“All of the structures that we use to run the world today — our civics, our politics, our legal systems, healthcare, education — are all structured for a world 100 or 200 years ago, not for the world of today. So we think we’re in for a lot of disruption,” says Salim Ismail, founding director of Singularity University.

ReasonTV’s Tracy Oppenheimer caught up with Salim at the 2013 Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, CA to discuss crowd funding, the next steps in technological expansion, and how we’ve entered the age of an information-based environment. “It’s happening across industries. The first few were newspapers, music, and electronic publishing. Those were the first three domains to be fully information-enabled. Now were moving to cars being information-enabled,” says Salim, “we’re turning everything in to a computational basis.”

Singularity University’s academic programs strive to “educate, inspire and empower leaders to apply exponential technologies to address humanity’s grand challenges.” For more on Singularity University, watch ReasonTV’s profile here. Produced by Tracy Oppenheimer, camera by Alex Manning.

Singularity University was founded by Chancellor Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis, chairman, in 2009.

FutureMed at Singularity University is a one-of-a-kind program that focuses on disruptive, game-changing exponential technologies that will revolutionize the practice of medicine and radically transform healthcare and the biomedical industry in the decade ahead.

The next FutureMed is scheduled for February 4-9th, 2013. It is widely acclaimed as the premiere interactive program for physicians, healthcare executives, innovators and investors who want to dive into the future of medicine. This is an intimate, hands-on and highly interactive program, limited to less than 100 participants, mixing it up with over 60 world class faculty. FutureMed is described by past attendees as “a mind-opening voyage into the future, with the people who are creating it; absolutely incredible; and intellectually invigorating with practical business benefits; mind expanding, and tremendously inspiring.”

If you know individuals who may be interested in attending, please have them apply here ASAP.

About FutureMed:
FutureMed at Singularity University prepares physicians, health care executives, entrepreneurs, innovators and investors to recognize and leverage disruptive influences of exponentially growing technologies in the fields of medicine and healthcare. Core tracks include Information and Data-Driven Health, Internet-Enabled Healthcare, Genomics and Personalized Medicine, Regenerative Medicine, Robotics and Future Interventional Approaches, NeuroMedicine, Device and Drug Development, and Biomedical Entrepreneurship. FutureMed Corporate partners include Genentech, GE, and Biogen-Idec.

Spread the word by tweeting @FutureMedTech “Challenging health barriers Informing u of latest research & Inspiring change” Feb 4-9, 2013 #futuremed http://bit.ly/FMapply

Singularity University (SU), a Silicon Valley organization located at NASA Research Park  in California seeks next-generation rock-stars to join this summer’s Graduate Studies Program 2012 (GSP12).

Every summer, SU selects 80 top students from around the world to join the GSP class.

Our students comprise a diverse set of forward-thinking minds with entrepreneurial experience and a passion for solving the biggest challenges.

Apply today! Deadline to apply is March 31, 2012. GSP12 will be held from June 16 – August 26, 2012 in Mountain View, California.

If you are a female pioneer, if you are a game-changer, if you want to improve the lives of a billion people — apply to GSP12. The biggest problems of our time require diverse and global solutions. The voice of women, of female change-agents, is critical to achieve the global equitable impact desired.

This summer’s GSP12 class will receive nearly 500 hours of core lectures in topics including Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Nanotechnology, Biotech, Networks and Computing, Policy and Law, to name a few. In addition, students will attend workshops, site visits and receive cross-disciplinary understanding of the biggest ideas and issues in transformative technologies, their potential implications and opportunities over the next decade.

Moreover the GSP12 class will be challenged with “109+ Team Projects” — the highlight of the 10-week program with the goal of developing solutions with the potential to positively impact one billion people, in ten years. The SU atmosphere of innovation, ideation and intellectual exploration created by a diverse and talented student and faculty body is key to team project success.

The GSP12 Team Project areas include: Education, Global Health, Poverty, Energy, Global Security, Food, Water and Environment.

Singularity University’s students are selected based on three criteria: (1) they are top students; (2) they are demonstrated entrepreneurs and leaders; (3) they are committed to addressing the world’s grand challenges. In 2011, students from 35 nations were selected.

Apply for your spot at Singularity University!

Editor’s note: Got a question for our guest blogger? Leave a message in the comments below.

About the guest blogger: Susan Fonseca is a Founding Member of Singularity University (SU) and the Founder of Women@TheFrontier, an explosive forum highlighting female change-agents that are leveraging exponential technologies and innovative platforms to address global grand challenges.

She organized SU’s 2008 Founding Conference, helped source 1.5M seed funding, and negotiated a 5-year partnership with NASA. Susan is titled “Founding Architect” for her role in building the initial DNA that is SU.

As well as the X Prizes, Mr. Diamandis is cofounder and chairman of Singularity University, where the futurist Ray Kurzweil’s ideas of exponentially accelerating technology are explored. Despite being unusually optimistic myself about what lies ahead for humanity, I’m not yet convinced that we are about to see almost infinite rates of technological improvement — Mr. Kurzweil’s singularity — resulting, for example, in the indefinite extension of life. [...]

Defying the doomsayers: Abundance argues that growing technologies have the potential not only to spread information but to solve some of humanity’s most vexing problems.

If every image made and every word written from the earliest stirring of civilization to the year 2003 were converted to digital information, the total would come to five exabytes. An exabyte is one quintillion bytes, or one billion gigabytes — or just think of it as the number one followed by 18 zeros. That’s a lot of digital data, but it’s nothing compared with what happened from 2003 through 2010: We created five exabytes of digital information every two days.

Get ready for what’s coming: By next year, we’ll be producing five exabytes every 10 minutes. How much information is that? The total for 2010 of 912 exabytes is the equivalent of 18 times the amount of information contained in all the books ever written. The world is not just changing, and the change is not just accelerating; the rate of the acceleration of change is itself accelerating. [...]

New book by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler debuts in top 100 on Amazon (credit: Amazon.com, Inc.)

A special message from author Peter Diamandis:

Dear readers,

On February 20, 2012, Abundance debuted #1 on both Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Thank you for your support! Check out the book here. Below are some reviews that Abundance has received so far.

• “A brilliant, must-read book. A powerful antidote to today’s malaise and pessimism.” — Ray Kurzweil
• “Abundance provides proof that the proper combination of technology, people and capital can meet any grand challenge.” — Sir Richard Branson
• “This is a vital book. Diamandis and Kotler give us a blinding glimpse of the innovations that are coming our way” — Matt Ridley
• “Abundance redirects the conversation — it’s a reminder of the infinite possibilities for doing good.” — Arianna Huffington
• “This is an audacious and powerful read!” — Jeff Skoll
• “Diamandis and Kotler do a masterful job. Abundance is essential reading for anyone looking for a better tomorrow.” — Elon Musk

Thank you again!
— Peter Diamandis

Barnes & Noble | Providing abundance is humanity’s grandest challenge; this is a book about how we rise to meet it.

We will soon be able to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman and child on the planet. Abundance for all is within our grasp.

This bold, contrarian view, backed up by exhaustive research, introduces our near-term future, where exponentially growing technologies and three other powerful forces are conspiring to better the lives of billions. An antidote to pessimism by tech entrepreneur turned philanthropist, Peter H. Diamandis and award-winning science writer Steven Kotler.

Since the dawn of humanity, a privileged few have lived in stark contrast to the hardscrabble majority. Conventional wisdom says this gap cannot be closed. But it is closing — fast. The authors document how four forces — exponential technologies, the DIY innovator, the Technophilanthropist, and the Rising Billion — are conspiring to solve our biggest problems.

Abundance establishes hard targets for change and lays out a strategic roadmap for governments, industry and entrepreneurs, giving us plenty of reason for optimism.

Examining human need by category — water, food, energy, healthcare, education, freedom — Diamandis and Kotler introduce dozens of innovators making great strides in each area: Larry Page, Steven Hawking, Dean Kamen, Daniel Kahneman, Elon Musk, Bill Joy, Stewart Brand, Jeff Skoll, Ray Kurzweil, Ratan Tata, Craig Venter, among many, many others.

Related:
Special message from Peter Diamandis & Ray Kurzweil | New book Abundance, and special offers to readers

“This brilliant must-read book provides the key to the coming era of abundance, replacing eons of scarcity,” says Ray Kurzweil, inventor and author of The Singularity is Near.

Matt Ridley, author of the Rational Optimist, agrees: “This vital book … gives us a blinding glimpse of the innovations that are coming our way. …” Stewart Brand, editor of the Whole Earth Catalog, describes the book as “comprehensively sampl[ing] … the profound innovations going on to improve the human condition.”

The authors make a compelling case for optimism. We are introduced to dozens of innovators and industry captains making tremendous strides in healthcare, agriculture, energy, and other fields: Dean Kamen’s “Slingshot,” a technology that can transform polluted water, salt water, or even raw sewage into incredibly high-quality drinking water for less than one cent a liter; the Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize, which promises a low-cost, handheld medical device that allows anyone to diagnose themself better than a board-certified doctor; and Dickson Despommier’s “vertical farms,” which replace traditional agriculture with a system that uses 80 percent less land, 90 percent less water, and 100 percent fewer pesticides, with zero transportation costs.

As a bonus, the authors provide a detailed reference section filled with 90 graphs, charts, and graphics offering much of the source data underpinning their conclusions.

Special offers to KurzweilAI readers

According to Diamandis, KurzweilAI readers who place an advance order by February 13 (at http://www.abundancethebook.com) will receive four gifts worth more than $1200: access to Singularity University’s private graduate training video library (covering AI, robotics, computing systems, neuroscience, synthetic biology, nanotechnology, energy, and innovation); a $1200 gift certificate toward attendance at SU’s 7-day Executive Program at the NASA Ames Campus in 2012; free online access to view Transcendent Man, a documentary film chronicling the life and controversial ideas of Ray Kurzweil; and an invitation to a meeting with the book’s authors via webcast.

