Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Are we going to live long enough to go to Mars?


Since I was a kid I thought about visiting other planets, but almost every time I brought it up someone told me that maybe our kids would since we might not live long enough to wait for the required scientific advancements in order to take us there. 

But now, thanks to companies like Space X, we might even go visit other planets!

In a tweet on April 27, 2016; Space X announced their plans to send a Space Capsule to mars as soon as 2018:


It will be a unmanned expedition, but it will be the first of its kind for a private company. And it seems Mars could just be a stepping stone into exploring the depths of our solar system. Elon Musk, Space X CEO, hinted at this in a tweet: "Dragon 2 is designed to be able to land anywhere in the solar system. Red Dragon Mars mission is the first test flight."

It might take a decade or more before astronauts step on to another planet. 
But we might have more time in this life than previously thought: 
Say hello to "Calico" a Google company which sole purpose is "combating aging and associated diseases" and maybe even "solve death".


So even though colonizing other planets its still years away, we might live long enough to visit or maybe for the already planned one-way trip to Mars.

What do you think? Let me know in the comment section below!







Is using apps to build Smart Cities possible?


Nowadays everything in our life can become "smart", there are smartphones, smart-fridges, smart-desks, smart-bracelets, smart-watches, and so on... 

To the point that we start hearing of even smart-cars:



But can there be a Smart City? Or is that where the "smartification" ends.

In deed it seems like the trend is going towards the Smart Cities:

For instance app developers are now using the data recorded by the users of their apps to help (for a price) City Managers in order to make "urban living more manageable, and the more information they have about how people move around in cities, the easier that proposition becomes (source)"

The first city that used this opportunity to make use of this data was Oregon (They paid Strava $20,000 USD for data on 20,000 bikers). But Strava is not the only app doing this, for instance "Ototo"an Israeli startup is trying to do what Waze did for public transportation and therefore to help governments plan they public infrastructure bette.
(Update: Seems like Ototo was bought by an undisclosed company and their service is not longer public) 


There's a lot of things that are being done to "smartify" our cities:

A mathematician in Sweden has developed a new algorithm to predict train delays, and it's already in used, to predict the effect of one or multiple delays in the entire system.


There are also free web apps available, like Streetmix, where users (housing developers, government officials, urban planners, etc) can build better streets to fit their needs.




Do you think we are going to see a surge of "app-designed" cities in the near future?
Pleas lets talk about it in the comments below/


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3d Printing, the future is here!




3D Printing is not a new term. The first incarnation of this technique was first patented in 1984,  but at the time it was commercially unviable, and "lacked business perspective".

By the mid 1990s the concept was still being explored. In 1997 Cristina H. Amon from Carnegie Mellon University published a paper about "Shape deposition manufacturing with microcasting". But it was less than a decade ago that the term"3D Printing" started to become common knowledge.

In 2009 it got traction, even Jay Leno started to use a 3D Printer to replace old car parts:



But by that time 3D printing was expensive and not widely available.
Jay Leno's setup was about $18,000 USD and it consisted of:
The NextEngine scanner $2,995 (at the time) and the Dimension uPrint Personal 3D printer $15,000 (at the time).


Fast forward a decade and in 2009 3D Printing evolved so much that you could get a custom made design of your own printed in Stainless Steel, it still was expensive but not as much as before. It was about $10 per square centimeter.

Just a few years after that 3D printing started

The possibilities are endless, you can print "impossible things" such as these mind-blowing Interwoven Gears:



You can print anything; from household items (and save money), a futurist-looking solar clock ("Digital Sundial"), or maybe a personalized tie-bar =) in matter of minutes:

Even some have printed weapons.


It became so common that in 2014 Amazon launched a 3D Printing Store "which allows customers to customize and then purchase "more than 200 unique print-on-demand products." (Via Gizmodo)


A study conducted in 2013 by Michigan Technological University showed that a 3D printer can pay for itself in less than a year (the printer cost was calculated to be around $2,000 USD). And now they are less than $1,000 USD. Thats a big incentive to give 3D Printing a try!


