This week, The Guardian published an article about how technology and innovation can create social change and improve business practices and models. The story explains how companies and organizations around the world are implementing technology and potentially redefining how systems, societies and governments operate. Africa’s mobile banking revolution, which has a profound impact on the continent’s economic prospects, is identified as a particularly impactful example. The story is part of a new technology and innovation hub on The Guardian’s website that looks at how technology can enable a better society.
Elsewhere, Forbes reported on how utility companies around the U.S. are increasingly using smart grid technologies. The article highlights Burbank Water and Power, a California-based municipal utility, that wanted to limit the amount of energy the company used. The utility installed smart meters in customers’ homes, which have allowed customers to adjust their usage or shift their consumption to another time. That means utilities can better predict energy usage, buy power when it’s least expensive and accelerate the speed of power restoration. It also means that consumers are able to take practical steps to take control over reducing their own energy consumption—another example of how technology is transforming how people use energy and helping them use less of it.