In addition, Diamandis calls on the Kurzweil community to help ignite a new conversation around the world, and in the process enter to win a $5,000 gift (either a ticket to a zero-gravity flight, http://www.gozerog.com, or a seat at the 4-day SU Executive Program, http://www.singularityu.org).

Visit http://www.abundancethebook.com/tell-a-friend for more information.

Also see:
book | Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think
Abundance Hub YouTube channel

Instead of owning, maintaining, and operating its own fleet of cars (which is how Zipcar works), Getaround owns no vehicles, which may help it avoid problems like those that plague Zipcar. [...]

Good | What does tomorrow look like? To assemble our second-ever GOOD 100 list (check out the first here), we surveyed culture and politics to pick out trends and seemingly minor moments that tell us where we’re all headed, together.

The big picture is pretty exciting. We’re taking action, not just sitting around. We’re going small-scale to make a big impact. We’re returning to things that worked a long time ago but haven’t worked for quite a while — the street protest, printed matter, local manufacturing — and adapting them. We’re finally taking our kindergarten teacher’s advice and learning how to share. And even though we’re kind of over the idea of material possessions, we’re more excited than ever to learn how to make stuff. We’re doing all of this simultaneously, because the world is too complex and broken and beautiful and exciting to tackle one thing at a time.

Here are 100 glimpses of the immediate future, in a unique interactive experience thanks to our partner Fiat. What’s the new Apple? The new unpaid internship? The new Adderall? The new black? We’ve got your answers.

Out of that one platform sprung a company, Senstore, which is bent on building a platform versatile enough to support hardware as diverse as apps for an operating system. I got a chance to speak with Senstore co-founders Antony Evans and Rachel Kalmar about their vision, what challenges they face in achieving it, and how their technology will impact healthcare of the future.

After building the platform at SU, Evans and Kalmar took it to Startup Weekend, an intense 54-hour workshop to develop marketable technologies, and tasked engineers with turning their hardware into a body sensor. What resulted was a device called Live Home Free that an elderly person who lives alone could wear. If they’ve fallen and they can’t get up, the device detects the abrupt change in movement/posture, and signals to their families or primary care givers that something is wrong. The team built the device in the allotted 54 hours and received top prize for the Health vertical.

But rather than simply build a better LifeCall, Live Home Free was a kind of proof-of-principle that the team hopes will lead to a hardware platform on which others can build sensors to monitor the body. Senstore was founded with the explicit goal of putting “a health sensor device on every body.” Live Home Free will be the company’s first commercially available product, but their sights are set on a device that does more than detect falls. What they want to build is a medical tricorder that monitors the entire body.

We’ve covered Scanadu’s tricorder, against which Senstore’s will go head-to-head in theQualcomm Tricorder X PRIZE. But, if Senstore’s vision is realized their tricorder promises to be much more powerful. Scanadu’s tricorder will be non-invasive, non-sampling, non-contact, and non-cooperative, meaning solutions will be reached with minimal effort for the patient. In contrast, Senstore hopes to build a tricorder that gets its hands dirty. Incorporating a lab-on-a-chip feature like the one tested in Rwanda to detect HIV and syphilis would require taking blood samples, and would obviously require patient cooperation. They would also like to measure cardiac function to detect signs of a heart attack before it strikes. Right now this requires an echocardiogram, not a feasible option for large-scale screening of the population. A DIY tricorder would be cheaper and vastly more convenient so patients could potentially check their heart every single day from home. The tricorder could also provide a more sensitive tool for detecting signs of stroke. So-called ‘silent strokes’, which occur without any outward symptoms and thus go unnoticed by the people who suffer them, affect one in four people age 65 and older. [...]

I’m very pleased to announce the launch of the $10M Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize. I had a chance to announce live on stage this morning at CES, during the opening keynote. Details below. I hope we’ll have a number of SU teams and Kurzweil readers enter to compete!

— Peter

The X Prize Foundation and Qualcomm Foundation today announced the launch of the $10 million Qualcomm Tricorder X PRIZE, a global competition to revolutionize healthcare.

In this competition, teams will leverage technology innovation in areas such as artificial intelligence and wireless sensing –– much like the medical Tricorder of Star Trek® fame — to make medical diagnoses independent of a physician or healthcare provider.

The goal of the competition is to drive development of devices that will give consumers access to their state of health in the palm of their hand.

The $10 million prize purses will be awarded to the team that develops a mobile platform that most accurately diagnoses a set of 15 diseases across 30 consumers in three days. Teams must also deliver this information in a way that provides a compelling consumer experience while capturing real time, critical health metrics such as blood pressure, respiratory rate and temperature.

The winning solutions will enable consumers in any location to quickly and effectively assess health conditions, determine if they need professional help and answer the question, “What do I do next?” when it comes to their health.

X Prize Foundation CEO, Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, joined the Chair of the Qualcomm Foundation and CEO of Qualcomm, Dr. Paul Jacobs, during the keynote presentation today at CES in Las Vegas to announce this exciting advancement.

The desire to provide consumers real-time data regarding their own health is of personal interest to both Drs. Diamandis and Jacobs. “There is a dire need to improve access to healthcare globally and provide consumers with an opportunity to be active participants in their own health,” said Dr. Diamandis. “The Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize will incent the creation of technologies that can empower the consumer with the ability to decide when, where and how to seek health information and care.”

Click here to learn more about this exciting new competition.  Also, “Like” us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to continue to receive the updates in this exciting competition and the resulting technical advancements in our efforts to revolutionize humanity.

TRICORDER is a trademark of CBS Studios, Inc. Used under license.

__________________

Peter H. Diamandis, M.D.
Chairman/CEO, X Prize Foundation
www.xprize.org

Related:
Qualcomm Tricorder X Prize
Forbes | “X Prize and Qualcomm announce $10 million Tricorder Prize”
Discover | “X Prize Foundation wants to make tricorders a reality”

The famously far-thinking inventor and author — critics would say too-far thinking — is addressing 37 executives from around the world who have assembled at the NASA Ames campus in Mountain View, California. Teleconferencing from Boston on October 2, 2011, Kurzweil appears onscreen like Oz the Great and Powerful in high def. His urgent message: Technology progresses at an exponential rate. Humans, having evolved to hunt game and avoid predators, are designed to think linearly. [...]

I’d like to request your support for an endeavor that will benefit the lives of over one billion people within 10 years. 

As you may know, I’m the co-founder and chancellor of Singularity University (SU), now in its third successful year. Each year, SU assembles an international class of the brightest graduate students — top achievers from diverse disciplines and backgrounds — to participate in our unique Singularity studies program.

Over the course of our curriculum, students learn about the game-changing technological and scientific breakthroughs that are shaping society, and that will dramatically alter humanity’s future. Armed with new tools for tracking, analyzing, engaging, and innovating in this space, our graduates emerge from the program as future leaders. Their applied knowledge will impact world affairs and economies, research and development, foundational sciences, entrepreneurism, the media and culture — broadly steering the coming era of ever-accelerating growth. SU challenges students to exploit innovation to solve humanity’s grand challenges.

The students and faculty of the inaugural Singularity University summer graduate studies program in 2009. (credit: Dave Lauridsen)

Our students exhibit incredible dedication. Traveling from over 30 countries, they come together at our Silicon Valley campus for one purpose — to leverage exponentially advancing technologies to improve the lives of over 1 billion people worldwide. 

Recruited from among 2,000 applicants for their academic achievements, leadership skills, and spirited humanitarianism — 80 selected students will soon convene for our 10-week summer program to innovate solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges: poverty, energy, security, education, space, and global health. 

SU is a non-profit institution backed by NASA, Google, Cisco, Nokia, Autodesk, Kauffman Foundation and ePlanet Ventures. 

These organizations cover the baseline operating costs. But we need your help to raise scholarships for these top students to attend our Graduate Studies Program. Please consider donating to help us assemble this amazing group from around the world. For those who contribute $100 or more, you’ll be given a chance to win a free Executive Program ($7,500 value) at the SU campus in Silicon Valley.

Please visit the following website for more information: Singularity University Scholarhsips on Crowdrise

Help us get this next generation of leaders to SU, so that they can launch the breakthrough businesses, innovations, and interdisciplinary understanding that will address the world’s grand challenges.

With my sincerest thanks,
Ray Kurzweil

Education Many of the world’s critical problems have a common root in ignorance, and educational technologies provide an unprecedented opportunity to reach billions of people, and build a future characterized by informed dialog, foresight, and systems that work. How can technology be used to provide personalized education to the world’s developing areas?

Security In a world plagued by wars, terrorism, and crime, nations seek many different kinds of security for their citizens, as well as freedom from fear and corruption. How can exponential technology be used to address and improve global security issues?

Energy Our civilization fundamentally depends on energy, and we need to make a rapid transition from low-efficiency systems and high dependence on fossil fuels, to high efficiency systems and cost-effective renewable fuels. How can exponential technologies be used to provide humanity with low-cost and abundant energy to meet their needs for prosperity?

Global Health There are large and growing discontinuities between current knowledge of public health and medicine and its effective application around the world – millions suffer and die from preventable diseases, and the entire world remains at risk of pandemics. How can technology be used to provide billions with low-cost, ubiquitous healthcare, and help to identify and prevent pandemics?

Poverty Living standards have increased significantly in the past two centuries, but more than 20% of the world today lives in extreme poverty —  unable to access resources that address their problems. How can exponential technologies be leveraged to create new jobs and wealth to alleviate poverty?

Space The grand challenge of space includes abundant energy and material resources, a planetary-scale network of sensors and systems measuring global conditions, and a vast, open frontier for exploration – but humans haven’t yet built industrial-strength solutions to realize these opportunities rapidly and cost effectively. How can the vast and abundant energy and material resources of space be used to address many of humanity’s grand challenges?

