Great, thank you and welcome everyone to imagination action. This is a show where we have conversations with some of the most compelling people. It's a dynamic mix of Imaginators. That's what we call our special guests. And tonight, David Newman is quite the Imaginator. I'm so excited for many of you to meet her. We have 250 plus Imaginators, on our part of our community, and they, they get the show in the and the recording and the transcript right after it's recorded and help help spread these ideas, help them get escape velocity, I kind of wove that line in there, given that we are hosting the Apollo professor at MIT, one of the most beloved aero Astro Imaginators leaders, this this planet's ever, ever seen. And, and she talks about our planet in such loving ways, and really thinks about our species and how we can coexist here. And we gather people who we think are re envisioning the nature of their work their industries, and driving the action that will power our futures. And you can check out imagination inaction.co, to see see all this information. And this event is tied with an event that happens in Davos, where we have our Imaginators present on the opening day of the World Economic Forum. But tonight, we're so excited to talk to David Newman, the MIT lab director, and on some things that she's particularly passionate about health, aging, and AI and climate. We also have gi her teammate and life partner, going to be joining some of the conversations. But David, thank you, you know, you've had such an extraordinary life work that you you've accomplished, I think before we get into what your agenda is and what you're what you're aspiring to do with the Media Lab, love to get a little bit about how did you become who you are just so curious, and such a champion of people and such an innovator. So I'd like to start by asking you, you know, what was David like growing up in Helena, Montana, how did you get the name Deva? And you know, what were some of the seminal events in your life that put you on the the wonderful trajectory that you've been on?
Oh, thanks, John. This is fantastic. Great to see everyone at least hear everyone and be part of this this clubhouse event. Imagination as like maybe where it all starts, maybe that's helps growing up in in the Rocky Mountains and in Helena Montana, as you said was just a you know, magical place to grow up in terms of it is Big Sky Country and so I was always outside running around climbing the mountains you know, trying to look Over the next horizon, and people always say why is it called Big Sky Country? Well, if you have an old Ben you need to go to Montana it really is kind of beautiful skies and stars and mountains. And so it was just a wonderful place to grow up really in, in nature surrounded by by nature. And you mentioned I am the Apollo program professor, that's just quite an honor. That's it was a young girl growing up in Montana witnessing the Apollo program. And you know, the Destiny the exploration aspect of it, getting to the the moon that vision from, you know, President Kennedy on to all the incredible NASA folks, but what it taught me in my young childhood was it, you know, believe in your dreams, anything's possible. Sure enough, humanity can can leave this planet and go to the moon's and to other planets. So think that was just opened up my my eyes and especially, just inspired me to kind of believe in, in dreams. And now you're kind of go full circle. I'm just so so lucky and honored to be the the new director of the MIT Media Lab, it's just full of the most creative colleagues and friends and people that I know at MIT. And so what an incredible chance to, to join them. And to we get to envision, and, you know, turn in the dreams for the next decade of what, what we're going to invent in terms of our technologies and experiences. And we're going to see, ones we're going to focus on are going to really have the most impact for society. And you mentioned some of the things we get to talk about tonight, health, wellness, climate, these are really some of the biggest challenges we have as humanity. And so the best way I know how to go about putting teams together and working on these projects is to put the most enter, you know, kind of trans cross disciplinary teams of folks together.
Yeah, I'm so excited to dive into that the Media Lab is a number of labs of multidisciplinary groups. And, yeah, we'll definitely get into that. You certainly use your imagination on the BioSuit. Can you talk a little bit about the genesis of that idea? And what were you doing that was groundbreaking in kind of pushing that forward? And and where is it in terms of helping people traverse the, you know, above the Earth's atmosphere and even travel to other places?
Sure. So through my whole MIT faculty career in in, you know, aerospace, also in the Harvard MIT Health Science Technology Program, and so that's biomedical engineering. And so I just kind of combined aerospace and biomedical engineering and basically study astronauts. And so that's been just amazing and fascinating. And essentially, I'm really trying to say hey, how can we keep astronauts healthy and well and safe? And you know, so they can really accomplish our missions started way back during the for me flying experiments on the space shuttle, you know, we had two week missions and I got to invent and develop a lot of technologies, smart sensors, different type of measurement systems, some ergonomics, all kinds of different things to try to assess and quantify astronaut performance. And it was all in hopes of saying okay, if we can know this, about that short duration coupled shuttle two week missions that we were getting ready for long duration and before International Space Station, I had a fantastic opportunity to design develop an experiment and run it in flight with the mirror the Russian mirror that translates to peace in English, the Russian Mir space station with both the NASA astronauts as well as the Russian cosmonauts and that was when gosh, we back in the 90s we were really studying long duration flight and specifically I was very interested in how the astronauts motor control and how they adapt to this wonderful weightless environment you know floating pushing off with say a finger not a foot or you know, a little pinky really pushing off and just gliding ever so elegantly. And for an engineer is really kind of a you know, a slow velocity high precision control motion I was very interested if people can adapt essentially have dual adaptation I'm you know, I'm a biped I walk and run here and I'm Art I'm when I'm on earth, when I get to fly into space, I have you know, kind of different motor programs and move my body you know, ever so slightly and elegantly and it was all you know, kind of performance based, and kind of fast forward after flying multiple experiments to look at astronauts motion control performance on Shuttle and the Mir space station, and then also did a lot on astronaut suits. That's that's what you mentioned the bio suit is another way to look maybe an advanced technology way to look at the future of spacesuits. Currently, we we fly in big pressurized 140 kilos, almost 300 pounds spacesuit is a magnificent engineering feat to keep the astronauts safe alive. Well Basically what I call the world's smallest spacecraft, that's what a spacesuit is, it's the world's smallest spacecraft, because you have to have all of the Systems Life Support oxygen, keep the astronauts alive, and they have to perform their work when they're outside, or extra vehicular activity when they're outside of, say, the space station. Well, I'm thinking about the designs and as an engineer and designer myself that well, the astronauts really wasting most of their energy fighting against a suit in this big pressurized gas, volume, this gas balloon. So another way to pressurize someone thought is apply the pressure directly to the skin. So it's, it's literally a second skin suit. That's what the bio studios, we said, if we can pressurize to a third of an atmosphere, apply that pressure directly to the skin, maybe we could come up with a suit that was very, very lightweight or magnitude lighter in terms of mass, and very flexible. And that way, the astronauts, I was specifically thinking of going back to the Moon and Mars, when we're in a planetary environment, then you really, you know, you want the astronaut to be like an Olympic athlete, they very mobile have a lightweight system, we're going to Mars search for evidence of past life, you know, you don't want to be sitting around in your habitat, right? You want to empower the crew of the rovers, the robots and make sure that the astronauts are very mobile and agile.
So I know people have been talking about Internet of Things for years. And you kind of reimagine clothing. I'm wondering, is there applications to how we live on earth and how we exercise? Like, like the future of wearables? Is that part of where this is, this is going I'm just kind of free associating, as I hear you talk about this, this BioSuit for for the moon?
Yeah, absolutely. The Earth applications are into new mobility, helping enhancing mobility, you know, very lightweight system. So I actually like to think of it as a soft exoskeleton. And that's what wearables are, to me. And at the Media Lab, we, you know, have huge expertise in wearables over the last, you know, multiple decades, can just envisioning where, you know, kind of human version 2.0, I like to think about it in terms of what capabilities in terms of our technologies, do we embed right into clothing, you know, suits different different systems to and you mentioned, you know, the IoT, that's, that's a whole bunch of data and sensing that we need to take advantage of, and hopefully, again, depending on your application, if it's in health and wellness to help people.
So it's my understanding that media in the world and Media Lab was that technology's the medium. And it's not, it's not about journalism. I'm wondering, how do you when you think, when you explain to people, you're the, you know, like, you're the Green Lantern, you're running, you got the ring, you're now you know, director of this amazing lab that has a great history? How do you describe what the name means? And what do you want it to evolve into at this at this chapter of its of its life?
That's actually a great question. Now, that literal translation of media, I think it was digital, digital, digital media, and it really is about our technologies. And that's technologies across the board. It's our experiences, because at the Media Lab, we have engineers, we have scientists, we have artists, we have designers. And so it's is inventing the technologies of the future, the things that, you know, anyone says, Oh, this is impossible, you haven't thought about that? That's, those are the questions we like, those are the challenges. We'd like, oh, you know, something that's 10 years out, nothing incremental. It's not about incremental design and engineering technology. It's about kind of real leapfrog technologies and visioning things that people think are impossible. And then go back to this our technologies and experiences to for in the, in the application space to help humanity help society. So what can we have the biggest impact in so health and wellness, thinking about exploration, thinking about aging, currently, right now, as well, and people's experiences since we've been all in this pandemic? Also thinking about the we've been living in isolated, confined environments? And so think about learning and education? What would what tools would, we'd love to have to have, you know, high high quality, immersive learning education and, and you know, we're missing so much or, you know, we're missing these social experiences. So we don't really bring that to people envision how we can bring that to people in the future.
So part of this conversation is going to be about health and aging, and then AI and climate. Let's take health and aging. What are the things that you're most excited about? You said the Media Lab sort of 10 years out, where do you think Health and Aging could go should go? What's holding us back? What are the and then what labs are you excited about that are are taking on that topic and how are they doing it?