What do you think about 3D printing? Have you tried it? Please let me know in the comments below.



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About Me



I'm Eduardo VK a proud Mexican (Mexican not a Mexican't).


I hold a major in Industrial Engineering with a minor in Systems Engineering from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (TEC de Monterrey). 
I'm studying two masters at the same time:
A master in Applied Government Administration (TEC de Monterrey) 
A Master in Liberal Arts of Management at the Harvard Extension School

I'm the COO of a Private Hospital Chain called “Hospitales MAC," the CEO of a construction and commercialization company called “Grupo Inhabitat”, the President of a Nonprofit called “SER Soluciones Responsables” (Responsible Solutions) and the Director For Latin America at the Harvard Extension Business Society.

I'm a Traveler, an Engineer, a bit of a Workaholic, a Daydreamer and Doer. Also, I'm madly in love with life

Find mi in Instagram and on Twitter!


Thursday, March 24, 2016

Taking collaboration to a whole different level


Not too long ago it was difficult to believe that a small group of people working at home could make a product and sell it in a global scale, even harder to believe was that the same small group of people could raise the resources needed to reach this goal.

Until Kickstarter showed up in 2009 and the game changed.
Kickstarter helps people and companies start ventures and projects by crowdfunding them; projects that otherwise wouldn't have seen the light of day. Examples form this projects vary from Backpacks that raised over $300,000 to homemade 3D printers, to watches that raised over $20,000,000 to movie reboots.

Crowdfunding works by:


Consumer projects are no the only ones that have been taking advantage of the crowdfunding model.
There are websites such as GoFundMe, which allows people to raise money for a wide range of matters, ranging from life events (celebrations and graduations) to challenging circumstances (accidents and illnesses) and even global disaster relive efforts (such as Nepal aid campaigns).

And there are even sites now that promote scientific research, Experiment.com is a great example, individuals, schools and scientists can contribute money or time towards achieving scientific discoveries.

The site claims: "You can fund a dinosaur fossil excavation, a historical study of medieval monestaries, or an experiment on the International Space Station. If it helps unlock new knowledge, then we can fund it. We have the technology."

Every dollar is spent trying to push the boundaries of knowledge and give it back to the community.
This platform is still developing and it has already published twenty papers in scientific journals through funded experiments.

This makes me wonder what's next:
Could we collaborate and crowdfund a sustainable city?
Could we fund a mission to Mars?

We'll have to wait and see (or participate) to see were Crowdfunding takes us, I believe its going to be a very exiting decade for global collaboration.

[EVK]




Act now for our planet's sake


We [humans] are the colonists and rulers of the Earth, we live on borrowed resources provided by a planet that has been too generous to us for millennia, it is estimated that life began on earth three thousand two hundred million years ago1, however in just a few centuries we have been spending most of our easy accesible resources. This must stop if we want future generations to call this planet their home.

We spend resources a lot faster than they recover; We consume, without any kind of self-restraint, the planet's fertile soil, minerals, fossil fuels, ecosystems, and generally everything that the planet provides us (including ecosystem services).

A clear example is underground drinking water aquifers; we are consuming them in an unsustainably way. We consume square meters per year and the only aquifers are only recharged / recovered year a few millimeters per year. Which means that we are overexploiting the aquifers, and if pumped too fast they could collapse and never recharge again.

While neglecting the efficient exploitation of aquifers: We are urbanizing, paving and building on land that is needed to recharge them, thus rainwater can not penetrate the soil and recharge the underground reserves. This water, that could be beneficial in the future, ends up discharged into the ocean, which then is mixed with saltwater and is not longer suited for human consumption.
Access to clean water has already been the subject of conflict, creating water wars in the Middle East and if we continue in this path is very likely that it will be a cause of wars in more countries around the world.

On the other hand, the biodiversity that supports our lives and our economy are being consumed rapidly, the last time that biodiversity was lost in such a fast pace was in the mass extinction event of dinosaurs and took nearly 20 million years for biodiversity to return to previous levels.
Although one could say that biodiversity is a renewable resource, its renewal rate is very slow, and is much slower than our rate of consumption / destruction of it.