These areas were chosen because they are among the most pressing global grand challenges. And, based on the caliber of applications we’ve reviewed and students already selected, the class of GSP11 will be some of the most ready to develop the future-focused and innovative solutions required to effectively address each area. As always, we look forward to working with GSP11 to addressing these areas, and to help shape a more positive future!

The nearly 200 executive, graduate students, and FIAP faculty gathered Monday-Friday from 7-11pm, and then again all day Saturday — illustrating why SU is sometimes called “Sleepless University.” Dan Barry, Andrew Hessel, Salim Ismail, and Neil Jacobstein led the students through discussions on AI/robotics, biotech, nanotech, medicine, networks/computing systems, and energy. Participants were treated to special video presentations from co-founders Ray Kurzweil and Peter Diamandis developed exclusively for the Brazilian program. The hands-on Marshmallow Challenge once again proved the collaboration and innovation power of dried spaghetti, tape, string and marshmallows — and why “fail fast and fail often” can lead to success.

On the final day, the students were asked how they would use technology to positively impact at least 100 million people in Brazil. Water purification, education, and biotech were among the most discussed technologies. The students also discussed the need to transform their economy from a manufacturing and agricultural-driven economy, to one that is more information technology-driven. By the end of the program, many had formed groups and began developing project ideas focused on addressing regional and national challenges — a sign of success.

Why Brazil for the first international program? As the largest country in South America, Brazil is quickly developing into a hub of innovation — particularly in agri-industry and energy. A few key facts about Brazil and why it’s a nation to watch:

1. Brazil ranks fifth overall in Internet and mobile phone usage – behind China, US and India. It was recently reported that Brazil’s active phone lines now outnumber its more than 200 million residents.
2. Brazil is the world’s first sustainable biofuel economy, and is the world’s second largest producer of ethanol fuel. Considered the world leader in biofuel technology, many countries look to Brazil as a model for setting public energy policy.
3. Brazil is one of the world’s fastest growing economies, leading all South American countries, and ranked eighth globally just behind Italy and the UK.

Many thanks again to FIAP for hosting the program. Visit our Facebook page for more photos from the event!

Nokia has joined Singularity Univeristy as a Corporate Founder. The collaboration will leverage Nokia’s commitment to global communications innovation and sustainability by supporting Singularity University’s programs, and Ten to the Ninth Plus (10^9+) Team Projects focused on solving key global issues. Nokia joins Google, Autodesk, ePlanet Ventures, and the Kauffman Foundation as Corporate Founders of Singularity University.

Nokia is the world’s largest mobile phone maker, and is globally recognized for its thought-leadership and mobile technology innovation. In addition, Nokia has also consistently demonstrated its global leadership in sustainability and environmental issues. In 2010 alone, Nokia was named the “most sustainable technology company” by Dow Jones Indexes, the leading “greener electronics” company by Greenpeace, and announced as among the “top five most sustainable” companies in the world at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“Nokia has a long history of open innovation – working with local universities and research organizations to further innovation and solving global communication issues for mobile consumers. We look forward to working closely with Singularity University and its students,” said John Shen, laboratory director, Nokia Research Center, Palo Alto.

The collaboration with Nokia supports the development of SU programs, led by world-renowned faculty, to help students understand and leverage the impact of exponential technologies. The annual Graduate Studies Program is a 10-week graduate-level interdisciplinary curriculum designed to facilitate understanding, collaboration and innovation across a broad range of carefully chosen scientific and technological disciplines whose developments are accelerating exponentially. The keystone of the program, the Ten to the Ninth Plus (10^9+) Team Projects, challenge students to develop services, products, and organizations that have the ability to positively affect the lives of one billion people within 10 years.

SU also offers both four-day and seven-day Exponential Technologies Executive Programs for executives, investors and entrepreneurs on a quarterly basis. These programs focus on preparing executives for the disruptive business opportunities and challenges resulting from exponential technologies. The next program is scheduled for December 9-12, 2010, and a limited number of seats are still available.

“Nokia is a visionary telecommunications company, and a leading force in enabling global citizens to connect and communicate in ways never before possible,” said Neil Jacobstein, President of Singularity University. “Nokia is an ideal collaborator with a global perspective, entrepreneurial spirit, and an interdisciplinary approach to innovation. We are honored that Nokia has joined us as Corporate Founder, and we look forward to leveraging their vision and technological innovation for our programs and team projects.”

Founded by entrepreneur and philanthropist Peter Thiel, the Thiel Foundation promotes personal, economic, and political freedom. Among other projects, the Foundation sponsors innovative scientific research and new technology development that empowers people to improve their lives. Its new 20 Under 20 Thiel Fellowship will foster the next generation of tech visionaries by awarding $100,000 grants to each of twenty innovators under twenty years old.

“Economic growth depends on innovation, and the education establishment doesn’t support innovation very well,” said Thiel. “People need to explore other ways of learning, from starting new companies while young to taking courses that stress entrepreneurship and breakthrough technologies. Singularity University is a good example of both. Policymakers should respect innovation, mostly by staying out of its way.”

The Thiel Foundation grant will support the continued development of the Policy, Law, and Ethics curriculum, led by world-renowned faculty during the Graduate Studies Program, to help students understand the implications of exponential technologies. The annual Graduate Studies Program is a 10-week graduate-level interdisciplinary curriculum, designed to facilitate understanding, collaboration, and innovation across a broad range of carefully chosen scientific and technological disciplines whose developments are accelerating exponentially. The keystone of the program, the Ten to the Ninth Plus (10^9+) Team Projects, challenge students to develop services, products, and both nonprofit and for-profit organizations that have the ability to positively affect the lives of one billion people within 10 years.

SU also offers both four-day and seven-day Exponential Technologies Executive Programs for executives, investors, and entrepreneurs on a quarterly basis. These programs focus on preparing executives for the disruptive business opportunities and challenges resulting from exponential technologies. The next program is scheduled for December 9-12, 2010.

“The exponential acceleration of science and technology makes it more important than ever for citizens, policy-makers, and business leaders to understand and approach the potential opportunities and risks of new technologies in a thoughtful and nuanced way,” said Neil Jacobstein, President of Singularity University. “We look forward to working closely with Peter Thiel and the Thiel Foundation to expand our Policy, Law, and Ethics curriculum, and further our shared vision of interdisciplinary education and entrepreneurship.”

Led by SU Founding Architect Susan Fonseca-Klein and moderated by SU Trustee Sonia Arrison Senkut, Women @ the Frontier featured an amazing group of women from biotech, humanitarian outreach, innovation, space, and venture capital discussing their journey in leveraging exponential trends, leadership and the power of entrepreneurship to design solutions that could positively impact one billion people.

In addition to the panel of leading women, the event showcased top organizations significantly transforming the lives of women and girls, including: Anita Borg, Pachamama Alliance, Women2.0, Girls in Tech, NAWBO, Spark, Samasource, ThinkIndia, Green Energy Tech, NCWIT, Soul of Money, and many others.

Why a women’s forum? W@F creator Fonseca-Klein explained, “The solutions needed to address today’s grand challenges require true diversity of ideas, experiences, culture and disciplines. In order to achieve this goal, we must raise the voice of women from a whisper to a conversation, highlighting successful female pioneers and including the wisdom of mothers, daughters, sisters, and wives.”

Many thanks again to Liddy Karter of Karter Capital Advisors, Laurie Yoler of GrowthPoint Technology Partners, Rebecca Moore of Google Earth Outreach program, Cynthia Kenyon of UCSF’s Hillblom Center for the Biology of Aging, BlogHer’s Lisa Stone, and astronaut Yvonne Cagle of NASA Ames for their words of inspiration and leadership.

Check out the Women @ the Frontier video to hear from the leaders on the forefront of global innovation:

We strive to bring together a diverse mix of backgrounds and industries for each Executive Program, for an enriching experience, and EPF10 did not disappoint. The 41 students descended upon NASA Ames from 15 countries, with many traveling from Europe and South America for the nine-day program.

The class included serial entrepreneurs, a Canadian broadcasting company CEO, an economics researcher, a Brazilian television executive, a Scottish investment manager, a Hollywood actor/producer, a real estate CEO from Spain, and representatives from U.S. and international governments. The industry mix enabled very interesting discussions during the sessions, and late into the evening (a reason SU is sometimes jokingly called Sleepless University).

In addition to lectures and discussions from leading experts, workshops and site tours of Silicon Valley companies areunique benefits of the Executive Program. Industrial design expert Scott Summit led students on a tour of TechShop, the DIY workshop/lab, demonstrating prototype creation and discussed the latest uses of 3D printers.

A trip to SU corporate founder Autodesk showed students the different uses of cutting edge design software, including how design translates into manufacturing innovation. GSP-10 alum and EP teaching fellow Dr. Julielynn Wong led students in a surgical workshop, giving everyone the chance to practice cutting and suture techniques. And, following Raymond McCauley’s bioinformatics discussion, students tested their own genetics for health and ancestry factors with 23andMe kits.

Expert faculty, Silicon Valley company tours, and hands-on workshops are just a few of the reasons participants call the Executive Program a “mind-changing experience.” Interested in experiencing the Executive Program for yourself? Join us for the 4-day program coming up December 9-12.

So, in true Singularity University fashion, we are looking to the future and to our first 4-day Executive Program scheduled for December 9-12.

The 4-day program will offer a unique over-the-horizon look at six, core exponential technology tracks, including medicine, energy and AI/robotics, which will have a tremendous impact across industries in the coming years. The shorter format (Thursday – Sunday) is focused to give participants an understanding of how these technologies will transform their industries (and careers) by showing what is in the lab today, where the technologies will be within the next 3-10 years, and current real-world applications.

