Device performance is in most cases connected to the materials quality. In many cases, high quality materials are available, but at a cost that is commercially not viable. We have been working on improving the quality of germanium for use as a virtual substrate for III-V semiconductor materials and for active silicon-based photonic devices. Germanium as a virtual substrate would enable low cost, high efficiency solar cells as will be presented in one example. An example for advanced germanium based devices are single photon detectors, operating at room temperature in the near infrared.
Encoding the CRISPR genome editing system in an organism causes it to edit the genomes of its descendants over successive generations, a form of 'gene drive' that amounts to a find-and-replace function capable of editing wild populations. Imagine a world in which mosquitoes are programmed to dislike the taste of humans, mice can't give ticks Lyme disease, and pests are precisely controlled by limiting their fertility, obviating both environmentally damaging pesticides and animal suffering. But this form of gene drive is likely to spread to every population of the target species in the world, ignoring all borders and impacting everyone sharing an ecosystem. Future public perception of CRISPR and biotech will be critically dependent on initial applications of gene drive. Can scientists ethically conduct ecological engineering research behind closed doors? Is it possible for many nations to agree without being able to conduct a field trial? By developing localized 'daisy drive' systems in collaboration with potential early adopters, we aim to give every community the opportunity to control its own shared environment without forcing their choices on others, to obviate the need for standard CRISPR-based gene drive except in direst need, and to establish a new model of open and responsive science and ecotechnology development.
As living technologies proliferate, how do we ensure that communities—diverse socioeconomically, culturally, and creatively—are able to not only experience its benefits, but are also active participants and agents of change? What are some of the key elements that are enabling the expansion of biotechnology’s reach beyond ‘traditional’ academic, government, and corporate laboratories?
In this talk Professor David Kong will explore the growth of biotechnology in non-traditional spaces and the creative ecosystem that supports them, including open tools, virtual infrastructure for sharing, and new programs for learning and education. In addition he will share advances in open hardware, including the application of advanced digital fabrication technology to the production of bio-hardware. From ‘Metafluidics,’ to ‘How to Grow (Almost) Anything,’ a distributed biotechnology course that is helping to augment the existing network of over one thousand Fab Labs worldwide with community biology labs, to organizing the first ‘Global Community Biology Summit,’
To support societal demands for mobility fluidity, co-existing with a sustainable planet, mobility systems for a digitally powered society must be efficient and innovation friendly. Efficiency requires intelligent use of assets and aggressive use of best technology, while consumers expect freedom in personal choices as well as fairness. Future society will demand Connected, Heterogeneous, Intelligent, and Personalized (CHIP) mobility. We propose a framework where Heterogeneous transportation modes are Connected both digitally and physically, and Intelligent apps can access data on usage, congestion, prices, and weather, for example, and enable real time and Personalized travel planning throughout a city, whether a traveler wants to optimize time, cost, carbon footprint or touristic aesthetics. This framework proposes that urban planners create policies to support such a vision and that the traditional auto industry is likely to enjoy a less dominant role in architecting mobility frameworks. Governments and city administrations will be joined by traditional auto industry players as well as a range of new-generation entrepreneurs and investors, technology startups, and app developers, all of which have contributions to make in redefining future mobility.
The innovation economy has profoundly transformed politics, economics, and society, yet its effects have only just begun to manifest in the physical space of cities. Although innovation holds the promise of addressing many challenges of a globalized, urbanized, and climate-changed planet, the present trends in city-technology and city-making demonstrate how this can also threaten regulation and policy, exacerbate economic inequality, and fray the social fabric of place. Matthew Claudel explores these opportunities and frictions. Atomization, distributed networks, and real-time platform markets have opened new territory for urban technology and city-making – what could be thought of as The Civic Supermind. This is an approach to urban technology that encompasses place-based modes of social organization; innovation in policy, regulation, and codes; and the creation of new place-based capital structures. It connects technology to people in place.
Moderator: Venkat Sumantran Panelists: Jim Womack, Valerie Karplus, Carlos Lima Azevedo
Structural biopolymers are materials engineered by Nature as building blocks of living matter. These materials have unique and compelling properties that allow for their assembly and degradation with minimal energy requirements as well as their performance at the biotic/abiotic interface. By combining basic material principles with advanced fabrication techniques, it is possible to define new strategies to drive the assembly of structural biopolymers in advanced materials with unconventional forms and functions such as edible coating for perishable food, inkjet prints of silk fibroin that change in color in the presence of bacteria, three dimensional monoliths that can be heated by exposure to infrared light and flexible keratin-made photonic crystals.