Green IT: Myth, mirage, or reality?
Speaker: Bill Weihl , Green Energy Czar, Google
Date: February 3 2011
Time: 4:00PM to 5:00PM
Location: 32-123
Host: Frans Kaashoek, CSAIL
Contact: Colleen Russell, 3-0145, crussell@csail.mit.edu
Relevant URL: Abstract:
It seem like just about everyone is talking about "Green IT" these days. But what is it? Can IT be "green"? This talk will discuss what Google is doing to make its servers and data centers more sustainable, as well as the prospects for future improvements. It will also touch on ways in which IT can be used to help make the rest of the world more sustainable.
Biography:
Bill Weihl is Green Energy Czar at Google, where he leads engineering efforts in renewable energy and energy efficiency, and also manages the company's carbon-neutral commitment. He helped create the RE C initiative, which is driving rapid innovation in renewable energy technology to make renewable electricity cost-competitive with coal-fired electricity, leveraging internal R&D, research grants, investments in start-ups, and policy work. He led the effort in Google to co-found the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, which has galvanized the industry to accelerate progress in making computing devices more energy efficient (with help from MIT as one of the early members!). His group also developed Google PowerMeter, which is bringing near-real-time energy information to residential consumers.
Dr. Weihl has extensive business and technical experience in high-tech, including ten years as a professor of Computer Science at MIT, five years as a research scientist at Digital's Systems Research Center, and five years as Chief Architect and then CTO of Akamai Technologies. He received his Ph.D. in 1984 from MIT, where he worked as a graduate student on the Argus project in Prof. Liskov's research group. In fall of 2009, he was named one of Time Magazine's 2009 Heroes of the Environment in recognition of the work he and his colleagues are doing at Google.
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