Kiriti Reddy

yahoo:

By Tony Maciulis, Head of News, Yahoo Studios

We’re excited to announce that Cities Rising: Rebuilding America, a Yahoo News docuseries, is returning this summer with all new episodes. Join Yahoo for an up-close and personal look at three iconic U.S. cities, as told over two episodes each.

In the first episode, launching today, Katie Couric visits Cleveland, a city residents like to call “the best location in the nation.” During her tour she visits the Cleveland Clinic, where she checks out a new breakthrough technology, the HoloLens, that is transforming the study of the human anatomy. Couric also visits the Cleveland Browns stadium with WKYC’s sports director, Jim Donovan, who discusses the Cavaliers’ historic 2016 NBA championship. She samples local treats at West Side Market, the oldest operating indoor-outdoor market space in the city, and catches up with Matthew McConaughey, who filmed his new movie in Cleveland and has plans to launch his Just Keep Livin Foundation curriculum there at John Adams High School.

New episodes of Cities Rising: Rebuilding America will publish twice a month on Yahoo. The visit to Cleveland is followed by stops in New York City’s largest and most diverse area, the borough of Queens, and finally the “Valley of the Sun,” Phoenix. The first episode of each installment explores how the city is making pivotal changes to reinvent itself, while taking a look at issues that are core to rebuilding: education, the economy and infrastructure. The second episode will focus on fun — the arts and culture, sports, food and nightlife scenes that make life exciting in the city.

Full episodes and additional clips are available at yahoo.com/cities-rising.

marissamayr:

‪So proud of our Q4 results and the team’s great work. Thanks to all the people at @Yahoo! http://finance.yahoo.com/news/yahoo-reports-fourth-quarter-full-211500817.html‬

marissamayr:

As those who follow Yahoo know, in late 2014, we were the victim of a state-sponsored attack and reported it to law enforcement as well as to the 26 users that we understood were impacted. When I learned in September 2016 that a large number of our user database files had been stolen, I worked with the team to disclose the incident to users, regulators, and government agencies.  However, I am the CEO of the company and since this incident happened during my tenure, I have agreed to forgo my annual bonus and my annual equity grant this year and have expressed my desire that my bonus be redistributed to our company’s hardworking employees, who contributed so much to Yahoo’s success in 2016.

Today, Glassdoor has released findings from a study designed to pinpoint What Makes a Great CEO? The researchers examined how employees evaluate various aspects of their workplaces and compared their satisfaction levels to how they rated their CEOs. The study comprised employee reviews from 690 large, publicly traded U.S. companies.

Researchers discovered that employees tend to give highly paid CEOs low ratings, compared with those who receive lower salaries. When overall employee satisfaction is higher within a company, however, handsomely compensated CEOs receive slightly better ratings.

“Past Glassdoor research on CEO-to-worker pay ratios has shown, on average, CEOs earn 204 times the median pay of their workers,” according to a Glassdoor press release announcing the new study. “New rules going into effect in 2017 requiring public companies to disclose the ratio of CEO compensation to median worker pay could have more of an effect than just greater transparency.“

Several factors contribute to employee satisfaction, and ultimately, CEO approval. When it comes to company culture, the study found that senior leadership has the greatest impact on a CEO’s approval rating. In other words, CEOs who surround themselves with other great leaders are perceived more favorably by their employees.

Other aspects that influence company culture, such as career advancement opportunities and compensation and benefits, proved less significant than senior leadership. Aside from CEO salaries, biographical characteristics of the top bosses, including gender, age, education and job tenure, have no detectable effect on their approval ratings, according to Glassdoor.

One surprising finding is that companies with lower work-life balanceratings tend to have higher CEO approval ratings, suggesting that employees are willing to devote more time to work if they are satisfied with or inspired by their company’s leader. This is contrary to previous Glassdoor research that suggests that work-life balance contributes to higher employee satisfaction.

This may be why CEOs of more profitable companies receive higher approval ratings, regardless of industry and company size. Employees who like their CEOs don’t mind working more, and higher productivity improves the bottom line. Conversely, it’s possible that employees rate their CEOs higher when their companies are performing well, Glassdoor notes.

Finally, Glassdoor found that employees favor entrepreneurs. That’s no surprise to us (we’re biased). CEOs who are the founders of their companies are more likely to have higher approval ratings than external hires or internally promoted chief executives. On average, being a founder boosts a CEO’s approval rating by 3.2 percent. If you can execute your vision from idea to IPO, you’ll be more apt to win the hearts of your employees.