Oh, there's lots going on at the Media Lab, we just just recently announced a center for bionics. And that's just amazing. It's from the Media Lab and Professor Hugh Herr as a co director with and Professor Ed Boyden from the McGovern Institute at MIT. So it really is where neuroscience neuro engineering, meet Mechanical Engineering as prosthetic design, just in terms of all the hardware, the software, and really looking forward to a world where you think of human version 2.0, as we say, and everyone's able, and so envisioning a world without disability, because everyone is really accentuating everyone's ability. So whether it's a mobility movement, whether it's with brain implants, and just having everyone live their fullest, fullest, most mobile life in existence, so it's just amazingly exciting. Is this something that was just announced, incredibly excited to, to kick that off, and look at the look at the great work that's going forward. And that's going to come out of this new center for bionics, too.
I have a follow up question on that one. Thanks for highlighting that. And that is very exciting. I think many people know who hare who I guess, had a frostbite incident while he was hiking as a teenager and became a double amputee. And instead of curling up in a ball and hating life, he said, I'm going to build the most amazing biomechanics lab that has done all this groundbreaking work, I think we're pretty good at at building technology to connect to other technology. But I don't know we if we've been so good at connecting biology and technology, and and what do you think, us approach or the labs approaches to connect biology to technology? And I feel like you're BioSuit is an example of that. And this is sort of an open question, but I'm curious how you approach it because a lot of people are making things more efficient, but they're not always thinking about how to connect the human to the, to the technology.
That's, that that's exactly what this the, you know, the new K Lisa Yang center for bionics is it's the elements of, you know, kind of the digital nervous system, you know, brain controlled, limb, exoskeletons, and also reconstruction. And then there's also a huge outreach effort, that's going to be a mobile lab to develop, you know, 3d printed, but in real time, limbs for folks all over Sierra Leone. So it's just a great example says the biology, you know, the neuroscience, the brain, you know, connecting the biology with, let's say, more of the the mechanical, mechanical, electrical engineering, it's really, it's really the bionic people of the future.
And so much, you know, we explore the oceans, we explore space, you certainly know a lot about space, but the brain is this unchartered territory and bridging bionics to the brain and bridging other technologies to the brain. Are you you know, I know, Ed Boyden had a connection to the Media Lab. I'm not sure if he's still there. But what's going on with with trying to understand the brain better at the Media Lab?
Yeah, well, that's, that's, that's so ed ed, and who are the CO directors of this new center for bionics. And so it's just getting collaboration. That's what the media lab does, you know, best just bringing people in from different different disciplines, so that we can, you know, solve these really tough problems, but Edie is it and you are the CO directors, then we have other amazing faculty affiliated with it as well. Chandran Dr. Baron, you might know hopefully know her work really looking at she's developing implants. So they're both you know, mechanical and ethical sensing and at the tissue level, at the you know, the human tissue level, and giving artificial appropriate sepsis is really important to get you know, for for muscle movement. It's also for looking at, she's looking at actually ALS and some other diseases. Hopefully, lots of your listeners know, Bob Langer, Bob is a member of the center as well, or sees kind of inventor of tissue engineering, but then to the brain scientists and brain imaging. Professor Nancy Kanwisher is also a member and it goes on so it's just really bringing together you know, amazing scientists, amazing engineers, and having them work together on these really important problems.
Sure, so you know, aging, I've heard a lot of people as of late talk about longevity, and try to re define aging. How do you see aging? And what what what research would you like to see the lab continue doing or do in the future as a way to really address that topic? I heard David Sinclair say the other day that he thinks someone on the planet is going to live to 150 and that And I don't know if that's when you, when you, when you say aging, are you thinking about how we get people live longer, or how we how we live in a way that we age in a different way than we've been currently aging, like like maybe kind of expand on that a little bit. When we think
about aging, and this is again, with Media Lab colleagues, many groups that the media, the fluid interfaces, and also the spring in the future of opera bringing in, you know, top makeover, and you know, music is so important, thinking about. And as Patty mosses lab is, you know, the fluid interfaces, ROSPA cat, Picard and effective computing, these are just some colleagues who are doing just amazing work. And when we think about aging, the future of aging is aging. Well, it's actually quality of life, it's really kind of a issue of quality of life. So you mentioned the longevity folks, there's a lot of folks in longevity that were not so much in terms of longevity, it's collaborating also with the MIT age lab that Joe coffin runs, and saying, what what is that our picture? How do we envision aging, aging? Well, we're all aging. And so what's going to be our quality of life, and mobility and expectations, and it's really in health and vibrancy and you know, both physical and mental health. So really attacking it at that level, to say, you know, what's the highest quality of life that we can have, you know, physical, mental, be really engaged. And again, back to some of the some engineering technology that we're developing that would be you know, more My specialty is suits and mobility, but all the way to the the biology, the cellular regeneration, regeneration, I think the genetics going forward are gonna, you know, be really important as well. So it's really the kind of combining and crossing all these different disciplines.
So everyone, we're talking with David Newman, who is just a North Star for awesomeness. She has such a big heart, and she's a college professor at MIT, teaches aero Astro has a real following of students. And she was tapped to run the MIT Media Lab, which has been described as one of the most diverse places, I think, they said years ago, that's where the misfits went, that didn't fit into the other programs. But it's a really creative place. You said that you like looking at things that are 10 years out, that people aren't looking at currently. And I think you also said something about looking at things that maybe others aren't looking at, like, if everyone's looking at drones, you guys want to research? Something that's not in the mainstream? what's your what's the approach? Or the tactic to be able to identify things that aren't mainstream? Like, like, how do you? Do you guys have a five step plan for that? Do you have a Do you have a strategy to kind of find things that are not, you know, front and center in, you know, interest right in front of us?
Well, first thing is just starts with, again, human inspiration and challenges and big challenges, say, what's what's out there in front of us and maybe looking at problems, challenges, different ways. So look at humanity's big, big challenges right now. I think, you know, in terms of, we've talked about health, aging, climate is going to come right up there, you know, clean water, all these challenges that we say that humanity has in front of us, you know, living together, saving the planet living well together. So really probably starts with what are the big challenges. And then I said Media Lab magic is in putting the putting the putting the right teams together, where you bring in artists and you're bringing in engineers, designers, when everyone's sitting at the table, you're gonna have a lot of different perspectives. And you're just going to come up with different ways to approach it, maybe different solutions. And and also we have a lot of freedom, freedom in terms of the research and anything goes definitely so the yes zone, you know, it's not, no one's gonna say no, that's a stupid idea. Don't try that. No, just the opposite. Yeah, try that boy. I never thought about that. And that's really with the students and researchers and faculty everyone, it should bring all their good ideas to the table and kind of challenge you know one another and try to get all of us to look at look at these problems differently. Because out of those discussions and dialogue, come really some of the the best solutions and the best research to work on.
My My next question is about the building. I know there's the 14 and e 15. I think I am paid design, the one of them and I think maki design the other one? How, how does that building help facilitate some of the creative work some of the wonderful research that's going on there and how is it being utilized and how would you like to see it utilized? Going forward,
they're thanks there. They're amazing buildings and both of them, they they just facilitate so much interaction with people labs are basically kind of a glass building and two stories if you will, the lab. So thank you a reverse fishbowl, right so you kind of walk through the atrium of the center and take a look at the labs it's all kind of open and transparent and is really there designed to so for people so that people can meet and so it's really easy for students and faculty and researchers to share ideas and bump into to one another you know, if you're working on a hard problem, all you have to do is you know, walk outside your your group you know, the facility and go ask someone else I was hard problem I'm working on. And so people are always you know, writing on the walls, there's but there's big open both social convening places in the labs are just beautiful, but but that is really by design, you really need to if you want to have cross disciplinary work, put people together, but then let them all inter intermingle intermix, and we do that and you know, try to try to mix it up as best we can work on projects that go across the the many different groups and the many different, you know, research expertise that we have. But really, some of the fun projects are just getting different people from different groups to work across the projects together.
And I understand that, I guess originally was just going to be an art gallery that the list Foundation was going to fund. And it got built into the Media Lab. And you know, some amazing things have happened there. I'd like to turn to Allison. Allison, it's always a joy to co moderate this show imagination action. Dave is such a great Imaginator. Using her. Her role is the head of the lab to facilitate more imagination type stuff. Allison, what what questions do you have for our amazing guests,
sir? Well, David, it's such an honor to have you join us. And I I sort of want to double down on the question that John asked earlier, because when you share the MIT Media Lab recipe, it sort of starts, as you say, with the challenges the world faces, and that feels like a pretty infinite set at the moment. And then it occurs to me, you must have an incredible set of filters or a kaleidoscope to sort of figure out which parts of the global problems that you want to double down on and can make a difference in and which ones are ones to leave to others. Can you give an example within let's say, climate and the environment of a problem you would have loved to take on but kind of said, Hey, this isn't for us, and how you apply those filters in another way and sort of found where you think you can make the biggest difference.
