application – Social Blog

As BIM-student, it is very likely that you are interested in topics like coding, Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, human-robotic interaction, or Autonomous Vehicles. If by any chance you also enjoy listening to podcasts, you might be in luck:

I highly suggest you to check out the Lex Fridman Podcast.

LexFridman

Lex Fridman is an AI research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, often better known as MIT. He works on developing deep learning approaches to human sensing, scene understanding, and human-AI interaction. He is particularly interested in applying these technologies in the field of Autonomous Driving.

LexFridmanTeaching

If you know the Joe Rogan Experience, you likely are already familiar with Lex. Having worked for both Google and Tesla, Lex Fridman understands the business application of digital technologies. He uses his podcast to share this knowledge with his audience and discusses his fascination with a variety of interesting guests. This can be particularly interesting for us as Business Information Management students, as we also form the future bridge between business ventures and technological innovation. The podcast discusses similar topics like we get taught in class, sometimes going more in depth, with international research experts in those particular fields.

If you enjoy podcasts, these are some examples of Lex Fridman Podcast episodes that I highly recommend you to give a listen as a BIM-student:
RecommendedEpisodes

Episode #31 with George Hotz: Comma.ai, OpenPilot, Autonomous Vehicles.
Famous security hacker. First to hack the iPhone. First to hack the PlayStation 3. Started Comma.ai to create his own vehicle automation machine learning application. Wants to offer a $1000 automotive driving application, which drivers can use on their phone.

Episode #49 with Elon Musk: Neuralink, AI, Autopilot, and the Pale Blue Dot.
Elon Musk. Tech entrepreneur and founder of companies like Tesla, SpaceX, PayPal, Neuralink, OpenAI, and The Boring Company.

Episode #114 with Russ Tedrake: Underactuated Robotics.
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Mechanical Engineering at MIT.

Episode #120 with François Chollet: Measures of Intelligence.
French Software Engineer and researcher in Artificial Intelligence, who works for Google. Author of Keras – keras.io – a leading deep learning framework for Python, used by organisations such as CERN, Microsoft Research, NASA, Netflix, Yelp, Uber, and Google.

These were just several examples of episodes that I enjoyed myself.

The benefit of a podcast is that you can listen it basically anywhere, and can stop listening at any time. If you are not familiar with podcasts yet or with the listening experience they offer, maybe the Lex Fridman Podcast could be your first step into this experience.

You can find the episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast here: https://lexfridman.com/podcast/

Or check out Lex Fridman’s Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/lexfridman

The above sources have been used as sources for this post.

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Hurricane Irma turned out to be the strongest Atlantic hurricane ever recorded outside the Gulf of Mexico. Its extreme power caused a colossal devastation in the Caribbean Islands and the Southern US, led to a massive evacuation of Florida, but also pushed again the climate change and global warming topic to the headlines. While I am still very sceptical about human influence as a major cause of the global warming and I believe that there are many other important aspects that are beyond our control to be considered, I am certain that we, as humans, should be united in an effort to keep our planet safe and green for the next generations. CarbonX is another great incentive that can help each of us to work more closely in order to achieve this goal.

The idea behind CarbonX is to engage millions of people by materially rewarding them for a responsible carbon consumption. The company wants to achieve it by investing in carbon reduction projects and transforming the generated offsets into ERC20 tokens, (one of the most popular token standards for Etherum Blockchain) later are allocated through an open-loop rewarding loyalty program. The engaged partners (e.g. big retailers, local governments) will offer CarbonX Tokens to consumers as an incentive for more carbon-wise decisions (e.g. using a public transportation instead of driving a car). These tokens will be tracked via mobile application and will serve as a currency that could be exchanged either for other digital currencies or carbon-friendly rewards. Although CarbonX is currently available in Canada only, it has ambitious plans to expand its operations worldwide in order to achieve substantial network effects and have a real global impact.

What I really love about this idea is the fact that it directly engages individuals to take small actions towards a more sustainable living. How often do you see people behaving irresponsibly just because they think that their impact on the environment is marginal? How often do you actually behave this way? While governments and NGOs can push some incentives on the macro level, we cannot forget that each of us creates this ecosystem as well. These tiny rewards do not only bring its users tangible benefits but more importantly increase awareness of the consequences of their actions. So, tell me now. Would you like to trade some carbon with me?

References:

https://www.carbonx.ca/#ourmission
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/13/could-a-blockchain-based-electricity-network-change-the-energy-market
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Myths#Bitcoin_mining_is_a_waste_of_energy_and_harmful_for_ecology
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/15/us/climate-change-hurricanes-harvey-and-irma/index.html

Would you trade some carbon with me?

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