The Purposes of RIO and the Globalization of Appropriate Technology RIO is not just about providing impoverished villages

with the know-how and examples to create leangreen-clean infrastructure for themselves or proactively mediating resource disputes in order to secure RIO's investments in these regions, but to develop the appropriate technology for global and ubiquitous use in order to reduce our dependency on unsustainable resource consumption. Put another way, if you could see through my newfound 'regenerative eyes', you could instantly recognize what things we use, what things we purchase, what things we consume, and what things we do that are unsustainable: the family automobile, an equivalent serving public transportation system, the commute to work/school, plastic-ware that ends up in a landfill, anything recyclable that ends up in a landfill, organic refuse that ends up in a landfill, anything toxic ending up in a landfill,.. What does that leave? Nothing. Almost everything we purchase, use, consume, and do is unsustainable / dependent on fossil fuels. My commute to school, every piece of garbage I don't recycle, my consumption and disposal of water, electricity, media, and technology is all unsustainable when dependent on unsustainable resources such as fossil fuels. Ask and ye shall receive: what can we do to get out of this unsustainable death-trap? The following proposition addresses: school commuters, commuting managers, all large financial organizations (banks, investment firms, large credit unions, insurance companies,..), all large organizations which have an extensive international managerial staff requiring frequent corporate meetings far away from their usual workplaces, international symposiums/organizations such as IEEE, and any group requiring frequent meetings away from home. The common solution for all these types of organizations, the only sustainable solution, is meeting-virtualization / virtualization of the managerial workspace. Imagine I'm the store manager for a local Walmart. I can walk/bike there because it's local. That's sustainable. However, if I'm regional manager for all of South Florida, I would need to visit all my stores on a rotating schedule. This is unsustainable.. Suppose I'm a chemistry student at FAU in Boca Raton. That's a commute for me living further south. That's unsustainable.. What's the common need in both situations? The need to be somewhere, on a daily basis, far from home .. In your imagination, change the availability of appropriate technology: imagine we all have a set of virtual 180-degree goggles, earbuds, gloves, and adequate personal computer for virtualization. I can take a chemistry course or lab course framed in a virtualized setting. I can mix ammonia and bleach in a virtual lab, learn what happens when you mix them, and never actually get harmed because it's virtual. The sounds and physical reactions can safely be simulated for my education.. For those courses, because it's unsustainable, I never have to leave my home. Now of course, there will be automatic knee-jerk reactions against virtualization: It cuts us further off from each other with more technology! This is not the intention nor the suggested implementation. We only use virtualization in unsustainable scenarios. And then, only voluntarily. Sustainability must be a choice made from awareness. I'm not crazy about the idea of going into a small room here at home, informing family members I'm 'off to work' and won't be back for a couple hours, closing the door to my son and his beautiful smile, putting on a pair of goggles, earbuds, and gloves while booting up my virtualization-pc, losing myself in the virtual workspace, and only returning to my family when work is done / 'in hiatus'.. But consider the alternatives: on every commute to school, I drive past a literal garbage mountain/landfill, I must close the air vent a good mile or so away and from from the stench, I burn fossil fuel contaminating the atmosphere, the manufacturing of the vehicle required an enormous set of resources directly dependent on fossil fuels, and every day I use it, I'm indirectly killing the planet.. My only sustainable solution is virtualization of my workspace.