By Laura Kobylecky

Rachel Crane, an Innovation and Space Reporter for CNN, is interviewing Kat Coderre, Systems Engineer/Senior Staff at Lockheed Martin, and Jana Stoudemire Commercial Innovation Officer at Space Tango. Her conversation circles largely around the ways that space travel and the ISS have inspired innovations that can apply both in space and back on earth.

The upcoming Artemis program is supposed to include another moon landing and this is the sort of situation that calls for increased radiation protection
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Kat Coderre and Astrorad

Kat Coderre is working on a project that could be very important for the future of space travel. She is working on Astrorad (1) “a vest that is designed to protect astronauts from the deep space radiation environment.” The project is an example of the kind of global collaboration that is sometimes necessary and now possible for space innovation. For Astrorad, Lockheed Martin Partnered with Stemrad, “a small Israeli business” and repurposed a product they invented to protect people from radiation on earth. With the help of “NASA, the Israeli Space Agency, and The German Aerospace Center” they are adapting it for use in space.

This project is an example of how space brings together “big players” and “a lot of smaller businesses” even those that might not normally work together. Coderre explains that “the ISS has really enabled this to happen.”

Rachel Crane, an Innovation and Space Reporter for CNN, is interviewing Kat Coderre
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This week, on the ISS, they are doing their “first set of tests” on the Astrorad. It is “an ergonomics experiment to see if the vest is comfortable.” They need to know “if the crew can actually do what they need to do” in the microgravity of space. Coderre explains that “it’s super fun” to test on the ISS and have the chance to speak with the crew. The “real-time feedback” is both crucial and exciting.

Eventually, they would like to put the Astrorad through “an actual deep-space radiation environment test.” This is crucial because once they move farther from low earth orbit, the astronauts will face even higher levels of radiation. The upcoming Artemis program is supposed to include another moon landing and this is the sort of situation that calls for increased radiation protection. In future missions to deeper space, the vests could allow the astronauts to “stay longer in space” and “fly for many more missions” by protecting the astronauts from the potential risks of cancer caused by the “high radiation dosage.”

These vests could be a crucial part of making that possible. Coderre speaks highly of working on this project with the ISS. She explains that “from the start of actually being selected as a payload all the way through opps and then post opps” you have “a really great support team. This project was a bit more complicated because it involved “human research,” but the team involved with the ISS “helped us to walk us through that process.” They will be testing to assure that the vests are safe for astronauts and won’t cause any problems on the ISS. Coderre finds it exciting to be able to “able to talk live with the crew” and also “cool to see them on the space station working with your hardware.”

Jana Stoudemire and Space Tango

Jana Stoudemire also talks about research and development in space and the work being done by Spacetango (2). They flew their first payloads in 2017 and have been part of 18 missions since then. They are focused on “leading the commercialization efforts to build new markets in low earth orbit for the space economy.” Future grown may be more possible than ever because “the infrastructure that’s being put in space” will allow them to “leverage that commercial space economy.”

There are commercial crew missions, commercial resupply missions and eventually there will be private astronaut missions. These new segments will “expand the commercial potential that we have up there.” And what’s up there is valuable. Microgravity can “change the physical and biological properties of systems.” These changes can be useful from a research perspective. Their goal is to eventually manufacture biomedical and technology related products” that can do good for the people back on the ground.

One example is LambdaVision “the first protein-based artificial retina to restore meaningful vision for patients who are blind or have lost significant sight due to advanced retinal degenerative diseases” (3). The company is an early-stage startup. According to Stoudemire they use a “a layer by layer deposition process that benefits from the uniformity you get in microgravity.”

There are other properties unique to microgravity environment and, according to Stoudemire, Space Tango intends to “to leverage those properties for manufacturing.” She explains that research in microgravity makes you think differently. The questions you ask “after you’ve worked in microgravity” are ones “that you wouldn’t have thought of beforehand.”

One thing that makes these experiments possible is automation. The astronauts are very busy and Stoudemire explains that “we really can’t thank the astronauts that are up there enough” because “they do a lot of science. The automation of some tasks “helps to offload” the burden so the astronauts can focus on the tasks they absolutely must do themselves like “spacewalks, keeping the station running and exercising to keep themselves healthy.”

