Future Positive

Welcome to the latest episode of our brand new XPRIZE podcast series - Not Going Back To Normal, Imagining Life After COVID-19 featuring Chris Classen.

This June marks 50 years since the first permitted Pride Parade, taking place in Los Angeles in 1970, an audacious act in a time when your sexuality could leave you in handcuffs. In this week’s episode, Chris reflects on the beginnings of Pride, and with guest John D’Amico, former mayor and current council member of the City of West Hollywood, and explores all the ways things have changed since those first steps helped spread a unique brand of radical optimism -- despite the challenges faced in the fight for equity. 

As Vice President of Events & Experiences at XPRIZE, Chris Classen drives engagement and enthusiasm for the XPRIZE experience and oversees its annual Visioneering event. Prior to joining XPRIZE, he served as the President of Christopher Street West, the non-profit organization that produces the annual LA Pride Festival and Parade, and most recently worked with Google on top-tier events. During his career he has driven events and created strategic partnerships with brands like W Hotels, Delta Airlines, Prada, B&B Italia, and the LA Dodgers. After receiving a BFA in Art & Design from the University of Nebraska he moved to Los Angeles for his Masters in Architecture from the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI_Arc). He has received accommodations from both the City of Los Angeles and the City of West Hollywood for his cultural and economic contributions.

As a resident of West Hollywood for more than 25 years, Councilmember John D’Amico’s love of West Hollywood has only grown with time. Councilmember D’Amico has an unwavering commitment to issues that reflect the spirit of what makes West Hollywood unique. For more than 20 years, Councilmember D’Amico has participated in city leadership as a member of Advisory Boards and Commissions, and for the past several years, as a member of the City Council. He is helping shape the city we are becoming. As an architect and Project Manager, Councilmember D’Amico understands the vital importance of balancing development and livability, particularly in West Hollywood, where residents have come to love the special, “urban village” atmosphere. Professionally, Mr. D’Amico has more than 20 years of experience in large-scale project planning management at UCLA, ABC, the Walt Disney Studios, and the affordable housing developer, Los Angeles Housing Partnership. At LAHP, he was responsible for overseeing the renovation and construction of well over 300 affordable housing units. Formerly, Mayor D’Amico was the co-Director of Policy and Planning at AIDS Project Los Angeles. Councilmember D’Amico holds two Master’s Degrees, one in Architecture and Urban Planning from the University of Houston and the other in Aesthetics and Politics from the California Institute of the Arts.

Enjoy listening and if you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate and leave us a review on Apple or wherever you get your pods.

Links

LA Pride - https://lapride.org/

Virtual Pride Events Around the World - https://proudlyresilient.com/ 

XPRIZE - https://xprize.org

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In this week’s episode Emily shares her experience working and parenting at a time when schools are closed indefinitely. Even without this pandemic, Emily reflects on how a world without schools is a reality for many parents and children around the world. 

Dr. Emily Musil Church is the Executive Director of Education & Learning at XPRIZE, where she led the $15M Global Learning XPRIZE, and leads XPRIZE’s educational outreach and equity programs. Prior to joining XPRIZE, she spent over a decade in academia, where as a professor she specialized in human rights, global development, and gender equity. Emily has a Ph.D. from UCLA, is a Fulbright scholar, and she served on the OECD’s Senior Advisory Group for Blended Finance, and the Advisory Board of the Center for Technology & Workforce Solutions. She's a mom to two young children, and is also a public speaker and is published in numerous outlets including Scientific American, International Policy Digest, Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls, and Huffington Post.

Before the COVID-19 outbreak, over 260 million children—that’s 1 out of 5 —were out of school. Even when you include children who do attend schools, more than half of all children globally are not able to read by age 12. Add onto those numbers the additional over 950 million children out of school due to COVID-19, and it is clear that the future of learning must be a future that includes learning when traditional schools are not an option.

Being in quarantine has given me a new light on my time leading the Global Learning XPRIZE, a competition that encouraged teams to create adaptive, learning software that helped kids teach themselves reading, writing and basic math. The software had to be intuitive, cutting- edge, AND be able to work off-line. 

Enjoy listening and if you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate and leave us a review on Apple or wherever you get your pods.

