This post was written by ISTC staff member Kirsten Walker.
We are grateful to Bill Olson, Director of Sustainability and Stewardship for Motorola Mobile Devices for his long-term commitment to the International Sustainable Electronics Competition. Bill has been with us since the beginning, serving as a juror four times since the competition began as a local event on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign back in 2009. He has been a juror more than any other individual, sitting out only for the 2010 competition (for more information on past competitions, see our online competition archives). Despite his busy schedule, he has provided valuable feedback on numerous competition entries over the years, and has presented at two past SEI symposia on his work at Motorola.
In his role at Motorola, Bill drives go-to-market strategy for green mobile device products and technologies, and has championed the adoption of ECOMOTO principles across several Motorola business units. ECOMOTO focuses on the realization of environmentally sound, seamless Motorola mobile products and seeks to deliver sustained business impact through green materials and innovative ecodesign practices as can be found in the world’s first carbon free phones built with post consumer recycled plastic: W233 RENEW and MOTOCUBO A45 ECO and the world’s first “green” android phones introduced in 2010 – CITRUS and SPICE.
Bill started the ECOMOTO initiative during his previous role in Motorola Corporate Research, where he headed labs dedicated to International and Environmental Research. Bill’s team in Europe conducted testing on hundreds of Motorola products to ensure they met environmental regulatory requirements of the EU (WEEE/RoHS), American and Asian markets. His lab in China worked closely with manufacturing, engineering and the supply chain to achieve improvements in factory productivity, yield and product reliability.
We value Bill’s input because he is directly involved with innovation everyday and understands what it takes to get a great concept to market in today’s world. With 23 U.S. patents and more than 40 publications, Bill is a guru in his field. Thanks, Bill, for all of your support!