Driving through the security-guard checkpoint to the massive 278,000-square-foot sleek building that emerges — not visible from the street — a visitor to the California Independent System Operator headquarters in Folsom would likely realize something important happens here before even stepping foot inside.

Cal-ISO is one of 38 system operators for the geographic area that covers everything west of the eastern boundaries of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. That compares with six system operators responsible for most of the rest of the country. “The divided operation of the western grid is not unlike having a bus with 38 drivers.”

When it comes to our country’s shift to renewable energy, there’s no turning back. Improved technology has made renewables more reliable and less expensive, and government policies have encouraged or required their use. But there’s always change happening in the industry sector, as you’ll read in one of our July features, “Will the Mega-Grid Get Built?” 

Imagine picking up your marriage license at the mall, or registering your baby’s birth at a kiosk near the escalators. Seems hard to imagine, right? It’s almost too convenient. But these are realities for one neighborhood in Nice, France, where locally-made Cisco technology is changing the way residents interact.

A technologically-savvy city is no longer fodder for fantasy film; it’s an expectation. We live in a time where technology can and should make our urban environments more efficient in terms of energy consumption, transportation, land use, citizen participation and government processes.

Innovation is understandably not something most people associate with government. More than most any place in society, government offices are thought of — accurately or not — as where innovation and cutting-edge thinking go to die. But it doesn’t have to be that way, nor is it that way everywhere.

Bright bursts of yellow flowers amid a sea of rolling green grass are an easy find in April at Mather Field. But just months ago, these dramatic swathes were completely swamped with water, and later this summer their beds will be bone-dry and baking hot.

Your Facebook posts and tweets may contain hidden creativity. In fact, they could be helping to write the next Hollywood blockbuster.

For decades, the UC Davis College of Engineering has consistently ranked in the top 35 engineering programs in the nation. That’s definitely good, but not remotely good enough for new engineering dean, Jennifer Sinclair Curtis, who took over the post last October. We recently sat down with the highly accomplished chemical engineer to discuss her vision for making the program even better.

Ryan Duey, owner-operator of Capitol Floats in Sacramento, describes the experience of floating as “turning the outside off, and turning you up to the nth degree. You’re the driver of the ship. Your float is whatever your float wants to be.”