Space Tango has seen great value in “automated systems” that can be initially installed by the astronauts and then commanded from the ground. According to her these automated systems don’t really “require as much of their time as some of the more manual experiments that they have to do.” By expanding automation they can expand the capacity of what can be accomplished with the help of astronauts on the ISS.

One thing that makes these experiments possible is automation
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Stoudemire speaks highly of the future of space, explaining that “it’s really an interesting time.” According to her we “have American astronauts launch from American soil on American rockets” and because of this “visibility of space is back and it’s cool.” She believes this will encourage more people to start “to get behind the space program again.” She encourages people in this time to “dream big, reach for those stars, and keep going.”

Kat Coderre and Jana Stoudemire have brought optimism about innovation in space to CES. In this time when many people are more confined than ever before, they may dream of exciting innovations and global collaborations occurring far above their heads.

Tech Trends’ Digital Consultancy services offer support for companies looking to enhance brand strategy with immersive technologies such as Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Reality

Laura Kobylecky is a contributing writer to Tech Trends. She is particularly interested in new and emerging technology and culture. Connect with her on LinkedIn 

The post Invention in Space at #CES2021 appeared first on Tech Trends.

Education is changing faster than ever, with new ideas, technologies and demands constantly emerging. As Artificial Intelligence continues to automate aspects and functions of various jobs, or even eliminate traditional roles altogether, different subjects and skills will be in demand or even become essential in the performance of future jobs.

The digital economy will create more roles that require a combination of technical, interpersonal and creative skills
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Identifying what these are, and making them accessible to students – regardless of their social and economic background or geographical location – is a monumental challenge that can only be overcome by making full use of technology.

Creative Skills for a Digital Economy

The digital economy will create more roles that require a combination of technical, interpersonal and creative skills, and building the foundation for this begins with studying a very broad range of subjects in school.

Breadth of understanding is often as important as depth of knowledge
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The argument for broadening the scope of what merits inclusion in the curriculum is simple yet compelling; nowadays most of us have access to the world’s knowledge via the supercomputers – i.e. smartphones – that we carry around in our pockets, yet these mountains of data are not valuable in isolation. It is the ability to creatively and proactively extract actionable insights from data – and to execute effectively on these – that will become invaluable in the digital economy jobs being created now, and for those which will be created in future.

“Breadth of understanding is often as important as depth of knowledge. Business leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs now need fluency in a broad range of subjects, and these go far beyond what has traditionally been taught at school and universities,” says John Ingram, CEO of Pamoja Education.

In order to thrive in the digital age, he argues that workers must equip themselves with a range of modular skills including areas such as coding and engineering, all the way through to language skills, sales, networking, marketing, design, and even social media influencing. This is effectively the only approach which makes sense in a world where project-based work will become ever more prevalent, and clearly delineated job titles are likely to be eliminated altogether. Fluid and flexible skillsets, coupled with an equally elastic approach, will be essential for the professional survival kit of professionals entering the workforce in the next few decades.

If we equip our young people with modular skills we will maximize their chances of not only weathering the inevitable disruption, but of thriving in it.
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Tackling the Opportunity Gap

Paradoxically, however, in spite of the fact that creative skills are an essential part of building the next generation’s professional profile, arts and creative subjects seem to be on the decline. A Recent Edge Foundation report found that in the last decade GCSE entries in creative subjects have fallen by 20%. This might be due to the additional budgetary and logistics pressures faced by schools in countries like the United Kingdom, where teacher numbers are dwindling. Schools faced with difficult choices often have to prioritize their resources, and the number and quality of specialist subjects on offer is often the first casualty. Yet Ingram believes that this is an area where technology can play an important role, helping to bridge the gap between limited resources on the one hand, and greater learning demands on the other:

“There’s no substitute for classroom teaching, but while schools struggle to find the staff to teach a full range of subjects, we should be exploring the technologies that can allow students to take courses they’d otherwise have to miss out on. Even when schools are well resourced and offer a good range of subjects, there are still often more niche subjects such as Film Studies they cannot cover which could otherwise allow students to follow their passions, stretch themselves, and grow as individuals.”Ingram explains.

