The winner of the 2009 edition is this project by MIT researchers that proposes to replace the private owned fossil fuel vehicle traffic inside large cities with a network of battery-powered small vehicles, that can be rented at convenience in racks spread throughout the city, similar to the public bike rental systems in cities like Barcelona or Paris:

Mobility-on-demand systems provide racks of these vehicles at closely spaced, convenient locations around an urban service area. Vehicles automatically recharge while they are in these racks. Users walk to the nearest rack, swipe a credit card, pick up a vehicle, drive it to a rack convenient to their destination, and drop it off. These are, in other words, ubiquitously distributed one-way rental systems. These systems are highly efficient in reducing urban congestion, energy use, and carbon emissions. They are synergistic with ubiquitous wireless networking and distributed intelligence, and with solar-friendly, wind-friendly, fuel-cell-friendly smart electrical grids.

The difference with other online services that let you create a social network, as Ning, are the more action oriented features, like a project management tool, and other features aimed to encourage sharing and exchanging services between commune members.

The platform is politically and socially agnostic, although some features indicate some preference for sharing and non-commercial relationships. It could be useful for starting groups and communities that don’t want to lose momentum or spend much time setting up a website, although self-hosted, free, open source alternatives are always preferable, to maintain control of data and information.