Thanks, Ellison. That's great to great to hear from you and be reconvening talk to again. So that's, that's a great question. In terms of we at MIT, now, we're standing up some major MIT environment initiatives. So we have climate initiatives that are being served in teams from all across MIT, I'm on a few, they're fantastic, anything from the textile industry, to co2 emissions. So you know, also transportation, all the all kinds of things. And those are filled with really wonderful MIT teams of faculty and students looking at how we can work together. And again, that's kind of multidisciplinary type of work. But your question in terms of, so what do we take a look at? And then say, Okay, well, that's in good hands, in terms of less of our colleagues or whatnot, to put together those teams that say, it could be maybe the textile industry, maybe it's energy or carbon, even in methane, emissions, maybe more the climate modeling. And then for the Media Lab, we say, Okay, well, what, what aspect what, what kind of media lab unique when it comes to climate and climate problems, you say, Well, what do we bring to the table? And again, it really is, well, let's take a let's take a look at it. And given our expertise from the arts and design, we need the arts and the artists and the designers they need to be at the table to to envision just even dream up the visionaries. What are some of the things that we're not thinking about? Or how to tackle these problems differently? So they really is really important, I think, you know, shout out to artists and designers I'm not, you know, engineering scientists from the science we, we have our climate models. That's fantastic. We really playing a lot on artificial intelligence machine learning now that's so real specialty of the Media Lab as well, lots and lots of, you know, ml, we're looking at something now called called Ganz, generative adversarial networks to paint these satellite images of the future. And so that's again, that's so far out. What would that look like if we tried to address some of these challenges and climate differently we bring our skills to the table. But again, thinking about what can what can we do that's unique, that, you know, that are that all of our community wants to work on another example of something, you know, that we're working on kind of through through Cal Arts, Kent Lurssen, script, city science, what will be the future of cities? What does that mean? So it's climate, it's mobility. It's not is the buildings and infrastructure, but how do you re envision that? You know, so how do we think about that differently? And so that's kind of working, you know, across MIT with our colleagues, but then also, I think, asking some questions and think about how we can best contribute and thinking about that, can those the longer term horizon?
So, David, as you walk through the lab, are there labs that you are just surprised that they're working together? Or, or, you know, I think in, in traditional universities, the the different disciplines don't always collaborate, maybe talk a little bit about how, you know, opera, the future fluid, or some of these biomechatronics are working together? And And what's unique about the Media Lab model, and what as you think about the next, you know, chapter the lab, how do you think that collaboration is going to help come up with, with things that can have impact on society?
Thanks. So a couple of couple highlights, too. I can mention, again, kind of Tangible Media Group, that's Hiroshi issues group, bringing in working, thinking about, again, just interfaces that some media has done a lot, you know, computer humans interfaces, how do you how do you reinvent and how is it you know, really, the human at the center of a lot of interfaces designs, you, you kind of match that with a lot of Internet of Things, a lot of the sensors that run across the groups from from Joe parody. So set to Sandy. Pentland. And then you mentioned we've talked about the upper the future Todd makeovers group, the music Well, you put that all together, that wouldn't be natural in other places, maybe someone from from music and someone from computer science, and someone, again, and design will naturally work together. Well, they're all kind of co located all the students, you know, we're all the same community. And so they necessarily, you know, everyone loves to work together and think about, okay, what can I bring to the table? So Todd, and we mentioned Ed's work earlier, we're working on some really, really interesting things. I'm just aging but thinking about also Alzheimer's, thinking about the brain brain function, but bringing in music and experiences as part of the solution.
Great. You know, you mentioned Hiroshi, you know, he has he's so he gets so excited about his research. And Sandy Pentland, you know, has done so much over the years. Thank you for mentioning these these people. How do you help them take a break? So that it's not always go, go go. So they can reflect? I know, traditionally, academia has a sabbatical. But what are ways as a leader of this, this, this great troupe that you're thinking about that, they can recharge and, and bring the kind of new new thinking that that the Media Labs come to be known for?
Well, reflection is, is really important. Again, that's usually and you know, we're just going, you know, million miles an hour on the treadmill. So I think building in just more discussion and thinking together, again, it really helps in terms of strategizing, where should we be going in the future. So we're just convening that. But again, thinking about what the big issues are, what we want to work on together. And so glad you kind of highlighted, you know, Hiroshi, and Sandy, they've been leading the way they've been, you know, long serving media lab members, incredible. Both their, their, you know, work is just amazing. They don't need much of a break, though. They're there. 24/7. I saw both of them today. Thinking about, okay, where do we go, so they're, they're ready to think about the future. Sandy just had a great new book come out. Give him a shout out for this, this new book, thinking about the future, the digital future and the economy. And, you know, he really works also, in terms of policy and resilience. A lot of times it's not just about our technologies. There's a lot of sensors, internet of things, but what about what are we going to do with our policy? What are we going to do with our technologies and a lot of that really gets into the space of governance and thinking about policy it's never you know, a lot of these love the solutions out there. We have to think very, very holistic, you know, complex problems, you talk about climate, when you think about things going forwards, you really need to think about it, I think very holistically and think about not just technological solutions, but what policies, what governance, what things do we need to get right. So that we really can accelerate positive change.
So for those who don't know, Deva, before, she was the director of the Media Lab, has spent a few years as the, as the number two running NASA and has a lot of awareness on on how NASA kind of sees the planet and where some of the challenges are, and where some of the opportunities are. I'm curious, what what do you know about Planet Earth that you'd like more people to know about? And how are you weaving that into your leadership of the Media Lab? And then I have a follow up question. I'd love to know, you know, MIT is this amazing institution? What role do you think the Media Lab plays for? You know, what does MIT need from the Media Lab? And what's that? What? How do you see that relationship evolving? Under your administration?
Okay, thanks. Cool, first, Spaceship Earth. So one that a great vantage point we have from from space is looking down on on Earth, and we can say eyes on Earth. So again, my experience at NASA and there's you know, an entire constellations, of course of Earth observing satellites, that are what I call I called the vital signs, you know, measuring, monitoring, really assessing how is Earth doing. So it's an amazing vantage point from orbit, looking down on Earth, you see the entire Earth, you see, you know, beautiful pictures. And it's also really important perspective, we call that the overview effect. Because when you're in space, looking down on Earth, you see Earth in its entirety, and, you know, gorgeous, you know, gorgeous, a blue, pale blue dot, but it's so important to see it holistically, because then all of our systems, the oceans, the land, the air, from space, everything's connected, and all the people are connected, you know, the land are connected, you don't talk about this nation versus that nation, you just talk about humanity. So I think that really the philosophy, that philosophical view that we have, from space, that overview effect on Earth, is really, really important. You know, we call it Spaceship Earth. That's couldn't be any truer. We're all living on this spaceship. We're all the crew. So actually, we're all astronauts, and we all live on spaceship Earth. And so we think about, then, what can we do together? You know that that's really the key thing. What can we do together? And because we all are in this in this together, it really we have to have I think that holistic global perspective.
Great. And in terms of what is MIT need, from the Media Lab? And what is the Media Lab? You know, what's the relationship that the Media Lab has with MIT, as you see it now and where you'd like to see it evolve.
So really, you know, connecting from the Media Lab, to lots of the MIT major initiatives, I mentioned the Climate Initiative, as well. But center for constructive communications, if you've heard about that was just stirred up by debroy, amazing, amazing new center. And that's housed in the Media Lab, but with the School of Architecture and Planning, and specifically, urban planning, and has researchers from all across as well as with it with a nonprofit, a cortico. And that they just rolled out there the Real Talk series and in Boston, and so really in the community, having the discussion co creating. So that's, that's a great example, again, kind of housed in the Media Lab, but working with with colleagues across campus, across the Institute, and, and throughout our community. So it's so important to to be working in the community and with the community. So C cubed, or, you know, Center for constructive communication. That's just a really great example of those connections and what we intend to do, you know, a lot more in the future as well. Just recently, we are also celebrating Mass STEM week, and the governor was there and President right from from MIT, we was wonderful, we got to open that in the Media Lab, Professor Cynthia Brazil, she's, she runs rays, and that's responsible AI. And so taking a look at that we're gonna celebrate a day of AI coming up in the spring. And again, just, you know, AI is for everyone we want, you know, all kids, all teachers, just the public, everyone to have access, just kind of tools and skills that will need going forward in terms of, you know, computation. So those are a couple examples to kind of housed and lead out of the Media Lab, but connecting across campus but even connecting further into Cambridge and Boston as well. Do you see
AI as artificial intelligence assisted intelligence? Like how do you when you think of AI, I know there's a few that have gotten together. Scene, you know, AI is gonna take all the jobs and something we need to really worry about. What What's your feeling about AI?
Well, a lot of the work that we're doing and we have quite a few experts in AI again, it gets to that that North Star, what are we working on? What's the societal impact? So there's just amazing work going on in like I said, responsible AI? What about equity and justice? Just have a recent new graduate, you know, Joy Ambala wama? Who is running the Justice algorithmic work, just amazing. So that's again, that's really, of what the media lab does best taking a look at it maybe look any differently, say, what are the gaps? What hasn't been done? How would we like to, to use this going forward? And what does it mean to be responsible when it comes to the terms of AI? And is it equitable? So all these things I had mentioned, you know, GaNS before the Generate, is it? Is it equitable for everyone, right? If you're writing those algorithms, we have to be really, really mindful then of the uses. For perhaps the misuse is going forward. And so we spend a lot of time thinking about that talking about that, again, bring it all ideas to the table, to make sure that we can really make kind of significant progress there.
Great. So Alison, love to, you know, you're a futurist. And I know you're a big fan of the Media Lab love to get some more questions from you.
Definitely, I mean, GABA, I want to go back to your incredible role with NASA. And we've been lucky enough under John's leadership to have quite a few sessions on space and have Jim Green and others join us. But I would love to know from your vantage point, because you've been sort of had a front row seat on this probably since your your early days. What do you think will be in space in 2050? Who do you think will be in space in 2050? And what will we be doing? I mean, do you see every country participating? Do you think it will be dominated by a few commercial players? Do you think we will be mining asteroids? And give us sort of your picture from your front row seat of 30 years from now? What will be happening in space?
