People Making a Difference – Page 8

Biotech, Engineering, Famous Inventor, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News

The Segway’s inventor has a new project : Manufacturing human organs

June 30, 2020

Dean Kamen, who invented the Segway almost 20 years ago, is still busy inventing. Now, at the age of 69, he is working on the most ambitious project of his career: manufacturing organs

When the FDA approves lab-grown human organs for patients, Dean Kamen wants to be ready to mass-produce them

This past January, the umpteenth version of the Segway Personal Transporter whisked attendees around in its white, egg-shaped seat at CES, the huge annual consumer electronics show in Las Vegas. Called the Segway S-Pod, it drew comparisons to the hover-chairs in Wall-E that shuttled around people so out of shape and blob-like, they’d forgotten how to stand.

This is not how Dean Kamen, who invented the Segway almost 20 years ago, imagined his legacy.

Kamen was inspired to create a device like the Segway in the early ’90s, when he noticed a young man who’d lost his legs in a wheelchair at the mall. It seemed like everywhere Kamen went that night, he bumped into the guy, seeing him unable to get over a curb or reach a high shelf at Radio Shack, too low to be noticed in line at the ice cream counter. Kamen had already been thinking about how to help the disabled. “And I just decided, you know what?” he says. “I’m going to solve that problem.”

Continue reading… “The Segway’s inventor has a new project : Manufacturing human organs”

Coronavirus, Elon Musk, Healthcare, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News

Elon Musk has made 250,000 scarce N-95 masks. Sending them out tomorrow

March 23, 2020

Elon Musk has shifted his work and is making ventilators and N95 masks at a time when they are in greatest need in the fight against Covid-19.

Ventilators are needed, but the N95 masks are in short supply and desperately needed by health care workers all over the country. In fact, the lack of N95 masks is called one of the biggest bottlenecks in the fight to treat patients and prevent vital workers from becoming carriers.

So news that Elon Musk has made these, using his Tesla and SpaceX businesses, could not have come at a better time.

Continue reading… “Elon Musk has made 250,000 scarce N-95 masks. Sending them out tomorrow”

Analysis, Human Behavior, New Viewpoints, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News

What would your ‘future self’ want to do?

February 24, 2020

Prepare Yourself, It’s Unlikely To Be Comfortable

An internationally acclaimed keynote speaker & bestselling author, grab a copy of Margie Warrell’s fifth book ‘You’ve Got This! The Life-Changing Power of Trusting Yourself’ (Wiley Publishing)

I attend a lot of conferences and regularly sit on panels. One of the more popular questions I’ve seen asked, and been asked, is “What advice would you give your younger self?”

It’s not a bad question. However, it has limited utility. After all, we can’t wind the clock back and change the decisions we’ve made, the actions we’ve taken, or (often more relevant) those we’ve failed to take. It’s why I believe a more useful question is to consider what advice our “future self”—us in the final chapter of life, with all those years of accumulated wisdom—would want to whisper in our ear if it had the chance.

Continue reading… “What would your ‘future self’ want to do?”

Environment, Green Friendly, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says over 300 companies have agreed to help plant one trillion trees

January 29, 2020

Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 23, 2020

KEY POINTS

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said Thursday that over 300 companies have joined his latest initiative to plant 1 trillion trees by the end of the decade.
President Donald Trump announced U.S. government support for the initiative on Tuesday.
Environmental activist Greta Thunberg criticized the initiative in her keynote speech at the WEF on Tuesday for not doing enough to counter climate change.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, whose known for badgering tech executives to be more civic-minded, said Thursday that over 300 companies have joined his latest initiative to plant one trillion trees by the end of the decade.

“Nobody’s against trees,” he said in an interview with “Squawk on the Street” co-host Sara Eisen from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “The tree is also a bipartisan issue.”

Continue reading… “Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says over 300 companies have agreed to help plant one trillion trees”

3D Printer, Housing, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News

World’s first 3D-printed neighborhood unveiled in Mexico

December 19, 2019

The project, which was created in partnership with Icon and Échale, is located in Tabasco, southeastern Mexico

We’ve followed New Story’s efforts to create affordable 3D-printed homes for a while, including its first prototype model and ambitious plan to build a community in Latin America. That plan has now been put into action and the non-profit has revealed what it calls the world’s first 3D-printed community, which is currently under construction in rural Mexico.

The project, which was created in partnership with Icon and Échale, is located in Tabasco, southeastern Mexico. The team aims to produce 50 homes for families in the area who are living in extreme poverty, often in dangerous and rickety makeshift shelters. So far, two homes have been completed and the families chosen will receive them at a zero interest, zero profit mortgage costing around 400 Mexican Pesos (about US$20 per month), which will run for seven years.

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Law Enforcement, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News, Weapons

Rick Smith: The man who plans to make bullets obsolete

October 23, 2019

Axon Enterprise CEO Rick Smith

Rick Smith is the Chief Executive Officer of Axon Enterprise, a pioneer in less-lethal weapons and a global market leader in law enforcement technology. He notes that the gun is antiquated technology, and it is responsible for tens of thousands of senseless killings every year. Humanity has accepted that killing is an unavoidable fact of life, but Smith argues that it doesn’t need to be this way and that we have the means to make the bullet obsolete in our lifetime.

Smith founded his company, formerly known as TASER, in 1993 with the mission of “protecting life.” The company has since expanded its focus from the eponymous electroshock weapon to an ecosystem of integrated hardware and software ranging from body-worn cameras used by the majority of major US police departments to a cloud-based evidence management system.

Smith is also the author of the new book, The End of Killing: How Our Newest Technologies Can Solve Humanity’s Oldest Problem. It is a manifesto on how we will be able to protect life without taking life “through technology that redefines public safety and makes our communities stronger, safer, and more connected.”