Who should attend? Decision-makers, strategists, managers, executives, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and government leaders — anyone looking to give their company, industry, and career a competitive edge.

What do alumni say about the experience?

“It is a challenging and intense experience that had a high impact in my decision making and strategies. It’s provides an opportunity to identify and participate in ongoing and future disruptive innovations.”

“It was a mind changing experience, where we all realized and forecasted amazing exponential changes and the impact across industries.”

“Singularity University is a great option for entrepreneurs to build their network, their knowledge base, and their skill set.”

Interested in attending? Space is limited, so register early to secure your seat. For more information and to register, visit http://singularityu.org/programs/executive-programs/. We hope you join us in December!

Since the University’s founding in 2008, Jacobstein has served the University part-time as co-chair of the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Track. As President, Jacobstein will serve as the full-time chief executive, and guide the growth of the University as it responds to the changing educational needs of the executives attending SU’s Executive Programs and the future leaders attending its 10-week Graduate Studies Program. Salim Ismail, Singularity University’s Executive Director, will now focus on leading the University’s global development to expand its presence and activities worldwide.

Singularity University’s curriculum focuses uniquely on exponentially growing technologies and their impact on companies, industries and humanity. The University’s educational experience is centered on key exponentially growing technologies including: networks, quantum and molecular computing, artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology/bioinformatics, nano materials, molecular manufacturing, and energy systems. In addition to these technical foundations, the University is also focused on business implications and ethical issues associated with these technologies.

“Jacobstein was selected unanimously by the Singularity University Board of Trustees to become our first President,” said Peter H. Diamandis, Chairman of the Board of Trustees. “Neil’s extensive R&D experience in AI, nanotechnology, energy, and environmental sciences, coupled with his management experience make him an excellent choice to take the University to its next level. Neil possesses a rare blend of vision, compassion, and creativity that will serve students, faculty, staff, and the broader community extremely well.”

Chancellor Ray Kurzweil added, “Neil Jacobstein has a deep understanding of the significance of exponential technologies, and their potential to address the world’s biggest problems. He also has a keen appreciation for the potential risks of powerful new technologies, and the steps that must be taken to reduce those risks as we move forward. Singularity University is now poised to become a leader in higher education for exponential change.”

Salim Ismail added, “I’m thrilled to have Neil coming on board. He was at the founding conference, and has been involved since the very beginning. We couldn’t possibly find a better and more talented individual to guide Singularity University.”

Jacobstein is a Distinguished Visiting Scholar in Stanford’s Media X Program, and became a Senior Research Fellow in the Reuters Digital Vision Program at Stanford University in 2006. He has served as a technical consultant on research and development projects for leading business, government, and defense organizations including GM, Ford, FMC, P&G, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Applied Materials, NSF, DARPA, NASA, NIH, EPA, DOE, the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force. He was CEO at Teknowledge Corporation, an early AI company. Since 1998, Jacobstein has reviewed technical papers on the Program Committee of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence’s (AAAI) Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI) Conference. He co-chaired AAAI’s 16th Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence Conference, and chaired the 17th IAAI Conference.

In 1999, Jacobstein was selected as a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute. He has moderated many Socrates seminars, and has co-chaired the Socrates Program Committee for several years. Jacobstein was a Graduate Research Intern in the Learning Research Group at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, and a consultant in PARC’s Software Concepts Group. He spent four years doing renewable energy and environmental research as a Research Associate with the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems. Jacobstein has been Chairman of the non-profit Institute for Molecular Manufacturing (IMM) since 1992. He has served in a wide variety of executive and advisory roles for industry, nonprofit, and government organizations. Jacobstein continues to give lectures, seminars, and workshops worldwide on the opportunities and risks of artificial intelligence and nanotechnology. He is a member of AAAS, AAAI, IEEE, and the ACM.

Singularity University (SU) is an interdisciplinary university whose mission is to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies in order to address humanity’s grand challenges. With the support of a broad range of leaders in academia, business and government, SU hopes to stimulate groundbreaking, disruptive thinking and solutions aimed at solving some of the planet’s most pressing challenges. SU is based at the NASA Ames campus in Silicon Valley.

For more information, please visit www.singularityu.org and follow SU on www.twitter.com/singularityu.

The GSP11 summer program runs 10 -weeks, from June 19 through August 28, 2011. With the help of world- class faculty from academia, business, and government, the purpose of Singularity University’s Graduate Studies Program is to educate, inform, and prepare a generation of leaders for future disruption and opportunities created by exponentially advancing technologies and to apply that knowledge to solve humanity’s Grand Challenges.

You can apply online at singularityu.org/apply.

Applications will be evaluated and student selections made four times over the coming 6 months, with final admissions notifications going out by April 30, 2011. Completed applications will be considered during each of the four admissions rounds.

GSP 2009 alum Ross Shott is taking the helm as SU’s Admissions Director. For any questions about Singularity University’s application process, Ross can be reached at applications@singularityu.org. We hope you can join us!

Singularity University co-founders Dr. Ray Kurzweil and Dr. Peter H. Diamandis will formally introduce the GSP-10 class and introduce the students to their 10-week exploration of the convergence of science, exponentially accelerating technologies, and grand challenges. Dr. Larry Brilliant of the Skoll Urgent Threat Fund will keynote the event.

“The past year has demonstrated pressing global challenges, as well as a significant shift in the zeitgeist for exponential and accelerating technologies,” said Dr. Ray Kurzweil, co-founder and chancellor, Singularity University. “It is only through the scale of exponentially growing information technologies that we can meet these challenges.  It is our goal at Singularity University to foster a deep understanding of these technologies and through the team projects to directly solve urgent world needs.”

Ten Weeks of Study, A Lifetime of Innovation

The Graduate Summer Program is a ten-week interdisciplinary curriculum designed to facilitate understanding, collaboration, and innovation across a broad range of carefully chosen scientific and technological disciplines whose developments are exponentially accelerating. In addition to lectures and workshops with world-class leaders, students can also participate in hands-on excursions to leading Silicon Valley labs and companies, and exposure to NASA’s many technologies.

From more than 1,600 pre-applicants, the 80 graduate and post-graduate students in the summer program were chosen based on their level of expertise in individual “tracks,” demonstrated entrepreneurial and leadership skills, and their commitment to addressing and solving important issues facing our world. Taught by the leading minds in their respective fields, the GSP curriculum tracks include: future studies and forecasting; policy, law and ethics; finance and entrepreneurship; networks and computing systems; biotechnology and bioinformatics; nanotechnology; medicine, neuroscience and human enhancement; AI and robotics; energy and ecological systems; and space and physical sciences.

And the keystone of the GSP, the challenging Ten to the Ninth Power Plus (10^9+) group projects, are designed to positively affect at least one billion people within the next 10 years in five key areas. SU faculty chose five challenges for this year’s class: home energy, water, vertical farming, up-cycling, and space exploration.

“The biggest changes affecting the world today, such as the financial crisis, the growth of social media, medical technologies, aspects of climate change, are all rooted in accelerating and exponential factors,” said Dr. Peter H. Diamandis, co-founder and chairman at Singularity University. “Billion dollar companies are popping up overnight while century-old companies are folding. Our 10-week Graduate Studies Program is an extraordinary program for graduate and post-graduate students to understand exponential technologies, their projected growth, their disruptive nature and their ability change the world. Students gain a working knowledge of ten different “exponential tracks,” as well as take an interdisciplinary deep dive to learn how to better manage and navigate these technologies. This year’s class of students are incredibly accomplished and truly exceptional, we expect the effects of the GSP graduates and their 10^9+ projects to be far-reaching and positively affect humanity’s challenges.”

We certainly agree with the acceleration in technology and the enormous impacts they continue to have on our lives.  But the major benefits also come with major costs and risks — the oil disaster in the Gulf is a clear example of that. It’s also clear that many people around the world — including policy makers or business leaders — would like a better handle on the dramatic impact rapidly advancing technologies have on society. The impact of the financial crisis, itself rooted in accelerating factors, is a further example.

We work to bring together students from around the world and from a wide variety of backgrounds: they are researchers and teachers, NGO workers and social and business entrepreneurs. Next Saturday, 80 students from 35 countries will start a 10-week intensive Graduate Studies Program that is the heart of Singularity University.

In Week One, we’ll bring together global experts in our grand challenges to examine the characteristics of home energy, clean water, the future of food production, and upcycling of consumer waste. They’ll learn what’s been tried, what’s worked, and what’s failed in these areas. After that, they’ll spend half the program getting unique interdisciplinary views of accelerating technologies — including the state of the art and what might be possible in the next decade.  The second half is spent entirely on a set of team projects leveraging these technologies and working on products and services that can help people address them. The four team projects from our inaugural summer are a great testament to our approach.

Our curriculum spends significant time on the risks of these accelerating technologies as well as the benefits. We logically conclude it is probable that these technologies are coming, whether people like them or not, and it’s quite important to try to study them and their consequences, both good and bad. Some may see optimistic projections as wishful thinking, and indeed there are those who believe in a better future simply because they like the idea. But even if one assigns a low probability to the world changing events and technologies we study in our sessions, the effects are so dramatic that it would be an error not to have a place to study them.

Mr. Kurzweil has often stated that war is a very expensive method of human development, while technology has been an extraordinarily powerful and inexpensive method. We at Singularity University agree: our view is that these accelerating technologies can actually scale to meet the needs of our Grand Challenges.

Salim Ismail
CEO & Executive Director
Singularity University

While the flesh-and-blood version of Mr. Brin sat miles away at a computer capable of remotely steering a robot, the gizmo rolling around here consisted of a printer-size base with wheels attached to a boxy, head-height screen glowing with an image of Mr. Brin’s face.

The BrinBot obeyed its human commander and sputtered around from group to group, talking to attendees about Google and other topics via a videoconferencing system.

