Airbnb is a platform that connects people who have extra space with people who need space. It’s a peer-to-peer hospitality company.
Yeloha, which is a startup I just discovered today, is a peer-to-peer solar company based out of Boston.
In the same vein as Airbnb, it connect people who have extra roof space (that’s suitable for solar collection) with people who want to buy solar energy (but may not have a solar friendly roof).
Here’s an image from their website that explains how it works:
Basically, if you have a solar friendly roof, Yeloha will come and install solar panels on top of your place for free. You get to keep some of the energy that’s generated (about 1/3 apparently) which becomes a credit to your electricity bill. You are then known as a “Sun Host.”
The remaining energy gets fed back into the grid and, if you don’t have a solar friendly roof, you can purchase this excess energy, which also results in a credit to your electricity bill. The solar electricity is less expensive than the regular grid electricity. In this case, you are known as a “Sun Partner.”
I think this is a pretty neat idea. Neither party has to pay anything upfront. Both parties save money. And the result is more solar through a distributed and virtual net metering setup.
Yesterday I came across the above Instagram post by Bruce Mau Design, which pitted the Philadelphia Cheese Steak sandwich against the Montreal Smoked Meat sandwich in a “battle of borders.” It was to celebrate both Canada Day and American Independence Day.
I thought this was an awesome idea, so I tweeted out the photo. Then Daniel Kay Hertz – who is a Senior Fellow at City Observatory and from Chicago – asked me: “Is there a Toronto equivalent?”
And that got me thinking.
Montreal has smoked meat, bagels, and poutine. Philly has the cheese steak. Chicago has deep dish pizza. Quebec City has maple sugar and tourtiere (a kind of meat pie). New Orleans has po’boy sandwiches. Boston has clam chowder. Austin has tacos. Seattle has crab. And the list goes on.
But what is the quintessentially Toronto dish? Asian fusion food? Peameal bacon sandwiches from the St. Lawrence Market? I really don’t know. So I think we should decide on one right now. Think of it as an exercise in city branding.
Leave your suggestion in the comments below and we’ll have a vote.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZ8ODREybcs?rel=0]
About 9 months ago I wrote about a new startup called Urban Engines that was trying to improve urban mobility by using big data to optimize transit usage.
Last Tuesday the app launched in 10 cities across North America. So if you’re in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Toronto, Vancouver, or Washington D.C., you can go ahead and download it right now.
The biggest “wow factor” is probably the augmented reality feature that allows you to hold your phone up and see transit information overlaid on top of the street in front of you.
But more fundamentally, the real potential lies in the platform’s ability to collect data on the way people move in cities and on how transit lines are performing, so that it can be fed back to improve overall efficiency.
That’s why the company is also working with cities to give them 24/7 analytics and reporting on how every bus, car, and train is performing in their networks.
My hope is that with better data at our disposal, we’ll be able to elevate the discussions around transit and transit planning. Without great data, it’s too easy for these discussion to become political.