Oregon’s action toward a healthier Climate future
Perhaps you watched Oregonian Joe Smith take the TEDx stage in 2012 to explain how to properly use a paper towel. If so, you’re in good company… more than 3.7 million have joined you in the 12 years since. So it was a big surprise to see this paper towel evangelist and YouTube hero step onto the 2024 WINGS Conference. He was just the first of many surprises at this showcase of Oregon action on climate, sustainability, and the environment.
Why would an auto repair shop be attending a Climate Conference to begin with? Because as Oregonians we care about our State, and we care about the environment we share within and beyond our borders. We care because transportation technology is at the focal point of Climate Change innovation as one of the biggest contributors to carbon pollution (transportation) transitions to cleaner EV tech and, like businesses across Oregon, our business will be affected by these new technologies. We attended because we got a free ticket when Jefferson Smith was filling in for Thom Hartmann. And we care because our clients, green Oregonians for the most part, care about their environment and we thought you’d be curious about what our neighbors are doing to make the world a better place.
Fortunately, the answer is a LOT! The WINGS Conference wasn’t a showcase of new technologies, or a brag fest of environmental startups, or a place where Climate and environmental policies were debated. It was all of those and more, and that was kind of the point. Ideas are great, but in our capitalist world nothing moves without money and the business knowledge to put it to work. WINGS definitely brought the innovators and dreamers, but they were there networking with the business and money people who could make their ideas ‘go’. And together, they were inspiring other green entrepreneurs with the knowledge that there was a whole state standing ready to help them as well.
It would be a disservice to everyone at the conference to try to tell you about any one of them, but WINGS has thought of that and they aren’t limiting their impact to the one day of the conference. Check here for a list of all the Main Stage Speakers, from the small manufacturing company building the gigantic windmills to harvest offshore wind energy in the Pacific to the Portland startup developing electric marine motors for commercial fishing.
Scroll down a little further and you’ll see all the Showcase Speakers who got to share details of their specific Climate endeavors. You’ll learn about Dexter Turner of OpConnect, an electric vehicle charging company, Keith Crossland, whose Carbon Negative Solutions is making environmentally friendly concrete, or our favorite Mona Pearson, who’s working on a system to raise cattle in self-contained, sustainable high rises.
Finally, the sponsor page for any group is usually just the people who cared enough about the issue to contribute money, whether they are engaged with the cause or not. The WINGS sponsor page is a little different. It’s a who’s-who of groups like the Tech Association of Oregon, Prosper Portland, Portland Seed Fund, and the NE STEAM Coalition who are enabling entrepreneurs to build their own businesses to benefit us all.
WINGS has been (and will continue to be) dropping videos of the Main Stage presentations as well. Click here for the first two speakers, and check back as they drop new videos every week.
All in all, the WINGS Conference was an encouraging overview of the people, groups, and technologies who will help our glorious state drag the rest of the world kicking and screaming into a cleaner, greener world that will be better for everyone. Situated as it was on the Portland State University campus, and right on the eve of the Library takeover, it was perhaps appropriate that the end-of-conference mixer saw a few student protestors of the Gaza conflict. The protestors may or may not have an answer by next year’s WINGS Conference (and there WILL be one), but judging by this year’s lineup we’ll at least get another unique, in-depth look at Oregon’s green future. Hope you can make it!