The BrinBot was hardly something out of Star Trek. It had a rudimentary, no-frills design and was a hodgepodge of loosely integrated technologies. Yet it also smacked of a future that the Singularity University founders hold dear and often discuss with a techno-utopian bravado: the arrival of the Singularity — a time, possibly just a couple decades from now, when a superior intelligence will dominate and life will take on an altered form that we can’t predict or comprehend in our current, limited state. [...]

See the Photo Slideshow

As one of the companies launched from last year’s 10^9 team projects, CiviGuard is making great progress in the challenge to positively impact one billion people within 10 years. We look forward to following their successes throughout the year and beyond!

CiviGuard and City of Manor, Texas Partner to Bring Emergency Communications 2.0 to Citizens | CiviGuard to Announce First Government Customer at Gov 2.0 Expo

CiviGuard, a pioneer in Emergency Communications 2.0, announced the City of Manor, Texas as its first public sector customer.  CiviGuard and Manor will collaborate on a pilot deployment of the CiviGuard platform, which delivers authoritative, location-specific alerts and guidance in real-time to civilian populations via smartphones. CiviGuard will discuss details of the partnership and initial deployment during a keynote presentation at the Gov 2.0 Conference in Washington, DC later today.

The CiviGuard platform is the first in the world to deliver near real-time information from authorities to civilians by combining cutting-edge smartphone technologies such as HTML5, cloud-based infrastructure, multi-touch scenario management and intelligent multi-channel message distribution into a single offering.

“We are thrilled to be announcing Manor, Texas as CiviGuard’s first public sector client at the prestigious Gov 2.0 Expo,” said CiviGuard CEO & co-founder Zubin Wadia.  “Manor has a proven reputation and appetite for innovative technology solutions that focus on enhancing the way citizens interact with their government. This partnership is the first step towards achieving our goal of making CiviGuard’s platform the global standard for Emergency Communication 2.0.”

“The City of Manor was thoroughly impressed by the innate capabilities of CiviGuard’s cutting-edge emergency communications solution,” said Dustin Haisler, CIO for Manor, Texas. “CiviGuard’s advantage is clear – its rapid-messaging capabilities, its location-specific alert focus, and cross-platform optimization enable the City’s first responders to more effectively disseminate crucial, actionable information to civilians in crisis situations. The City of Manor prides itself on making sure government is more accessible, efficient and responsive to the needs of its citizens and we feel confident that CiviGuard will be a solid partner to further our citizen-centric approach to governance.”

CiviGuard presented at the Gov 2.0 Expo keynote kick-off on Tuesday, May 25 at 5:20pm (EDT) at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. Please visit http://www.gov2expo.com/gov2expo2010/public/schedule/detail/14850 for presentation details.

MAKING ITS MARK AT MAKER FAIRE

Singularity University Café will illustrate the goals and vision of the university with on-going presentations by two exciting companies born from last year’s Graduate Studies Program: CiviGuard and Gettaround. The CiviGuard team will discuss their latest products focused on dramatically improving crisis communications for emergency and disaster response. The Gettaround team will discuss how their person-to-person car sharing community can positively impact the climate, and demonstrate their award-winning car controlling mobile application. In addition, several thought-leading speakers will discuss some of the topics taught at SU, ranging from the latest in medicine and robotics to energy and 3D building construction.

“In a fun and visually impressive fashion, Maker Faire shows what can happen when the current limits of science, technology, and design are pushed,” said Salim Ismail, Executive Director of Singularity University. “As Maker Faire has proven before, one’s imagination is truly the only limit to some of the greatest innovation. We’re looking forward to participating in our first Maker Faire, and sharing the ideas and achievements of SU students, faculty and associates with the Maker community.”

A CHANCE TO WIN AN EDUCATION, EXPERIENCE OF A LIFETIME

Taught by world-class faculty and some of the leading minds in their respective fields, the Executive Program is an intensive education designed to prepare executives and entrepreneurs to face the dynamic business realities of today and tomorrow. Held quarterly, Singularity University offers its Exponential Technologies Executive Program to a very limited group of C-Level executive participants. All qualified Maker Faire attendees can register at the Singularity University Café for a chance to win a seat, including on-site accommodations at NASA Ames. Registration qualifications will be posted at Singularity University Café. A winner will be selected randomly from all registrations received at the Singularity University Café from 10:30 AM on Saturday May 22, 2010 to 6:30 PM on Sunday May 23, 2010. The winner will be announced on Tuesday, June 1, 2010 on the Singularity University webpage , via Twitter (@singularityu) and on the official Singularity University Facebook page.

The imaginative and innovative Maker Faire takes place at the San Mateo County Fairgrounds on Saturday, May 22 and Sunday, May 23, 2010.

About Singularity University

Singularity University (SU) is an interdisciplinary university whose mission is to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies in order to address humanity’s grand challenges. With the support of a broad range of leaders in academia, business and government, SU hopes to stimulate groundbreaking, disruptive thinking and solutions aimed at solving some of the planet’s most pressing challenges. SU is based at the NASA Ames campus in Silicon Valley. For more information, go to singularityu.org.

Press Contact:
Denise Vardakas, The Conversation Group: denise@theconversationgroup.com,  +1-650-483-5083

We are in an era of accelerating change, moving toward a future that will be profoundly different from the past we grew up in. But what will the nature of that change be? What will the future look like?

For the last 7 days I have been in an executive program designed by Singularity University to give some insight into that complex question. We looked at a number of technological fields, lectured by experts assembled to give us some idea as to where current research is and to where it is going. We visited some of the cutting-edge companies here in Silicon Valley.

Just as interesting, I got to visit with 44 of my fellow information seekers from 15 countries and extremely diverse backgrounds, along with a dozen college students, as well as the faculty. The group ranged from very successful entrepreneurs to academics to relatively high-level government workers to starry-eyed young people just starting out. There were a lot more applicants than could be accommodated, and the staff did a good job of choosing a group of people who all “brought something to the table” besides their entry fee of $15,000. The days were typically 14-15 hours, and there was a lot of discussion amongst us on the topics of the day.

This week we depart from my usual letter on finance and economics so I can report on a few of the ideas I came across. Some truly grabbed my interest, some confirmed my thinking, and others quite frankly either disappointed or alarmed me. This will not be my normal narrative, but rather short observations cribbed from my notes and thoughts.

As I am on (yet again) a plane to San Antonio for a speech tomorrow morning, there will not be the usual links; and in some cases I must confess I made notes without writing down the name of the speaker. Mea culpa. So, sit back and let me share what has been a great week. (And I suspect that a few of you will be happy that we are ignoring Greece for at least one week!)

I, Robot

I think the positive surprise takeaway (for me at least) was how far we have advanced in artificial intelligence and especially robotics. Artificial intelligence has been promised to us for decades, and has been a disappointment for so long that I have consigned it to the dustbin of my research. Ditto for robots. I mean, seriously, if the Roomba (a glorified vacuum cleaner) is the best we can do after decades of work, how are AI and robots going to change the world? This is hardly the world that I grew up reading about in Isaac Asimov’s brilliant I, Robot sci-fi series some 40 years ago.

It is all well and good for a single-purpose robot to be designed to make a spot weld on a car, but a general-purpose robot seemed a long way off. As far as AI goes, I am reminded of the old joke about a young geek who specializes in AI sitting at a bar, and this gorgeous blond comes up to him and they begin to talk. One thing leads to another and they end up in her room, where he proceeds to spend the entire night telling her how good things are going to be. AI has been a lot of talk for decades, and as with our geek, not much more.

Three-time shuttle astronaut Dan Barry discusses his experiences in space and the future of robotics during Singularity University's program.

The robotic sessions were led by Dan Barry, a three-time astronaut and veteran of many space station adventures (as well as appearing on “Survivor!”). What I saw onscreen and heard about has made me rethink my doubts about robotics. There are significant strides being made in mobility and utility in robotics. I saw robots walking on four feet through very difficult terrain, on ice, and up stairs. Robot “hands” are a lot further along than I had thought. Mobile robots on wheels, and walking balanced on two feet, are working today.

The ability of robots to recognize their surroundings, to differentiate between a table and a glass on the table (which is a very difficult thing to program), to pick up the glass, etc. is advancing at a fairly good pace. Dan is an enthusiastic advocate, and it was easy to get infected with his vision, but I can see a robotics industry in the 2020s actually having some significance in the US and world economy. We explored all manner of potential uses for robots, some with more economic potential than others. I am often asked where the jobs of the future will come from. It may be in robotics.

I was particularly drawn to the personal assistant robot. It is actually plausible to design a robot to be the “maid” in a home, to be able to purchase groceries, to assist the elderly, etc. These are the repeatable types of tasks that can be programmed and learned. We may only be ten years away from a nascent and powerful new industry. Now, this is not the robot of I, Robot. It will not have intellectual conversations with you. But it will respond to voice commands and clean up, put away toys, etc. Cooking, however, other than microwave foods, is a LOT harder. You will have to make your own omelets for a few decades.

The Mauldin Test

When (if ever) do we get computers that are self-aware? Alan Turing proposed in 1950 what has become known as the Turing Test of a machine’s ability to demonstrate intelligence. It proceeds as follows: a human judge engages in a natural-language conversation with one human and one machine, each of which tries to appear human. All participants are placed in isolated locations. If the judge cannot reliably tell the machine from the human, the machine is said to have passed the test.

One participant suggested that in the future, as we get closer to true AI, computers should be tasked with designing the next generation of AI and computers. I pointed at that if we were to do so, then the Turing Test might not be the best way to determine if we had true artificial intelligence rather than just extremely sophisticated programs. I proposed the Mauldin Test. When a computer tells us that it no longer wishes to program a smarter computer, we will have arrived at the point of self-awareness and survival instinct. I suggest that is true AI. Just a thought.