Today, many superstar bloggers are making six-figure salaries and running their own companies. Armed with only a camera, a laptop and a few strategic props, they have managed to intrigue millions of followers and sign contracts with some of the largest brands in the world. Moreover, growing your audience on social media and improving your blog readership is no longer limited to bloggers. Businesses too have taken notice of the importance of social media and blogs and many are using their blog readers and social media followers to generate interest and drive sales. Here are five tips on how to increase your social media following and become an influencer in the digital space:

1. Strategy takes you to 2 million followers.

The biggest misconception is thinking that that writing great articles and taking countless of photos is enough to become a well-recognized blogger. Although content is crucial (see below), the most important part of winning an audience over is strategy. One strategy to use is the analytics tool on blog and social media; determine what type of content is most shared and liked, and start producing more of it. Another strategy is to study wording in the titles and images that accompany articles in order to determine what attracts audience the most.

2. Content is king.

If you expect to snap one blurry image, or write an article in five minutes so that it may be shared and admired by millions of readers and followers, think again. Before you take a photo, you can: Google the most photographed locations in the area, travel to picturesque settings, plan ensembles, props and layouts, and edit photos using various mobile apps. Studying beginner YouTube photography tutorials can help ensure great quality images. Each article or an image has to have the “wow” factor; otherwise, don’t publish it. Mediocre efforts will result in mediocre content, and your audience will leave. It is better to hold off publishing anything than to publish something that is just OK.

3. Originality wins.

Forget about what they taught you in school, and break all the rules when it comes to being different and getting creative in the digital space. The more unique the content, the more likely it will attract an audience. Polarizing content is ok too. You are not writing to be politically correct and please everyone; people want to hear and see something different. If you are not comfortable with others knowing your identity, invent a nickname. Reposting others’ images (unless they are “shout outs” – see below) or articles on your own social media and blog is a big no. Your audience follows you on social media and reads your blog because they care about your voice/perspective. Posting personal, unique and original content is one trait that all superstar digital influencers have in common.

4. Collaborations are essential.

Don’t expect to become a rock star digital influencer overnight. It takes most bloggers at least a year before they see a real difference. Oftentimes, influencers collaborate on many projects for free in order to help get their brand out there. Offer your unique content free of charge to different websites, magazines, events and any other outlets that may need it. Ask only that they provide credit for your images and/or articles. Locate other bloggers and ask if you may exchange audiences – in the world of Instagram, this is called “shout outs.” You will find that many bloggers/accounts of your size and larger will share your images and give you credit for content free of charge. This concept is incredibly effective and has allowed us to reach millions of new readers and followers.

5. Interns to employees.

“Scaling means doing less yourself” is a pearl of wisdom we received from our mentors. As your audience takes off, hire an intern to help manage your content and maintain/increase interaction with your audience. Providing publishing experience and knowledge to your intern will be invaluable, and you will be able to receive much needed assistance as you grow. As you grow your audience, your goal should be to become more of an editor and less of a blogger. This way, you will be able to focus more of your much-needed attention to creative and business side of things.

If becoming a social media maven has been your goal, these five tips will help you see an increase in your following. If you feel that your business could benefit from social media generated Web traffic, use these tips to drive additional sales. Leveraging our social media can provide us with an immense advantage and open a world of possibilities we never thought possible.

Terminology is an occupational hazard of philanthropy. I’ve found this is especially true if you work in an area like health. It is not unusual to be discussing the latest disease research and hear someone throw around words like serum and in vitro (and more complicated ones). Over the years I’ve gotten comfortable with all the terms, but at first I had to keep reminding myself: Serum just means blood without the red and white cells. In vitro just means “in the glass”—as in test tubes. I still go through that process today with different subjects.

So it was fun to read Randall Munroe’s new book, Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words, which will come out on November 24. Munroe sets out to explain various subjects—from how smartphones work to what the U.S. Constitution says—without any complicated terms. Instead he draws blueprint-style diagrams and annotates them using only the 1,000 most common words in the English language. A nuclear reactor is a “heavy metal power building.” A dishwasher is a “box that cleans food holders.” The periodic table is “the pieces everything is made of.”

