Lifeboat Foundation

Earth’s natural resources largely determine the global economy’s ebb and flow. As such, the effects of climate change continue to cause concern among economists and environmentalists alike.

In 2018, professors William Nordhaus and Paul Romer won the Nobel Prize in Economics for their work exploring how climate change affects economic stability. Ultimately, the pair’s research found the phenomena to be closely linked. The case for investment in sustainable ventures is clear: Without such commitments, both the planet and the global economic ecosystem will suffer.

Sustainable investments may jump start the slow process of changing consumer habits. Below, we examine the economy-boosting benefits of environmentally friendly business models — and how sustainable investment plays an important role.

37 Exciting Healthcare Startups to Watch out for in 2019

After successfully transplanting the first 3D-printed cornea in an animal, North Carolina company Precise Bio has recently announced the launch of a dedicated business for creating marketable, 3D-printed products for human eyes. Founded by scientists from the Wake Forest Institute of Regenerative Medicine, this company is developing bio-fabrication printers that can restore cells, tissues, and organs. Their proprietary technology, a 4D bio-printing platform, is said to resolve existing limitations presented by other bioprinters to enable more complex tissues to be engineered for transplants and treatments. By focusing on developing marketable products for the eye, the company aims to achieve rapid advancement in its field and move to overhaul the whole organ transplant system.

When a cornea is damaged by disease or injury, a replacement is often needed to restore vision. Transplant surgery using donated corneas is an available solution, however, it relies on a deceased donor. While the waiting list in the United States is nearly non-existent, other countries require longer wait times, some over a year, before one is available. The Eye Bank Association of America estimates that around 10 million people suffer from corneal blindness that could potentially be restored via transplant surgery. An artificially manufactured cornea would overcome supply limitations while also contributing to the knowledge base to develop more complex organs such as hearts and livers.

As ESA’s ɸ-week continues to provoke and inspire participants on new ways of using Earth observation for monitoring our world to benefit the citizens of today and of the future, it is clear that artificial intelligence is set to play an important role.

Taking place at ESA’s centre of Earth observation in Frascati, Italy, on 12–16 November, ɸ-week has drawn hundreds of people from numerous disciplines to explore innovation, new technologies and cross disciplinary cooperation – to see how satellite data coupled with new technologies such as artificial intelligence can bring benefits to science, business, the economy and society at large.

Continue reading “Harnessing artificial intelligence for sustainability goals” »

Microchips could be implanted into employees of UK firms to track worker efficiencies.

Business.

Bill Gates thinks toilets are a serious business, and he’s betting big that a reinvention of this most essential of conveniences can save a half million lives and deliver $200 billion-plus in savings.

The billionaire philanthropist, whose Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation spent $200 million over seven years funding sanitation research, showcased some 20 novel toilet and sludge-processing designs that eliminate harmful pathogens and convert bodily waste into clean water and fertilizer.

“The technologies you’ll see here are the most significant advances in sanitation in nearly 200 years,” Gates, 63, told the Reinvented Toilet Expo in Beijing on Tuesday.

Continue reading “How Bill Gates Aims to Save $233 Billion by Reinventing the Toilet” »

This is a fun new story to read, and highlights some interesting philosophical differences, especially as McAfee and I look at 2020 campaign possibilities: https://logosclubblog.com/2018/11/06/istvan-contra-mcafee/ #transhumanism

During 2016 presidential race, the majority of the US public were spellbound by the unlikely rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders and their various competing visions for the United States of America. Considerably less institutionally-heeled but far more imaginative and, some argued, outlandish, candidates, dead-ringer for the Dos Equis Man John David McAfee of The Cyber Party and Zoltan Istvan Gyurko of The Transhumanist Party. McAfee, a successful tech entrepreneur who worked with NASA between 1968 and 1970, was the more well-known of the two politicians, principally through the popularity (or infamy, depending on who one asked) of McAfee Antivirus Software. McAfee (the person, not the software) has also received a good deal of airtime and media attention for a scandal which saw him accused of murder and fleeing from the corrupt, Sinaloa-controlled Belize after the errant businessman found out about a government-sponsored plot to kill him.

Zoltan Istvan, a former NatGeo journalist and the founder of the US Transhumanist Party, though less well known than McAfee, garnered significant attention due to both his extraordinary statements concerning technological advancement and a 2015 four month campaign, wherein he drove around the country in a brown, coffin-shaped bus (dubbed ‘The Immortality Bus’) to bring awareness to his goal of working to end death itself through radical life-extension procedures. The Immortality Bus tour ended December 14, 2015, with Mr. Istvan delivering the Transhumanist Bill of Rights to the US Capitol Building in Washington, DC. The Verge dubbed him, a “modern-day Ken Kesey” referencing the beat generation countercultural figure, well known for his novel, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. The comparison was not entirely inaccurate as Istvan was also a novelist, having penned the highly contentious sci-fi novel, The Transhumanist Wager, in 2013.

Cryptocurrency millionaire Jeffrey Berns has revealed plans to develop a large parcel of Nevada’s desert into a smart city powered by blockchain technology.

Berns, who made a fortune selling cryptocurrency last year, plans to transform the 67,000-acre (27,113-hectare) plot in the north of the US state after paying reportedly paying $170 million (£130 million) for the land.

The site known as Innovation Park, which neighbours hubs of major tech giants including Google, Apple, Switch and Tesla, is already home to the headquarters of his company Blockchains – an incubator that supports ventures and businesses using blockchain technology.

Continue reading “Blockchain millionaire plans smart city in Nevada desert” »

Kai–Fu Lee who is a venture capitalist, technology executive, writer, and an artificial intelligence (AI) expert is speaking with Sebastian Thrun, founder of Udacity and Google’s self-driving cars program, about: ✅the realities of AI in business ✅which companies are leading AI development ✅how employees can adapt their skills for ever-changing technology.

Kai-Fu Lee is speaking with Sebastian Thrun, founder of Udacity and Google’s self-driving cars program, about: