2010 Women's Festival

The 2010 Santa Barbara Women's Festival happened in March at the Earl Warren Showgrounds. If you didn't make the event this year, be sure to put it on your calendar for next year. There were fantastic keynote speakers, round table discussions, and the ability to network and check out the booths representing local businesses.

One keynote speaker was Margo Day, the Vice President of Microsoft Corporation. She spoke on Microsoft's environmental strategy and how they are going green. Here are a few things she shared:

• Microsoft is reducing the carbon footprint of their operating systems and using virtualization software and servers.
• It costs 80% less power to run Windows XP vs Windows 7.
• 2% of greenhouse gases are produced by the IT industry. The IT footprint has gone up 40%, just since 2002. She mentioned that the equivalent of this is we currently have 151 million cars on the road. By 2020, if we don't do anything ro reduce our numbers, we will have 25o million cars on the road.
• Microsoft produces one million tons of carbon/year. They have reduced waste by 50% for composting.

For more information, visit http://www.womensfestivals.org/