It is a brilliant concept. If you can’t explain something simply, you don’t really understand it. And Randall Munroe is the perfect guy to take on a project like this. He’s a former NASA robotics expert who now makes a living drawing the geeky comic strip XKCD and writing books. (I reviewed his What If? earlier this year.) Munroe reminds me of Sal Khan of Khan Academy, or the novelist and Crash Course host John Green. All three are polymaths who not only know a lot but are also good at breaking things down for other people.

Thing Explainer may use a limited vocabulary, but it is filled with helpful explanations and drawings. Have you ever wondered why frozen food defrosts unevenly in a microwave oven (or, as Munroe calls it, a “food-heating radio box”)? Munroe writes: “When you put iced food in a radio box, after a while, parts of it start to turn to water. But since radio boxes are really good at heating water, those parts start to get hot really fast. They can even get so hot they start turning to air—before all the ice is even gone!”

If you know Munroe’s previous work, it will come as no surprise that parts of Thing Explainer are laugh-out-loud funny. Here for example is what he says about the business end of a Saturn V rocket (“U.S. Space Team’s Up Goer Five”): “Lots of fire comes out here. This end should point toward the ground if you want to go to space. If it starts pointing toward space you are having a bad problem, and you will not go to space today.”

Or, his take on the 18^th amendment to the U.S. Constitution: “Let’s get rid of beer and wine.” And then the 21^st: “Never mind about getting rid of beer and wine.”

If I have a criticism of Thing Explainer, it’s that the clever concept sometimes gets in the way of clarity. Occasionally I found myself wishing that Munroe had allowed himself a few more terms—“Mars” instead of “red world,” or “helium” instead of “funny voice air.”

Of course, that would defeat the purpose of the book. And Munroe himself is aware of the tension. In “Page Before the Book Starts”—a.k.a. the introduction—he acknowledges that some terminology is inescapable. “To really learn about things, you need help from other people, and if you want to understand those people, you need to know what they mean by the words they use. You also need to know what things are called so you can ask questions about them. But there are lots of other books that explain what things are called. This book explains what they do.”

And it does that beautifully. Thing Explainer is filled with cool basic knowledge about how the world works. If one of Munroe’s drawings inspires you to go learn more about a subject—including a few extra terms—then he will have done his job. He has written a wonderful guide for curious minds.

Most of you will have a business plan for your startup, as this document acts as the blueprint and roadmap for your company. Whether it is to share with management to help with strategy or present to investors for funding, the business plan will provide the basis for future decisions.

However, despite its importance, your business plan probably sucks. It fails to achieve its objective and ends up misrepresenting your business to the detriment of decision makers. 

Here are the five biggest reasons your business plan is failing and how to overcome these roadblocks.

1. You don’t write with your audience in mind.

Using one business plan for everyone will makes your plan irrelevant, as it will never satisfy any audience group. The business plan needs to be written for a specific audience. Only then can it address their concerns and questions.

Action point: Be clear from the outset who you are writing the business plan for. Next, outline what the key questions are they will want answered and structure the plan with those questions in mind.

2. You spend too much time discussing the nitty-gritty of your business.

No one knows your business better than you. As such you will at times end up prevaricating to show off your knowledge more than adding value for the reader.

This is a good way of putting off any reader and will detract from your most relevant points.

Action point: Write just enough to answer the key questions from point one. You can determine which section you need to include in the plan by acknowledging who you are writing for. If the plan is for your team, for example, you may not need to go into lots of detail around the product section, as they will have familiarity with this.

Always re-read and edit your plan to delete excess words and sections that are adding nothing for the reader. It is also a good idea to get others to read the plan before finalizing it.

3. You can’t articulate your market.

Too many entrepreneur’s do a “copy and paste” exercise on the market section by using vaguely relevant material they get off the Internet. In my time as an investor, this was often the most disappointing section.

A well thought through market section however, stands out. Attention to detail and being succinct is required.

Action point: Break down your market to identify exactly what and who is relevant. For example, in the tech and software space, citing the whole software market is useless if your company operates in the big data space. Think of where your end customer sits and explain the characteristics of that specific market. 

4. You don’t explain your financials.

Many entrepreneurs are the most uncertain about the financials section in their business plan – perhaps because of the perceived complexity and unfamiliarity. But it doesn’t need to be that difficult. Like the other parts of your business plan, tell a story. 

Action point: Clearly explain assumptions in your financials. For example, if you have assumed 10 percent revenue growth and a 60 percent gross profit margin, what is this based on? When you talk through the financials section make sure to explain what the numbers are telling you in simple language. This approach is more useful than mechanically stating numbers. The relevance of what the data shows allows for tangible dialogue with your audience.