Thanks. Awesome. That's a great question. One of my favorite topics,
I just want you to know, we're recording this going on the record. Okay, that's
fine, I can go on the record. Medialab director, you know, and Apollo program professor, so there's gonna be a lot of people in space, especially in low Earth orbit, or have the opportunity to, again, get that overview effect that's only low Earth orbit is just, you know, 400 kilometers up 250 miles, and you get that, you know, amazing view, we can do really important work up there as well, in terms of advanced manufacturing, maybe some pharmaceutical work. So it and I think there's actually a business case to be made for getting more from the manufacturing, the pharmaceuticals, these type of activities in low Earth orbit. So that's near space. And so I see a lot of flourishing activity, probably turning a lot of that over to the private sector. That just that just makes sense. Once we have the launch capability of viable space stations, but private space stations, the government and governments world, governments are always going to be involved. That's what space, you know, NASA, of course, for the US, but world space agencies working together, that's the International Space Station as big as a great model for 20 years, we've had no major international cooperation, low Earth orbit from NASA, from Japan, from the European Space Agency, Canada, and Russia, and it's just a really amazing partnership, there has been folks who have sent, you know, 95, over probably 100 Now, countries have run experiments up on space station. And so it really is this great, great example of international science, technology cooperation. And so give you gave me all the ways of 2050 So I really call the this decade, the decade of the 2020s is when humans for human spaceflight will get back to the moon. And that'll you know, it's a it's it's just right on the horizon because developing the heavy lift launch to get get humans back to the moon. So that'll be a huge step forward. And we need to still develop the some of the technologies and get our technologies ready for for Mars because call it Mars forward. Hope that in the 2030s that's when we start you know, sending humans to Mars. It's just a three day trip to the moon. It's a you know, eight month trip to Mars. So it's quite, it's quite a challenge is is a big difference. So I definitely see humanity becoming introduced interplanetary we will we will have humans. Some think it'll be a few on on Mars, maybe larger, the mark larger bases on the moon, and probably lots and lots of infrastructure. And folks orbiting in low Earth orbit, but a lot of them will be autonomous as well. So it's not just, you know, humans. Right now, the democratization of spaceflight, everyone, every, every young school kid out there can design and develop a CubeSat. And actually literally get it flown. And these are these, you know, they're really very qualified, you know, in terms of the science instruments, and again, back to Earth observation and things like that. So that's where the boom is, in terms of the small satellites, Acube satellites, it's, it's for everyone in every nation is participating. And hopefully, space agencies are, you know, make these bets in the longer term things, the things that the private sector is not going to do. And so that's where these public private partnerships and the roles for the space agencies and governments have to play as well as the the private sector and academia as well in terms of the research and science. So I couldn't be more excited. It's we're at this amazing point, I think in history when it comes to spaceflight and sending again, our, our instruments, our satellites, Earth orbiting sensors into space, and as well as human spaceflight going forward, and the science missions will continue. NASA has 100 science missions. And that's, that's to explore course, Earth First and foremost on our favorite planet, but to go out to Mars to go to Venus right now we're in Jupiter, and to go out, you know, exoplanets and develop in looking for the search for other habitable planets. And so just as the scientific breakthroughs have, I expect, really, in the next 30 years, I'm, I probably would underestimate it. But again, the signs the signs for life, elsewhere, the evidence of other habitable planets, I think those are all really right on the horizon, meaning the horizon of a few decades.
I know when I go, as it's
gonna fall on say, that is such an exciting vision. And, you know, do you ever have days or nights, you seem like such an amazing optimist and, you know, bright light in the world? But do you ever envision a future think about a world where there's a little bit more cutthroat competition, or, you know, a few players dominate or another country uses space to control what's happening on the planet? And what, what would be the top sort of one to two concerns, if you were popped back at NASA, you might have about a more competitive, less cooperative view of space?
Well, I think when it comes to the private sector is you know, friendly competition and competition is good. And, you know, competition is actually good within industry. And it makes sure that people, you know, come with their A game and are developing the best the best hardware technologies, but then also whenever we can cut cost in terms of, you know, launch opportunities and things like that, that's, that's, that's what I consider, you know, competition where, where you want it among the among the different entities as more from the private sector, when it comes to governments, governments are not competing at all, with each other space agencies that we work with NASA works with 120 nations. So NASA really works with everyone. And that's how I envision space agencies and world governments working together, you're better, you're better together and cooperatively, and it brings people together, there's also a lot of soft diplomacy, in terms of the space agencies bring working, working. Again, it's not it's not politics is science and technology and bringing people together. And, you know, engineers, and scientists, we just all love to work together. And I always learned a lot from you know, anyone, and we're all over the world. So again, getting back to space agencies and world governments, I see that is that the cooperation and hope that you know, NASA will be leading and expect to lead in terms of the big missions, especially when we go out into deep space, you know, back to the moon, and to Mars, and sharing the science. I'm a huge proponent of open open data, open government when we were there, and that's how science data should be. It should be open and accessible. And you never know, when you know, you're citizen science. And just bringing in that the public and the kids and sharing all that data, they can discover things that maybe the scientists and engineers haven't. So, again, an eternal optimist, but I think that, you know, good, some competition absolutely necessary that that helps, especially with, you know, speed and getting, getting the best getting excellence out of the technologies and whatnot. But I see cooperation, when it comes to governments in space working together for the civil side, from the civil side of space exploration.
So I had the opportunity to visit your office. When you were there, before you took over the as director of the Media Lab and I remember there was a mere computer in one corner and you had just so many things. It was like film It was a combination of like going to the Smithsonian, Air and Space Museum or doc lab from Back to the Future, but maybe describe some of the important artifacts that you you took with you to the Media Lab as a way to kind of show the things that are important to you or the things that you're in a soundcheck about.
Well, I left I didn't take my space station model, I didn't want a whole office full of lots of space things. But I did bring that that computer, that early vintage computer that flew on the Russian Mir space station, I brought that one because kind of like human factors, design issues that we learned from that one. And that's kind of the gold box that kind of looks like an end table now. So I did. I did bring that over. I also brought over something signed by President Obama, when I had that when I got the nomination to be a NASA Deputy. That's it that's very special, and also signed by Secretary Kerry, who was Secretary of State when I had the position. So those were fun artifacts. I bring I have things from students, I have 3d printed, I have some of the first 3d printed things that a student high school student won a competition to come up with you think of a Swiss army knife, well think of a plastic utility tool. And it was a high school student who won that competition, we had a lot of challenges and competitions for NASA. And again, they're open to everyone kind of open, you know, open science and citizen science. So those are view every view, spacesuit looking things I'm sure around some advanced materials, actually from kind of three three dimensional type of metal, but folding kind of origami materials from the Jet Propulsion Lab. So those are those are a few. A few of the things that are around my, my office right now.
So I know you, you sailed around the world with GI maybe, you know, what were some of the AHA 's from that experience and how when when you think back at that, how was that in forming your your leadership these days?
Oh, that's great. Well, so the Yeah, the circumnavigation selling our, our sailboat again, I around the world that first we're both explorers, and the you know, the adventure, but also teaching teaching kids, we teach seminars on exploration by sea and space. And we stopped in 33 different island nations, really, kind of before circumnavigation and after circumnavigation. We think about timing, and really fueled our passion, and interest and urgency to work more on climate, we experienced met the cultures of people against about sailing and surviving for the two of us, but every time we got to stop and teach kids on different islands, we would learn from them, I'm sure, you know, they taught us more than we could ever teach them about living with their natural resources. You know, they, they, they live on islands, I was very much, you know, they're isolated, confined environments, but here they are in the beautiful nature and living in balance with, with all the resources that they have communities that really the community aspect of island life was is really significant. Everyone pitching in, you see the communities, you know, working on projects together. So we really took a lot away about cultures and people from all over the world living living in harmony, that again, with with with their resources, with nature, with the ocean with the land, and really valuing in that really valuing that. So those were, those are some of the some of the main takeaways I'm surviving was another takeaway going through all the weather and the storms, and it was kind of great to be an engineer because everything breaks, everything at least breaks once or twice. So we had plenty to plenty to fix and be creative about. And there's a famous stories on our website that, you know, crossing the Pacific with extra virgin olive oil when our when our auto pilot failed and filled it up with four liters of extra virgin olive oil, that's the same viscosity of hydraulic fluid and got our hydraulics back up and running.
Great. Dave, you are the director of the Media Lab. What? What do you want to? What do you what kind of students do you want to attract? You know, for the next, you know, few cycles, what? What problems do you want them to come hungry to tackle or what skill set would you like them to bring to the table? As you think about? You're leading these days?
Oh, thanks. That's great. And it's all about the students and then the next generation, both of the Media Lab and MIT, I think in all of all of academia, so looking for, you know, really creative folks, optimists, folks who want to change the world, literally, folks who want to make the world a better place and and have their own ideas and, and maybe, you know, tell all of us some of the older folks not maybe you're not doing it right. And we need to listen to their great ideas and some of their crazy ideas they need to bring to the table. And again, but in working across the discipline helping us connect, you know, using various various training various disciplines and hearing they really want to, you know, solve problems. So making sure to see what, what problems that they're most interested in, and again, kind of going for the passion I find students and the younger generation are very, very sincere. They know the big problems that they want to tackle. And you know, again, as an educator, kind of a coach, a teacher, it's, it's, you know, it's our job to empower them.
Great. I see Esther Dyson is is on stage. And Esther I know you were in Misty AG, I think that's one of the the five places you travel part of your wellness. And you were in Dubai recently. And you were in Boston last week. So it's good to Good to see you here. Do you have a question? For Dana?
At this point, I had to do. So I want to listen a little more before I say anything. But I do know her and we talked a lot about astronaut astronaut dear astronaut suits, stuff like that. But let me listen what more great to see you Esther though. Great to likewise.
Glad to greet. Josh, do you have a question? Josh makes these beautiful planets. He's one of the one of the most extraordinary glass blowing artists love your work. And I think I know you think about the planet a lot and sustainability.