Links

Global Learning XPRIZE - https://www.xprize.org/prizes/global-learning

Code Games Challenge - https://www.codegamechallenge.org

https://www.xprize.org/articles/introducing-a-new-podcast

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Welcome to the third episode of our brand new XPRIZE podcast series - Not Going Back To Normal, Imagining Life After COVID-19 featuring Neama Dadkhahnikoo and Devin Krotman.

In this weeks podcast Neama Dadkhahnikoo and Devin Krotman discuss how artificial intelligence is being used during the Covid-19 pandemic and how this same technology will be able to be rolled out to tackle other problems in our uncertain future. From tracking to predicting the spread of infectious diseases to helping doctors and scientists diagnose patients and discover new drugs expediently.     

Devin Krotman serves as the Director of the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE and Global Learning XPRIZE. Devin has nearly a decade of experience in management consulting prior to XPRIZE. He holds a Project Management Professional (PMP) certification from the Project Management Institute. He also holds Bachelor of Science in Public Administration and Master of Public Administration degrees, both from James Madison University.

Neama Dadkhahnikoo is the Technical Lead for the IBM Watson XPRIZE. Prior to joining XPRIZE, he was the CTO of CaregiversDirect (AI startup for home care), co-founder and COO of Textpert (AI startup for mental health), and a startup consultant. He started his career as a Software Developer for The Boeing Company. Neama holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson; an MS in Project Management from Stevens Institute of Technology; and a BA in Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, with a minor in Physics, from UC Berkeley.

Links

Link to the AI XPRIZE - ai.xprize.org

Link to Aidred Health - https://aifredhealth.com/

Link to Iris AI - https://iris.ai/

Link to Arterys - https://arterys.com/

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Welcome to the second episode of our brand new XPRIZE podcast series - Not Going Back To Normal, Imagining Life After COVID-19 featuring Jacquelyn Morie.

In this podcast Jacki looks at how humans require touch, studies show that babies who are never touched fail to thrive but the Covid-19 pandemic has brought the use of remote digital technology to the fore. We are now using digital platforms for our work, for our entertainment and for our social need for human to human contact. But how do we as humans thrive in this immaterial world? Jacki looks into the use of robotic avatars and how these will shape our future, post Covid-19 world.  

Jacquelyn Morie is a technical advisor at XPRIZE. Prior to joining XPRIZE she spent 13 years as a Sr. Research Scientist at USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), which she helped found. She has created VR telehealth and educational activities and is the Founder and Chief Scientist of her company, All These Worlds, LLC. Jacki has continued this work for private and government clients, including NASA and lectures extensively on how technology will affect our future selves and humanity. She is also an ACM Distinguished speaker, and holds masters’ degrees in both Fine Art and Computer Science. She also holds a doctorate in immersive technologies from the prestigious SmartLab Program through the University of East London.

Enjoy listening and if you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate and leave us a review on Apple or wherever you get your pods.

Links

Link to the XPRIZE Avatar Prize - avatar.xprize.org

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Welcome to the first of our brand new XPRIZE podcast series - Not Going Back To Normal, Imagining Life After COVID-19 featuring Marcus Extavour.

In this podcast Marcius guides us through the unexpected environmental side effects of the Covid-19 outbreak and how humans all around the world are responding with data driven optimism. This pandemic has brought clean air to the most polluted parts of the world and this unexpected environmental impact got Marcius thinking about other links between the Covid-19 outbreak and our climate. 

Marcius Extavour, PHD is the Executive Director of Prize Operations in Energy and Resources at XPRIZE. He has held positions at the U.S. Senate Committee and at the Council of Canadian Academies. In the private sector, he has developed risk management software for North American electric power markets, and designed and fabricated optoelectronic devices at Nortel Networks Research Labs. He loves teaching, and is active in engaging kids in science and engineering, and connecting with young scientists interested in careers inside and outside of academia.

Both climate change and the Covid-19 challenge our global institutions to rethink their strategies to how they address threats that have the capacity to cripple the world as we know it. But the response to Covid-19 has been tackled immediately yet continued warnings to our climate seem to get deferred to future generations. Marcius argues that we should learn from our response to Covid-19 and use this to inform our fight against climate change.   

Enjoy listening and if you like what you hear, please subscribe, rate and leave us a review on Apple or wherever you get your pods.

Links

Link to the XPRIZE Pandemic Alliance - https://www.xprize.org/fight-covid19

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