How a custom Microsoft app is helping the Caribbean rebuild after hurricanes

Concerned with colony collapse syndrome in honey bees worldwide, scientists, farmers and tech companies teamed up in Australia to create a micro-sensor that collects data on the bee's environment.

The 2008 recession’s job losses spurred a development of a Do-It-Yourself economy. With the advent of Uber, Etsy, Airbnb, and others, the marketplace has become full of micro-entrepreneurs who thrive with independent web-assisted businesses.

New York City suffered from fires that erupted in overcrowded, run-down apartments. Then the city sleuthed through residential records and found that landlords who foreclosed let their properties fall apart and ignored safety-code violations. Greater Toronto wants to expand upon New York City’s method by using transportation surveys, census data and computer data to build transit lines.

Areas of High Point, North Carolina have suffered from crime, poverty, and neglect, until the city began implementing Operation Ceasefire, a policing program that uses data collecting, community support against crime. High Point is now leading the country in its success of Operation Ceasefire, boasting dramatic reductions in violent crimes, domestic abuse, robberies, and drug-related offenses.

In war zones, people have a difficult time finding clean water and safe areas to inhabit. Social media, smart phones, and technology applications are aiding in people’s survival. In Aleppo, Syria, the International Committee of the Red Cross posted a map on Facebook to show alternative sources of clean drinking water that reached approximately 140,000 people.

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, necessity has bred an interesting kind of financial invention for the New York MTA: the world’s first “catastrophe” bond - a reinsurance for the insurer - designed to protect public transportation infrastructure, specifically against storm surge. These bonds privatize risk for public gain, creating a kind of tool that may protect economic development against all kinds of natural and man-made disasters around the world.

In a country of limited resources — and perhaps for that very reason — preparing for natural disasters is top of the agenda in Bangladesh. Various grassroots, collaborative programs have been put in place over the years to help address many facets of the calamities caused by cyclones, from improved emergency shelters to long-term support for those who lose their livelihoods in the storms.

Summer in the Northwest presents a great risk of wildfires. A pile burning operation, just one facet of the strategy that Oregon has enacted to conserve its forests, clears undergrowth to lessen the risk of mega-fire. The work stimulates the local economy and provides employment, but it's also a very small part of what needs to be done.

In the Mumbai slum of Dharavi, an NGO called Society for Nutrition, Education & Health Action (SNEHA) is working to make life safer by teaching men the importance of not being violent towards women. Through an app called Eyewatch, community members are able to document acts of domestic violence, which helps SNEHA team members locate victims and their abusers.

After the drought hit Australia in the early 2000s, city officials had to start thinking seriously about ways to conserve and creatively store their water. External tanks became the solution, storing rain runoff to create an available source of water for Melbourne residents. This solution may not fit every location, but there are other teachable lessons such as taking radically shorter showers.