He has to go off mute. Michael is we're trying to figure out Josh's situation. Do you have a question? Michael? I did sort of have a question now that dava is is no longer at NASA.
For those of us that are back in this the space sector. myself as an investor in both also the president of the moon society? Do you have any advice or insight now that you're sort of outside of the the NASA organization looking back on it that you would like to give to those of us that are still in the in the space sector exclusively?
Oh, thanks, Mike. I came up with the kind of, you know, 10 lessons learned at NASA and I've shared that with administrator and a new deputy close close friend and colleague. And it's, it's interesting, interesting, you know, a large bureaucracy to to help lead and you know, empowering people and leaving and kind of bringing up innovation. And because, you know, people go go to NASA, they're there. They're so smart. And they are they're so passionate. And so making sure that it's always the you know, it's a guest zone and trying to empower them and raise up their innovative ideas are just a few of the a few of my my lessons learned and making sure that Charlie Bolden the administrator myself, we always talked about NASA as being a stem agency and you know, 25,000,000,020 $5 billion agency for STEM because it is such an inspiring places, you know, great brand recognition, recognition all all kids that I know, love to wear the NASA t shirt and and that's how it should be we want to say yep, you're the you know, you're the future astronauts, you're the future explorers. Guess what, you're the future engineers and scientists.
You know, that that leads to another question. There's, there's NASA and then there's all this commercial space industry. You know, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson has gotten a lot of attention. How do you what do you think of that dynamic? And is that healthy? Is it is one plus one equal three as a result of all this activity? Or are you worried that there there may be some challenges to NASA reach your reach its potential and that other priorities may shift the agenda away from things that that you think are more long term and could be helpful like, you know, preventing an asteroid from taking out earth or talking about sustainability things for in exchange for introducing more short term stuff.
Now it's all good. I mean, we need we need everyone so when in terms of and the launch capability again, so there's there's plenty there's plenty of room for everyone to play. That's why I look at you know, really the public private partnerships are really important. There's a lot of room for government to play government, hopefully is investing and looking to the further further out to get Moon, Mars, and beyond with all the science missions. And then there's plenty, there's plenty of opportunity, again, for private sector to do super exciting things. And I think most of that will probably be in in low Earth orbit, because that's again, where maybe the interest is closer to home, where the business case for low Earth orbit. And some, as I mentioned, some of the manufacturing, maybe some of the medicals, some of the pharmaceuticals, you can create, invent new ways, again, of doing these things. And so that's where the private sector is gonna, hopefully, really, really take over and it'd be fantastic. Take that take all those operations, and that sector over from from government. So it's really a win win.
I see. Josh, his mic is off. So that means he might be able to ask the question, I see Katie, who there like the dynamic duo? I don't know if they both want to ask a question concurrently. But Josh, do you have a question for David? I was just going I noticed in in Davis, tiny little photo, it looks like you're in Antarctica there. And I wondered what your Antarctic connection is. And I also wanted to ask you how art fits into the Media Lab.
Thanks, Josh. So good to hear from you. So that's a yeah, that's, that's South Pole. That is the marker, the little, the literal marker for the South Pole was definitely on the bucket list. I was so thrilled when I got to go to Antarctica and McMurdo base as well as South Pole. With with the, with both NASA, NASA and then with the National Science Foundation. And it was just a dream to dream to go down there, we're gonna know we're bringing in GI here pretty soon as well, because he actually designed the South Pole Station. And gosh, I was back in the 90s, when he won the design competition got to bring students there. And then I actually got to go see it when it was actually built in design. And so that was quite a quite a thrill. And just to see all the highlights of the National Science Foundation research that NASA research, so it was always a dream to get to Antarctica. And I was really fortunate to go there in you know, the fall of 2016. And I'm still looking forward to go back in the future. It's a great analog, it's a great analog for a lot of our Mars research. And Josh thinking about the arts. And that's, that's just so critical to the future of the Media Lab, we're only at our best with with you all the artists, the the visionaries, the people who literally, you know, you paint the pictures, you paint the visions through your glass, and that's, that's gonna painting the visions, and the futures of what what life can be what exploration can be either, again, say via via space or oceans. So that's, we're gonna embrace the Arza means I was kind of based on really embracing and bringing together the arts, science, both engineering and design. And so that's, that's how I see things going forward as well. Even more, more, more of that great, great synergy that we can all realize the Trust for us art, science, design and engineering.
Great Katie Coleman, an MIT grad. Do you do you have a question for Dave? And it's great to see you.
Well, you know, I actually have a question for Josh because we're in different places. I'm down in Orlando, down here for the the upcoming launch of crew three, and also the Hall of Fame induction of Pam Melroy, Scott Kelly, and Mike Lopez Allegria. And so Josh and I are kind of, like, separated at the moment by space and time, and I was, and I thought, I wonder if he's missing me. And then I saw this really interesting topic on clubhouse, and there's my husband, so I'm really glad he's surviving without me. I was just going to time in in the next half to run, but, um, that I, it's really interesting to see how many dimensions this discussion can can take. And, you know, David addressed a lot of the commercial and private and, you know, really bleeding edge kinds of things that can happen both, you know, with the government and with our partners, but and then art and exploration and different people exploring in different ways and telling the stories. There's also the people aspect of this of with so many people getting to go to space lately, it really opens up I think it really does something that people want the rest of the people where they just go, Wow, maybe that could be me. And I think that that factor that could be me, not meaning that everyone's going to go to space but they realize that the impossible as possible, is actually going to be a catalyst to solve a lot of problems and so I really enjoy the the ripple effect of what the the space program and in all its partners brings,
you know, Katie, net net now that you're you're on the stage, I have a question for David that you may want to involve Katie. You know, Katie, you were on to space shuttle flights and you're you went up and I think the solutes to the International Space Station, I think you've traveled 90 million miles in space. And in David, you think a lot about how space affects the body like bone density, and I know the Kelly's the twins, were up in space, they were I think there was some research on them. What do you know about humans in space, and what it does to the body and what we should be aware of, that? Maybe not be may not be so mainstream, but that you'd like to point out or, or have have some of the next generation? Researchers try to figure out because if we are going to travel, you know, to these exoplanets, or, or further, you know, we our bodies are not necessarily built for that. And, and you know, in Star Trek and Star Wars, you see people zipping around, but we haven't gotten to that point.
Well, yeah, Katie, great to great to see hear you tell everyone, congratulations. Yeah, big, big hugs, and congrats all the way around for the New Holland Hall of Famers. That's, that's, that's awesome. John, do your question. And Katie can ask answer to that. That's called the field of bio astronautics. So that's a that's the graduate course that I'm teaching right now is going to take a look at all the physiological systems, you know, muscles, and bones and cardiovascular. You name it, just all the human performance, astronaut performance aspects. And we see a lot of maybe deterioration, some some atrophy, there's a lot of exercise every day that you need to perform when you're in in weightlessness, to make sure keeping everything is healthy. And as well, we also, of course, studied astronauts when they after they land and make sure that they're doing well. And kind of regaining, let's say that, you know, the muscle and the bone and the coordination, all those all those kinds of things. So it's a, it says, actually a great laboratory up there because of the changes, and we see the changes happening so quickly that we can study them. And they have so many Earth applications, like the bone loss, well, that applications for us to process. So we find out what's happening in space and astronauts, but it, you know, has application to, you know, millions, hundreds of millions and billions of people here on Earth. So that's kind of how we look at some of the the bio astronautics investigations and research that we do.
And I was hoping that Deva would do the specifics like that, because that's, you know, what she's amazingly, you know, teaching and actually, having been the Deputy Administrator of NASA, she certainly has seen that very big picture. I think there's still lots to learn. I mean, those of us who've been, you know, we all seem to be coming back, you know, in most ways, just fine. I mean, there's different things that we're learning about, we're learning about bones, and muscles, and in those lessons actually come so, so quickly, straight back down to earth, about how all of us can stay healthy, down here, which I think is very valuable. But the numbers are still small in terms of what we know. And I'm excited about flights, like the first started this flight to go, you know, around the moon and back and give us a lot of deep state space knowledge about what is happening to humans, because we want to understand these things as best we can. Before we go, and with that gentle faith. Thanks for inviting me. I was sorry, not to be just to drop in for just a minute. But I actually really have to run. And oh,
thank you. Thanks
for keeping my husband off the streets. And I'm sorry to miss this conversation, because these are the people to have it with. There's no question.
Yep. Rudy, and Jim and Brent. Let's, let's get three questions out. And And then David, you can you know, choose which ones you want to take, in what order or mash them together. Rudy, do you have a question? Yeah.
Thank you. This is a very stimulating conversation. Yeah, I'm, I'm a big fan of Professor Alex Pentland, and his work, especially with social physics. So I was just curious as to the state of social physics in the lab.
Great. Thanks, Rudy. And I, I, I echo. I'm a big fan of Sandy Pentland to Brent. We're getting three questions at a time. Or Jim, do you have a question?
