Can crowdsourcing help the world tackle climate change? The Climate CoLab, a project of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, is founded on the idea that it really can!

Inspired by systems like Wikipedia and open source software, the Climate CoLab harnesses contributions by people from all around the world. Anyone with fresh creative ideas to address climate change can share, develop and gain support for them in the CoLab. Activity on the site is organized through online contests on a range of topics, such as building efficiency, decarbonizing fuel supply, adaptation, and changing cultural attitudes. Contests invite people to propose actions they believe should be taken in response to climate change. There is a proposal template to help guide writing the ideas.

Anyone can become a Climate CoLab member and comment, support, edit or write proposals. The deadline for entering proposals is May 31st 2013. Expert judges review proposals and choose finalists, then winners are selected by online voting by CoLab members and by judges.

Winners of the current contests will be invited to present, in person or virtually, at a conference at MIT November 6-7, co-organized by the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence (CCI), MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI), MIT Sloan Sustainability  and the MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change. Policy makers, business executives, investors, and NGO officials will be invited to provide feedback on how the contest winners’ ideas can move toward implementation. All Climate CoLab contest winners will be eligible for a $10,000 Grand Prize to be awarded at the conference, and additional prizes and awards may be available.

We invite you to join the crowd at http://climatecolab.org!