So even though most education experts agree that face-to-face teaching cannot – and should not – be altogether replaced by tech-based alternatives, it is literally impossible to square the that circle without integrating technology into long-term strategies for delivering learning outcomes. In practice this means that while it isn’t feasible for schools to maintain the capacity on site to deliver every niche subject that students might want to study, they will now be able to do so.

It is the ability to creatively and proactively extract actionable insights from data – and to execute effectively on these – that will become invaluable in the digital economy
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Making Teaching Resources Go Further with Technology

“Having offered IB courses online to schools across the world for over a decade,we’ve found that online learning can broaden pupils’ digital and collaborative skills, encouraging them to carry out research, co-ordinate group work and discuss material in an online community,” continues Ingram.

Indeed, research has shown that these features benefit students’ wider education by encouraging them to take ownership of their learning process, helping prepare them for their university careers where they’ll need to study independently. That proactive mind-set then ideally carries through to the approach that those pupils will adopt in the workplace, collating and leveraging information towards accomplishing strategic tasks, projects and goals.

The next few years will mark an exponential disruptive shift towards automation, and that will present a threat to new and existing professionals across a wide range of industries
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At its heart, education is about opportunity, and online learning can potentially make crucial opportunities available to those who would not normally have access to them. This is why it is crucial that educators see technology not as a threat, but as a tool for enhancing their own pedagogical capacity.

The next few years will mark an exponential disruptive shift towards automation, and that will present a threat to new and existing professionals across a wide range of industries. Yet if we equip our young people with modular skills by enabling them to pursue a broad range of creative interests from early schooling onwards, we will maximize their chances of not only weathering this inevitable disruption, but of thriving in it.

At its heart, education is about opportunity, and online learning can potentially make crucial opportunities available to those who would not normally have access to them
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This article was originally published on IDG

Can creative #edtech help #teachers prepare #students for jobs in the #digital #economy? https://t.co/sASWwWjBrw @alicebonasio @IDGCN @CIOonline

— IDG Contributor Network (@IDGCN) May 3, 2019

Tech Trends’  Virtual Reality Consultancy services offers support for companies looking to enhance brand strategy with immersive technologies such as Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality

Alice Bonasio is a VR and Digital Transformation Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. You can follow @alicebonasio on Twitter, connect with her on LinkedIn or subscribe to her Inside VR/AR Newletter for all the latest curated immersive news.

The post Broadening Access to the Jobs of the Future appeared first on Tech Trends.

“This year’s predictions cover technologies and trends that would once be dismissed as science fiction but are now set to tip over into mainstream acceptance,” was the bold assertion of innovation charity NESTA as it launched its highly respected yearly report.

Yet as you read through, it’s hard not to agree with them. We’re definitely living in a brave new world, but who are likely to be the winners and losers of all this disruption? The report looks not only at the technology, but to its wider impact in society.

As their Director of Explorations (and can I just say that as far as job titles go, that is one of the coolest ones around) Celia Hannon, says, “Five years ago, you would have reacted with justifiable scepticism to suggestions that your gut microbiome could hold clues to treating health conditions, or that machines could handle your divorce and competently assess your child’s academic performance.”

As the old adage goes, the absurd does have an unnerving habit of becoming true (as I’m sure we’re all feeling in more ways than one). Yet Hannon goes even further, asserting that if a prediction doesn’t have a hint of outlandishness which means it feels foreign to us now, then it isn’t serving its purpose, which is to generate alternative visions of the future that can, in turn, change our perception of the present.

If a prediction doesn’t have a hint of outlandishness which means it feels foreign to us now, then it isn’t serving its purpose, which is to generate alternative visions of the future
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1 -RoboLawyers make legal services cheaper

Today, small businesses and individuals often steer clear of legal processes. They’re too expensive, too time consuming or too bureaucratic. As a result, money is left unclaimed, shoddy work left unpunished, and injustices left to fester. Yet low-cost, AI-driven legal services could radically open up access to the legal system for people and companies who are currently excluded.

Low-cost, AI-driven legal services could radically open up access to the legal system for people and companies who are currently excluded
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Olivier Usher and Chris Gorst predict that in 2019, the next big round of automation will be in the legal sector, with apps and web-based services replacing a visit to a local solicitor’s firm for many straightforward legal problems:

“Lawtech has the potential to change lives – not just by cutting back the cost of the law, but by broadening its reach at the same time.”

