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Andrea Macdonald, founder of ideaXme interviews Amy Karle BioArtist. https://www.amykarle.com​. Listen to the the interview to discover why Amy would like to collaborate with an exponential technologist, furthermore her view on the interface between exponential technology and ethics.

Amy Karle is an internationally award-winning BioArtist working at the nexus of where digital, physical and biological systems merge. Karle is also a provocateur and a futurist, opening future visions of how art, science, and technology could be utilized to support and enhance humanity while making advancements in the technology towards those goals in the process of making her artworks.

Current projects probe who we could become as a result of our exponential technologies and how interventions could alter the course of our future. Karle has shown work in 54 international exhibitions, including at: The Centre Pompidou, France; The Mori Art Museum, Japan; The Smithsonian, USA; Ars Electronica, Austria; Beijing Media Arts Biennale, China; Centrum Nauki Kopernik, Poland; FILE International Electronic Language Festival, Brazil. Karle is also regularly invited to share her innovations and insights as an expert speaker and in think tanks world-wide. She was honored as one of "BBC's 100 Women", has been named one of the "Most Influential Women in 3D Printing", was Grand Prize Winner of the "YouFab Global Creative Award" and is a Fellow with Salzburg Global Seminar. Karle was also an Artist Diplomat through the U.S. Department of State tasked with diplomacy, social innovation, women's empowerment, and supporting cross disciplinary collaborations using art and technology to address social issues. Her work speaks to a wide audience as it inspires exploration into what it means to be human and encourages us to contemplate the impacts of technology on our future.

The long-term goals of her work are to continue to pioneer in bioart and the art and tech fields and make contributions to the advancement of society, technology and healthcare in the process.

Discussed in this interview:

Amy's human story.

How "rich connectedness" within both her personal and professional life has moved her work forward.

Her work as a bioartist, futurist and explorer. Her invitation to top exponential technologist to collaborate. ideaXme is a global network that promotes knowledge of the future.

ideaXme is a podcast available on 12 platforms, in 40 countries world-wide. ideaXme is also a think tank, a creator series and mentor programme. Want to suggest someone for us to interview for our exponential technology and ethics playlist/alternatively a guest interviewer for this playlist? Please email [email protected].

Andrea Macdonald founder of ideaXme interviews James Thornton CEO ClientEarth to talk of how law can save the planet.

ClientEarth is a non-profit international environmental law firm which employs over 200 people who work in more than 60 countries. The organisation uses the law to bring about end-to-end systemic change: informing, implementing and enforcing the law, drafting and advising decision-makers on policy, building legal expertise, and ensuring citizens' access to the laws that defend them.

They take governments and corporations to court – and win. Moreover, force polluting industries to shut down.

ClientEarth protects all living things, forests, oceans, air and vulnerable species. They empower people and NGOs with the legal rights to bring forward environmental battles of their own. Using the law means that they create real, long-lasting and embedded change.

They work to secure a lasting civilisation, an ecological civilisation (as termed by the Chinese government) in which people and nature thrive together.

ClientEarth lawyers work in partnership across borders, systems and sectors, ingeniously using the law to protect life on Earth.

Their work now is particularly important given that we are now in a race against time to clean up the planet. Their objective now is to ensure that governments and companies who have said that they are committed to change and to deliver a green recovery post Covid-19 actually do so.

In this interview James talks of:

His journey to founding ClientEarth.

The innovative methods he and his colleagues use to bring both governments and companies to justice.

His global work with governments and the legal profession in over 60 countries - creating law, training prosecutors and judges.

The key areas that must be addressed to fight climate change, pollution and loss of biodiversity and save our planet.

The people who have helped him create ClientEarth and move his human story forward, including his rich relationship with his husband Martin Goodman with whom he co-authored the book: Client Earth.

He informs us of David Gilmour's generosity in donating £21 million to ClientEarth.

For the full transcript please visit: www.radioideaxme.com.

Visit ClientEarth: https://www.clientearth.org

Donate: https://www.clientearth.org/join-us/make-a-donation/

Buy the book: https://www.waterstones.com/book/client-earth/james-thornton/martin-goodman/9781911344810

Follow on ClientEarth on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ClientEarth?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

ideaXme is a global network - podcast available in 40 countries, mentor programme and creator series.

Our objective is to move the human story forward to encourage everyone to engage with knowledge of the future.

Richard W Smith, oceanographer and ideaXme world's oceans ambassador interviews John Englander, President and Founder of Rising Seas Institute and author Moving to Higher Ground: Rising Sea Level.

