Future Design Podcast

If we can predict human mobility, we can potentially stop deadly diseases before they turn into a pandemic in cities. How are researchers who are building our smart cities, with the use of AI, IoT, and image sensors, going to combat future pandemics?

Pieter Fourie, and academic at the Future Cities Laboratory for Singapore ETH Centre, and his team is working with digital twins, a virtual version of yourself, to see how people move around in cities and what happens when a contagious virus is dropped into a city like Singapore.

While our physical lives merge more into our virtual lives, cyberbullying has become a social problem, whether it's an adult or a child. Studies show that 50% of parents with children aged 6 -18 have reported them to be bullied. 1/5th of that takes place online so with that in mind how do we prepare our children for the negative effects of social media?

Anuradha Rao, Ph.D. of Communications and New Media, also a founder of Cyber Cognizanz, works with people to understand the promises and perils of living and working in cyberspace and how to combat its negativities.

She talks about what parents can do when their children are bullied, how parents can avoid them from getting bullied, and how we can educate our children to prepare them from potential adversity from being online.

We also get into topics like the consequences of buying social media followers, tackling fake news, and the constant focus and envy towards just on the positive sides of life.

Haven't we been extracting more from Mother Nature than it can provide us? The population of the world is going to reach 10 billion by 2050 by the rate of growth that we are experiencing so our extractive nature, especially for our food sources, needs to stop.

KaYi Ling, the co-founder of Shiok Meats, is on a mission to replace our habit of consuming live animals to cell-based meat, using stem cell technology. No longer do we have to kill wild animals or lock up animals and slaughter them for human consumption. As pandemics rooted from consuming animals are on the rise, it's a no doubt a healthier alternative.

She shares with us her personal journey into this field, what goes into the research for creating this meat, how she plans to scale the business to take it to commercialization and assures us of any health safety concerns.

Guest: KaYi Ling (https://shiokmeats.com/)
Host: Takatoshi Shibayama (https://www.blockshinesg.com/future-d...)
Creative Producer: Kash Singh (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kash-sing...)
Music: ShowNing (https://www.showningdj.com)

AI is already deployed in many different industries. Just look at your smartphone, it's running in the back of the music/video streaming sites, ads on your social media feed, or the e-commerce sites. In one fashion or another it's out there. It has even detected a peculiar case of pneumonia that broke out in Wuhan in December 2019, 9 days before the WHO declared it a pandemic. So what's next for AI?

According to Shalaka Verma, Director of Partner Technology of Microsoft says the COVID19 pandemic reset the reality for businesses to bring forward the digital transformation into AI. We have the technological infrastructure, computer power, cloud solutions, etc to excel AI in various sectors vertically and horizontally. 

What is lacking is 1) Trust; credibility in the data analysis output is still lacking. Her solution is to create an universal standard policy of collecting data, security and the right to control. 2) System interoperability: one silo AI model wouldn't be as useful if it's not integrated with other systems across not just the division, but across the enterprise and even with the client's. 

There are still challenges that need to be thought of from a holistic level in order to see it go to the next level. 

Global carbon emissions reduced by 17% during this pandemic. We still need to reduce 7.6% p.a. until 2030 to meet the target set by the 2015 Paris Agreement. Aren't we going back to the same way we consumed energy pre-Covid-19? If we can't change our behavior, we need to change the system.

There are many smarter devices that are energy efficient and DIY solar energy generators being made for household use, but digging deeper, what technologies are out there that can be both high in energy generation and clean? Green energy has yet to prove that it can be a fully functional base loader.

Jimeno Fonseca, a senior researcher of energy sources for ETH Zurich, is back on our show to explain how various nuclear reactor technologies are being experimented to replace the old, which can avoid catastrophes like the Cherynoble, Three Mile Island and Fukushima.

Peter DeMeo, Global Sales Leader for IBM's Digital Asset's team, continues to discuss various topics that are going on in the crypto and blockchain world. In this part 2. he explains the currently trending decentralized finance application and how it can be done better to get better adoption on a retail level.

Also the pros/cons of private and permission-based blockchain, which is getting more traction in the enterprises and governments. Hyper Ledger is becoming the most adopted blockchain and many business consortiums are being built on top of it. Governments are experimenting on CBDC (central bank digital currencies) starting off from China. We discuss where are all these projects going.