Artificial intelligences have already shown themselves to be better than lawyers at checking contracts for potential flaws, and over 60 million disputes are resolved by eBay’s automated processes every year, more than the entire legal system of England and Wales.

Artificial intelligences have already shown themselves to be better than human lawyers at checking contracts for potential flaws
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2 – A random approach to innovation

Humankind’s smartest thinkers are spending precious time on proposals that often go nowhere – time that could be better put to use doing actual research that can change lives. A 2013 study of a funding round for medical research in Australia, described by Shahar Avin, found that scientists spent the equivalent of four centuries writing applications that were eventually rejected.

Furthermore, the current way that research is funded is open to bias as female researchers receive less funding, for example. Funding innovation is also hard because breakthrough ideas often seem counterintuitive at first. Research suggests that peer reviewers who know a subject area well tend to mark down more novel proposals, while reviewers also mark down research in fields further from their own. This is bad news, especially at a time when good ideas seem to be getting harder to find.

A 2013 study of a funding round for medical research in Australia, described by Shahar Avin, found that scientists spent the equivalent of four centuries writing applications that were eventually rejected
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So in 2019, NESTA researchers Teo Firpo and Laurie Smith believe more organisations will come around to the idea of randomly-allocated research funding. In a partially-randomised system, proposals could be divided into three categories – a top category which are all funded, a bottom category which are never funded, and a middle category where funding is allocated by lottery. This might seem a surprising concept, but it’s one that’s gathering a number of prominent followers such as the New Zealand’s Health Research Council and the Volkswagen Foundation which are both already using a lottery to distribute funding.

More organisations will come around to the idea of randomly-allocated research funding
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3 – Follow your Gut

Scientists estimate that the human body is made up of over 30 trillion cells. But the bacterial cells in our gut outnumber our own by a factor of 10. These bacteria are referred to as the gut microbiome. The importance of this gut microbiome is well-recognised in the scientific community, and over recent years it has been linked to a range of diseases and conditions, from diabetes to autism and anxiety to obesity. Small changes in the microbes present (altered by antibiotics, diet, geographic region, and so on) may affect weight, likelihood of disease and even psychological factors like risk-taking behaviour.

2019 will see many of us turning towards personalised nutrition based on profiling our gut microbiome
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Sinead Mac Manus – a Senior Programme Manager for Digital Health in the Health Lab – believes 2019 will see many of us turning towards personalised nutrition based on profiling our gut microbiome. While a new focus on gut health will help us shift from generic healthy eating guidelines to personalised nutrition, most of the work is being done by start-ups and other private companies such as Viome and Atlas Biomed.

Many chronic diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson's and obesity are rooted in inflammation of the gut, which is influenced by the foods we eat
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They have been promoting at-home gut testing for a couple of years as a way of finding out more about your gut and what to eat, and this year Carbiotix became the first company to release a low cost gut microbiome test. In 2019, Project Sapiens – a team led by geneticist Tim Spector and including some of the best artificial intelligence experts in the UK – will release a test that uses machine learning to help people understand how their body responds to specific foods.

The American Gut Project was started in 2012 to provide a means to collect a large set of data surrounding the microbiome. They used a citizen science approach where participants donate their gut data in return for insights on how their gut is compared to the rest of the population. The first results of the project were published this year in the journal mSystems and they reveal new relationships between health, lifestyle and diet. Many chronic diseases such as diabetes, Parkinson’s and obesity are rooted in inflammation of the gut, which is influenced by the foods we eat.

The study revealed interesting connections between the composition of the gut’s bacteria and mental ill-health. These findings are supported by an emerging field of science that proposes that common mental health problems, particularly depression and anxiety, can be improved by caring for the intestinal microbiome. Medical researchers John F. Cryan and Ted Dinan have coined the term ‘psychobiotic’ to explain a targeted intervention for a healthy brain. Tim Spector, professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London and the author of The Diet Myth, has also written about the link between gut health, sleep and depression. So letting your gut lead the way might not be such a bad idea after all.

