Berkeley Blog

Internet Oprah

Salim Ismail is VP of a boot camp for future business leaders called Singularity University. Neither an accredited university nor a place where machines plan to take over the functions of humans, SU, as it's called, brings together 80 Ph.D. students and entrepreneurs from around the world for a ten-week summer session in Mountain View, where they listen to more than 100 experts in bleeding edge technologies, from robotics to space exploration and clean tech. After the lecture immersion, small, self-selected teams work in on solving a problem that will affect one billion people in the next ten years. Although Ismail, who was born in India but educated here, was the founding executive director of SU, the concept originated with Peter Diamandis, founder of the XPrize, and Ray Kurzweil, creator of the eponymous electronic keyboard and author of The Singularity Is Near.

SU's premise is that technology is advancing at an accelerating rate; thus, future leaders need to understand a broad range of emerging technologies in order to create solutions (and make money). The fact that some of the problems the world is now facing -- such as climate change -- result from the very same accelerating rate of technology development and deployment somehow doesn't seem to enter into the spin SU and its proponents, including board member and VC Vinod Khosla, place on high-tech as the panacea for all mortal ills.

Ismail is one of the best speakers I've ever heard, and I was trying to figure out why after he spoke at the February 14  INFUSION lunch I host monthly at the Berkeley Rep Theater in partnership with the Berkeley Startup Cluster (www.berkeleystartupcluster.net/events). Like all good speakers, he tells stories, so that he engages the listener in the process of discovery. One is eager to hear the outcome. He also speaks so quickly and with such passion, no one in the room seemed able to take their eyes off him even for a half second to check a text message, as if they'd lose a great kernel of truth about to emerge from his mouth.

The MatterNet is a project that was  prototyped by one of the SU teams last summer: the Matternet is a drone that delivers critical supplies like medicine to rural communities in Africa, where for much of the year roads are washed out by torrential rains. Simple to produce locally, cheaply made, and effective over short distances, the Matternet could provide the perfect transportation system for more than a billion people without access to goods for much of their lives. And to think it was conceived by a few students at SU in a matter of weeks.

Ismail is like an Internet Oprah, delivering good news about people collaborating on technological solutions to end poverty, war, ignorance, sexism, hunger, illness, and whatever else ails the inhabitants of planet Earth. I said, not in jest, at the end of his talk, that SU could be the new United Nations, but in a way, with its business contests already taking place in Brazil, Africa, Israel, and India, SU is already assuming its singular goal.

 

Artist Supports Food Sovereignty of World's Small Farmers

Fernando Garcia-Dory is on a conquistadorial quest: to transform the thousands of abandoned villages in rural Spain from wastelands into cultural sites, whether edible landscapes or artistic reconstructions of past agrarian cultures such as sheepherding. Last night he spoke at the David Brower Center in Berkeley -- named after the enviro-activist -- as part of a series of lectures on art and technology hosted by the Center for New Media at UC Berkeley, under the aegis of Ken Goldberg. Through a project in Spain called Inland, he is engaging artists and landscapers to reconstruct these villages in creative ways.

Garcia-Dory says we are in danger of losing our links with land, and he believes the human relationship with land has defined culture, or cultures. An artist and what's called an agroecologist, he said that more than 40 percent of food today is still produced by small farmers, whereas 30 percent is produced by agribusiness. His art projects tend to support the work of  La Via Campesinos, a global organization of farmers who seek food sovereignty over what they grow and raise. By using art to create awareness of the importance of land -- even so-called wasteland or abandoned lands --  Garcia-Dory hopes to preserve what makes us human.

It was interesting that during the lecture, the agroecologist had lots of difficulty managing his digital presentation -- he was using a Mac portable -- and I wondered if he'd be more at home with a hoe or rake. During the question period, someone asked the audience if they had been raised in a rural area, and Garcia-Dory smiled and raised in hand.

I couldn't help thinking that being an artist-agroecologist is a lot more fun if not more rewarding than being a sheepherder or small farmer. What is culture and whether it needs to be preserved are far larger issues, though, and ones that the Spanish artist is boldly addressing.

Bay Area Media Merger Needs To Add One More Player

Today, the Center for Investigative Reporting in Berkeley announced a preliminary merger with The Bay Citizen in San Francisco, with Phil Bronstein taking over temporarily as CEO of the ersatz media operation. The force behind this merger seems to be Warren Hellman, now deceased, but while alive, a philanthropic founder and ongoing supporter of The Bay Citizen and a close friend of Bronstein. It seems to me these nonprofits can leverage the combined talents of their journalists, photographers, web architects, operators, and funders to become the dominant media provider for citizens in the San Francisco Bay Area, if not for all northern Californians. 

I'd like to see Berkeleyside.com joining the mix as a feeder for local news from one of the greatest university towns in the world. Berkeley is also a global leader in initiating social, political, economic, agronomic, educational, and other memes that are well covered by the savvy editorial triumvirate at Berkeleyside.com (consisting of two Brits and one Hellman dynasty offspring). Merging CIR with The Bay Citizen and Berkeleyside.com would be a northern California media lover's wet dream.

And I think it makes perfect sense. Berkeley has always been a cultural oasis, with probably more citizens here subscribing to The New York Times than to the San Francisco Chronicle (fact checker, anyone?). A merger of CIR, The Bay Citizen, and Berkeleyside could provide a west coast equivalent of The Times sans international and sports coverage. Eventually, we might even have our own Bay Citizen-CIR-Berkeleyside Sunday magazine. 

Thank you, Warren.