Charges: Cell phones and used in venom extraction (yes, that’s a first for us)

Location: South Africa, Mozambique, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, Jordan, Syria, Costa Rica, Fiji, Belize, USA and Bahamas. “Fell in the ocean in Mozambique and continued to work, around the world twice!”

Donald Schultz sports the Voltaic Solar Backpack in the fantastic new series on Animal Planet, Wild Recon. Watch the preview here.

Location: Mt. Acongcagua, Argentina — 13,300 to 18,000 feet

Charges: Acer Aspire One, Yaesu Radios, Sat phones “and of course iPods”

The Climb for Prostate team from British Columbia set out to raise over $100,000 for prostate research and climb one of the highest peaks in South America. Besides getting critical weather updates, having remote power for their netbook allowed them to blog and keep all their donors up to date on the trip.

Location: Arusha National Park in Tanzania, during a two-year volunteer assignment

Charges: Nokia N85 and PSP — “The backpack is great for emergency charging and just in general to charge my phone or psp when there’s power cuts (which is quite often).“

Charges: The iPhone that took this picture

Location: On the roof of the Long Island City, YMCA. Voltaic was privileged to take part in a pilot program for Cool Roofs in New York City. A crew of volunteers recruited through NYC Service painted a portion of the roof with special reflective paint designed to reflect the heat from the roof, reducing cooling costs and the heat island effect in the area. Energy bills and area temperatures (via satellite) will analyze the results.

The press release on the program is here. Thanks to the volunteer coordinator and the folks at Build it Green in Queens for a well-run event.

Location: A poster promoting a bank’s rewards program found inside the NYC subway. We found this amusing because one of our employees rides around Manhattan with a very cool Strida folding bike and of course a solar backpack, often this Converter with green panels. We are glad to be a source of inspiration for ad agencies.

solar charger in guatemala

Location: Parramos, Guatemala Northwest of Antigua

Charges: iPod, locally purchased LG phone and Kodak camera — “We spend a lot of time in the rural villages and are always on the road so the bag helps a lot.“

Location: Nimrod Fortress, see here

Charges: iPhone. Steve, graphic designer and web architect at Giant Jellyfish tells us his solar backpack “Kept my iphone going for a couple of days hiking and camping”

Location: John Boyd Thacher State Park, West of Albany, NY

Charges: iPod,  iPhone and multiple digital cameras of Doug (photographer) and Alyssa (featured) Rickert

Location: Pyramid of the Sun with the Pyramid of the Moon in the background in the city of Teotihuacán.

Charges: iPhone…“even though 2 phone calls cost me $4.”

Location: Mt. Kilimanjaro, highest peak in Africa

Charges: Sony HD Cameras

“We were a group of 26 climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain on the African continent.  Wanting to document our trip, we borrowed some Sony High Definition Video cameras.  Our trip lasted 10 days, but there was no way to charge the cameras on the mountain…At night we plugged the cameras into the pack, and were able to recharge the camera.  The video footage is incredible.  Most of our footage would have been impossible without the Voltaic backpacks.“

Location: Aboard Amtrak in Marion, Oregon

Charges: iPhone.

Boaz Frankel is taking an Un-Road Trip across the United States where he uses every conceivable mode of transportation except a car. You can see pictures of him walking, ferrying and golf carting his way on his flickrstream. The Voltaic Backpack is his only bag for the entire trip.

Fox40 in Sacramento also does a nice bit of video on the Backpack here.

Location: Acadia National Park

Charges: Emily Dodge of Style by Thread Lightly is charging her Olympus digital camera from the battery inside the Solar Backpack.

Location: Somewhere over Africa

Charges: Panasonic ToughBook

Location: SXSW Interactive Festival

Charges: MacBook Pro and a PowerBook (via an improvised adapter built before the event) of the Sycons, Solar DJs.

The Sycons power their entire setup from solar power when performing in their native Los Angeles and vicinity. More pics on our flickr page.

Location: Nepal

Charges: Panasonic DVX100 Video camera in the Himalayas for filmmaker Len Davis. Enabled Len to film even though there is only 6-8 hours of consistent power in the area.