Today, there are 13.9 million disabled people in the UK with a combined estimated household spending power of over £200 billion a year
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4 – Supercharging the Accessibility Revolution

Industry 4.0 signals a turning point in the development of accessible technologies, and the benefits will be felt not only by disabled users, but by everyone, as this will bring what NESTA describes as ‘spillover benefits’.

“Whoever you are, there’s a good chance that your daily life is made easier by technology that was originally developed for, or first used by, disabled people – from early versions of the typewriter, to the precursor to email. From eye-gaze technology that’s making driving safer, to the curb cuts we use everyday without a second thought. Even your mobile phone, now a ubiquitous part of everyday life, evolved from technology originally targeted at disabled people. Making mass market products easier and more intuitive to use benefits everyone, and the blurring of physical, digital, and biological spheres is a natural fit,” explains Charlotte Macken, Prize Design Manager in Nesta’s Challenge Prize Centre.

Today, there are 13.9 million disabled people in the UK with a combined estimated household spending power of over £200 billion a year. Those figures will increase in the coming years with the UK’s ageing population. People aged 65 and over are the fastest-growing age group, projected to grow by 20.4% over 10 years and by nearly 60% over 25 years in England. As the number of people in Britain who were either born with or have acquired an impairment grows, the demographic shift will create an increasingly attractive market opportunity and an incentive to ensure that they can fully participate in society and the barriers to innovation will fade.

Whoever you are, there’s a good chance that your daily life is made easier by technology that was originally developed for, or first used by, disabled people

5 – Knowing What Algorithms are Thinking

“In 2019, we’ll see the citizen’s “right to know” becomes the organisation’s “duty to inform”. In the US, California passed a law requiring bots to identify themselves online, although only in limited commercial and political circumstances. On this side of the pond, France’s Digital Republic Bill requires the government to publish source code for its algorithms, while we expect the European Commission to continue its world-leading fight for stronger data protection laws and more responsible technology,” says Matt Stokes, who contributed this prediction to the NESTA report.

In future we’ll demand to be told when decisions that affect our lives are being made, or informed, by algorithms and how those algorithms have reached their decisions.

We’ll demand to be told when decisions that affect our lives are made by algorithms and how those algorithms have reached their decisions
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6 – Weaponized Deepfakes

Data Scientist Katja Bego predicts that in the next 12 months, the world will see the release of a highly authentic-looking malicious fake video, which could cause substantial damage to diplomatic relations between countries.

Deepfakes - AI-based technology that makes it possible to create fake videos of individuals nearly indistinguishable from the real thing
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Deepfakes – AI-based technology that makes it possible to create fake videos of individuals nearly indistinguishable from the real thing – are edging closer to causing a major geopolitical incident. Though still a relatively new technology, they are evolving incredibly fast, making it harder and harder for the naked eye (or even digital forensics tools) to identify them. At the same time, they are also becoming ever easier and cheaper to create.

How do we, as a society, then help to protect the truth?

Many researchers are working on solutions that can spot AI-generated manipulated video, from universities to the military. Indeed, digital tools are already under development that can, for example, rapidly detect whether a video contains altered pixels or spot biological tells such as off-pace heartbeats or blinking patterns which suggest a video’s subject is not actually human. Yet merely focusing on potential technological solutions risks ignoring the deeper running issues that allow them to arise in the first place. As always, technology reflects and magnifies problems in society, and in order to find adequate long-term solutions, we must address both the problem and its roots. For better or worse, deepfakes are a perfect exemplar of our post-truth age, Bego concludes.

Many researchers are working on solutions that can spot AI-generated manipulated video
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7 – End of Exams

Recent advances make continuous assessment by AI not only possible, but practical on a large scale – even for subjects without binary “right” or “wrong” answers. Advances in natural language processing mean that AI can analyse the content, structure and style of prose in an essay. If done right, a shift to continuous AI assessment could allow us to reorganise schools around learning, not league tables, argue NESTA researchers Toby Baker and Laurie Smith

Normally we hear about AI in the context of driverless cars or Amazon warehouses, but AI in schools is already a reality
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Instead of examiners spending hours marking one essay at the end of the year, all essays throughout the year could be marked quickly and independently by AI. Already, 60,000 schools in China (a quarter of the country’s total) are part of an ongoing government-sponsored trial in which essays have been quietly marked by an AI algorithm. Normally we hear about AI in the context of driverless cars or Amazon warehouses, but AI in schools is already a reality. Adaptive learning platforms, such as Century Tech, use algorithmic decision-making to deliver lesson content based on a student’s ability and interests. Not only is AI-enabled assessment more flexible, it can be more helpful to students too.