5. You don’t explain what’s next.

A lot of business plans rattle through sections in the business plan like a tick-box exercise with the purpose of completing it. They don’t explain what’s next. Just as it is important to set the context at the outset by identifying your audience, it is important to conclude on where you expect to go with the business in the short and medium term. Any business plan would be lost without this.

Action point:  Spend time distilling key points from the plan you have developed to present what you want your audience to do with the plan. If your audience is your team, you want to present a view on strategy that you can discuss with them. For an investor, articulate your funding requirements, milestones and have a high-level deal structure for them to work with.

Ultimately a business plan will never be final, as it will continue to change as the business grows and you respond to threats and opportunities in your market. However, adhering to the evergreen points above will ensure your plan is built on strong foundations, so that your decision-making is well thought through.

Do you want to be a millionaire?

Reaching the million-dollar mark is a laborious task and can only be accomplished by the serious individual who is willing to pay the price. Becoming a millionaire isn’t for those who just want to ‘settle’ in life. Nor will you become a millionaire if you’re looking for ‘get rich quick’ schemes. It requires high risk that can turn into high reward.

Even though becoming a millionaire is easier than it’s ever been, not many people are willing or able to do it. Many people ‘play it safe’ or let their excuses hold them back. However, for those who believe they can achieve great financial wealth in their lives, keep reading.

You might ask, “Why do I need to learn how to become a millionaire?” It’s simple. When most people think or talk about becoming millionaires, they’re actually looking to spend one million dollars, not necessarily earn millions of dollars. However, if you really think about it, there are many more reasons for becoming a millionaire.

If you knew it, you would do it.

Here are 7 Reasons Why You Must Become a Millionaire:

1. Greatest Impact.

Being a millionaire is the easiest way to help people. When a person gets rich, others get rich. Every time you spend a dollar, someone benefits. Whether you’re tipping a server or buying goods or services, money is constantly flowing and enhancing the lives of others.

A millionaire pays more taxes than anyone, which establishes the basics: roads, schools, libraries, law enforcement, etc. In the United States, millionaires pay nearly 40% in taxes. If you’ve earned one million dollars in a year, that’s over $400,000! This kind of money has far more impact than the $15,000 average that most taxpayers contribute to society.

Money allows you to become more of who you are.

2. Inspire others.

When you have money, you can inspire people. Even though most rich people aren’t pretentious with their money, they still inspire people by what they do behind the scenes. Having money allows you to work on more meaningful projects and gives you time to work on charitable ventures. 

For those who like to show off their money, they still turn heads and encourage others, even just by driving by in a Rolls-Royce or Ferrari. Because of the choices that money gives you, you’ll have a lot more control in your life, which in turn will inspire others. 

Time is not money, but money is time.

3. Control.

There are two types of people in the world: those who try to fit their lifestyles into their wages and those who create their own lifestyle by setting their own wages. Unfortunately, more than 90% of the people in the world work for money. They let money control their lives and tell them what to do.

When you have money, you get to decide what kind of work you want to do. You don’t have to throw 50-plus hours into a grind that you don’t care about. Instead, you’ll get to conduct your affairs in the most convenient way, without letting your money control your actions.

4. Enjoyment.

Obviously, money gives you tremendous enjoyment in life. No one can say that they’re better off without money, despite the many people who try to ‘sell you’ on poverty. Enjoying your money is one of the greatest virtues of wealth. It gives birth to luxuries that you didn’t even know exist!

Whether you like to travel or eat in the finest restaurants, money offers conveniences that soothe you. Although people will tell you ‘money doesn’t make you happy,’ you can bet that they still smile when they get paid. Moreover, when you’re a millionaire, you can do what you want to do with whom you’d like to do it when you feel like doing it.

5. Confidence.

There’s no confidence like ‘money’ confidence. When you have money, you feel like you can do almost anything. It’s not that money raises your self-esteem, but it allows you to operate more rationally. Most of all, you get to be yourself, instead of worrying about whether or not you can ‘afford’ the ice cream you’re buying for your loved ones.

The confidence that money provides can give your family ‘peace of mind.’ An average person has little to no life insurance, which means that when he or she dies, no money is left behind for the family for burial expenses and other losses. Think about it: you can be more confident when you have a $10,000,000 policy than a $0 policy.

When the mind is ready, the money will come.