Yes, absolutely. First, let me recommend to Rudy, Professor Daphne Bergen tall from the University of Santa Barbara had a 2000 paper entitled acquisition of the algorithms of social life. And I highly recommend it and all the papers that have cited it since because it's extremely good for understanding how our limbic and endocrine systems influence our behavior. And I just wanted to say thank you so much Deva, for being on this channel. It's wonderful to have an opportunity to talk to the media lab director. And so my questions are, how his pronunciation repeats have the kind of speech recognition that doesn't transcribe or dictate but helps people improve their own speech? How is that going at the Media Lab? Do you have any speech recognition engineers working on that? Are you excited about the idea that black? That dark matter might be almost entirely primordial black holes? And perhaps a ratio of one black hole per star? And what does that say about the far future possibilities of interstellar relativistic slingshot navigation? My favorite AI has already sent you these questions on Twitter. So if you need to refer to them, they're they're there. And finally, Project Foghorn the Google from five years ago, they they shelved it because green hydrogen was too expensive and oil was too inexpensive. But now that's all turned around with all the excess. You know, off peak power from nighttime wind and morning solar, that you can make green hydrogen with, there's 250 gigawatts of new green hydrogen projects around 27 sites throughout the globe. Far more than 27 Actually, what about the ocean desalination using that dialytic ion removal method that not only disseminates the water but allows for direct carbon removal. And you can use that carbon to make you know, carbon neutral transportation fuel, you name it, kerosene for jets or gasoline for cars. And also Desalinate it here in California where we've been having a drought, desalinated water is selling for $2,500 per acre foot. And that's supporting all of these far less efficient previous generation reverse osmosis plants. So I think we've got a great opportunity to leap forward on that. And I'd like to hear your observations on any of those and all of them, if possible. Thank you. So
Well, Jim, doing one question per person. But thank you, that was a bunch of great questions. David, you know, I hope you wrote those down. Brent, do you have one question?
Yeah, thank you. Um, so I first learned about the Media Lab by watching the show abstract on Netflix, which was had a wonderful profile of Yuri Oxman, who's very interested in biophilic design. And I was wondering what the MIT Media Lab is exploring as it relates to biophilic design that can help climate change like so for example, I've heard about, there's a new ARPA C project that may be looking at like algae, sequestering carbon, but really anything on that topic that you could speak to would be wonderful.
Great. Well, David, you're not going to be graded on on? How will you answer these, there were a lot thrown at you. But it just shows how curious our audiences This is imagination action, where we have some of the most creative, clever people who are using their imagination to make have impact. And we applaud David for her life, body life experience and what she's done. And we're excited to see how she's gonna lead the Media Lab as the latest director. And Deva, you got a bunch of questions? Okay, let's
see. Oh, yeah, that was, that was a lot. So just real quick, thanks. Thanks, Rudy. And just wanted to point out Sandy's new book, building the new economy, you know, data is capital that you might really enjoy reading as well continues, you know, his amazing work, and I say, I'm right, in terms of communities and improving communities and, and inclusion. So that might be interesting for you, Jim, that was, yeah, three or four, just maybe go to the the last one, talking about the oceans, I think you I think the key point there is that you really hit on, when we think about think about climate, we should actually probably really start thinking first about the ocean subsystem as, as we like to call it, we really need to, you know, make progress in terms of biodiversity and take a look at the oceans in terms of that's, that's the engine Sylvia Earle says, you know, with without any blue, there's, there's no green, and I really believe that. And so taking a look at you mentioned, you know, the osmosis but just taking a look at the ocean system, and thinking about what we can do there, again, to take care to come up with the solutions looking forward. So I think it's just going to be key for our climate work going forward. And then so much Grant Thank you Brent, and then Brent jump into tears. Again, that actually talking about LG and taking a look at what is kind of the probably the aqua culture going going forward as well. That's that's, I think, really promising area and mentioning you know, and giving a shout out to Nikki's amazing work, amazing design, always kind of bridging design and, you know, living systems and sales. So, again, thanks for your question and comment and kind of pointing us in that direction.
And and when I think Nerea think of the 6000 silkworms that made it pavilion and challenged me to realize that, you know, buildings and structures don't have to, it could be living organisms that create them. And I remember meeting the members of his team of her team, and just how diverse they were architects, biochemist just all over the map, and just how kind they were to each other and how they listened and collaborated. And that's a great model, and you're doing it in many different labs. So, Jim, Dr. Rao, and John and Esther, let's, let's get a bunch of questions from you guys. And then I also had a question, David, maybe you could explain to our audience, the media, lab labs, or the groups have such interesting names, Lifelong Kindergarten, camera culture, wondering if you can enlighten our audience to, you know, understand the algebra there to kind of create those those names. And, and one thing I do want to point out, Dr. Pentland Sandy Pentland awesome. The event that we do in Davos, imagination, action, he and I co curate that event. And we do it with Forbes, and the Chief Content Officer and the head of the founder of 30, under 30. Randall lane, we're gonna be interviewing him later this month. And he's, and we curate that event together. And we're gonna we I think this is we're in the 40s, for having done the shows, and we're gonna invite our speakers, if they want to be at that stage in January, but let's see. Jim, do you have a question? I know you're in Texas.
Yes. Dave, it's been really amazing listening to you. And I'm very impressed with what you all are doing. At the Media Lab. I've had the opportunity over over a number of years, a few years ago, to, to come to the Media Lab and on sponsor days, and see the amazing projects that are being worked on. And I'm wondering if, if you all have had any plans or have done anything to, to reach out more to the, to the community beyond having people come to the Media Lab, and, for example, would hold the National Academies, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, all and others, all have programs to reach out to the community and and this and show people what's going on in their, in their business. And I'm wondering if there is an opportunity for the Media Lab to do a similar sort of thing.
Great. Thanks, Jim. You're my favorite 58 year old or 85 year old, we always get great questions for you. Dr. Rao. Do you have a question for David? Yeah.
I was wondering about that super white pink that is touted for safe rooftops, which deals with the sun, heat or race. What was the progress on that? How soon it could be something we could see everywhere.
Great. Thank you. Dr. Rao, you always ask good questions. David, these are some regulars that always bring up good questions. John Kelly, do you have a question? And then I'll go to Esther, and then we'll let you take them. David.
I'm sorry. I came in very late. Maybe just a historical question. Way back in the pre internet days, there was a couple of very interesting sensemaking projects. We weren't calling them that then. But they were news, news, aggregation, News Analysis projects, and I just wondered if the lab is doing anything in that area. Recently.
Great. Thanks, John. Esther, you still want to listen or you want to jump in with a question? No,
I, I have. It's kind of a follow on. I'm curious. You mentioned that. Charlie said NASA was a STEM lab. And is your presence now at MIT making it more doing more space stuff? And that's a specific question more generally, how and this is lightly more edgy. How has the governance changed since you arrived?
Great. You know, you got you got four great questions. And you had a fifth one for me about the names of the lab groups. Take them any way you want.
Okay, great. Helped me How many of these I'll just take the names of the groups first, just because that's on my, that's on my mind. So, two words, you know, some of them are one word, again, but future sketches, you know, human dynamics, you know, effective computing and on and on, people can jump on media.mit.edu and, and take a look, but definitely naming the group and is, is, you know, great, great taglines for all this amazing research. That's, that's done. But if you can say shortly, I guess you can even say it well, so I just I love and the glyphs that that's actually kind of the identity, which I think is his skin is beautiful, and really suits us suits as well. So space enabled is another group and see if we, you know, social machines. So again, two, in two words, you can say a lot. And those cover, you know, groups that are, you know, dozens of researchers and people performing work. So,
what I love about those names is that other institutions, University of Michigan, you know, Stanford, they don't have these groups, you know, the, you guys are really combining two things. It's like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup chocolate and peanut butter in a way that, you know, isn't isn't often created. So I, you know, thank you for doing that.
Oh, thanks. You know, there's personal robotics, that's kind of self explanatory, right. So some of them are, you know, poetic justice, you know, more aspirational, you know, responsive environment, sculpting evolution, you know, kind of work to the biology, that genetics work we do. So, thanks for bringing that up with, let's see what Esther did just, you know, response in terms of the, you know, trying to raise up some education, which, you know, we're all trying to do, but I and I actually call it steamed, you know, the, the kind of changing the conversation, always bringing an art always bringing in design, as is so important to to get I call it STEAM. First of all, we're steamed, we're not making, you know, progress more quickly, we need to we need to do better when it comes to including everyone, you know, so little folks out there, they need to send them a message that you're in no filtering, anyone out. The STEM fields are known are kind of famous for that, you know, filtering folks out, and I say no, I'm just have the opposite message it steamed is inclusion is bringing everyone in. And all I know is a we need, you know, everyone at the table. And so again, saying yes to all the folks in there that want to get someone to to Mars or want to help us with climate and just say, yep, guess what, those are the problems we're working on. And we need you and you know, and you're in so kind of trying to try to change that conversation and make sure people know that, that we need them. Let's see comment on the Yeah, some of the early Media Lab work on news. So it was so glad that that was brought up in terms of the you know, e readers right, eating things like that, right fish wrap all these things that well, we have electronic newspapers, those were kind of radical,
I think those were like 10 years ahead of their time, you know, they were exactly ready before we were ready.
Now. And now we're in now we're, you know, now we just take them for granted really talking, you know, to our robotic assistants and helpers, all those things. So that's the thing with anyone, okay, in the next 10 years, you know, what will be some of those some of those breakthroughs as well, and especially when people say, Oh, that's not possible or technologically, that's not possible. Those are exactly the kind of questions that we want to that we want to go after. But again, and then this kind of dovetails to the future of that the question on outreach that we have many, not just at the Media Lab, but also kind of across MIT. And there's lots of resources, again, kind of for any age learner, and trying to make things open. I'm, you know, as a faculty member, one of my proudest things at MIT is open courseware, just opening up all of our courses and giving you know, the syllabus of material knowledge should be free, knowledge should be free. And then when it comes to the Media Lab, we're so glad to now finally begin, you know, back in person can't wait to up open houses and invite our members back. We just had an amazing couple of days of for members days, it was live, because we were in the lab live. And then the next one in the spring, really opening it up and have people having people there in person, because a lot of the magic is just everyone meeting everyone else. And all those good ideas, again, not just from us in the lab, but from all the folks who visit as well. There's plenty of great genius ideas that we get from when we have people people visit and come see the lab. And I think that I think that covered most of them. Those are the ones that I wrote.