Our habit of consumption makes us need a lot of energy for our daily lives. The dependence on fossil fuels that we have is scary; As we consume existent fossil fuel reserves we need to exploit new ones that are less easy to reach and therefore every time we pollute more to extract this resources. And by polluting to extract we damage the ecosystems that could help trap emissions. Creating an unsustainable vicious cycle.

Energy consumption per person in developed countries is very high; the impact on the planet is too strong:
The average energy use per person in the United States of America is 12kW / p, while in less developed countries is close to 2kW / p. It is estimated that people in the United States of America could live a full life using only 3kW / p and the difference of 9kW / p is mostly wasted.

In the last 150 years due to population growth and increased consumption we have achieved two twentyfold our impact on the planet's systems that support our lives.
We have used more than 50% of the easy accessible aquifers1, we have destroyed more than half the tropical forest2, more than a quarter of the corals3, have deteriorated by more than 10% the fertile soil4. And not only that, but we have destroyed 40% of the planet's productivity4 (the resources the planet gives us for free). We've taken care of changing the chemical composition of the atmosphere, we have exploited and moved huge banks of materials, we have thrown oil in the oceans, all this in just 150 years.
We cannot keep damaging our planet.
_____________________
1,2,3,4(2002) Lecture of Andrés Marcelo Sada Chair "Planeta Finito", issued by Dr. Paul Ehrlich at the Tecnologico de Monterrey

Our lives are made possible by natural ecosystems on the planet that supports us. From microbes to animals, to trees, to oil deposits, and the interactions between them and the services they provide to us.

We have very great challenges to attack in the short to medium term, before the damage is so severe that humans will be on the eve of extinction.
The main challenge for the world is population control.
The population needs to be controlled, so that births should be lower than deaths. The population growth not only damages the environment through the consumption needs but also helps to spread viruses and diseases much faster.


Developed and developing countries, such as the United States and Mexico, need to change the mentality of people through education, awareness and culture to teach people to analyze and judge, to think for themselves to assess the accuracy of the information they are getting and make appropriate judgments and decisions.

Another important challenge will be to stop designing cities for car usage; we need to start planning based on people and therefore promoting less harmful transportation systems.
Also we need to start using clean ways of getting the energy that we need, the technologies are at our disposal. A clear example is Tesla Motors' PowerWall.


The damage is already happening globally, we can appreciate the increased flooding, forest fires, droughts, intense heat waves, pest outbreaks, death of corals, strength and destruction of typhoons and hurricanes and the geographical scope of diseases (influenza, dengue, chincuncuya, zika, etc.), all of the above are, possibly, manifestations of climate change.

We consume everything that is within our reach without, we multiply and look for more places to exploit. Repeating the destructive cycle over and over again.
However we are destroying the only planet (currently known) that gives us the resources we need to survive and to reach happiness.
The stable climate of the past that helped the development of humanity is changing rapidly. Very son it could be a thing of the past, so it is very likely that this change in the short term will impact our ability to feed ourselves, to develop and live life in its fullest.

We need to take action on the matter immediately; we can not give us the luxury of apathy. The time to act is now.



___________________
Sources:

International Energy Agency (IEA). "World Energy Outook 2015". Retrieved on March 22, 2016 from: http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/

Edmonds, J. (2004). Implications of a Technology Strategy to Address Climate Change For the Evolution of Global Trade and Investment. Policy and Governance Working Paper. Retrieved on March 22, 2016 from: http://coe21-policy.sfc.keio.ac.jp/ja/wp/WP25.pdf

Holdren, J. P. (2010), Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Energy-Technology Innovation and the Climate-Change Challenge. Retrieved on March 22, 2016 from: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/holdren-arpa-e-03032010.pdf

Web site of the National Commission for the Efficient Use of Energy (CONUEE). Retrieved on March 22, 2016 from: http://www.conuee.gob.mx/wb/Conuee/programas

(2015) International Energy Agency, Energy Statistics of OECD Countries. Retrieved on March 22, 2016 from: http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/KeyWorld2014.pdf