6. Philanthropy.

Money allows you to give back in unprecedented ways. When most people give money, they don’t know where it is going or why it’s going there. They typically write checks out of 'guilt’ or 'shame’. However, when you have 'millionaire money’ you're able to give your money to causes you really believe in. Plus, the philanthropist actually obtains more money because they can generally control where it’s going.

You have a choice on how you give, too. You can choose to give your money on general or specific terms. Even more, your giving can be fun and can be done in multiple ways. With money, you’ll be able to bless a tremendous amount of people. Plus, a generous person is always able to make friends, especially when they give away millions of dollars. The secret of living is giving.

Your level of living is determined by your level of giving.

7. The journey.

There’s more fun in aspiring than there is in acquiring. Because the journey to wealth is quite rigorous, it allows you to go through challenges that most people would never face in their lives. Who you become in the process is the most rewarding part of becoming a millionaire.

The journey will teach you about people, places, and things like never before. You’ll be able to learn who you are while reaching your highest desires. When you choose to become wealthy, you’ll go through an inspiring pathway of twists, turns, and turmoil. However, if you stick through it, you’ll quickly find that the journey was worth it in the end.

As you can see, there are many reasons to become a millionaire. When you know why you’re becoming wealthy, how to do it becomes easier. Pick one of these or all of these and start working on your journey of becoming a millionaire today. If you are serious about learning more about what it takes to become a millionaire, feel free to reach out to me!

We were asked that question recently by some high school students in Kentucky.

They also asked us about our favorite breakfast cereal (Bill: Cocoa Puffs; Melinda: Wheat Chex); what animal we would want to be (Bill: a bonobo; Melinda: a white leopard); and if we know how to dance the Whip and Nae Nae (one of us does).

The superpower question was our favorite.

To fly. To be invisible. To travel through time. All good options.

Trying to keep up with our foundation work and our three children’s schedules, we gave responses that will be immediately familiar to other parents.

“More time!”

“More energy!”

When we sat down to write this year’s letter, those answers stuck with us. Sure, everyone wants more time and energy. But they mean one thing in rich countries and something else entirely when looked at through the eyes of the world’s poorest families.

Poverty is not just about a lack of money. It’s about the absence of the resources the poor need to realize their potential. Two critical ones are time and energy.

More than one billion people today live without access to energy. No electricity to light and heat their homes, power hospitals and factories, and improve their lives in thousands of ways.

Likewise, a lack of time creates obstacles too. It’s not simply the feeling of not having enough hours in the day. It’s the crippling effect of having to perform the backbreaking work that needs to get done when there’s no electricity.

We are dedicating this year’s letter to talking about the opportunities we see to overcome these often overlooked challenges. We’re writing to high school students because you’re the ones who will ultimately be solving these problems. (Our interests in time and energy are separate from our foundation’s work on health and poverty. But it’s all related. Solving these problems will make it easier to save lives and make the world a more equitable place.)

More time. More energy. As superpowers go, they may not be as exciting as Superman’s ability to defy gravity. But if the world can put more of both into the hands of the poorest, we believe it will allow millions of dreams to take flight.

At some point today, you’ll probably do one or all of these things: Flip a switch for light. Take fresh food from a refrigerator. Turn a dial to make your home warmer or cooler. Press a button on your laptop to go online.

You probably won’t think twice about any of these actions, but you will actually be doing something extraordinary. You will be using a superpower—your access to energy.

Does that sound ridiculous?

Just imagine, for a minute, life without energy.

You don’t have a way to run a laptop, mobile phone, TV, or video games. You don’t have lights, heat, air conditioning, or even the Internet to read this letter.

About 1.3 billion people—18 percent of the world’s population—don’t need to imagine. That’s what life is like for them every day.

Africa has made extraordinary progress in recent decades. It is one of the fastest-growing regions of the world with modern cities, hundreds of millions of mobile phone users, growing Internet access, and a vibrant middle class.

But as you can see from the areas without lights, that prosperity has not reached everyone. In fact, of the nearly one billion people in sub-Saharan Africa, 7 out of every 10 of them live in the dark, without electricity. The majority of them live in rural areas. You would see the same problem in Asia. In India alone, more than 300 million people don’t have electricity..

I’m always a little stunned when I see photographs like this. It’s been well over a century since Thomas Edison demonstrated how an incandescent light bulb could turn night into day. (I’m lucky enough to own one of his sketches of how he planned to improve his light bulb. It’s dated 1885.) And yet, there are parts of the world where people are still waiting to enjoy the benefits of his invention.