Climate change and rising sea levels are changing the boundary lines of our world, and, if left to continue at their current pace, pose considerable financial, ecological, and societal threats.

So how can we combat rising tides in order to build for a better and more resilient future?

To discuss the issue of rising sea levels, the ramifications they cause, and how we can mitigate their threat, oceanographer and ideaXme world's oceans ambassador Richard W Smith sat down with John Englander.

John Englander is the founder of the Rising Seas Institute, a nonprofit "think tank and resource center" to advance the understanding of potential solutions to future flooding.

Richard W. Smith, ideaXme world's oceans ambassador: [00:01:13] I'm Rick Smith, the ideaXme Oceans ambassador, an oceanographer and aquatic chemist with Global Aquatic Research.

Richard W. Smith, ideaXme world's oceans ambassador: [00:01:25] Today, I'm joined by John Englander. He's an oceanographer, author and a renowned sea level rise expert who helps businesses and communities adapt to a rapidly changing climate. His best-selling book, High Tide on Main Street: Rising Sea Level and the Coming Coastal Crisis has been listed by Politico as one of the top 50 books to read. He has a new book coming out April 6th this year, Moving to Higher Ground: Rising Sea Level and the Path Forward. He's the founder and president of the Rising Seas Institute and was previously the CEO of the International SeaKeepers Society, The Cousteau Society and The Underwater Explorers Society.

Richard W. Smith, ideaXme world's oceans ambassador: [00:02:00] I'd like to explore the relationship between humans and coastlines. I would also like to take a deep dive into your history of oceanographic work and experiences. John, please tell us a little bit about yourself and how you started this very interesting and inspiring career in oceanography.

John Englander, President and Founder of Rising Seas Institute: [00:02:22] Thanks. I'm glad to. My path is very unconventional, but I think more and more, everybody's path these days is unconventional. So, it's perhaps the normal now. I studied Earth Science (or Geology, as it was called at the time) in college and economics – and I was also a scuba diving instructor. This was back in 1972 to kind of date me or age me. The ice ages or the Pleistocene, more properly, or paleo geology was the title of the course. Ancient geology fascinated me because I understood for the first time that ice ages were a recurring cycle in Earth's history and that as the ice sheets waned and grew, that sea level moved up and down 120 meters, about 400 feet and that just kind of blew my mind. Then when I was diving in the Bahamas and the clear water, I was a diving instructor during summer breaks from college, I found an ancient sea level 200 feet underwater and suddenly this clicked. Now, I didn't think it would change in my lifetime. Fast forward and I had decades in the diving industry after I graduated college and then I led a group to Greenland in 2007. It was there that it all kind of came together, that I realized, wait a minute, we are seeing sea level change, the early stage of it and this is something that human civilization has not experienced.

John Englander, President and Founder of Rising Seas Institute: [00:03:55] The last time sea level was higher was 122,000 years ago when it was seven meters or 25 feet higher than today. So that blew my mind and I decided to write a book, but that took a lot more research. Somebody said it was kind of like my doctorate course in effect, which I never did. But writing the book is like that, of course, it's a thesis that is reviewed and vetted. That's been my path. It was kind of one thing leading to another, as happens for so many of us.

Richard W. Smith, ideaXme world's oceans ambassador: [00:04:30] It sounds like you've spent a lot of your lifetime diving and probably have a huge number of experiences, I'm really interested, as an oceanographer, in some of the work that you did with The Cousteau Society and Jacques Cousteau. Could you tell us a little bit about that?

John Englander, President and Founder of Rising Seas Institute: [00:04:48] Sure, Cousteau died in June '97. I was very involved in the diving industry, which he helped create, but he had kind of gone off on his own path for years, but we gave him an award. I was chairman of a group called Ocean Futures at the time, started by the diving industry. I got Jacques to come over to Orlando, Florida, in January of that year; this was a culmination of some meetings we've had where he was going to receive this award. We spent some time together and to my surprise, he asked me to become CEO of The Cousteau Society, which was just something I never would have expected. But I sold my dive business in the Bahamas and Jacques and I spent, I guess, three days, almost day and night talking to each other. Unfortunately, by the time I started working for him, he was in the hospital and three months later after that, he passed away. It was a turning point in my life because here was a guy that probably taught more oceanography to more people than anybody else ever. As you may recall, he had this regular TV program that was just fascinating and he had a great perspective because he'd been doing this for more than 70 years. It's hard to believe. He died at age 87. So, it was a real privilege and inspiration and got me to think of the world differently. He had a unique perspective, and I was privileged to share some of that.