Who Stole My Nanotech?

Ralph Merkle regaled us with the promise of nanotechnology to make anything and everything. Very tiny molecular machines would assemble all manner of things, from roads and homes to furniture to computers. The problem is that this was pretty much the same speech he was giving ten years ago. Not much progress has been made in the ensuing decade. This was perhaps the most disappointing note at the conference for me.

Let me differentiate between nanotech and nanoscale. Nanotech is the ability of very small machines to build useful objects one atom and molecule at a time. Nanoscale is the technology that creates very small objects to do useful things. An example would be carbon nanotubes, which are proving to have all sorts of useful properties.

There is very little money being put into actual nanotech research. We are at least two decades and hundreds of billions away from Merkle’s (and Freitas’ and others’) vision, if even then. It is still in the arena of pure research, far from any potential commercial application. And there does not seem to be a lot of research in the field.

Nanoscale, however, is a different story. Batteries made from carbon nanotubes hold tremendous promise for better storage (by 400 times less weight per watt output). Filtering of seawater to produce fresh water, increased computer speed and power – there is a long and rapidly growing list of nanoscale advances.

If we ever do get actual molecular nanotech, it may look more like biotech, as we slip in on nanotech from the side. After all, combine a few cells and you eventually get a human being. For some, this is the path to robust nanotech.

Water, Water Everywhere, Nor Any Drop to Drink

And speaking of water (above), I was hoping to hear that we were further along with the cheap purification of water. I queried several venture capitalists, who see literally thousands and thousands of business proposals. While lots of people are working on it, they are aware of nothing on the near horizon. Water may be my #1 concern about the future. It is an intractable problem and one that must be solved. There is Microsoft- or Google-type wealth awaiting the team that creates an inexpensive way to purify water. Water management will be a major issue in the future. There are those who think we will go to war over oil or energy in the future. I rather doubt it. Water rights are going to be the issue that will divide nations and peoples unless we can find new technologies to create cheap supplies of fresh water and move it to where it is needed.

The Promise of Biotech

Ok, I am on record of late with my view that biotech is going to be a bubble in the latter part of this decade. I am actually starting to invest in smaller-cap biotech companies that hold what I think is significant potential intellectual property. In conversations with my fellow attendees, I think the consensus is that biotech holds the most immediate promise for transforming our lives.

A little background. The human genome project was launched in 1990. It cost $3 billion. At the time, detractors said it was a waste of time, as it would take a thousand years – and they were right, if you assumed then-current technology. It actually took only 11 years (to 2001), as new technologies were constantly invented. Craig Venter started Celera in 1998 and finished in a dead heat with the government for a fraction of the cost, at around $300 million.

Where are we now? Ray McCauley of Illumina told us of a machine they make that can do the entire human genome in one week. The cost of the machine is $750,000. He predicts that by 2013 the cost of doing your personal genome will be around $100, and in the future the cost will be as little as $1.

A prize has been offered for the first team to sequence 100 human genomes for $10,000 each in ten days or less. The $10 million USD prize, donated by diamond prospector Steward Blusson, will be claimable until the deadline of 4 October 2013. Many scientists around the world think it is highly likely the prize will be claimed before the deadline, probably substantially before.

Moore’s Law says computing power is doubling every few years? That’s so slow and old hat by biotech standards. Genome “power” is doubling every six months. It will be routine for you to get your own human template in a few years.

Those expensive toys that do your genome? Jun Wang (for some firm) in China bought 128 of them. That is the equivalent of being able to process the entire NCBI genome databank every 15 minutes. Although Ray would not say, I got the impression the Chinese simply opened their checkbook and said “How many will you sell us?”

Put this into context. Arguably one of the true US experts on stem cells, Mike West of Biotime, is also going to China to do a joint venture with the leading stem cell researcher there. They will be in human trials soon. (It’s the same story with International Stem Cell Research, which is going to Russia.) Mike lamented to me over dinner that he could not get the trial speed he needs here in the US. There are a lot of other areas of research that are going offshore, too. Biotech is an area where the US has a clear lead today. We are in danger of losing that. Someone at the FDA needs to start a program that can keep up with the warp speed of change in the biotech world, or watch our lead go to the rest of the world, which is quite willing to leapfrog us. For all the talk about jobs, you would think someone would pay attention here.

DIY-Bio

I don’t know how I feel about this next one. It has possibilities for both good and evil. Do It Yourself Biotech (DIY-Bio) is becoming a real movement, akin to the movement created by computer nerds in 1975, looking to build their own personal computers. But the real difference now is that this time they are connected by the internet.

The movement is just what it sounds like. The equipment and technology to do genetic experiments is getting cheaper and easier to access. Literally, some people do it in their closets. Want to drop a duck gene into a pig cell? That could be fun. Do you get a pig that can fly? But you can also test the water ecology around you and do other quite socially useful things, and even have a chance to stumble on a real advance. One teen group in New York recently bought a lot of fish from various restaurants and stores. Their genetic testing determined that 35% of what was sold as a particular type of fish was something else. Just cover it up with sauce and who can tell?

I like the idea of ten thousand people randomly working on solutions to real problems. But, and this is a big but, playing with genes seems a little problematic to me in a non-lab setting. The presenter pointed out that there are all types of really bad bugs out there, and the human race has survived, but somehow that did not allay my concerns.

The next presentation was from Special Agent Edward You of the FBI, who told us that the FBI is paying attention. That made me feel better, until he basically said they were not sure what to do. We can’t dial back the clock, but some self-policing mechanism needs to be set up. As one person pointed out, we require all sorts of licenses for people who want to dive into the ocean. Increased complexity (diving into caves, for instance) requires additional licenses.

I am generally your basic libertarian. Let people do what they want to do – but I think I draw the line here. Access to equipment, materials, etc. ought to require some sort of license and some awareness training. Call me old-fashioned, but just as we don’t let kids randomly experiment with uranium, maybe we should think about how we go about playing God. Don’t get me wrong, I want people experimenting and pushing the edges. I just want someone supervising the sandbox.

Random Takeaways

OK, the next few pages are going to be short paragraphs from my notes, with no real connections among them. Very stream of consciousness. Take a deep breath and dive in. The major cost of biotech is people. China has cheap people, and that may give them an advantage.

In regards to the DIY-Bio movement, one of attendees behind me said, “OK, does this mean in the future we buy 99-cent bio apps for our iBiophone?” Think about that for a second. Just a few years ago, the thought of 100,000 iPhone apps for a few bucks or even pennies or free seemed ridiculous. Now it is commonplace. By the way, I met a young kid from India. He has an app to turn my letter into a very easy iPhone app and is also programming for the rest of the phone world. Watch for me on your phone in a few months. It is indeed a brave new world.

The theme of the conference was accelerating technology. Things are going faster and faster. I had a thought. Our bodies can take only so much acceleration before we pass out. Will an increasingly fast world have the same effect on our minds? Is there a limit to how much change we can adapt to? Just a question; not sure of the answer.

Greg Papadopoulos, who is the Chief Technology Officer of Sun Microsystems, gave us his thoughts on the breakthroughs that are likely to happen and will change the world as we know it. New approaches to energy efficiency are on the horizon in 5-10 years. We will see a major breakthrough in memory, which will make the ability to remember (store) things really cheap. He speculated that there will be a new energy technology that will come out of left field to completely change the energy equation. By the way, this prediction showed up several times, from a variety of speakers. (I must admit that is also my personal prediction as well.) Greg thinks we will have silicon photonics by 2020 (think faster, more powerful computers). Quantum computing is way out there, but biocomputing may be here in the mid to late 2020s.

Steve Jurvetson, the #1 most influential geek (according to Wired, I think) simply blew us away. I would like to tie him to a chair for five hours and find out why he invested the billions of dollars in the scores of companies he has helped launch. He is focusing on clean tech, as is a lot of Silicon Valley. He sees 5,000 business plans a year. He talks about how we are soon in for Perpetual Future Shock. There are 6 x 10 to the 21 microbes in the ocean. There are microbes that only exist in certain parts of the ocean. We have only begun to explore the world. It is going to take a long time to switch to renewables. Maybe by 2030. He is blown away by how many incredible ideas there are. This is a guy who did his EE major at Stanford in 2.5 years and was #1 in his class. Intimidatingly smart.

As an aside, someone mentioned that at the TED Talks a few weeks ago, Bill Gates made a major commitment to nuclear energy. Did you know that the nuclear waste we already have could power the US for centuries? The technology exists to use it, as France has done for a long time. If someone truly thinks the US should be energy independent from foreign oil, this is the path. And it is green! Why not government-guaranteed loans for nuclear power and a requirement that every state or locality find a place to put a nuclear plant in their area. Pick a locale. If you choose not to put one “in your backyard” then you pay double for your power, which makes the power for the areas that choose to have nuclear plants free! That would attract some voters for nuclear plants. We need to stop sending money to the rest of the world for oil. Now that is stimulus you can believe in! (OK, off my soapbox.)

Another speaker saw potential game changers in low-cost photovoltaics and a smart grid. (Let’s hope he’s right!) He also speculated and laid out the technology to use CO2 as a source for fuel. Basically, you take CO2-emitting sources and use them to feed biofuel farms. Seems plausible.

Christopher deCharms, CEO of Omneuron, blew me away. Seems they can recognize patterns in your brain when you see certain (simple) objects. And they are teaching patients to control certain regions of their brains that have to do with pain. They are having some success, although he stressed that it was early and the tests were rudimentary. That aside, that we are even potentially in that world is amazing.

Jason Bobe from the Personal Genome Project at the Harvard Medical School talked about how they intend to first publish (publicly) 100 personal genomes and then go on to 100,000 in order to create a database for researchers to use to find correlations between certain genes and diseases. I plan to volunteer to be part of that initial 100, if they will take me. I really don’t care who knows my genome, and if it will help move the science forward I am more than ready.