In this interview, Rick shares his entrepreneurship journey and details how Axon is pursuing the aforementioned mission.

Continue reading… “Rick Smith: The man who plans to make bullets obsolete”

Healthcare, Human Behavior, New Viewpoints, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News, Video Games

Can video games replace the outdoors?

October 21, 2019

Maybe not in our hearts, but certainly in our brains. Plus, they can make you love the indoors far too much—which is why there’s now a full-fledged, woodsy rehab center for joystick addicts who need a soothing pathway back to a normal life.

Joining game in progress.

You materialize at a sprawling ranch near a snowcapped mountain covered with freshly powdered pines. Three horses graze nearby behind a purplish wooden fence.

To open the gate, click the lock.

A jet-black mare wearing a striped blanket approaches, its hooves sinking into the slush and white puffs blooming from her nostrils.

Click horse.

Continue reading… “Can video games replace the outdoors?”

Environment, Latest News, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News

A floating device created to clean up plastic from the ocean is finally doing its job, organizers say

October 8, 2019

The Ocean Cleanup’s System 001/B collects and holds plastic until a ship can collect it.

Could this giant floating pipe clean up 90% of ocean plastic?

(CNN)A huge trash-collecting system designed to clean up plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean is finally picking up plastic, its inventor announced Wednesday.

The Netherlands-based nonprofit the Ocean Cleanup says its latest prototype was able to capture and hold debris ranging in size from huge, abandoned fishing gear, known as “ghost nets,” to tiny microplastics as small as 1 millimeter.

“Today, I am very proud to share with you that we are now catching plastics,” Ocean Cleanup founder and CEO Boyan Slat said at a news conference in Rotterdam.

The Ocean Cleanup system is a U-shaped barrier with a net-like skirt that hangs below the surface of the water. It moves with the current and collects faster moving plastics as they float by. Fish and other animals will be able to swim beneath it.

Continue reading… “A floating device created to clean up plastic from the ocean is finally doing its job, organizers say”

Banking, Money Talk, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News

The $100 trillion opportunity: The race to provide banking to the world’s poor

September 29, 2019

Two years ago, Amylene Dingle lived with her husband and 7-year-old daughter in Payatas, an impoverished Manila neighborhood with the largest open dump site in the Philippines. Her husband worked on the security staff in a government building, earning 4,000 pesos a week, the equivalent of $80. She had always wanted to start a business, but she was unemployed, had no money saved, no credit history and couldn’t get a credit card or a bank loan.

Dingle’s fortunes took a dramatic turn after she responded to a Facebook ad for Tala, a Santa Monica-based startup that makes small loans through a smartphone app. After granting Tala access to her phone, through which the app cleverly parses mobile data to assess a borrower’s risk, she got a 30-day, $20 loan. She paid 15% interest and used the money to buy cold cuts, hamburgers and hot dogs. She marked them up 40% and sold them door-to-door, earning $4 in profit after paying back the interest and a small processing fee.

Continue reading… “The $100 trillion opportunity: The race to provide banking to the world’s poor”

Futurist, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News

The remarkable legacy of Edward Cornish, founder of the World Future Society

August 27, 2019

Edward S. Cornish, journalist and futurist association founder, dies at 91

Edward Seymour Cornish, founder and first president of the World Future Society and editor of its magazine, The Futurist, died August 14, 2019. He was 91. A longtime Maryland resident (Bethesda and Rockville), Cornish had been living at Olney Assisted Living in Olney, Md., during his battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

Cornish was born in New York City August 31, 1927, the son of George Anthony Cornish, an editor of the New York Herald Tribune, and Elizabeth Furniss (McLeod) Cornish. He attended New York schools and Harvard College, where he majored in social psychology. Following his graduation in 1950, he joined the staff of the Evening Star newspaper in Washington, D.C., as a copy boy, later becoming a dictationist and part-time reporter.

Continue reading… “The remarkable legacy of Edward Cornish, founder of the World Future Society”

Big Problems, Green Friendly, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News

Robert Downey Jr. announces footprint coalition to clean up the world with advanced tech

June 15, 2019

Robert Downey Jr. used his part of the opening keynote for Amazon’s Re:Mars conference in Las Vegas Tuesday evening to announce the launch of a new organization that is committed to using advanced technologies for the good of the environment. The Footprint Coalition, as the group is called, is scheduled to officially launch by April of 2020.

“Between robotics and nanotechnology, we could clean up the planet significantly, if not totally, in 10 years,” Downey Jr. said, relaying that he had been given these insights a few weeks back by a roundtable of experts. “God I love experts. They’re like Wikipedia with character defects,” he joked during his talk.

Continue reading… “Robert Downey Jr. announces footprint coalition to clean up the world with advanced tech”

Big Problems, People Making a Difference, Science & Technology News, Solar Energy

Inspiring woman invents refugee tents that collect rainwater and store solar energy

June 12, 2019

Since 2011, the Syrian Civil War created one of the most devastating humanitarian disasters in the world, with an estimated number of 13.5 million Syrians internally displaced or are refugees outside Syria, according to the United Nations.

Facing the difficulty of finding basic shelter and a home to live in, award-winning Jordanian-Canadian architect Abeer Seikaly was inspired to come up with a solution to help transform the lives of these refugees.

Named ‘Weaving a Home’, this design uses a unique structural fabric composed of high-strength plastic tubing molded into sine-wave curves that can expand and enclose during different weather conditions, and also be broken down to allow an ease in mobility and transport.

Continue reading… “Inspiring woman invents refugee tents that collect rainwater and store solar energy”