Richard W. Smith, ideaXme world's oceans ambassador: [00:06:24] I know from some of my own personal experiences diving, I'm a recreational diver as well. We will be talking about sea level rise today, but I'd just like to give a quick shout out to diving in coral reefs and I'd just like to say that for me, they've been some of the best opportunities I've ever had.

Richard W. Smith, ideaXme world's oceans ambassador: [00:06:30] What is the current state of diving with some of the changes we've been seeing in the ocean today? We're not going to go too much into this, but things like ocean acidification and warming, just parts of the ocean changing as we know it, how are people adapting to that as divers?

John Englander, President and Founder of Rising Seas Institute: [00:07:06] Well, I'm not involved in the diving industry anymore, and in fact, it's been a year since I did my last dive. So, I still dive occasionally, but having thousands of dives, mostly in the warm waters of the Bahamas, et cetera as well as being under the polar ice cap and in many places in the world, diving has changed quite a bit but the magic of being weightless and the exploration aspects of diving, I think will always be there.

John Englander, President and Founder of Rising Seas Institute: [00:07:32] The reefs have certainly changed, as you've just alluded to, from the warming temperatures, from the excess nutrients that we're putting in the oceans, the various diseases, pathogens that are getting in, the algaes, the changing ecosystem from the demise of sea urchins which used to eat the algaes that suffocate the reef.

So, most of the sea urchins are gone. Most reefs today are covered by this brown green algae or they've turned white from coral bleaching. There have been a lot of things happening to coral reefs, which were a special aspect of the ocean for people like you and me and millions of people, of course, tens of millions of people. Continues....For complete transcript please visit www.radioideaxme.com

Karen Potter, Director of sustainability hub https://sustainability-hub.org and ideaXme sustainability ambassador interviews James Longcroft, Managing Director, CHOOSE Packaging. https://www.choosepackaging.co.uk.

CHOOSE is a packaging development company that is leading the move away from plastic bottling to environmentally friendly options. CHOOSE uses biodegradable materials that are 100% plastic free in all their packaging and is working to help transition businesses from fossil fuel-based products to sustainable solutions. James started CHOOSE as a profitable business venture, in doing so he embarked on a journey with unexpected consequences.

He began selling water in single use plastic bottles and evolved to a business committed to removing plastics from the economy and out of the eco-system. CHOOSE partners with organisations to provide solutions with a global impact. James graduated from Durham University, with a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and began his career working with oil companies. Shortly after, he followed his entrepreneurial drive and explored opportunities to begin his own business. From a career rooted in the fossil fuel industry, he now champions business commitment to sustainability and circular economic policies.

Karen is a passionate environment and sustainability campaigner leading Government and Parliamentary efforts to promote Net Zero policy solutions as well as lead on COP26, business, community and civic action. She is a project development specialist with extensive experience in designing and delivering new initiatives to promote sustainability, social responsibility, smart energy, green economy and clean tech investment. Highly experienced in government, NGO and public sector communications, building and managing senior stakeholder relations and media engagement.

In this interview James shares:

His journey from business entrepreneur to philanthropist to leading advocate for a plastic free future. James was moved to action after a trip to Africa revealed how effective modest contributions to safe water and development of infrastructure was in the region. He committed to providing more support and began to move into a sustainable and eco-friendly business model.

Interview credits: Karen Potter, ideaXme sustainability ambassador.

To discuss collaboration and or partnerships please contact the founder of ideaXme: [email protected]

Find ideaXme across the internet including on iTunes, SoundCloud, Radio Public, Vimeo, TuneIn Radio, I Heart Radio, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts and more.

ideaXme is a global network that encourages everyone to participate in the future. ideaXme is a global podcast, creator series and mentor programme. Our mission: Move the human story forward!™ ideaXme Ltd.

Dr Merritt Moore, PhD, quantum physicist, ballerina and aspiring astronaut talks with Andrea Macdonald, founder of ideaXme.

Merritt has achieved what some would call 'the impossible': a career as both a professional ballet dancer and academic quantum physicist.She plans on adding another profession to her roster and that profession is astronaut!

Background:

Dr. Merritt Moore graduated with Magna Cum Laude Honors in Physics from Harvard and graduated with a PhD in Atomic and Laser Physics from the University of Oxford.

Dr Moore also pursues a professional ballet career, previously with the Zurich Ballet, Boston Ballet, English National Ballet, and Norwegian National Ballet. She was recently awarded Forbes 30 under 30, and she was one of the 12 selected candidates to undergo rigorous astronaut selection on BBC Two "Astronauts: Do you have what it takes?"