They are also moving beyond the human genome. They can now “sample” your blood to see what kind of exposure to certain diseases, metals, cancers, etc. you have had and then relate that to your genes. That is going to produce some very powerful and controversial results. But what we learn is going to give us clues to how to fight all sorts of diseases.

Jason noted that people who participate have no guarantee of being anonymous. It seems some young man a few years ago, upon hearing that he was the offspring of an anonymous sperm donor, did some research and found out who his father was. “Surprise! I’m your anonymous son!”

In the future, the world will get turned on its head. Instead of 15 minutes of fame, you will only get 15 minutes of anonymity. The day before something is seen as a breakthrough, it is a crazy idea.

One guy was asking for dollar bills and other small foreign currency. They are doing DNA samples to see where and how many people have touched a particular dollar bill. In the not too distant future, you’d better be careful who you pay with cash if you don’t want to be traced.

Futurist James Canton, Ph.D, is a regular speaker at Singularity University. He founded the Institute for Global Futures, a San Francisco based think tank that forecasts innovations and trends. IGF provides futures research and strategy consulting to the Fortune 1000, associations and governments.

Dr. James Canton gave a very interesting talk on the future of the internet. He predicts that within 3-5 years we will live in a blended reality. Everything will be connected. The internet will become self-assembling. In the near future, information will find you rather than the other way around. Future networks will mimic living ecosystems. Web 3.0 will be the Collaborative Web. Not human to human, but human to machine to avatar to network. I am not sure what that means exactly, but he was quite convincing.

Information that finds you? Will there even be a need for me in the future? He too thought the really big surprise in the future would be a new source of energy, not to mention a new search topology with more predictive analytic search. There is a lot more, and if I can get a link to his speech I will.

Home Again, Cambridge, and Cincinnati

I spoke this morning at the Cambridge Research conference. This is a group of their top brokers coming together for a weekend of strategy sessions. This is a bunch of smart guys.

My annual Strategic Investment Conference, cosponsored with my friends at Altegris Investments, will be held April 22-24, 2010,  in La Jolla, California. The speaker lineup is powerful. Already committed are Dr. Gary Shilling, David Rosenberg, Dr. Lacy Hunt, Dr. Niall Ferguson, Jon Sundt, and George Friedman, as well as your humble analyst. We are talking with several other equally exciting speakers and expect those to firm up shortly.

Look at that lineup. These are the guys who got the calls right over the past few years. They called the housing crisis, the credit bubble, and the recession. And, in my opinion, these are some of the best in the world at giving us ideas about where we are headed.

Comments from those who attend the annual affair generally run along the lines of, “This is the best conference we have ever been to.” And each year it seems to get better. This year we are going to focus on “The End Game,” that is, on the paths the various nations are likely to take as they try to solve their various deficit problems, and how that will affect the world and local economies and our investments. We make sure you have access to our speakers and get your questions answered, and you’ll come away with excellent, practical investment ideas.

Your believing-the-future-is-going-to-be-better analyst,
John Mauldin
John@FrontlineThoughts.com

Copyright 2010 John Mauldin. All Rights Reserved
reprinted with permission

John Mauldin, bestselling author and recognized financial expert, is editor of  Thoughts From the Frontline, read by over 1 million readers each week. He is a frequent contributor to The Financial Times, The Daily Reckoning and a frequent guest on CNBC and Bloomberg TV.

His recent book, Bull’s Eye Investing, was a New York Times bestseller. Mauldin’s upcoming book, The Millennium Wave: Prosper and Profit in a Future of Accelerating Change, explores the coming decade where change will “come faster and be more profound than at any time in history,” and gives investors “the strategies necessary to profit from what he predicts will happen.”  This article is reprinted with permission from John Mauldin and Advisor Perspectives.

CiviGuard Chosen as One of Five Where 2.0 Launch Pad Start-ups with “Innovative, Promising New Technology”

CiviGuard is pleased to announce it has been chosen as one of just five start-ups to present at Where 2.0 Conference Launch Pad, showcasing the latest in location-based technology.  Built on a highly resilient infrastructure, CiviGuard enables government agencies to deliver authoritative location-specific alerts, precise and actionable information, and guidance to civilian populations via mobile devices and the web. CiviGuard will showcase its crisis communication platform at the Where 2.0 Launch Pad in San Jose on March 31^st.

The CiviGuard platform is the first to deliver trusted government information to civilians by combining cutting-edge smartphone technology, cloud-based infrastructure and intelligent message distribution into a single offering.  “We are very excited about the opportunity to present at the Where 2.0 Launch Pad segment,” said Zubin Wadia, CEO and co-founder of CiviGuard.  “The simplicity of our platform’s interface, order-of-magnitude faster delivery, location-awareness and the resiliency of CiviGuard’s infrastructure streamline the dissemination of authoritative information, transforming information into awareness and awareness into action.”

“Where 2.0 is well-known as a tremendous forum to showcase emerging location-based technology start-up firms,” said Salim Ismail, Executive Director at Singularity University. “CiviGuard was born out of the team projects at Singularity University’s Graduate Studies Program 2009 and we are extremely delighted by CiviGuard’s progress to create a new standard for rapid crisis communication.”

CiviGuard will present at the Where 2.0 Launch Pad on Wednesday, March 31 at 12:00pm. Please visit – http://en.oreilly.com/where2010/public/schedule/detail/10943 – for presentation details.

About CiviGuard

With offices in Silicon Valley and New York, CiviGuard provides a highly resilient crisis communication platform that rapidly delivers location-aware alerts and guidance to civilians. Combining trusted government information, cutting-edge smartphone technology, cloud-based infrastructure and intelligent message distribution into a single offering, CiviGuard is poised to redefine crisis communication. For more information, please visit www.civiguard.com.

An early round of applications has already been evaluated, and an initial selection of acceptances have been made. Over the next two weeks, our faculty will continue evaluating the applications and submitting their recommendations based on academic excellence, leadership qualities and passion for solving Grand Challenges. Finally, the Board will then meet and finalize the acceptances.

The next key date will be March 31, when the main batch of acceptances will be sent out. A second and final round of acceptances will be made shortly thereafter.

Best of luck to all the applicants!

Salim Ismail
Executive Director

CNET correspondent Daniel Terdiman shadowed Executive Program participant Rob Nail during one of his first days at Singularity University’s Winter 2010 Executive Program.

This is the vision that James Canton, CEO of San Francisco-based Institute for Global Futures think tank, shared with students in the executive program of Singularity University. His broad-reaching, theoretical talk here Wednesday touched on many of the same elements of the all-encompassing network more or less overlaid on people’s consciousnesses in science fiction by the likes of Vernor Vinge. Still, Canton’s vision seemed plausible, particularly in light of the curriculum of so-called exponential technologies being taught at Singularity University, which kicked off its first classes last summer.

Canton’s vision of this future Internet begins with four key drivers: telepresence, mobility, artificial intelligence, and specific vertical market segments such as health care.

In a straw poll of the 40-odd students in the Singularity program, the majority felt that mobility was the most important of those drivers, and Canton said this made sense given that billions of people use the Internet and that the figure will only grow. The idea, then, would be for the Internet of the future to comprise large numbers of networks talking to nodes that are independently communicating with one other, “having their own conversation,” he said.

Indeed, Canton predicted a future in which the Internet is embedded just about everywhere: in every imaginable kind of object — from TVs to phones to walls — and that every product and device (even people) will have an IP address. He added that while such a vision may seem distant, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has already approved a chip that could be embedded in people’s bodies. In Miami, he noted, the latest fad is women wearing clothes with chips embedded that can be scanned to verify their identities so that they don’t need to carry purses.

Similarly, he said, government workers in Mexico City can’t get into buildings without having some sort of wearable identification chip. [...]

When: Thursday, March 4 @ 7:30 – 8:30 p.m.

Where: NASA Ames, Building 943, Eagle Room. Directions can be found here.

RSVP: http://singularityu-johnmauldin.eventbrite.com/, attendance is free.

John Mauldin is the President of Millennium Wave Advisors, LLC (MWA), an investment advisory firm. Mauldin is a multiple NYT best-selling author and recognized financial expert. He is a frequent guest on CNBC, Bloomberg and many radio shows across the country. He is the editor of “Thoughts from the Frontline,” the highly acclaimed, free weekly economic and investment e-letter that goes to over 1 million subscribers each week.

CNET correspondent Daniel Terdiman shadowed Executive Program participant Rob Nail during one of his first days at Singularity University’s Winter 2010 Executive Program.

 For Rob Nail, Saturday was a bonanza of opportunity. Over dinner that night in building 20 at the NASA Ames Research Center here, Nail found himself discussing 3D printing and housing with X Prize CEO Peter Diamandis. Already, Nail had been considering buying some farming land in Northern California and had been interested in the nascent concept of 3D printed buildings. He told Diamandis that he wanted to try that on the land.

“He says,” Nail recalled, “I want to make this introduction,” and grabbed Nail, pulling him a few tables over to the side where the two put their heads together with one of the founders of a start-up that recently began working on building 3D printed housing for developing nations.

For Nail, himself an entrepreneur who has spent several months looking for companies to invest in or advise, the quick meeting may have been the start of something long-term. “I will probably have a relationship” with the start-up’s co-founder, he said. “It’s an opportunity for me to get involved as a seed investor, and to advise and help out. He’s just starting out…and we have a common connection with this passionate interest for housing, robotics and 3D printing.”

For Diamandis, putting Nail together with a potential business partner was emblematic of his own young venture, Singularity University, or SU, which seeks to put some of the brightest minds on the planet together to explore what is known as exponentially growing technologies. And earlier that evening, after they’d sat through eight hours of high-energy lectures on artificial intelligence, autonomous robotics and biotechnology, and bioinformatics, Diamandis stood up and welcomed his new charges — a group of 43 participants in the second 10-day Singularity University executive program — to the “family.” [...]

