Shell GameChanger – Scam, or genuine Game Changer?
Naive students around the world are being targeted with all manner of hype and enticement, including $1,000 prizes in the USA, to submit their ideas to Shell, presumably in the belief that Shell can be trusted. Big mistake.
By John Donovan
I recently published an article about an inventor who has a concern that ideas he submitted in good faith to Shell GameChanger has been taken up and exploited without him receiving due credit and payment. He has supplied evidence that he did disclose ideas to Shell GameChanger over the last 15 years.
Shell GameChanger and Royal Dutch Shell Plc ignore all correspondence sent to them on the matter. Having enticed him into disclosing his ideas they are not prepared to explain whether they were adopted and used. Instead, total silence.
Is that the proper way to deal with individuals who place their trust in the integrity of Royal Dutch Shell?
The same inventor has now drawn my attention to the on-goingpartnership between Shell GameChanger and Arizona State University.
FROM THE GAMECHANGER/ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY WEBSITE
“Shell GameChanger and ASU have partnered to challenge faculty, staff and students to share ideas that impact a very important issue facing humanity: energy.” The Shell GameChanger program identifies and nurtures unproven ideas that have the potential to drastically impact the future of energy.
Naive students around the world are being targeted with all manner of hype and enticement, including $1,000 prizes in the USA, to submit their ideas to Shell, presumably in the belief that Shell can be trusted. Big Mistake.
Shell Ideas360 is a similar Shell scheme trawling for new ideas among university students e.g. in conduction with the University of the Philippines.
From my perspective, claiming as I do, the world championship in successfully suing Shell for the theft of ideas, and being aware of more recent and current claims against Shell for alleged IP theft, I feel compelled to warn students and everyone else, about trusting Shell.
Note that Shell has not taken legal action against me despite the warning notice I have placed prominently on my website. How long would Shell allow that warning to remain – it has a 1,000 strong legal army backed up by unlimited financial resources – if what I have stated has no foundation? I discovered that there are greedy unethical people at Shell seeking to enrich themselves and further their ambitions.
It does seem unlikely that the whole worldwide GameChanger scheme has been deliberately set up to trawl for new ideas and then steal the best ones.
Nonetheless, if the experience of the inventor I have referred to is any guide, Shell is prepared to act improperly knowing that most people would never dream of taking on Shell in the courts, and will simply give up, leaving Shell to exploit ideas obtained under the false pretences of being a trustworthy partner willing to co-operate and turn an idea into reality.
If Shell is genuine, it should offer a low cost binding independent arbitration service available to decide, in the event of a dispute, if an idea really is novel, practical, relevant, and has potential commercial value. Dependant on that assessment, it could then decided on what basis the inventor should be rewarded if the idea is exploited by Shell.
Refusing to even talk or correspond with a person who has submitted an idea to GameChanger, leaving them to either sue or give up, is not acceptable or fair.
From Shell Ideas360 website
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE
Tagged: Arizona State University · John Donovan · Litigation · Royal Dutch Shell Plc ·Shell GameChanger · Shell Ideas360Jorma Ollila, tainted departing chairman of Royal Dutch Shell Plc
“During Ollila’s time at the helm, Shell has spent hundreds of billions on new projects and lavished generous pay deals on its executives, leading to several protest votes by big investors.”
By John Donovan
The Sunday Times reported on the front page of its business section on 8 June 2014 the news that Shell has started a search for a new chairman to replace the tainted Finn, Jorma Ollila.
Extract
“During Ollila’s time at the helm, Shell has spent hundreds of billions on new projects and lavished generous pay deals on its executives, leading to several protest votes by big investors.”
Mr Ollila was recently fined by market regulators for failing to disclose his ownership and control of a company in Luxembourg worth 8.2 million euros. He has admitted breaking the law. He prefers to call it “neglecting the law.”
The Sunday Times article by Danny Fortson mentions the Shell reserves scandal, the recent shock profits warning, and plans by the new CEO, Ben van Beurden to slash Shell’s spending by $35bn this year, cut Shell American exploration staff by 20% and sell $15bn of assets by 2015.
If published comments by The Observer are accurate, Ben van Beurden must have had inside knowledge about the reserves scandal.
He was right there in the thick of the intrigue and cover-up.
“Van Beurden knows what failure looks like, as he was a personal assistant to former chairman Sir Philip Watts when Watts was axed over the reserves scandal of 2004.”
The executive directors responsible for the debacle were given huge multimillion dollar payoffs to buy their silence and the policy of lavish rewards for incompetence, negligence and failure have continued ever since at Shell.
The famous catchphrase from the late great comedian Terry-Thomas comes to mind, delivered in his upper-class voice: “You’re an absolute shower”
Only a fraction of big gas export projects will be built, Shell exec says
Extracts from a Seeking Alpha article published 9 June 2014
Only a fraction of the big natural gas export projects being developed around the world will become reality, as high costs and low profit margins in the gas sector sink those that once had promised huge returns on investment, Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) director of projects and technology Matthias Bichsel tells Reuters. He knows from experience: Estimated development costs for the Gorgon LNG project in Australia (Shell owns 25%) have soared from $37B initially to nearly $55B thanks to high labor expenses and complex technology, Shell quit the Wheatstone LNG project in the country, and it also has abandoned a proposed gas-to-liquids project in Louisiana.
For Western Oil Companies, Expanding in Russia Is a Dance Around Sanctions
Royal Dutch Shell Plc Chief Executive bows to President Putin during a meeting in Moscow April 2014: Maxim Shipenkov/European Pressphoto Agency
Extracts from a New York Times article by ANDREW E. KRAMER and STANLEY REED published in print 10 June 2014
Despite the push by Western governments to isolate Moscow for its aggression in Ukraine, energy giants are deepening their relationships with companies here by striking deals and plowing more money into the country. Royal Dutch Shell’s chief executive, Ben van Beurden, met with Mr. Putin in April and told him, “Now is the time to expand,” referring to a liquefied natural gas plant project. The companies are taking a calculated risk, given the threat of further sanctions. The risk for energy companies is that the next stage of sanctions, called the third phase, will be broader, cutting off dealings with major sectors of the economy like finance, metals and energy. The United States and its allies proposed such sanctions at a Group of 7 summit meeting in Brussels last week, to be carried out if the violence in Ukraine did not subside within a month.
The TRUTH will set you FREE.
Bichsel will undoubtedly leave shortly, joining Ollila, Rees, Brown, Brinded, Voser, Finlayson, Carne… And when everything starts to collapse, he will at least now have the satisfaction of saying “I told you so”. This is typical for a coward…
By John Donovan
Extracts from a Reuters article published Monday 9 June 2014