If I could have just one wish to help the poorest people, it would be to find a cheap, clean source of energy to power our world.

You might be wondering, “Aren’t people just trying to stay healthy and find enough to eat? Isn’t that important too?” Yes, of course it is, and our foundation is working hard to help them. But energy makes all those things easier. It means you can run hospitals, light up schools, and use tractors to grow more food.

Think about the history classes you’re taking. If I had to sum up history in one sentence it would be: “Life gets better—not for everyone all the time, but for most people most of the time.” And the reason is energy. For thousands of years, people burned wood for fuel. Their lives were, by and large, short and hard. But when we started using coal in the 1800s, life started getting better a lot faster. Pretty soon we had lights, refrigerators, skyscrapers, elevators, air conditioning, cars, planes, and all the other things that make up modern life, from lifesaving medicines and moon landings to fertilizer and Matt Damon movies. (The Martian was my favorite movie last year.)

Without access to energy, the poor are stuck in the dark, denied all of these benefits and opportunities that come with power.

So if we really want to help the world’s poorest families, we need to find a way to get them cheap, clean energy. Cheap because everyone must be able to afford it. Clean because it must not emit any carbon dioxide—which is driving climate change.

I’m sure you have read about climate change and maybe studied it in school. You might be worried about how it will affect you. The truth is, the people who will be hit the hardest are the world’s poorest. Millions of the poorest families work as farmers. Changes in weather often mean that their crops won’t grow because of too little rain or too much rain. That sinks them deeper into poverty. That’s particularly unfair because they’re the least responsible for emitting CO_2, which is causing the problem in the first place.

Scientists say that to avoid these dramatic long-term changes to the climate, the world must cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80 percent by 2050, and eliminate them entirely by the end of the century.

When I first heard this I was surprised. Can’t we just aim to cut carbon emissions in half? I asked many scientists. But they all agreed that wouldn’t be enough. The problem is that CO₂ lingers in the atmosphere for decades. Even if we halted carbon emissions tomorrow, the temperature would still rise because of the carbon that’s already been released. No, we need to get all the way down to zero.

That’s a huge challenge. In 2015, the world emitted 36 billion tons of carbon dioxide to produce energy. This is a mind-boggling number. (It’s worth remembering, because it will come in handy. For example, someone may tell you they know how to remove 100 million tons of carbon per year. That sounds like a lot, but if you do the math—100 million divided by 36 billion—you’ll see that they’re talking about 0.3 percent of the problem. Every reduction in emissions helps, but we still have to work on the other 99.7 percent.)

How can we ever reduce a number like 36 billion tons to zero?

Whenever I’m confronted with a big problem I turn to my favorite subject: math. It’s one subject that always came naturally to me, even in middle school when my grades weren’t that great. Math cuts out the noise and helps me distill a problem down to its basic elements.

Climate change is an issue that has plenty of noise surrounding it. There are those who deny it is a problem at all. Others exaggerate the immediate risks.

What I needed was an equation that would help me understand how we might get our CO₂ down to zero.

Here’s what I came up with:

That might look complicated. It’s not.

On the right side you have the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) we put in the atmosphere. This is what we need to get to zero. It’s based on the four factors on the left side of the equation: the world’s population (P) multiplied by the services (S) used by each person; the energy (E) needed to provide each of those services; and finally, the carbon dioxide © produced by that energy.

As you learned in math class, any number multiplied by zero will equal zero. So if we want to get to zero CO₂, then we need to get at least one of the four factors on the left to zero.

Let’s go through them, one by one, and see what we get.

The world’s population (P) is currently 7 billion and expected to increase to 9 billion by 2050. No chance it’ll be zero.

Next, services. This is everything: food, clothing, heat, houses, cars, TV, toothbrushes, Elmo dolls, Taylor Swift albums, etc. This is the number that I was saying earlier needs to go up in poor countries, so people can have lights, refrigerators, and so on. So (S) can’t be zero, either.

Let’s take a look at (E). That’s the energy needed per service. There’s some good news here. Fuel-efficient cars, LED light bulbs, and other inventions are making it possible to use energy more efficiently.

Many people, and you may be one of them, are also changing their lifestyles to conserve energy. They’re biking and carpooling to save gas, turning down the heat a couple degrees, adding insulation to their homes. All of these efforts help cut down on energy use.