Although in relative infancy, tools can analyse data collected by virtual learning platforms to measure students’ abilities in skills such as problem solving, teamwork and even tolerance
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As well as how we assess, AI tools could transform what we assess. School leavers need a wide range of knowledge, skills, and attributes. Exams only measure a narrow range of those things – how are parents, colleges, universities or employers to know if students are resilient, independent thinkers? Or if they can collaborate with colleagues, debate or create? Although in relative infancy, tools can analyse data collected by virtual learning platforms to measure students’ abilities in skills such as problem solving, teamwork and even tolerance. For example, last year’s PISA test results (the OECD’s global ranking of education systems) assessed collaborative problem-solving abilities based on how well students responded to questions when working collaboratively with ‘Abby’, a chatbot.

Recent advances make continuous assessment by AI not only possible, but practical on a large scale
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8 – The age of the Superbug

Today, due to the overprescription of antibiotics in both humans and animals, antibiotic resistance is a reality. Although multiple strategies have been put in place in the UK over the last decade, the number of drug-resistant infections in our communities and hospitals continues to grow at an alarming rate.

The number of drug-resistant infections in our communities and hospitals continues to grow at an alarming rate
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Over nine million surgeries are performed in the UK each year, with one in three of these operations requiring a preventive course of antibiotics. Should these antibiotics fail to work, the risk of dying from routine surgery such as a cesarean section would skyrocket, and common injuries could become life-threatening.

“Antibiotic resistance is a global issue and to tackle it we need global solutions,” argue Caroline Purslow and Daniel Berman.

78 teams from around the world are competing in Nesta’s Longitude Prize to reduce misuse and overuse of antibiotics by creating a fast and affordable test for bacterial infections. Successful implementation of such tests would mean that infections could be treated more quickly, unnecessary use of antibiotics would be avoided and people would receive more effective treatment.

78 teams from around the world are competing in Nesta’s Longitude Prize to reduce misuse and overuse of antibiotics
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9 – The rise of the ‘City Brain’

Various technologies are now coming of age, which bring the vision of a smart city closer to fruition, and China is in the forefront of that with its ET City Brain, argue Eva Grobbink ,Geoff Mulgan ,Vincent Straub. The country has hugely ambitious plans for AI, and the City Brain project overlaps with other high profile initiatives, like the country’s social credit system, which uses big data and artificial intelligence processes to rank citizens based on their social, political and economic behaviour.

First launched in September 2016, ET City Brain is a collaboration between Chinese technology giant Alibaba and several cities. The ET City Brain system gathers large amounts of data (including logs, videos, and data stream) from sensors. These are then processed by algorithms in supercomputers and fed back into control centres around the city for administrators to act on—in some cases, automation means the system works without any human intervention at all.

The speed at which this technology, and related projects like driverless cars, are advancing in China will come as a shock to the United States
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The speed at which this technology, and related projects like driverless cars, are advancing in China will come as a shock to the United States, which has long assumed that it leads the world technologically. It will also send a clear message to other countries seeking to lead the world in AI, including the UK—which recently identified AI and data as one of four ‘Grand Challenges’ in its Industrial Strategy.

How different cities apply this kind of technology will reflect their political and social value systems. The Barcelona Digital City project, for example, runs a sensor network developed with open source technology to compile and share data on air quality and noise levels. Not only can citizens access this data, and are free to use it (for example, to report antisocial noise in their neighbourhood), but they’re also given control over how their data is used. It will still take some time for the system to become a ‘brain’ that connects all public services in the city, but the first steps are being taken while still involving citizens and respecting their data rights.