Yeah. Female STEM leaders riff on that. I remember when I went to your office, I think Barbie had a had a doll that was made of you. You know, or your, your you're such a leader. I think, you know, my daughter's into STEM and she's like, I don't know, careers I could go into and yet she's top of her class. You know, what do we need to do to like help prepare the next generation of female leaders? You know, that must be something that you think about and, you know, just by you living your life I think you're, you're helping in that that dialogue, but I think there's still so much more to do.
There is and it's the responsibility for all of us. And first people need to see themselves. And after they see themselves like, it wasn't people think of a rocket scientist. Yeah, they should, they should think of me, you know, they don't need to, to think of, you know, or a scientist and you know, somebody in a white coat with glasses. You know, they need to, but so you have to see yourself people have to be encouraged actually say, Yes, this is don't tell anyone know that, you know, that's the thing, the fundamental thing, you have to encourage folks. So there's a simple, and then they need actually a really warm and a welcoming environment. Everyone needs to know that they do belong, that yes, this this is for them. And that's really important. And we have to work on, you know, the, the culture of our of our, all of our laboratories, our environments, because we need them to be diverse, we need to them to we need everyone to thrive, we need to safe, diverse, inclusive cultures, in terms of our labs, our groups and across academia. That's when we'll really get it right when we get that right.
So I have a number of questions for Gi. But before I do, I'd like to turn to Allison. And maybe you could kind of summarize what we've discussed so far. And then a few weeks ago, we had a guy who's probably going to be the ninth billionaire to graduate from MIT. He grew up in Oklahoma and came to MIT. And we interviewed him and his COO, is is, is kind of like colleague, and it was interesting to get the perspective from someone else, given the key has worked with you Deva and has, you know, really ideas on on on the planet and sustainability and the environment and design. I'd be interested in asking him some questions. But before that, I want to turn to Allison. Allison, can you kind of summarize so you know what we've accomplished so far.
Oh, my gosh, what a special evening, we've been graced with the presence of David Newman, who's the Apollo program professor and director of the MIT Media Lab, David told us that she grew up in the Rocky Mountains of Helena, Montana, which is big sky country where you always want to look over the next horizon. John described Deva beautifully as the North Star for awesomeness, which I think is a very apt description. She grew up during the Apollo program, and she described the MIT Media Lab where she serves as director being full of not only the most creative colleagues and most transdisciplinary teams, but also really looking to solve the next generation of global problems she described. It's composed of engineers, designers, artists, scientists, visionaries, and they all sit down at the table to invent the technologies of the future. She said they're focused on nothing incremental, they aim to envision things people think are impossible, and really go for that leapfrog 10 year kind of vision. She describes setting up the center for bionics, which combines brain neuroscience with prosthetic design and mechanical engineering, so that you could possibly enable or envision a world without any type of death disability, possibly with 3d printed limbs with a potential for cellular regeneration, and really changing what it means to have everybody live at their full potential. Davis shared the MIT Media Lab recipe, which is pretty awesome. It starts with major global challenges that can be approached new ways such as health, aging, climate, clean water, living a healthy life. But then the MIT lab magic, as she put it, is putting the right teams together with different perspectives and solutions. David described creating the yes zone where anything goes with students, researchers and faculty. And this leads to the best solutions and the most interesting kind of research, then Deva in her previous life, I can't even imagine how many lives Dave has lived at this point, served as deputy of NASA and shared her exciting vision for what we can imagine in space 2050. She described how we'll have this overview of fact with whole new ways to measure vital signs of the earth to measure the vitality of oceans, lands and rivers. She described that we're going to have flourishing activity with lots of people in low Earth orbit near space. She said, we're going to have private space stations and world space agencies and described how the International Space Station has really had over 100 countries run experiments in a whole new level of international cooperation. Then, even more excitingly, she told us that human spaceflight will get back to the moon, and that we will be Mars. forward in 2013, meaning humans will be on Mars, she reminded us that is an eight month trip to Mars versus a three day trip to the moon, to have a shared vision where humans will be interplanetary, and mentioned that we're now without humans at Jupiter, and that with exoplanets, we'll be able to search for other habitable planets. She also talked about the importance of citizen scientists, where every kid can develop a CubeSat and, and do its own research and measurements. Then, most amazingly, in all of this, David described how she and Gucci in their spare time, circumnavigated the ocean and traveled around the world stopping on 37 island nations. Her trip included sailing, surviving, teaching, learning from kids on islands. And David told us, it's great to be an engineer because everything breaks at least once. I'm gonna remember that next time I'm on a ship. David described her vision for scholars she's hoping to attract she's looking for optimist folks who want to change the world and make it a better place. She works for STEM inclusion and wants to get everyone at the table. She believes knowledge should be free and open courseware. And she says most of all, we need to encourage folks to know that they have a place at the table and that we need their voice to solve today's problems. It's quite an evening so far.
Great. So, David, do you agree? For the record did did?
Absolutely. Well, Ellison. That was amazing. Thank you.
Yeah, I'm so sorry, I'm being called right as we're doing this. So. So I guess, my, my question to ghee is, you know, what, what would you like to add about Deva, that we may not know? Or, you know, you you've collaborated from the BioSuit to many other things to sailing around the world? You know, she's an important leader for these times. Is there any perspective you'd like to add?
Well, yeah, good evening over everyone. Pleasure to be here and joining the conversation. So yeah, it's, it's quite interesting to live with Eva. And work with Dave, I had a full time basis. So, you know, it's been, it's been a good long road of all these different phases. And so, you know, Dave was definitely an adventure, I thought it was an adventure when I was young, what I found the right rat, right partner. So to do all, but and be able to participate in many of these adventures, both physical and intellectual. So the the key today is really, her optimism, and there is no looking back is always forward and solving the problem until it gets solved. What you know, I'm a sailor, since I was born, my father was a sailor, I know how to sail the ocean, how to take care of sales and manage storms and so on. Having Dave as an engineer, and right hand, you know, as she mentioned, we run into some critical problems. And what I love about it is there was never fear, never, never, you know, looking and the problem in a way that it cannot be solved, everything is solvable. And sure enough, you know, we solved some difficult problems. So, it is that kind of optimism, that kind of leadership and always level headed and, you know, without is the less selfish person I know, incredibly giving to everybody that surrounds her, whether it's a student or students after every one of our talks, you know, she can stay there hours until the last students questions his answer. You know, so, you know, it's this kind of the incredible giving attitude that I think comes from her culture, her family, incredible father, creative innovator. So, no, it's just incredibly stimulating to, to be able to, to live every day in our discussions. You know, we're constantly thinking about the planet of the future. optimistically. You know, no matter what goes on the reality of the world, there's no, not a lot of time to think about that. Because I think, you know, we think that, you know, just really painting the picture of the future. We can take a lot of negativity out where, you know, all of this political issues with our neighbors nation to nation or political, political, internal to our country, you know, or a different country. So I think we, we think that by really solving problems and painting futures and, and racing people up to the top potential, I think we can, you know, achieve all these things that you were talking about for, you know, in the last hour.
Thanks, or good partnership?
How do you guys divide up how you work together? I mean, I think when counted, people come together, there's sort of a Venn diagram of things you that people overlap, and then there's certain tasks at the each each kind of take on as we think about collaborating, and for people to use their imagination and to have impact and, and have action, I think we need to find ways to work together more than ever, you know, being solo performers, you know, throughout society, I think is not going to get the work done.
Absolutely, no, we are a multidisciplinary collaborator team here. And we bring, we bring everybody that is needed to, you know, solve problems. So, we met because of my background and space, when we met, I was teaching, you know, we I started the space architecture program, and an architect by background and interior designers, I mean, industrial designer, so I really look at ways of solving problems through design. And Dave is more from the engineering and scientific world. And, you know, but we're both related to the human, you know, Dave, I was always working on human and human performance, I was looking at human environments in space, and how, you know, mission architectures to go to the moon or a space station. So, our collaboration is really from that end, I mean, I'm kind of the designer, I'm looking at, you know, I can paint the pictures and draw some, some solutions to some of the issues. And, you know, and Deva is highly technical, and both not only as an engineer, but really understanding science and bringing in the scientists and so on. So I kind of the artistic bring part of the artistic element to our family, in many ways, like, Josh and Katie, which are dear dear friends. And that's why I think we're so close, I think, you know, I think the guys, this to relationships, were kind of the artists and designers are looking at the world in a maybe a romantic way. And, you know, and they have Katie being highly technical and in terms of, you know, their space experience and so on.
kind of lit up when she referenced the South Pole and how you designed something down there. Can you maybe tell us a little bit about what you were solving for and what you what you created, and it sounds like you guys may have made a journey down there. What was that, like from your perspective?
Yes, well, that was great. Right when they when I met, or right at the beginning of a relationship, I ended up there was a competition in international competition put out by the National Science Foundation to design the new South Pole, the South Pole Station, the bass, the bass itself was kind of coming, it was being deteriorated, the dome was sinking or being covered by snow, it was really expensive to maintain. So we won the competition with a group of students and in Houston, I was teaching in Houston at the time and living in Houston. And
how many people would be living in it at one point, it's like, A, if you know, 10s Hundreds,
when I was there, only 20 people were in wintering over. Now there's more than 60 or 80 people wintering over, and then in the summer, it used to swell to about 100 now is really several 100 So it's a very large base right now, the South Pole Station is a great research facility. That design is based on on one of the winds that we had, we had you know two winning designs actually to to the station to the to the base. And they really, if you look at the design is is based on on one of our entries one of our winning entries to the design. So with that I ended up going down to the to stop I had very much the same experiences that David did. But I spent quite a bit of time down there, learning about the environment, learning about the technology and ways to assemble buildings in that extreme environment. And we think we wanted to have really our experience of designing lunar structures, lunar lunar environments. So we related very much the whole experience of building on on the South Pole, what it will be to build on the moon. And we were, I was promoting, at the time, a base in the dry valleys of the Antarctic as a simulator, analogue station to a Mars or lunar base. So I was trying to get NASA and NSF together to fund a base and the dry valleys. It never really was funded. There was a lot of enthusiasm about it, but it was really hard to get the funding for it.