Lastly, we bring it back to the wonderful world of crypto custody solutions again. There are a few options that custody can be done technologically. We get down on the nitty-gritty of all that.

Guest: Peter DeMeo (https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterdemeo/)
Host: Takatoshi Shibayama (https://www.blockshinesg.com/future-d...)
Creative Producer: Kash Singh (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kash-sing...)
Sound/Camera: Dylan Tan (https://www.willdylan.com)
Music: ShowNing (https://www.showningdj.com)

Bitcoin is now well known among institutional investors as an asset class as a hedge against inflation and political uncertainty. However, not only is the cryptocurrency infrastructure user un-friendly, but the news about crypto exchanges being hacked also doesn't give us much confidence that we can safeguard our cryptocurrency. If we know how crypto gets hacked, it can prepare us for entering the esoteric world of this new shiny digital gold.

The industry is following the traditional securities market, monetary authorities are laying down regulations so that investors can trade with industrial-grade custody services. We don't hear much about custody services and how they work in the securities world, as much of that is thought of as a given. Crypto should be no different but it's stimulating to know how this works as it's one of the most technical solutions offered in the industry.

Peter DeMeo, Global Sales Leader for IBM's Digital Assets team, in this Part 1. of this episode lays down his knowledge on how crypto gets hacked, measures to avoid such hacks, and a deep dive into the complexities of crypto custody that usually never gets the spotlight on.

Guest: Peter DeMeo (https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterdemeo/)
Host: Takatoshi Shibayama (https://www.blockshinesg.com/future-d...)
Creative Producer: Kash Singh (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kash-sing...)
Sound/Camera: Dylan Tan (https://www.willdylan.com)
Music: ShowNing (https://www.showningdj.com)

Fasting has been around for thousands of years. The Hindus, Buddhists, and Muslims practice it and now for a few years it has made a come back into the mainstream with the health coaches and athletes raving about it. It's called Intermittent Fasting and it's trending. There are many ways to practice it, and whichever form it is, I believe it will outlast any diet fad out there.

The science is there. Once 12 hours into fasting, your body depletes the sugar (glucose) as its energy source and turns to fat inside your body to burn. This is called the ketosis state. But it doesn't stop there. Not only does it help lose weight, the beta hydroxybutryate (BHB) that is a form of ketones does wonder for the body, including supercharging the cognitive function, prevents and fights cancer, optimizes heart function, etc.

Kajal Khuana is a nutritionist and also a health and business coach. She explains how we can incorporate this into our daily life and enhance our mindset for work. She has an upcoming book "Why Me First?" (https://www.amazon.com/Why-Me-First-Destress-Self-Love-ebook/dp/B0897XK7PJ/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=kajal+khuana&qid=1590928332&s=books&sr=1-1-spell) and is a podcast host for Bonfire Entreprenuers.

Every building that we enter, we are getting our temperature checked and ID scanned but does this really help detect COVID-19? With all the promises of AI and IoT, haven't they delivered anything better than this?

Rather than taking the unrealistic sci-fi approach, Jordan Kostalec, head of JLL Asia's Proptech talks to us about building managers re-purposing existing tech and upgrading it for this corona virus situation: voice activated lifts, AR, drones and robot cleaners...

We also talked about the future of the office space, how remote working can redefine the purpose of why we need to have an office and the ultimate use of our time in the office to be with fellow colleagues.

Link mentioned during the talk "Vice News: China's Big AI Advantage - Humans"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMZgRTQ-hv4

Jordan's article on South China Morning Post, 26 May, 2020
https://www.scmp.com/business/article/3085980/voice-activated-lifts-augmented-reality-coronavirus-spurs-use-proptech?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=share_widget&utm_campaign=3085980

Mentorship is taking a different shape as organizational structures change; less hierarchy, smaller divisions and fluid workforce. Before people committed to working up the corporate ladder and that's no longer the case. Millennials and Gen Zs are looking at working culture than career advancement as their choice for an organization to work for. Also as the gig economy expands, where are people going to seek mentorship from?

Lawrence  Young and Yen Lu Chow from Asia Institute of Mentoring talks to us about how they are bringing mentorship as a culture to young and older generations of people.

https://asiainstituteofmentoring.com/