ET City Brain is a collaboration between Chinese technology giant Alibaba and several cities
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In 2017, the City of Toronto handed over responsibility for parts of its infrastructure to Google’s sister company Sidewalk Labs. The smart city area created by the company is equipped with sensors and cameras which record pollution levels, traffic flow, weather, and more—but also the behaviour of its inhabitants. For the residents of this new urban area, the promise is a more pedestrian-friendly experience of city living, where smart traffic lights minimise traffic congestion and robots take care of rubbish collection. But Sidewalk Labs has run into serious problems of public trust—the project’s privacy expert recently resigned over the use of citizens’ data, dubbing the project a “Smart City of Surveillance”, and forcing Google to rethink its approach.

Various technologies are now coming of age which bring the vision of a smart city closer to fruition
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10 – Working Week, but Not as We Know It

A recent survey found that fewer than six percent of UK workers actually work nine-to-five, with 42 percent already working ‘flexibly’. But almost every aspect of our lives, from when trains run to when sports are broadcast, is built around the “workweek” model.

In 2019 it’ll be time to recognise that a fundamental shift is taking place in the pattern of our lives and our world, says Georgia Ward Dyer, a Researcher and Curation Assistant in NESTA’s Futures and Explorations Team.

A recent survey found that fewer than six percent of UK workers actually work nine-to-five
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The trends that drive this have been accumulating over years. Globalisation means that services or markets are always ‘on’; every hour a new time zone wakes up and another falls asleep. Smartphones are our constant companions. The impacts of emerging technologies have only accelerated this disruption. Platform working is on the rise and recent scandals around the treatment of Amazon workers reflect how fast the way we work is changing, and how unprepared we are to deal with the consequences. That’s before we even get to the much-heralded robots coming to take our jobs.

Both UBI and the four-day week call into question what our lives might look like if the ratio of work to life was rebalanced
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The shift towards more flexible work and the spectre of impending automation have also amplified conversation surrounding Universal Basic Income (UBI) – an idea where citizens of a country receive a regular sum of money from the government. Influential figures such as Elon Musk and Richard Branson are advocating for UBI as an option to head off the adverse effects of increasing automation. Several countries have also recently completed trials implementing UBI at various scales.

Both UBI and the four-day week call into question what our lives might look like if the ratio of work to life was rebalanced. With more time on our hands, what might we spend it doing?

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter.

The post Report: 2019 Tech Breakthroughs appeared first on Tech Trends.

Artificial Intelligence is literally embedded everywhere these days, and as automation advances at breakneck speed, the goalposts have already shifted further than most of us realise.

This has implications for every industry, because while creative jobs are likely to prove more resilient to the threat of automation than task-based repetitive work, there is plentiful evidence that the rise of the machines will leave no stone undisrupted.

Artificial Intelligence will leave no stone undisrupted
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In this article for the Huffington Post I look at some of the ways in which AI and Machine Learning have already transformed PR, and how creatives can best leverage the power of automation.

In the Age of Post-Truth and Artificial Intelligence, what is the Future of PR? https://t.co/gfIl0NJlH0

— Alice Bonasio (@alicebonasio) January 27, 2017

For companies looking to get into VR/AR/MR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance on how these technologies can enhance and support your brand strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

The post Is Artificial Intelligence the Future of PR? appeared first on Tech Trends.

Automation has already made many jobs redundant, and as Artificial Intelligence becomes increasingly sophisticated, many more will inevitably follow. But it’s not all doom and gloom.

In this Quartz article I talk about how human creative skills will always be in demand, and how restructuring our value system – from education to the workplace – around creativity will help us prepare for the wave of technological disruption to come.

Human creative skills will always be in demand
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If we don’t want machines to take over our jobs, we’re going to have to get creative. Literally.

Cheap computing power and rapidly advancing AI mean that machines already outperform us on tasks that involve retaining, processing, and repeating rule-based information. Traditional schooling, however, still centers on a child’s ability to perform such tasks. As a result, the growing emphasis on STEM-based learning may not adequately prepare children to eventually battle robots for their jobs. As Charlotte Blease, a philosophy fellow at University College Dublin, points out, the workplace of the future will require people prepared to ask—and answer—the questions that aren’t Googleable.

We need a sense of wonder in order for creativity to flourish
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What society therefore urgently needs is an entirely new value system for both education and work; one centered around the singular thing robots can’t quite catch up with us on: creativity.

