Articles
A little over ten years ago, in the Capão Redondo neighbourhood in Sao Paulo’s Southern outskirts — one of the most deprived areas of the city — the Fábrica de Criatividade (Creativity Factory) project was born. Created by the entrepreneur Denilson Shikako, 34, the innovation consultancy was established in 2007 and to this day operates in the same headquarters. Currently serving large companies in Brazil, it still maintains social projects in the region, always aiming at creating and transforming. The Creativity Factory is an example of what can be achieved by more sustainable capitalism focused on fighting against inequality and advancing opportunities, especially for the most marginalized.
The advancement of technology — in addition to providing a glimpse of what may happen in the future, anticipating possibilities and challenges — leads psychoanalyst Christian Dunker — a professor at Universidade de São Paulo (USP) and one of the most renowned professionals in the field in Brazil — to look at History to better understand some things and to identify new forms of suffering associated with the transformations which the world is undergoing in relation to science, technique, and ethics. Dunker, author of more than 15 books and with 30 years of research and clinical practice, talks about solitude, ethical conflicts, politics, obscurantist speech, and human education for the challenges of the future.
Center of Excellence in Machine Learning (CoE-ML) — developed by Unesp researchers — aims to transform the market through Artificial Intelligence partnerships and solutions. Reducing the gap in the relationship between universities and the market, facilitating financial support for developing artificial intelligence projects, and enabling knowledge about AI to reach more people and areas of society; these are the three objectives of the Center of Excellence in Machine Learning (CoE-ML), coordinated by the director of the Scientific Computation Center of the Universidade Estadual Paulista, UNESP professor Sérgio Novaes.
New businesses, connected with the needs of the market. Creativity. Security for those who invest and those who create. These three ingredients are the foundation of Magellan Advisory, a start-up created this year by economist Leonardo Winocur in São Paulo. The aim is to provide security for those who are able to invest in new ventures and to facilitate fundraising for those who need it. All of this while also thinking about new types of businesses created in the contemporary world.
Technological evolution and the behavioural changes arising from it pose not only the challenge of preparing children and young people, but also the difficult task of proposing an education which prepares adults for things such as the clarity of risks, the need to build the future, and the need to enable a more conscious attitude upon innovation processes.
Articles
Imagine living in a place where there are no rules, conventions or punishments of any kind. In the Westworld — a series produced and shown by HBO since 2016 — a group of people live with super advanced androids simulating human emotions; this raises the question of “who is what” within that world. Based on the 1973 film, with the same name, by the screenwriter Michael Crichton, creator of hits such as Jurassic Park (1990) and medical drama ER (1994), the complex plot full of twists and the big-name cast has captivated the public, making the series a hit for both audience and critics. What is the reason behind its success and the clues it tells about the future?
Scientists are often asked: why, despite scientific and technological advancements, are diseases such as AIDS and cancer still affecting millions of people around the world? In response, science is constantly seeking to reverse this situation. Advancements on with CRISPR research (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) attempts tocontribute to the treatment and prevention of these and other diseases.
During Google’s developer May conference in Mountain View, California, Google presented an impressive and revolutionary ad announcing the launch of the new virtual assistant with six new voices in English. To illustrate the breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, CEO Sundar Pichai exhibited two telephone conversations between the virtual assistant and two employees from a beauty salon and a restaurant. With perfect intonation and phrasing, the assistant managed to easily pass itself as human and made a reservation in both establishments. The Turing Test was passed; it is now difficult to figure out who is machine and who is human.
Social inequality, major inheritances, and the fragility of actual capitalism concept are forcing people to rethink the actual capitalism. Inequality is the definition of economy in a time marked by the lack of opportunities. Just to give some examples of how this translates into practice, of all the wealth generated in the world in 2017, 82% went into the hands of the richest 1% of the planet. On the other hand, the poorest half of the global population - 3.7 billion people - did not get anything. In Brazil, there are five billionaires whose wealth is equivalent to that of the poorest half of the country, reaching U$ 2 trillion in 2017 - 13% higher than the previous year. At the same time, the poorest 50% of Brazil saw their ‘wealth’ reduced over the same period, from 2.7% to 2%. The data came from NGO OXFAM, an international organization that defends and encourages sustainable development since the 1950s.
When some pictures from Silicon Valley come up to our minds, we immediately associate those images with disruptive innovation concept. Some images from scientific journals show how artificial wombs will be able to gestate a baby, from fertilization until delivery, without human body. Moreover, this gestation process, still futuristic, could even be controlled by machines and algorithms, which would understand the need of each fetus to receive nutrients and physical-chemical stimuli. The disruptive innovation (the innovation that breaks up with consolidated standards and presents new proposals) make us to rethink our relationship with the world.