Sustainable Electronics Initiative Blog

We are happy to announce that the registration for the Second Annual Electronics and Sustainability Symposium is open! The symposium is taking place at the I-Hotel and Conference Center, in Champaign, Illinois,on March 23-24, 2011. This event will serve as a forum for welcoming new ideas and alternative methods for dealing with the current electronic waste problem. It will also serve as an opportunity to interact with representatives from academia, industry, and government sectors. The panel discussion offered at the end of the first day will be an opportunity to generate new ideas and further partnerships to creating a better solution to this complex and evolving problem.

Topics to be addressed will include environmental toxicology, life cycle analysis, product design, existing and proposed policy, and more.  Designers, electrical engineers, chemists, materials scientists, electronics manufacturers, recyclers, refurbishers, and remanufacturers, government representatives and policy makers, pollution prevention technical assistance providers, relevant non-profit organizations, and others are invited to take part in this symposium.

John Pflueger, Principal Environmental Strategist at Dell, will be the keynote speaker during the symposium. Additional speakers include:

• William Hoffman, UL Environment
• Andrew Steckl, University of Cincinnati
• Charles Newman, ReCellular
• Courtney Rushforth, City of Urbana
• Bill Olson, Motorola
• Manish Mehta, National Center for Manufacturing Sciences
• Alex Lobos and Callie Babbitt, Rochester Institute of Technology

Registration for the event is $200 for both days, or $125 per day. In addition, symposium attendees have an opportunity to visit the National Center for Supercomputing Applications on the University of Illinois campus on March 22, 2011. Further, students can receive a registration waiver by explaining in approximately 250 words, how this conference relates to their studies and why they deserve to get the wavier. Additionally, Professional Engineers can earn up to 6 PDHs by participating in the symposium sessions.

To register for this exciting event, visit: http://www.sustainelectronics.illinois.edu/symposia/2011/register.cfm.

Please contact Aida Sefic Williams, Conference Coordinator, with questions about registration or the event at awilliams@istc.illinois.edu.

Registration is now open for this year’s International E-Waste Design Competition. College students and recent graduates are encouraged to submit their ideas for products or services that prevent e-waste generation through life-cycle considerations (E-Waste Prevention Category) or that incorporate e-waste components into a new and useful item (E-Waste Reuse Category). See the rules posted on the competition web site for complete details regarding eligibility and descriptions of project categories. One entry per person or team is allowed. Students are not allowed to be on more than one team, but students are allowed to submit a project with one team and additionally submit one individual project.

As part of their entry, participants will upload an online “video commercial” for their project to YouTube. (See “Registration” on the competition web site for complete entry requirements.) Expert jurors from Fortune500 companies, professional organizations, government agencies, universities and non-profits will award monetary prizes  to individuals or teams in each category, for a total of six prizes. Honorary mention awards may be given at the discretion of the judges. Competition sponsors include leading manufacturers, retailers and professional organizations.

Submissions are due by 4:59 P.M. Central time on April 1, 2011. Awards will be presented at the International E-Waste Video Festival on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on a date to be announced. Winning videos will be screened at the festival. Winning videos from last year’s competition are available on the competition web site. It should be noted, that the definition of “e-waste” has been refined and strictly specified for the purposes of this year’s competition to avoid confusion and to be more in line with the general idea of what e-waste entails as held in the United States.

A University of Illinois News Bureau article on the competition is available here. For more information on the competition, visit the competition site or contact Joy Scrogum at 217-333-8948.