I went along this evening to a pretty full lecture theatre in Trinity College’s Science Gallery to listen to Venky Narayanamurti of the Harvard Kennedy School speaking on the subject of science, technology and society. He is a man clearly passionate about his topic and spoke with conviction, vigour, animation and not a little humour. Venky spoke about the great inventors – Edison, Watt, Einstein, Pasteur- and how invention and innovation come from applied science, research, experimentation, use cases and what he termed “grand challenges”. He spoke passionately about the need for an understanding of science among our leaders and hailed Obama’s commitment to the sciences in his inaugural speech:
“We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. All this we will do.”
Vekny spoke about how innovation does not always have to come from inventing something new, but can also come from finding new and imaginative ways of using something that already exists. He cited the case of Ushahidi, an open source, ”crowdsourcing” system that uses simple mobile technology, such as phone, SMS, and web, combined with geolocation and mapping software on the Internet to track emergency and crisis information. Ushahidi is a fantastic example of how collaboration and innovation, coupled with existing technology, can come together to solve real world problems. It was used in Kenya to map incidents of violence and peace efforts throughout the country based on reports submitted via the web and mobile phone after the 2008 elections. It was used in India to monitor elections and it was used in Washington DC to deal with the aftermath of their snow this year. It is now being used to monitor the crisis in Haiti after the earthquake.
In question and answer following his speech, Venky’s answer to one question stuck with me. Asked about invention and about how and whether people should focus their efforts, Venky said, ” You can’t be everywhere, because then you are nowhere.” How true.
It was a wonderful evening in the Science Gallery and I look forward to attending more lectures there. The lecture was recorded, so I hope it will find its way to YouTube or iTunesU.
If you were at Venky’s lecture and would like to add your thoughts, please leave a comment and add to the record. If you have used Ushahidi, or know about the application, I’d also love to hear from you. And, finally, if you have had experience of crowdsourcing, please share your thoughts and experience here.
