박영숙 세계미래보고서2020저자
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For one more year, during this Holiday Season I뭗 like to share with you my Top-Twelve?list of favorite initiatives, sites, developments, books, podcasts and other thought-provoking ideas, that inspired me and have sparked my interest over the past 12 months. Some of them may resonate with you, others may not. Regardless, I am passionate about being exposed to new concepts, and sharing them with you is my way of saying Merry Christmas -with-a-content, staying in touch and sending you my warmest thoughts and best wishes for a wonderful Holiday Season. Understanding that happiness is not a future event, send good vibes to your year ahead, and remember to stop and catch the Miracles.
The 2019 LIST (Attached you will find a downloadable PDF of this letter)
1. The Influencers
RAY DALIO
Ray Dalio is the founder of the world뭩 largest hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates and is the author of the new book Principles: Life and Work. He is also a leading figure in the world of philanthropy and an avid supporter of transcendental meditation. His recent TED Talk about meritocracy has already been viewed over four million times. He prescribes for making better decisions, fewer mistakes and creating meaningful relationships with the people in your life. I highly recommend you to follow this business genius; --you can start with this interesting piece on Paradigm Shifts.
STEVEN PINKER
Harvard Professor, cognitive psychologist, linguist and popular science educator, Steven Pinker is known for his work and advocacy for evolutionary psychology and computational theory of the mind. Pinker has had a very illustrious career and has accumulated numerous awards and distinctions. But the single aspect that thrills me the most is the research in which he uses psychological and historical data to argue that the modern era has been the most prosperous and peaceful in recorded history. He examines 15 metrics of human progress, making the case that life is far better today than it has ever been.
JORDAN PETERSON
Fascinating and controversial; intellectual and intriguing; knowledgeable and stubborn. All those words can describe Professor Jordan Peterson, as one of the most captivating thinkers on the 21st century. If you haven뭪 heard of him, do yourself a favor and -at least, watch any of his interviews, podcasts, lectures... He won뭪 leave you indifferent.
2. The Breakthrough Technologies
Quantum Computing
Google claimed quantum supremacy -and sparked. In October, researchers from Alphabet claimed to have achieved a milestone known as quantum supremacy. Their latest quantum computer, Sycamore -with 53 qubits, took only 200 seconds to perform a calculation that the researchers estimated would have taken a state-of-the-art supercomputer 10,000 years to compute. IBM, for instance, has made a fleet of 14 quantum computers accessible via the Cloud. Among the others vying for a piece of the quantum action are Intel, Microsoft and Chinese companies Alibaba and Baidu.
Customized cancer vaccines
Scientists are about to commercialize the first personalized cancer vaccine, by using the body뭩 natural defenses to destroy only targeted tumor cells. The vaccine triggers a person뭩 immune system to identify a tumor by its unique mutations, in order to effectively shut down several types of cancers. BioNTech and Genentech began a large test of the vaccine in cancer patients, effectively targeting at least ten solid cancers.
Robot dexterity
A robot basically can뭪 yet be programmed to figure out how to grasp any object just by looking at it, as a human does. But the OpenAI team got around this by adding randomness to the virtual training, giving the robot a proxy for the messiness of reality.
Gut probe in a pill
A tiny, swallowable AI device captures detailed images of the abdominal organs without the need of anesthesia, and it can even be used in infants. Dr. Guillermo Tearney, a pathologist and engineer at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, is developing these ground-breaking technology that contains miniature microscopes, result of the development and clinical validation of non-invasive, high-resolution optical imaging methods for disease diagnosis.
Carbon dioxide capture and storage
According to the experts, the world will need to remove as much as 1 trillion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere this century. In a surprise finding last summer, Harvard Professor of Applied Physics and climate scientist David Keith calculated that machines could pull this off for less than US$100 a ton, through an approach known as Direct Air Capture.
Machine Learning advances Artificial Intelligence
In 2019, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence were embedded in the business platform in order to create and enable smart business operations. Advances in Machine Learning technology and algorithm training have resulted in new and more advanced AI, autonomous vehicles and robotics. The convergence of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning in business applications is thriving, as AI and learning technologies get to work together obtaining greater accuracy at all levels.
Toilets without sewers
About 2.3 billion people lack of proper toilets, main cause of bacteria, parasites and viruses spreading into ponds and streams, making Diarrhea the main cause of child deaths worldwide. Bill and Melinda Gates fund the NEWgenerator toilet, designed at the University of South Florida, as a great alternative to solve this enormous global issue.
3. The Think Tanks
HUMAN PROGRESS
Despite the Media뭩 focus on the negative, extensive evidence -from recognized academic institutions, international scholars and multilateral organizations, shows dramatic improvements in human well-being throughout the world. To correct the widely held misperceptions about the state of Humanity, Cato Institute and John Templeton Foundation created this Non-profit Initiative that gathers reliable data to study the worldwide long-term trends, through a vast range of variables. Actually, if you뭗 like to know how much the world has changed during your lifetime, check this app out.
MILLENNIUM PROJECT
Founded by Jerome Glenn -renowned scholar, thinker and consultant, as a global participatory think tank with 50 Nodes around the world, supported by international organizations, governments, corporations, and NGOs, which has produced the internationally recognized State of the Future annual reports for the past 18 years. They also invented the Futures Wheel (a futures assessment technique), the Futuristic Curriculum Development and the Global Futures Intelligence System.
