, like many large organizations, has the tools and resources to enact incredible change and its often the focus on a specific issue which can make these ideas reality.

Strategist Bud Caddell wrote about this in a post recently and we share his point of view. Should big companies focus more on specific problems? With Ecomagination GE has been taking steps in the right direction, but its whether they have the commitment to take an idea like this beyond the lab, and into the real world, which will determine the answer to that question.

via oriolpascual: via Techcrunch

The first edition of GE’s Ecoimagination Challenge has a winner. After 3.800-plus applications, and 74.000 votes, Solar Roadways has been announced as winner of the $50.000 award.

Solar Roadways, has the audacious plan to replace America’s asphalt roads with textured, glass solar panels that could collect energy, distribute it and simultaneously serve up LED-powered signs. According to Solar Roadways’ founder Scott Brusaw, the idea is to install a massive solar panel network laid out end-to-end from California to New York that would dramatically change the energy landscape and the country’s literal landscape.

GE’s Ecoimagination Challenge aims to come with innovative solutions for the related to sustainable energy systems, divided in three categories: Create – renewable energy, Connect – grid efficiency, Use – buildings.