Like Leonardo Da Vinci, Merritt urges that the arts and sciences should not be mutually exclusive - that science makes art better and art makes science better.

Merritt inspires young women around the world to pursue their dreams. She has been invited to be the featured speaker at the Forbes Women's Summit in NY, Princeton Physics Department, panelist for the U.S. Embassy 'Women in STEM' Panel in London, and is featured in the bestseller "Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls".

Invited as artist-in-residence at Harvard ArtLab, Merritt is creating a duet between human dancer and industrial robotic arm. She explores the future of A.I./ machine learning, specifically with dance, and welcomes all forms of collaboration fusing dance, physics and tech.

Amongst many things discussed in this interview, Dr Merritt Moore talks of:

-How her ballet makes her science better and vice versa.

-Her academic achievements as a quantum physicist.

-How she has fused both her expertise as a dancer and physicist.

-How she aspires to become an astronaut and "how her strength of mind and strength of body" qualifies her to be one.

-Her resilience.

-Who has helped her to become both a physicist and a dancer.

-Her discovery of dance late on in life and her work with the Norwegian National Ballet and English National Ballet.

Find out more about Dr Merritt Moore: physicsonpointe.com

Follow Instagram/Twitter @PhysicsonPointe.

ideaXme is a global network that shares knowledge of the future.

ideaXme is a worldwide podcast, creator series and mentor programme.

Vision: Move the human story forward by engaging everyone to take part in the future.

Andrea Macdonald, founder ideaXme interviews George Duffield, co-founder Blue Marine Foundation (Blue).

Blue is a marine conservation charity. Its objectives are to ensure the protection of at least 30% of the ocean by 2030. They develop models of sustainable fishing proving that low-impact fishing benefits marine life, local fishers and communities. They restore marine habitats to revive and protect vulnerable and threatened species and to sequester carbon. Moreover, they tackle unsustainable fishing by highlighting poor practice and develop solutions that benefit the oceans and the local people whose livelihood's depend on it.

Mobilising both the public, government and the commercial sector to both understand the sea and change human behaviour are central to all of the above.

In this interview George Duffield talks to ideaXme about:

-The importance of the world's oceans to maintain the health of the planet and all living things on it.

-The threats and obstacles to protecting the world's oceans.

-The challenges of protecting the High Seas, making up the largest portion of the oceans and outside national legal jurisdictions. The UN's objective to create legislation to protect the High Seas by creating a Law of the Oceans in 2021.

-The End of the Line book and documentary that inspired him to co-found Blue Marine Foundation with Chris Gorrel Barnes and Charles Clover who wrote the book and narrated the documentary with Ted Danson.

-How Blue Marine Foundation has secured protection for 4 million square kilometres of ocean.

-He explains, that there's a place for science but we need action now! -Blue Marine Foundation's activities - from campaigning, lobbying and fundraising to creating sustainability models to support local communities whilst protecting the oceans.

-Specific examples where Blue Marine Foundation has directly helped to change policy and subsequent policing of new legislation created by that policy.

- Ascension Island, Chagos and Lyme Bay.

-The recent partnerships created with Barclays Bank and Shackleton clothing to support Blue Marine Foundation's ongoing initiatives to protect the world's ocean.

-Incentivising business, via an oceans fund, to get involved in protecting the world's oceans.

Blue comments: "BLUE is filling a niche in the NGO world, enabling marine conservation to happen fast and effectively. What differentiates BLUE is that we are well connected and determined; we seize opportunities as they arise and get things done. We forge new partnerships and challenge the status quo. BLUE works using a combination of top-down intervention to improve governance of our seas and bottom-up project delivery to help local communities who are at the front line of ocean conservation".

Links:

Full transcript of interview here: www.radioideaxme.com Donate to Blue Marine Foundation: https://bluemarinefoundation.enthuse....

Find out more: https://www.bluemarinefoundation.com Watch the End of the Line documentary on Netflix https://www.netflixmovies.com/the-end...

Follow on Twitter: @bluemarinef https://twitter.com/Bluemarinef? ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor Follow ideaXme on Twitter @ideaxm https://twitter.com/ideaxm?ref_src=tw...

Follow on Instagram: @bluemarinefoundation https://www.instagram.com/bluemarinef...

Credits:

Photographs by George Duffield (see video and ideaXme website), co-founder of Blue Marine Foundation Interview by Andrea Macdonald, founder ideaXme.