(2011) IPCC 2011 Special Report on renewable energy sources and climate change mitigation. Summary for Policymakers Report of Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Retrieved on March 24, 2016 from: http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/special-reports/srren/srren_report_es.pdf

Edmonds, J. (2014) Global Energy Technology Strategy Addressing Climate Change: Initial Findings from an International Public-Private Collaboration. Battele Memorial Institute, Wshington, D.C. Retrieved on March 24, 2016 from: http://www.globalchange.umd.edu/data/gtsp/docs/GTSP-indfind.pdf

Tenenbaum, D. (2002). "When Did Life on Earth Begin? Ask a Rock". Astrobiology Magazine. Retrieved on March 24, 2016 from: http://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/when-did-life-on-earth-begin-ask-a-rock/

Bishop, B. (2015) Energy Tesla's Elon Musk is battery system can power That homes, Businesses, and the world. USA: The Verge Retrieved on March 28, 2016 of http://www.theverge.com/2015/5/1/8525309/tesla-energy-elon-musk-battery-announcement

Tesla Power Wall Mexico. Retrieved on March 18, 2016 to:
https://www.teslamotors.com/es_MX/powerwall?redirect=no

Tesla Motors Power Wall. Retrieved on March 28, 2016 to:
https://www.teslamotors.com/powerwall

The Fight for Knowledge


After reading a very interesting Case Study on Wikipedia, I started to investigate a little more on its origins and how it has helped to shape the way users get their information. And not only that; but how it has also shifted the way people expect to use and access information nowadays.

On my last post, I wrote about how social networks and social media are used to shape modern elections, but collaborative website like Wikipedia, iFixit and Quora have (in my opinion) moved the world forward:

On Wikipedia you can get very reliable information1, and it has been exponentially growing to almost 5,000,000 articles2:



Many sites tried collaboration to spread knowledge, but failed miserably. Even one site created by Wikipedia's founders (before wikipedia) called Nupedia failed.

Also there's the story of Aaron Swartz's (If you don't know about him finish reading this blog and then fire up Netflix and watch the documentary on him called "The Internet's Own Boy" or click here").

Aaron came up with the notion of a Wikipedia before the founders even thought of it3 and even those first efforts didn't materialize. In a sense, Wikipedia is one of the few survivors of various sites that have tried to use collaboration to spread knowledge globally.

iFixit for instance4; has over 19,290 free product manuals, more than 75,300 solutions to fix problems of over 5,440 devices. This collaborative site, works under the Creative Commons license and aims to reduce electronic waste by teaching people how to repair their devices.

What's different between the site that fail and the sites that flourish?
In my opinion: Openness and instant feedback.

In sites like Wikipedia, iFixit and Quora users can add or change an article/guide/question and see it instantly published. And as soon as its online, users can modify it or add content to it. There's no waiting time nor a review process nor an approval Committee.

These sites were very successful in creating a very participative decentralized network of creators and critics that is open to all spectators from the groundswell.

Decentralizing knowledge was the goal of Aaron Swartz and by trying to fight an uphill battle it ultimately destroyed him.


We should all fight for open knowledge, since is knowledge what will empower people to make better decisions. And after all, we are here because of our decisions and the ones that our ancestors made before us.

So fight for knowledge and fight to make this world a better place for all mankind.

[EVK]


1Terdiman, D. (2005). Study: Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica. Retrieved March 22, 2016 from: http://www.cnet.com/news/study-wikipedia-as-accurate-as-britannica/
2Graph Source: HenkvD - Own work. Number of articles on en.wikipedia.org and Gompertz extrapolation. retrieved March 22, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia#/media/File:EnwikipediaGom.PNG
3Segall, L. (2014). Aaron Swartz's father: He'd be alive today if he was never arrested. Retrieved March 22, 2016 from: http://money.cnn.com/2014/06/27/technology/aaron-swartz-father/
4iFixit Leaderboard.  Retrieved March 22, 2016 from: https://www.ifixit.com/Users?order=date