The Washington Times: Bloomberg offers digital funding for 6 museums
September 9, 2014
Bloomberg Philanthropies says it’s expanding its funding for cultural institutions’ digital projects to help increase visitors’ access to their resources.
The nonprofit says it is committing $17 million to six museums.
Read moreThe Wall Street Journal: Bloomberg Philanthropies Gives Museums $17 Million Push Toward Digital
September 8, 2014
Bloomberg Philanthropies is set to announce on Tuesday that it is expanding its grant funding for cultural institutions’ digital projects, with $17 million for museums in New York and around the world.
At the Brooklyn Museum, staffers stationed at a hub will use an app to field questions in real time as visitors move through the galleries. At the American Museum of Natural History, a new app will offer a glimpse of the science happening behind the scenes. And at the Cooper-Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum, a digital pen will allow visitors to save information on their favorite objects in the collection, and create their own designs.
Other recipients of the expanded grant program, now called Bloomberg Connects, include the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Science Museum in London and Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay.
Read moreThe New York Times: Michael Bloomberg’s Harder Sell
August 24, 2014
Mr. Bloomberg, 72, has vowed to give away his $32.8 billion fortune before he dies. In doing so, he hopes to sharply reduce high smoking rates in Turkey, Indonesia and other countries; bring down obesity levels in Mexico; reduce traffic in Rio de Janeiro (and Istanbul); improve road safety in India and Kenya; prevent deaths at childbirth to mothers in Tanzania; and organize cities worldwide to become more environmentally friendly and efficient in delivering services.
Read moreThe New York Times: African Leaders Sit Down With American Investors
August 6, 2014
The conference was co-sponsored by the Commerce Department and the foundation of former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York, who told reporters: “It has become unfashionable to be a business person in the U.S. And Africa desperately wants to build a business class because that’s where the jobs are going to come from.”
Read moreForbes: Obama’s U.S.-Africa Forum Will Catalyze $14 Billion In Business Deals – By Michael Bloomberg and Penny Pritzker
August 5, 2014
“Africa is no longer a sleeping giant but is awake and open for business.” These words from a rising South African leader at last week’s Young African Leaders Summit could not be more accurate: Africa might well be the biggest market opportunity in the global economy today, and U.S. companies cannot afford to miss out.
Read moreThe Financial Times: US climate change to hit south hardest
June 24, 2014
The Risky Business report, a bipartisan project backed by three former US Treasury secretaries, sets out estimates of the potential costs of problems such as flooding caused by rising temperatures and higher sea levels. Its aim is to move the debate in the US, which has become characterised by partisan divisions, into a more practical assessment by business and political leaders of how to manage the risks posed by climate change. The study looks only at the US, and only at potential costs, rather than possible solutions.
The project is chaired by Hank Paulson, who was Treasury secretary under President George W Bush; Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York; and Tom Steyer, the former hedge fund manager turned environmental campaigner.
Read moreThe New York Times: The Right Way to Develop Shale Gas – By Michael Bloomberg and Fred Krupp
April 30, 2014
So here’s a reality check. The shale gas boom is indeed lowering energy costs, creating new jobs, boosting domestic manufacturing and delivering some measurable environmental benefits as well. Unlike coal, natural gas produces minuscule amounts of such toxic air pollutants as sulfur dioxide and mercury when burned — so the transition from coal- to natural-gas-fired electricity generation is improving overall air quality, which improves public health. There’s also a potential climate benefit, since natural-gas-fired plants emit roughly half the carbon dioxide of coal-fired ones.
Read moreThe Huffington Post: Europe’s Mayors Rise to the Challenge – By Michael R. Bloomberg
April 28, 2014
What if a city figured out how to capture wasted kinetic energy from cars and re-inject it into the electrical grid? Or if a city used high-tech auditory alerts that enabled the visually impaired to easily navigate city streets? Or if a city empowered citizens to direct their tax dollars into the specific programs that mattered most to them?
These are just a few of the 21 concepts that are finalists in an ideas competition, called Mayors Challenge Europe, that invited leaders of European cities to devise bold solutions to major urban problems. Winning cities will receive monetary awards, totaling €9 million, to help them implement their ideas.
Read moreThe New York Times: Private Citizen Bloomberg on Philanthropy
April 26, 2014
Mr. Bloomberg, 72, said philanthropists should focus on areas where they can test an idea and then, armed with results, get government money to turn the idea into a program. The belief that better government was crucial to improving people’s lives was a hallmark of Mr. Bloomberg’s tenure as mayor — so much so that his critics often accused him of running a “nanny state.”
Read moreThe Wall Street Journal: Bloomberg Backs a Solar Lamp
April 21, 2014
Bloomberg Philanthropies is scheduled Tuesday to announce a $5 million deal with LittleSun GmbH, the German company that makes Little Sun, a hand-held solar-powered lamp created by Berlin artist Olafur Eliasson and Copenhagen engineer Frederik Ottesen. It is the first such support lent by the foundation to a so-called social business.
The lamp, introduced two years ago at the Tate Modern museum in London, is intended for use in areas where electricity is scarce and the primary source of lighting is kerosene lamps. The device is available in eight sub-Saharan African countries. At $9 to $17 apiece, the device pays for itself in roughly six months, say Mr. Eliasson and Rohit Aggarwala, who is part of the environmental group at Bloomberg Philanthropies.
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