To discuss collaboration and or partnerships please contact the founder of ideaXme: [email protected] Find ideaXme across the internet including on iTunes, SoundCloud, Radio Public, Vimeo, TuneIn Radio, I Heart Radio, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts and more.

ideaXme is a global podcast, creator series and mentor programme. Our mission: Move the human story forward!™ ideaXme Ltd.

Xie Rong, Artist and ideaXme Eco Art Ambassador interviews Betsy Damon Artist, Environmental Activist and Founder, Keepers of the Waters.

A journey with water

The supreme goodness is like water.

It benefits all things without contention.

In dwelling, it stays grounded.

In being, it flows to depths.

In expression, it is honest.

In confrontation, it stays gentle.

In governance, it does not control.

In action, it aligns to timing.

It is content with its nature and therefore cannot be faulted.

- Chinese philosopher Lao Zi, 6th-century BC, Tao Te Ching.

Xie Rong comments:

Further to my preparatory research and later interview with Betsy Damon, I have concluded that she is water!

Betsy Damon was my childhood hero. Her design The Living Water Garden is a mini wetland heaven in the middle of my hometown ChengDu. It is a free public park that demonstrates how water cleans itself. From 1995 to1996, Betsy directed two public art events in ChengDu and Tibet that fundamentally changed the government's as well as general public's understanding about performance art. Furthermore, it was a groundbreaking moment that introduced rising stars in Chinese contemporary art.

Despite worldwide acclaim, Betsy has remained modest about her art. After decades of work as an artist, she continues to exhibit her work. As the first generation of Eco feminist artists, Betsy chooses to give her life, time and efforts to real water and to build art to inspire the community.

From her gritty 1977 performance in Wall Street, to her large collection of drawings, etchings and video art we see honesty and purity. We witness time and motion! This is art the people of the world should celebrate! Here is a story of a woman who discovered the importance of water. Her journey with water inspires the audience to reflect on our relationship with nature. It draws us from the material world and ego to the art community and selfless activism. It helps us to realise the power of community and the collective mind! This journey is even more important in today's COVID isolated world. Betsy turned 80 on the 31st of Dec 2020. So, let's all wish her a very healthy and happy belated birthday! I truly hope you enjoy this interview. It's hard to convey a lifetime of work in a 52 minute conversation but I hope that this serves as an introduction to Betsy's life and an invitation to join the Keepers of the Waters! Betsy Damon bio: Betsy Damon is an internationally recognised artist whose public work and living systems, such as the Living Water Garden, have received widespread acclaim.

She directs Keepers of the Waters, a nonprofit focused on ecological planning, advocacy and education. Damon was a semi-finalist for the Buckminster Fuller Award and a finalist for the Stockholm Water Prize. Damon has lectured widely in the U.S, Europe and China. She's been a visiting artist at countless colleges and universities.

Links: https://www.keepersofthewaters.org Xie Rong's website: https://www.echomorgan.com

Xie Rong Instagram: @echomorgan https://www.instagram.com/echomorgan/?hl=en

Xie Rong Twitter: @xierongart https://twitter.com/xierongart

ideaXme Twitter: @ideaxm https://twitter.com/ideaxm?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

Find the transcript of this interview at www.radioideaxme.com shortly.

ideaXme is a global podcast, creator series and mentor programme. You can find us across the internet – on all major audio platforms, on Vimeo and here www.radioideaxme.com. ideaXme encourages everyone to learn about and participate in knowledge that impacts our collective futures.

Dr Renard Siew, Climate Change Advisor, Centre For Governance and Political Studies Kuala Lumpur and ideaXme Climate Change ambassador, interviews Frans Nauta, founder ClimateLaunchpad www.climatelaunchpad.org and Climate-KIC Accelerator.

Climate-KIC Accelerator is the world's largest support program for clean-tech startups. Over its 8 years of operation it supported more than 1.500 startups, that raised over 1,5 B€ in follow on funding.

ClimateLaunchpad, discussed in this interview is the world's largest green business ideas competition. It operates in 60 countries and has supported more than 3.000 teams.

EIT Climate-KIC:

As deputy director Entrepreneurship of EIT Climate-KIC Frans was responsible for the development of the entrepreneurship centres at the Climate-KIC co-locations and regional centres across the EU and the implementation of the Climate-KIC Accelerator Program. He worked as visiting scholar at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley and at Cyclotron Road, the tech startup accelerator program of Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. Frans Nauta's Earlier Career: Before his work with startups, Frans was secretary for Innovation for the Dutch Prime Minister, a professor of Innovation at HAN University in the Netherlands and the founder of Knowledge Land, the leading Dutch think tank on boosting the knowledge economy. He has been teaching Innovation and Entrepreneurship since 2007 as lecturer at Utrecht University. Frans has been trained at the Harvard Business School in the teaching case methodology and currently teaches entrepreneurship and innovation in executive education programs at UC Berkeley Extension, the Climate-KIC Business School and in the Masters Program of Utrecht University.