A recent report by Nesta, a UK-based innovation and research foundation, found that creative jobs will be much more resistant to automation, and 21% of US employment requires people to be highly creative. But this doesn’t mean we will need more musicians, graphic designers, actors, and other traditionally creative professions in the future. Rather, we should be taking the aspects that make these professions so unique and teaching them to employers in traditionally non-creative industries. We need to enable creative thinking in all aspects of business management.

The workplace of the future will require people prepared to ask—and answer—the questions that aren’t Googleable
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“How are you going to deal with your job not being relevant any more? You’ve got to tap into the creative spirit to repurpose your skillset,” says Ryan Peterson, a Vancouver-based technology entrepreneur. When it comes to imagining new realities, Peterson is something of an expert. His company Finger Food Studios invents and sells state-of-the art Mixed Reality (MR) technology to Fortune 500 companies, so he views the disruption that automation brings as an opportunity rather than a threat.

“We have the chance to basically re-architect the human experience and move all this [creative] talent into higher performing jobs, but that will take incredible imagination,” Peterson says. “You’re going to have to infuse some of that creative firepower to be able to deal with these [automation] changes in your business.”

Fostering those creative-thinking principles will prove essential if we’re to outsmart the oncoming automation wave. Here are three key ingredients for future-proofing your workplace:

Curiosity

We need a sense of wonder in order for creativity to flourish. Curiosity is a cornerstone of creative thinking, and we need to actively harness it in order to tackle the challenges of this brave new world.

“Having a culture of curiosity—where you feel empowered to really have an imagination and feel curious and explore—is our strength as a company. We excel at curiosity, and in the execution of it,” Peterson says.

Richard Hytner, an adjunct professor of Marketing at London Business School, agrees, saying that any leader looking to ensure the future of their enterprise should encourage their teams’ “contagious curiosity” by inviting them to bring their child-like self to work every day. Creativity, he says, works much like a bulletproof vest for businesses, allowing them to adapt to fast-changing environments that might destroy those that are slow to evolve.

When curiosity and diversity converge, they create an environment where ingenuity can flourish, and there are places where this out-of-the-box thinking has become a prevalent cultural trait
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Conflict

Building a creative workplace also requires a healthy amount of friction. In the 1950s, psychologist J.P. Guilford first put forward the theory that creativity was dependent on what he called “divergent thinking.”

Finger Food’s creative director, Chris Waind, uses this theory in the workplace. The key is fostering a very safe work environment in which people can freely disagree with each other.

One example of how to do this is by seating people next to each other who see the world differently, such as developers sitting next to designers. The idea is being confronted by different opinions creates that slightly uncomfortable sweet spot where innovation actually happens. “Too many people agreeing with each other makes for a wonderful poetic workplace, but great things are often born of people disagreeing, different perspectives,” Waind says.

Ingenuity

When curiosity and diversity converge, they create an environment where ingenuity can flourish, and there are places where this out-of-the-box thinking has become a prevalent cultural trait.

When living in New Zealand, for example, Waind encountered a term called the “#8 gauge wire” mentality, which is Kiwi slang for “we used our ingenuity to fix it.” It stems from the MacGyver-style creative thinking adopted by resourceful rural farmers who live and work on small islands. Typically, #8 gauge wire is used for sheep fencing—a common sight in New Zealand—but farmers are often forced to solve a wide range of different problems using this plentiful material, and little else.

Peterson believes that to survive the future of work, companies need to actively invest in their own demise. This is something that industry experts like Luke Williams have long advocated; Companies content to focus on incremental changes will almost inevitably become casualties of technological disruption. Even traditional institutions such as banks recognize the advantage of “thinking like the enemy.” This is why the industry has begun actively recruiting hackers to help them build more robust systems. “If you’re a global Fortune 500 company and you do not have a team that you are paying to disrupt your business, than someone else will,” Peterson says.

What is urgently needed in order to enable that climate of proactive—and ultimately positive—disruption is for us to start focusing on what sets man apart from machine: creativity.

Don’t want a robot to steal your job? Be creative https://t.co/3rW3WijaEw

— Quartz (@qz) January 13, 2017

For companies looking to get into VR/AR/MR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance on how these technologies can enhance and support your brand strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio and @techtrends_tech on Twitter.

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