Green Channel

Local system builders are being invited to demonstrate their green computing skills - with the winner set to drive away in a Toyota Prius.

The 'Build a Green PC' competition has been launched by PC hardware vendors, Gigabyte and Western Digital. Intel is also cooperating on the initiative, which is open until June 16.

Gigabyte Australia managing director, Alan Chen, said the environmental impact of components was a major focus for the vendor's Australian business.

"With the government regulations, IT vendors need to find green solutions to stay in business as soon as possible," he said, "We're also using road shows, events and email campaigns to try and educate our distributors and resellers."

Western Digital territory manager, Eric Chan, said environmental awareness was rapidly improving in Australia, and demand for green products had been rapidly increasing since late last year.

Intel area sales manager, Thomas Tapsas, said the chipmaker was supporting the initiative because it fitted within its broader green messaging.

"It's about time we got awareness out there - we want to be involved with as many of these educational campaigns for our system builder community as possible," he said.

The competition fits within Intel's support of Climate Servers Computing, a global organisation started by Google and Intel, and supported by Energy Star, designed to improve power efficiency in computing.

Intel A/NZ business development manager, Sean Casey, said energy efficiency in motherboards and components was becoming a major focus of Climate Servers Computing.

"We want to raise awareness and communicate with both businesses and consumers on the importance of energy efficient components," Casey said.

For more information on the competition, visit www.wdgreenpc.com.