Follow on Twitter @fnauta @renardsiew @ideaxm

Find the transcript of this interview at www.radioideaxme.com

shortly. ideaXme is a global podcast, creator series and mentor programme. You can find us across the internet – on all major audio platforms, on YouTube, Vimeo and here www.radioideaxme.com.

Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme interviews Dr Pieter Roelfsema Director Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience.

Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:06:52] Welcome everybody again to another episode of the ideaXme show. I'm Andrea Macdonald, the founder of ideaXme. ideaXme is a global podcast available in 40 countries worldwide, a creator series and mentor program.

[00:07:10] This episode concerns itself with a breakthrough towards developing a technology to restore functional vision to the blind. I'm here with the director of the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN). Who are you?

Pieter Roelfsema Director NIN: [00:07:29] My name is Pieter Roelfsema. I studied medicine but if you feel ill, you don't want me beside your bed. I went into science, studied the visual system. Few years ago, we thought: "Why not use knowledge all that knowledge we have accumulated. Why don't we start thinking about creating a device that restores rudimentary form of vision for blind people?".

Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:07:54] There are over 40 million blind people worldwide, over two billion visually impaired, over one billion visually impaired, where this impairment could have been avoided. Could you explain the process through which a human being receives vision, or a non-visually impaired human being receives vision to the brain where it is perceived as such?

Pieter Roelfsema Director NIN: [00:08:28] So the information that comes into your eyes is a sharp image on the back of your eye where your retina is. Then the information from the retina is sent through the optic nerve to a region in the mid brain called the thalamus. And from there it's sent on to the back of our brain. There's a region that's called primary visual cortex, and that region has a very accurate, two-dimensional representation of the outside world, where two points that are nearby in the outside world will map onto two points in your brain that are also nearby. So, it's a very systematic map of the outside world.

Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:09:11] And could you talk a little bit about the solution that you are providing and how it doesn't actually deal with addressing issues in the eye it deals with addressing issues in the brain or the back of the brain in the visual cortex?

Pieter Roelfsema Director NIN: [00:09:34] What we know from previous work is that if you put an electrode in that region that I was just alluding to, the primary visual cortex, then you can put a little bit of current on it and you can stimulate the nerve cells that are nearby. An electrode is just a wire, actually. And so, these nerve cells will become active and a person, this can also be a person who has been blind for several years, will perceive a dot of light at that location that corresponds to the position of these two-dimensional map I was talking about. So, if you then stimulate with another wire, an electrode that is nearby, this person will see a dot of light that is close to the first dot of light. If you then have a whole series of wires, a whole series of electrodes, then you basically are addressing a part of the map and you can place dots in the person's perception at many, many different locations and you can work with it like a matrix board. So, if I'm going to stimulate one electrode, you're going to see a lot of light. But if you stimulate like in a matrix board if you switch on a single bulb you will see a dot. But on a matrix board you can also switch on several bulbs in the shape of a letter or convey other meaningful information. And we could do the same thing if you have many electrodes in the visual cortex, you can just switch on dot perceptions at many different locations and thereby convey meaningful information. Now, if a person would have such a prosthesis, which still needs to be developed further, this person would carry a camera. It could be embedded in glasses, then that kind of camera image will be sent to a processor, maybe the size of a phone that translates these camera images into brain stimulation patterns that are then going to be sent to those electrodes, maybe wirelessly.

Pieter Roelfsema Director NIN: [00:11:27] So that's something also that needs to be developed. So, right now, the brain computer interfaces, many of them, they actually have a wire coming out of the skull to make the connection to the brain. Now, of course, in the future, a device that is safe and that can be used easily one would like all these things to be completely wireless.

Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:11:48] Work in this area first started in the 1970s. Could you explain to the audience why the research that you head up represents such a breakthrough?

Pieter Roelfsema Director NIN: [00:12:02] Yes, so there was a fantastic researcher in the U.K., his name was Giles Brindley, he was already doing this in the 60s and in the early 70s. It's really remarkable because he already made a system that was wireless.

Pieter Roelfsema Director NIN: [00:12:17] So basically, he had small coils, small kind of wire coils under the skin. Several of them actually more than one hundred.