So Alison, do you have a question for this dynamic duo? Powers Activate afternoon?
Yeah, I just wrote John is like, what an incredible couple. I would just love to know in your time going around the 33 Islands. What most surprised you? I mean, what I can, I'm half curious about all the things that David didn't fear and that you guys solved. But what were some of your top learnings from the that circumnavigation?
Yeah, well, I'll start first first. So he's, he's the same. He's like the professional sailor, so I have to give credit. So he taught me how to sail. And so that's the important things when you circumnavigate just the two of us sailing around the world to go first. I knew he could save my life when everything, you know, hit the fan, but we had to get my skills up to the point where we felt comfortable that I could, I could, you know, sail on my own or help and save him. So, so that's a, it was a he's gonna dream bucket three, when I said, okay, yeah, I'm crazy enough to say, Yeah, this sounds like the greatest thing in the world, let's say around the world, and these kids. So
one of the surprising things, so the planet is that is so small, that we were able to just powered by the wind, you know, we could go around it. And literally nine months, we were nine months alone, sailing, the other nine months, we're playing or meeting with people or engaging with students or having fun, or, you know, really exploring, but the planet is really not that big. And when, you know, we look at the atmosphere being so thin, really just a few 100 miles up, this whole thing is, you know, it's an ecosystem that, that is all dependent on each other, and meeting all the different societies and groups, particularly in lower and very small a tools like and the Tuomo tools and places like that, where water is rising. And they are, there's a lot of fear going on in the in the South Pacific, specifically, and they're not just 30 islands. So we're talking about that, you know, 1000s of islands truly around the planet, that are our, our, really, and we heard it this last week. And in Glasgow, you know, countries that are, are really looking at literally disappearing, and we need to be very conscious of that. And that's why we after both having this life of looking at conquering or really colonizing the Moon and Mars looking back at the earth looking really what can we do for the planet? And that's why we found it Earth DNA.
So I have a question for you, Deva. And ghee, you can weigh in here in traditional academia, you know, their academic departments, biology, material science and, and professors get in doubt. And but at the Media Lab, you have these different groups, and they have these unique names. I'm wondering, over your your administration, you know, I don't know if that's how you refer to it. But do you see creating some new groups? And what's the process for identifying areas for groups to be is it based on individuals coming forth? And and they would be good around that, that that that research that discipline? Or is it you guys think of an idea and then you then you do a crowdsource to try to find someone to take that on? And then gi I'm wondering, you know, do you have some groups that you think knowing Deva and knowing what you two are passionate about that you'd like to see the the Media Lab to add? Does that make sense, David?
Yeah, definitely. So we'll definitely be you know, hiring new faculty Absolutely So, and
like, it's like chicken, the egg you do you hire the faculty and say to them, what lab Do you want? Or do you come up with a new group? And then and then you find the faculty to take that on? Or is it a case by case,
it's just, it's just, you know, bringing in the most creative, wonderful people. And so we'll have a couple searches, I think coming up in the future of computing and maybe design, we'll take a look at, you know, what about in the climate space, we definitely want to attract people, you know, in climate, I don't know, maybe their group would be called, you know, creative climate, or saving Spaceship Earth or something like like this. So it's really opening up faculty searches, and there'll be kind of wide across the lab, and then, depending on the people that and then then the people and bring you on to people, and they'll they'll come up with, you know, the final names of the groups and their work, but we're really looking for people to contribute in actually all the areas that we've talked about tonight.
Great, and then Gi, you know, you know, what the lab is trying to do and trying to live in 10 years in the future and do all this extraordinary stuff. are there groups that you'd like to see the lab? And are there ones that you guys talk about? You know, when you're thinking when you're sailing? Or are having dinner together?
Yeah, absolutely. You know, given my background in architecture and design, I think I think design is, you know, a big part of it. I mean, many people are doing design, but, you know, it's about really painting painting this future. And I would like to see more true media, video, communications, you know, how do we actually communicate what is going on not only in the lab all around MIT, you know, communication and changing our behavior. I mean, we all need to change behavior, I think in the future, given the climate, you know, emergency that we have. So how do you help that? And that, that goes back to this creative conversations or positive conversations, constructive communications, you know, how do we how do we tell the stories? So I see kind of artists from that point of view, you know, in terms of communicating, whether it's with storytelling, whether there's with film, video, and so on, where we can transmit some of these amazing inventions that are going on, and, and do more of those. So I think design and, and communications is key to to be able to change the future. Without it. It's very hard to turn, turn, how civilizations moving, I think we really need to kind of refocus it, and how do we do that a
lot. That'll be changing, changing, changing hearts and minds basically, a day if you're not changing behavior, changing hearts and minds, and a lot of that's through the arts.
Yep. So, you know, we've all lived through this pandemic. And, you know, I sometimes refer to it as a Twilight Zone episode that, that doesn't seem to end, you know, there's so many dimensions to this, and I hope something many good things can come out of these challenging times, people will refer to the Renaissance came out of, you know, the era of the plague or something, What good do you think is come out of this period, that is informing the Media Lab how to create a new normal in terms of working across the lab or working with, with industry partners, or, or just trying to be a important research center for these times.
So that starts with again, people to me, I kind of have a four piece for the Media Lab. So it starts with the people and taking care of your people. And it's always gonna be about the people. And so, again, great work going on internally in our, you know, the culture and the people and making sure that we have, you know, we have an amazing and mission and vision for the lab that we've talked about, but also just shared about shared values, and working with with members and folks who share our values. So we're bringing on new members and companies, and, but they're really ones that share our values going forward. So So that's, that's really important kind of step one people I say, Parodi to me as my second P, you know, reaching parity and inclusion we've talked about, and being excellent. The only way I know how to be excellent is you know, through infinite diversity, and we get to play at the Media Lab, which is just amazing. Everyone can't take yourself too seriously. Right. Some of the most creative ideas come through, you know, play and just having fun and, you know, trying to think about things maybe maybe differently or new opportunities, new solutions, and then an odd kind of possibility. That's the thinking about the next day and what are what's what's possible. Let's, you know, be optimistic and you know, get to work we work Hard to repay, but what what? What are those possible futures that we really do want to create, we want to envision and we want to share with the world.
Great, well, on that. My last question is David, can we help you in any way this is being recorded. AI is gonna create a transcript shortly after we close the room, there'll be an audio, we're finding that we're getting a lot of pickup on on our show and the 250 Imaginators that are part of this community. They they they dive in and look at this. Is there anything that we can help you with? Are there other topics that you don't think are getting out there about the Media Lab? This is long form journalism, you have the kind of close last word to kind of put out there, you know, how can we support you?
Well, thanks for thanks for the conversation. I mean, I guess it is in the imagination, and even the name of this, you know, imagine imaginary, right? What can we all imagine together because it really is a call for everyone to join us in terms of we need all voices, we have big challenges for for humanity. And we're really focused right now you and I are on on climate also exploration or vision for our Earth DNA is to empower every person to act every day to, to heal Spaceship Earth. And we think we can do this within the decade. And so again, just kind of calling on on all voices, all activities, we do think it is kind of the climate revolution is individual's is from the ground up. This is a revolution. And people need to kind of join an act change behavior, we can, we can do something people shouldn't get overwhelmed, we remain optimistic not to get overwhelmed. Just say okay, there's just something I can do some little thing I can do every day, but just scale that over billions of people, we would really accelerate positive change for what we call Spaceship Earth. And that's, that's the goal.
Now, I would encourage everybody to take a look at Earth. dna.org is our organization just to see what we're doing there as well.
training the next future and that, you know, for the nonprofit or changing training the next day, the future generation of the earth DNA ambassadors. And so there's training there for student leaders, negotiation, storytelling, all those kind of kind of things are really what we're working on together as our as our partnership and this exciting project.
Yeah, I was very lucky as a student to have. But Buckminster Fuller is an advisor for my lunar base, which is my undergraduate thesis. And, you know, and he's the one that coined the phrase, Spaceship Earth, which, and then, you know, many, much of his thinking affected the rest of my life, and particularly, this idea to make the world work for 100% state of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense, or disadvantage to everyone or anyone else. And so this is kind of our motto, you know, is how do we move forward with this growth and population expansion, but, you know, keeping the earth alive, you know, keeping the species alive and try to, you know, do the least amount of harm possible.
Great, well, you know, Dave, I see here, you're, you're new to clubhouse for those on the show, follow her, whether it's on clubhouse or on Twitter or any social channels. She's an important leader for these times. She's changing the Vectra society. And I'm excited to see her tenure, running. As director of the Media Lab. It's a bunch of great labs that are doing for ordinary work, but they need someone to be an advocate and support them and help help create a vision and you're the right person at the right time. And looking forward to seeing where you take it.
Thanks so much.
Great. Alison, do you have a last word?
No, just thank you for the honor. And and I love the whole idea that really to get to solve these more complex global challenges. Everyone needs to be at the table. So thank you for your beautiful heart and for your inclusive vision.