She is author of two previous books (Western Visions and Digital Dialog) as well as numerous PRI studies on technology issues.

Her forthcoming book addresses the political, social, and individual impacts of radical human longevity and provides a roadmap of how to deal with it. Visit her at www.soniaarrison.com or follow her on Twitter @soniaarrison.

The following post appeared on TechNewsWorld on February 24, 2010.

Demonstrating the ability not only to see photo representations of streets — similar to Google’s (Nasdaq: GOOG) Street View — but also to go inside a building, see three-dimensional graphics all around, and see other users’ flickrphotos overlaid on the map, Microsoft’s Bing maps architect Blaise Aguera y Arcas wowed the crowd.

Those features alone are a significant upgrade to maps as most of us know them, but then Arcas took it a step further, showing how a live 4G video broadcast from a friend’s cellphone in Seattle’s Pike Market could be integrated with the maps function.

This is “the foundation for augmented reality,” said Arcas, referring to the mixing of virtual worlds with reality.

Less Help, Please

Almost everyone will be impressed with such advances, except perhaps privacy hawks and those who don’t want big anonymous cities turned into places where real-time movements can be monitored like those in a small town.

Indeed, it was ironic that these new social mapping features, which could have big privacy implications, were announced the same week that Google was taking major heat for its rollout of Buzz, a Twitter-like social networking tool built into Gmail.

One of the major problems with Buzz was that it initially tried to “help” users by automatically having them follow the people they emailed the most. While that might sound like a good idea in theory, in reality many people have conversations with people that they don’t want others to know about — for example, messages between a doctor and his psychiatric patients, or conversations between ex-spouses about their kids.

Fortunately, the great thing about a dynamic marketplace is that when a company goes a bit too far, like Google did with Buzz, the public backlash usually produces a quick fix to the problem. In response to user outcry, for example, Google quickly changed its auto-follow system to a friendlier auto-recommendation system.

New Social Norm?

Such mistakes and corrections are common while market leaders work to strike a balance between user control and functionality. Recall, for instance, the trashing of Facebook’s Beacon feature that broadcast in the users’ News Feed outside-Facebook purchases for items like movie tickets.

It’s not that users didn’t like the Facebook News Feed — it’s just that they didn’t think it was such a great idea for outside companies to surprise them by publishing their spending habits without their permission. Other companies in the industry should take such lessons seriously going forward.

For instance, a live video broadcast is cool, but what happens when multiple broadcasts combine with face recognition technology — perhaps to allow for real-time cyber-stalking? Hopefully, the brilliant people working on augmented reality are thinking about how they might allow users to opt out as well as opt in to this amazing new social networking space. If they aren’t considering it, perhaps that creates an opportunity for new companies to fill the void.

Although tech heavy-hitters like Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg have argued that making personal data public is the new “social norm,” it’s likely that real-time physical privacy is still highly valued. Consider, for instance, how many people tweet about being somewhere after the event is over.

The TED conference confirmed that exponentially growing technologies are pushing social communications in exciting directions. Meanwhile, expectations of privacy have certainly evolved since the Internet became popular, but the issues haven’t disappeared.

As self-broadcasting tools, geo-location games, and live mapping with cameras continue to grow in popularity, the companies that provide them can protect their business interests by working to expand the user’s freedom of choice.

Original post at http://www.technewsworld.com/story/The-Trouble-With-Augmented-Reality-and-Other-Cool-Tech-69413.html

Marthin De Beer, Senior Vice President, Emerging Technologies Group at Cisco, speaks about his process for going from idea to billion dollar business. Filmed during the 2009 Graduate Summer Program at Singularity University.

“The past year has demonstrated tremendous global challenges, and demonstrated a significant shift in the zeitgeist for exponential and accelerating technologies,” said Dr. Ray Kurzweil, co-founder and chancellor, Singularity University. “Exponential technologies, such as nanotechnology and robotics, have the scale to meet the demands of the current and coming global challenges. Singularity University fosters students’ understanding of these accelerating technologies to create a better and more productive world.”

Ten Weeks of Study, A Lifetime of Innovation

The Graduate Summer Program is a ten-week interdisciplinary curriculum designed to facilitate understanding, collaboration, and innovation across a broad range of carefully chosen scientific and technological disciplines whose developments are exponentially accelerating. In addition to lectures and workshops with world-class leaders, students can also participate in hands-on excursions to leading Silicon Valley labs and companies, Zero G sub-orbital flights, and exposure to NASA’s many technologies. Concluding with a challenging group project to positively affect humanity’s grand challenges, the Graduate Studies Program will begin June 19 and end with Closing Ceremonies on August 28.

Newly designed for 80 graduate and post-graduate students, participants in the summer program are chosen based on their level of expertise in individual “tracks,” demonstrated entrepreneurial and leadership skills, and their commitment to addressing and solving important issues facing our world. Taught by the leading minds in their respective fields, the Graduate Studies Program tracks include: future studies and forecasting; policy, law and ethics; finance and entrepreneurship; networks and computing systems; biotechnology and bioinformatics; nanotechnology; medicine, neuroscience and human enhancement; AI and robotics; energy and ecological systems; and space and physical sciences.

“The biggest issues facing the world today, such as the financial crisis, swine flu and aspects of climate change, are all rooted in accelerating and exponential factors,” said Sonia Arrison, Board Member at Singularity University and Senior Fellow at Pacific Research Institute. “The Graduate Studies Program is an excellent opportunity for graduate and post-graduate students to enhance their traditional academic work with an interdisciplinary deep dive into groundbreaking innovations and disruptive technologies that can address these exponential factors, and provide an ‘over-the-horizon view’ so as to better manage and navigate them. Based on the early work of the inaugural GSP class, we expect the effects of GSP graduates to be far-reaching and positively affect humanity’s challenges.”

Becoming a Student of Singularity University’s GSP-10

The Graduate Studies Program is an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study and exchange knowledge and information with the leading minds of today, and the leaders of tomorrow. Students and graduates also become part of Singularity University Network (SUN), enabling on-going connections with the community of other students, faculty, and staff – a valuable business resource.

Applications are now being accepted for the second Graduate Studies Program, and demand is high for the limited number of spots still available. A number of full and partial tuition scholarships are available to qualified students. For more information and to apply, please visit http://singularityu.org/programs/graduate-studies-program/.

Part Two:

Neil Jacobstein, co-Chair of the AI and Robotics track at Singularity University. Filmed during the November 2009 Executive Program at the NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, CA.

Shawna Pandya (GSP-09 Alum), with SU's Susan Fonseca-Klein, Nhu Anh Can, and Emeline Paat-Dahlstrom at the the January 26 She's Geeky unConference at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif.

“During the past decade, some of the most significant advancements and job opportunities have come from the STEM fields,” said Susan Fonseca-Klein, VP of Operations and Founding Architect at Singularity University. “This growth is accelerating, and is expected to do so through this decade and beyond. With She’s Geeky, SU has the opportunity to support women as they create and harness the latest innovations. We can also encourage young women’s interest and education in STEM fields, showing them that being a ‘geek’ can lead to a better and brighter future — like Marissa Mayer as the first female engineer at Google. Geek really is the new black, as they say.”

She’s Geeky hosts unConferences across the US to give women in STEM technologies an opportunity to get together to learn from each other, and discuss the unique issues they face in their respective fields. Following the successful and well-attended Bay Area conference in January 2010, additional conferences are planned throughout 2010.

“This sponsorship is just the first formal step in our initiative to support women in technology. In Singularity University’s inaugural year, women represented over a third of the Executive and summer Graduate Studies Programs, respectively,” added Fonseca-Klein. “As we continue progress on our initiative, we fully expect to increase those numbers, and expand our engagement with the women in technology community.”

Philip Rosedale, founder of Second Life, discusses the future of virtual worlds. Filmed at Singularity University’s Graduate Student Program 2009, NASA Ames Research Center, Silicon Valley.

Ray Kurzweil discusses the future of BCI (Brain-Computer Interfaces) at a workshop at the X-Prize lab at MIT, January 2010. This workshop was co-sponsored by Singularity University.

Brad Templeton, Chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), describes the future of online security, privacy and society. This lecture is from Singularity University’s Graduate Summer Program 2009. Brad is also the author of the influential “10 Big Myths of Copyright Explained”.

EFF: http://www.eff.org
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Templeton
10 Myths: http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

Dr. Daniel Reda, co-Chair of the Biotechnology and Bioinformatics track at Singularity University, introduces the key concepts and breakthroughs in biotechnology and bioinformatics. Filmed during the November 2009 Executive Program at Singularity University. Daniel is also the co-founder of CureTogether, an online community for open-source health research.

CureTogether: http://curetogether.com

Dr. Michel Gelobter, co-Chair of the Energy & Environment track at Singularity University, discusses the future of energy with Salim Ismail, Executive Director of SU. Michel is the founder of Cooler, Inc.

Cooler, Inc.: http://www.climatecooler.com

Shawna Pandya was a student at Singularity University’s Graduate Studies Prgram 2009 (GSP-09), representing a GSP Team Project focused on leveraging exponential advances in technology to aid disaster response.

Civiguard Technologies (formerly XIDAR Systems), is developing mobile phone applications and portable medical technologies to assist civilians and officials alike in crisis, disaster and pandemic situations. The CiviCast application allows any civilian with a smart phone to receive integrated, reliable information from local authorities to find safety, aid and resources. CiviCommand integrates data from qualified professionals into a central touch-screen interface at incident command to evolve a comprehensive picture of the ground situation in times of crisis.

CiviGuard: http://www.civiguard.com