Pieter Roelfsema Director NIN: [00:12:26] And he then used a coil on the outside to induce current in a coil under the skin and then he ran a wire to the visual cortex and was able to stimulate brain cells. It was amazing that he could already do this back then, of course, we are now 50 years later, and we have improved technology, so our game is easier. We have better ways to interface with the brain, actually back then, he also put electrodes on the surface of the brain. We have found out that you can get perception's with less current if you have electrodes inside the brain. And that's an advantage. We have actually one thousand electrodes in the experiment that we recently did in monkeys. And so, we have basically more pixels from which we can build a mental image. And of course, there are other advances now. So, it's better electrode technology. We have now wireless chips that can, of course, digest much more information. So, I think this is the right time to make to make this happen.

Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:13:33] Could you explain a little bit about how the eBrains 3D Brain Atlas has helped you to advance this research?

Pieter Roelfsema Director NIN: [00:13:45] Yes. So eBrains is part of The Human Brain Project. It is a collection of services that The Human Brain Project or its successor will offer to the neuroscience community. Now, for our research, we have to kind of take the shape of this visual cortex where we want to implant electrodes into account. The shape of the visual cortex is complicated. It has all kinds of folds. We call them sulci. And they are different from one individual to another, so we need to devise a strategy to implant electrodes, a sufficient number of electrodes, we're thinking about thousands of electrodes and we want to make sure that most of them are positioned in the right location. And that's where eBrains is tremendously helpful because they have the anatomical knowledge, and they can also provide some of the tools that allow us to do the correct mapping.

Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:14:42] And you have mentioned in your paper that there are a number of issues that remain to be addressed.

Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:14:52] And you've been very open about the fact that once this represents a breakthrough, you know, a lot more work needs to be done in this area. A couple of things you mentioned were a certain specific form of WIFI system needs to be developed. And you also mentioned that the whole area of tissue damage needs to be addressed. Could you talk about those two things, please?

Pieter Roelfsema Director NIN: [00:15:21] Yes. The electrodes are right now using they are stiff silicon electrodes.

Pieter Roelfsema Director NIN: [00:15:27] There is a mechanical mismatch between the brain tissue, which is soft and the stiff rods. And the impression has been, although this is not very well documented, is that this mismatch in mechanical properties caused this kind of sort of sliding between the electrodes and the brain tissue that then results in the build-up of tissue, glial tissue, sort of fibrous tissue that pushes the nerve cells away from the electrodes and thereby making it more difficult to stimulate the neurons. So, one way to go that seems promising is to use other materials that are much softer. So, one of them is Polyimide, which is sort of a plastic, which you can make very thin wires. And they seem then to be causing less damage than those silicon rods.

Pieter Roelfsema Director NIN: [00:16:22] So that's one area where developments are currently taking place that look quite promising. The other point that you asked me to reflect upon is wireless systems. So also, there is tremendous developments there. There are systems that allow researchers to communicate with the brain, putting something under the skin and something above the skin that has enough bandwidth basically to allow communication at a high enough rate to make that possible. But also, there are definitely some developments to be further taken.

Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:17:05] And the recent research that you've spoken about in your paper, I believe, has focused on using animals to test this technology. At what point, although I know that similar technologies have also been tested in humans, when do you see the earliest time that you can transition from animals to humans?

Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:17:28] Because, of course, there are many movements in the world that are against animal testing and whether it causes pain or not. There's a great deal of discomfort about it. I'm just wondering what the plans are to transition this to humans?

Pieter Roelfsema Director NIN: [00:17:50] It would not be ethical to just do this in humans and just hope for the best. So, most people I talk to think that you first have to thoroughly test this. And some of this testing involves animals. And in this particular research, we had to use monkeys because they are the closest to humans and in monkeys, we could really test whether if you stimulate a pattern of electrodes in the visual cortex, they could recognize that as a pattern. This could not have been done in another species. Now, in collaboration and actually mainly driven by researchers in Spain, Eduardo Fernandez, who is also a co-author on our paper, we actually tested the same approach already in one human patients. There was an MIT Tech Review about it recently. And the good news is that many of these same stimulation patterns that we tried in monkeys also appeared to work in this in this particular individual. So, we're actually already making this step. But if you want to use other electrode materials and also wireless chips, again, we first have to demonstrate that they can be used safely. And some of these things you can test without animals. But some of these tests really involve animals. And it's even the legal requirement to demonstrate that this works in animals first. And I think that's also only the only ethical way to do it. You cannot just put something in a human and hope for the best.

Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:19:22] And the ideaXme audience is comprised of the general public, future innovators and creators, as well as the actual people who are shaping our world from the space industry right the way through to science, arts and philosophy. It would be really interesting to hear at this point, particularly for future innovators within your sector, to hear a little bit about your human story and your journey to this point. And as far as who maybe sparked your interest in this area and who influenced you and the choices you made along the way to get here.

Pieter Roelfsema Director NIN: [00:20:08] Ok, that's a very broad question. And so, I started studying medicine and at some point, I didn't see myself as a medical doctor. So, I was really interested in science. And then I read a book called Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid, written by Douglas Hofstadter, which was mainly about consciousness. And I thought, this is a really interesting topic that I want to spend time on. This is what I really would like to do. So then at some point during my studies, I already started to do some neuroscience work just as a volunteer. And then I already applied to do a PhD project with Wolf Singer, Director the Max Planck Research Institute in Frankfurt. He said, well, why don't you first finish your studies? So that's what I did.

Pieter Roelfsema Director NIN: [00:21:04] I went back to the Netherlands or to where I studied, and I completed my studies hoping that he would remember that he said that I would be welcome in his lab after I completed my studies and he had not forgotten. So, I was really pleased to be part of his lab. And he was probably one of the people who influenced me the most. I had a wonderful time doing PhD research in that lab. And after that, I just continued the neuroscience. I did a lot of work just on pure vision, just trying to understand how vision works.

Pieter Roelfsema Director NIN: [00:21:43] Through those studies, I think I started to read also more about prosthetics. Another person that I enjoyed talking to and who influenced me was Jens Neumann. He was one of the people in the program of Bill Dobelle, who also had a visual prosthesis program. And was one of the subjects. He had a cortical implant. It didn't work for very long. He's still a very inspiring person. And talking to him also inspired me to continue in this direction.

Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:22:21] Could you talk a little bit about the team that you're currently working with in their various roles in helping move this forward?

Pieter Roelfsema Director NIN: [00:22:29] Yes, so we started this visual cortical prosthesis project, I think, in 2014. Then Xing Chen, who is the first author on the paper, joined the group. And with her, we really started to do this work. We got a lot of help from a company, Blackrock Microsystems, which helped us design the implants and make sure that we could do this for 1000 channels because that had not been done before. And after that, several other people joined the lab, Feng Wang who was also a co-author on the paper. We established contact with Eduardo Fernandez, I have already mentioned him. They're doing this work in Spain. And now the team that works on visual prosthesis is about six people in the lab. And we also started a company, Phosphoenix, because we realized that if you really want to put something in patients, you also need a commercial entity for various regulatory issues.

Andrea Macdonald founder ideaXme: [00:23:29] Pieter Roelfsema, thank you very much for your time and thank you for moving the human story forward. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Pieter Roelfsema Director NIN: [00:23:39] Thanks a lot. My pleasure.

ideaXme is a global network to encourage everyone to learn of the people, issues and ideas that are anticipated to impact our collective futures.

As well as a global podcast, ideaXme is a mentor programme, creator series and think tank.

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Tali Ramsey, ideaXme guest contributor and writer specialising in contemporary art, internet culture and society, interviews Tim Robin Reichel, ideaXme's new Diversity Ambassador.

Everyone looks for something larger than themself

Tim Reichel is a student living in Berlin and studying English as well as Media and Communications. He is also an activist and member of Amnesty International's queer group in Berlin. His studies focus on diversity and culture, especially questions related to Gender, Queer, and Postcolonial Studies, and he recognises that there is currently a paradigm shift resulting in diversity becoming a focal point in our culture.

His research explores how power relations in society play a key role in shaping culture and how power dynamics influence cultural processes.

The intersection of innovation and diversity in the future

Tim believes that ideaXme is the perfect platform to promote diversity and that diversity is vital in moving our stories forward. If everyone has a seat at the table, true innovation can take place as the result of numerous voices being heard and contributing, allowing new methods and procedures to be developed and evaluated from different perspectives.

On this show Tim Reichel will talk about:

The inevitability of "othering" in order to develop and understand one's own identity. The concept of agonism, and how it can stop us seeing the other as the enemy. How a synthesis of diverse ideas creates innovation, and the potential this has for culture and society.

He will also discuss who he would like to meet and why and what made him choose to work with ideaXme to pioneer diversity on the platform.

This interview is in British English

Credit: Tali Ramsey

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ideaXme is a global podcast, creator series and mentor programme. Our mission: Move the human story forward!™ ideaXme Ltd.