4. The Data Source
WORLD POVERTY CLOCK
The World Poverty Clock is a superb tool that presents poverty data in a standardized manner, using a consistent methodology across the globe. This innovative model was created to track progress against poverty in real time, it covers 187 countries and shows how the world is making progress -with 1.3 people per second escaping poverty.
OUR WORLD IN DATA
밨esearch and data to make progress against the world뭩 largest problems?is the motto of this excellent information source. 3.270 useful updated charts, 297 topics, all free: open access and open source. This site includes a unique Sustainable Development Goals tracker that presents data and statistics across all available indicators.
5. The Artists
REFIK ANADOL
The boundaries between the digital and physical world are becoming ever more fluid, area that Refik Anadol has been exploring for years in the field of audio-visual performance design and architectural projection. As an artist, designer and spatial thinker, he is fascinated by how data changes reality, where the transformation of the subject of contemporary culture demands a new aesthetic, technology and the dynamic perception of space.
ALFRED CHENG
Alfred Cheng is the artist behind these unique threaded portraits, which take a continuous thread over 5,000 yards long. He analyzes the gray scale image on a computer, through an algorithm that shows exactly how to bring the portrait into the real world. Mapping out how the single thread can be used to create the image, helps him translate the algorithm onto the canvas.
6. The Impact Initiatives
GARY SINISE FOUNDATION
You might know actor Gary Sinise from movies such as Forest Gump; but he has another great passion: honoring and helping U.S. military veterans and their families, by creating unique programs designed to entertain, educate, inspire, strengthen and build their communities through his outstanding foundation.
MARTHA HEFT
99-year-old Martha Heft is touching the lives of children around the world one stitch at a time. She has created thousands of beautiful dresses made of donated pillowcases, for underprivileged little girls that have been distributed to specialized non-profits.
7. The Books
These Truths: A History of the United States -Jill Lepore
A tale of political equality which necessarily becomes primarily a political history, where Harvard professor Jill Lepore is inclusive, fair and well-placed to tell the story of the United States. The book These Truths demonstrates how the nature of the Constitution adopted in 1787 meant to determine whether government could rule not by accident and force, but by reason and choice. I just love the Lincolnian spirit impregnated throughout the book that can do much to restore the American Republic core values.
THE ARTIST IN THE MACHINE, the World of AI Powered Creativity -Arthur Miller
Miller -an authority on creativity, identifies the key factors essential to the creative process, from the need for introspection, to the ability to identify key problems. The book explores the nature of consciousness and speaks to researchers that are trying to develop emotions and consciousness in computers and robots.
PREPARED -Diane Tavenner
Helping your kids understand their spark of energy, excitement or wonder -and what it means, and encouraging questions -seeking for new information and experiences, can prompt them to further explore existing interests. Guiding them to develop their curiosities could relate them back to learnings from school, community, and the world. Prepared is a useful book to make the learning process smooth and fruitful and to teach kids not just what they need to get into college, but how to live a good life.
8. The Blogs
MEDIUM
If you are looking for the best unapologetic blogging platform that publishes articles about a wide range of topics, this is the perfect spot, that touts itself as 몋he place where everyone has a story to share and the best ones are delivered right to you? It is sort of like a Twitter for long-form content, that includes an algorithmic timeline which lets you know what reads you're likely going to be interested in. You can submit your stories for the editors to review, and -if you are lucky, get published (at no cost).
GATES NOTES
In this ambitious personal blog, billionaire philanthropist and avid reader Bill Gates shares his favorite books, as well as posts about scientific discoveries, climate and energy, saving lives and about his meetings with students. While his topic preferences are wide and varied, you'll find an emphasis on development, education, poverty alleviation and disease cure and prevention.
9. The E-Magazine
AEON
Stories must now travel on their own to be judged on their individual strengths, independent of the context within which they were originally placed. If Slow Media needs a symbol, it can find one in Aeon Magazine, an online publication about culture and ideas, that publishes top writers and encourages readers to save its stories for reading later. Aeon has established itself as a first-rate example of a modern-day magazine, free from the constraints of legacy press and proudly distant from adds, or any kind of third-party publicity.
10. The Podcast
Entitled Opinions
In this fantastic downloadable series from Stanford University, professor Robert Harrison hosts discussions with other academics and experts on variety of philosophical and literary topics, bringing his immense intellect to bear on diverse current issues. These in-depth discussions are a great resource to learn, as they are a superb alternative for anyone that is looking for more from talk radio.
11. The Quote
COURAGE
밅ourage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work; a future. To be courageous is not necessarily to go anywhere or do anything except to make conscious those things we already feel deeply and then to live through the unending vulnerabilities of those consequences. To be courageous is to seat our feelings deeply in the body and in the world; to live up to and into the necessities of relationships that often already exist, with things we find we already care deeply about: with a person, a future, a possibility in society, or with an unknown that begs us on and always has begged us on.?-David Whyte
12. The Collaborative Network
Open Source Dharma
Open Source Dharma is a newly proposed open standard & network, whose aim is to encourage the flourishing of a transparent, collaborative, creative, & evolutionary ecosystem of Buddhist Dharma. This platform is a perfect place to find a good blend between traditional and modern Dharma. Here, traditional Dharma is interested in preserving ancient forms and modern Dharma aims to integrate with modern economics, psychology, science, & technology.
Feel free to share this list.
Un abrazo!
Adriana Hoyos ॐ
Senior Fellow & Strategy Consultant
Harvard University
T: 34.628 822 112