Unfortunately, they don’t get us to zero. In fact, most scientists agree that by 2050 we’ll be using 50 percent more energy than we do today.

So none of the first three—population, services, and energy—are getting close to zero. That leaves the final factor ©, the amount of carbon emitted per each unit of energy.

The majority of the world’s energy, other than hydro and nuclear, is produced by fossil fuels like coal that emit an overwhelming amount of CO₂. But there’s some good news here, too. New green technologies are allowing the world to produce more carbon-free energy from solar and wind power. Maybe you live near a wind farm or have seen solar panels near your school.

It’s great that these are getting cheaper and more people are using them. We should use more of them where it makes sense, like in places where it’s especially sunny or windy. And by installing special new power lines we could make even more use of solar and wind power.

But to stop climate change and make energy affordable for everyone, we’re also going to need some new inventions.

Why? Solar and wind power are reliable energy sources so long as the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. But people still need dependable energy on cloudy days, at nighttime, and when the air is still. That means power companies often back up these renewable sources with fossil fuels like coal or natural gas, which emit greenhouse gases.

It would help, of course, if we had a great system for storing solar and wind power. But right now, the best storage option is rechargeable batteries, and they are expensive. Lithium-ion batteries like the one inside your laptop are still the gold standard. If you wanted to use one to store enough electricity to run everything in your house for a week, you would need a huge battery—and it would triple your electric bill.

So we need more powerful, more economical solutions.

In short, we need an energy miracle.

When I say “miracle,” I don’t mean something that’s impossible. I’ve seen miracles happen before. The personal computer. The Internet. The polio vaccine. None of them happened by chance. They are the result of research and development and the human capacity to innovate.

In this case, however, time is not on our side. Every day we are releasing more and more CO₂ into our atmosphere and making our climate change problem even worse. We need a massive amount of research into thousands of new ideas—even ones that might sound a little crazy—if we want to get to zero emissions by the end of this century.

New ways to make solar and wind power available to everyone around the clock could be one solution. Some of the crazier inventions I’m excited about are a possible way to use solar energy to produce fuel, much like plants use sunlight to make food for themselves, and batteries the size of swimming pools with huge storage capacity.

Many of these ideas won’t work, but that’s okay. Each dead end will teach us something useful and keep us moving forward. As Thomas Edison famously said, “I have not failed 10,000 times. I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.”

But to find thousands of ways that won’t work, you first need to try thousands of different ideas. That’s not happening nearly enough.

Governments have a big role to play in sparking new advances, as they have for other scientific research. U.S. government funding was behind breakthrough cancer treatments and the moon landing. If you’re reading this online, you have the government to thank for that too. Research paid for by the U.S. government helped create the Internet.

But energy research and the transition to new energy sources takes a long time. It took four decades for oil to go from 5 percent of the world’s energy supply to 25 percent. Today, renewable energy sources like wind and solar account for less than 5 percent of the world’s energy.

So we need to get started now. I recently helped launch an effort by more than two dozen private citizens that will complement government research being done by several countries. It’s all aimed at delivering energy miracles.

You may be wondering what you can do to help.

First, it’s important for everyone to get educated about this energy challenge. Many young people are already actively involved in climate and energy issues and I’m sure they could use more help. Your generation is one of the most globally minded in history, adept at looking at our world’s problems beyond national borders. This will be a valuable asset as we work on global solutions in the decades ahead.

Second, if you’re someone with some crazy-sounding ideas to solve our energy challenge, the world needs you. Study extra hard in your math and sciences. You might just have the answer.

The challenge we face is big, perhaps bigger than many people imagine. But so is the opportunity. If the world can find a source of cheap, clean energy, it will do more than halt climate change. It will transform the lives of millions of the poorest families.

I’m so optimistic about the world’s ability to make a miracle happen that I’m willing to make a prediction. Within the next 15 years—and especially if young people get involved—I expect the world will discover a clean energy breakthrough that will save our planet and power our world.

I like to think about what an energy miracle like that would mean in a slum I once visited in Nigeria. It was home to tens of thousands of people but there was no electricity. As night fell, no lights flickered on. The only glow came from open fires lit in metal barrels, where people gathered for the evening. There was no other light for kids to study by, no easy way to run a business or power local clinics and hospitals. It was sad to think about all of the potential in this community that was going untapped.

A cheap, clean source of energy would change everything.

Imagine that.

source : gatesnotes