(2011-07-27) Cunningham Nike Open Data

Ward Cunningham is becoming Nike's Open Data guru. The Code for a Better World Fellow will work in Nike's Sustainable Business and Innovation team. As a part of this approximately 130-person-strong global team, the fellow will be working to help pave a sustainable future for the company. A future where creation of products isn't tied to scarce natural resources like water and oil; where manufacturing is lean, green, equitable and empowered; and where everyone, everywhere has access to sport.

Some say they are Terrified that there won’t be enough water to grow cheap cotton. Terrified that oil prices will continue to shoot up, and they won’t be able to afford international shipping. Terrified that the delicate, beautiful-if-flawed civilisation that we’ve built won’t last in a form where enough people can afford to take part in organised, well equipped sport. Some of those problems can only be fixed by changing entire supply chains. For example, someone told me that cotton recycling will only work if all their competitors, with whom they share upstream factories, also change to it. Doing that well requires sharing data, and helping others know your data about the scale of the difficulties. Some of those problems can only be fixed by the invention of new products and services. Startups radically disrupting things – startups that will be more likely the more people understand Nike’s problems.

There's going to be a hackathon Aug6.