week 4 
 9/12/16 - 9/18/16

Robert Full: The secrets of nature's grossest creatures, channeled into robots. 

This is SO ingenious! I don't like cockroaches and I generally feel very apprehensive about robots, but after watching this video I noticed this strange appreciation of both. Robert Full took the worst part of cockroaches- their INdestructibility and was not only able to redeem those qualities to somewhat tolerable levels. he actually turned them around to something we might want to have. He's like a modern day magician/alchemist!
While each of the behaviors referenced in the video were uncomfortable to watch in cockroach form, they were amazing when robots were doing them.

I liked this talk so much, that I searched for his other works.  The expectations were high and the following videos, they did not disappoint!  :)

week 3 

9/5/16 - 9/11/16

Gever Tulley : 5 dangerous things you should let your children do. 

Perhaps from being an only child, and/or working as a skills trainer for children with disabilities, I have realized that one of the best things parents can, and in my humble opinion have to, do for their children is to teach them how to be as independent as possible. Teaching independence promotes developing functional abilities which enable children to effectively affect their environment, as well as, the priceless lessons from developing common sense intuition of the ways of the world, the street smarts - that cant be articulated through classrooms. While there is absolutely no denying that education is essential in becoming a self sufficient adult, i believe restricting children to mainly formal education, and even worse, further restricting the rules to appease threats of lawsuits and pressure to standardize is providing future generations nothing more than an Incomplete education.

This talk really resonated with me. I loved that he advocated letting children access things such as pocket knives, fires, appliances, and cars at an earlier age than what is now socially acceptable. I think educational guidelines should not be so strict and restrictive- allowing children more freedom that while potentially involving more safety risks, actually enables them to develop a sense of their environment and their place within it sooner, will actually give children better, more extensive life training through primary experience as opposed secondary demonstrations in meticulously regulated classrooms.

week 2 

8/29/16 - 9/4/16

Sanjay Pradhan: How open data is changing international aid

There were so many things that I found interesting in this talk. While there's no denying the state of imbalance and disproportion throughout the world, and we always know it's had to get people to donate their money to someone else, possibly halfway across the world, that they have never met. However, I didn't anticipate having challenges with appropriating the donated wealth to those in need. As Sanjay Pradhan pointed out, in order to have effective development, we need to establish a collaboration between the governing agencies and the constinuents affected. The ideal dynamic would have an honest, transparent, accessible, and effective government that is in conjuction with and accountable to an actively participating citizenry. What I really liked about his approach is that he decided to start bridging the gap by giving the poor and disenfanchized populations ways to express themselves and their concerns.
I also appreciate that this video portrayed the globalization of data in a favorable light. It's a great idea to use the already available resources in such a proactive way. and How inspiring that there are governments that are actually beginning to pay more attention to their people and implement measures to improve current conditions!! Here we're sitting "on top of the world" as far as living conditions in the first world goes, and no other time than now has it been so blatantly obvious that our government does not want to take our voices seriously- and then to find out that in developing countries, the governments are being more accountable to their public; like Ghana for example, How awesome that they revealed oil sector contracts to the public! What do you the the odds would be of something like that happening here??
And then the effectiveness of this project- fantastic. Especially evident in the example of Tanzania - the fact that the mapping was done over wireless data and a college project makes it a feasibly reproducible task - We could have the entire world mapped out by communities and resources to the smallest details in such a short amount of time- and having accessible connection points at the remote places, so that the people can honestly evaluate the extend of the aid they received, would present a "visual graphic of the collective voices of the poor."
Lastly, but certainly not least: a few words on the speaker. His voice in particular was one of most prominent of his features- he has such as soft tone- yet the message is delivered with captivating power. Furthermore, he has such a genuinely warm, engaging, and deeply human disposition - his passion and his purpose almost radiate through him and it's pretty spectacular- not something that comes around often.

week 1 

8/22/16 - 8/28/16

Dennis Hong: Making a Car for Blind Drivers

Wow! Just...Wow!
It is absolutely amazing how through technology we are able to overcome nature's limitations and give people new freedoms that were once unimaginable!
This project is significant is so many different ways. Besides affecting people on an individual level, this has possibilities to influence major societal changes. The idea of a self operating car is not a new one. Using fully self operating computer cars has the potential to reduce human error in driving. That would be a major change- no drunk driving, no speeding, no accidents! However, as awesome as that would be, I think its equally important and interesting to consider what the implications of such safe driving would be on the infrastructure of the society- such as how many jobs would be affected ? No car accidents means no drivers:taxi/bus/etc, no need for insurance, no need for patrolling agencies...
What I also find interesting about this specific project is the aim to allow the driver to actually drive- in an active sense, where your actions and reactions are reflected in the movements of the car as opposed to self operating vehicle where everyone is essentially a passenger- absolutely incredible how he approached this goal. These non visual interfaces could be implemented in a multitude of different ways besides the driving of a car. I loved that he ended his talk with a new vision of a classroom for the blind where each student can actually see what's written on the board and/or presented by way of these non visual interfaces. How cool!!!