Interesting Reads – 2018-08-26
Contents
Articles
- How hydrogen power can help us cut emissions, boost exports, and even drive further between refills
- E-agriculture Strategy Guide From the FAO and ITU
- MIT: Red lights could someday be a thing of the past
- Some plain talk about FPGAs
- How NASA technology helps in natural disasters
- Ten reasons teachers can struggle to use technology in the classroom
- The Software Product “Issue Cycle” Phenomenon
- Edutech: The Future of Indian Education System
- Google Executives Misled Staff In Meeting On China Censorship. Here Are 13 Questions They Must Answer.
- The 25 Most Disruptive Companies of the Year (2017)
Events / Announcements
- Infosys Science Foundation Nutrition Challenge
- International Leadership Summit of Women in Engineering. 7-8 Sep 2018 at Kochi
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Articles
How hydrogen power can help us cut emissions, boost exports, and
even drive further between refills
Hydrogen gas is a versatile energy carrier with a
wide range of potential uses. However, hydrogen is not freely available in the
atmosphere as a gas. It therefore requires an energy input and a series of
technologies to produce, store and then use it. Why would we bother? Because, hydrogen
has several advantages over other energy carriers, such as batteries. It is a
single product that can service multiple markets and, if produced using low- or
zero-emissions energy sources, it can help us significantly cut greenhouse
emissions.
E-agriculture Strategy Guide From the FAO and ITU
E-agriculture is about designing, developing and
applying innovative ways to use ICTs in the rural domain, with a primary focus
on agriculture. E-agriculture offers a wide range of solutions to some
agricultural challenge and holds great potential in promoting sustainable
agriculture while protecting the environment and finding an effective way to
feed the world’s population.
Setting in place a national e-agriculture strategy
is an essential first step for any country planning on using ICTs for agriculture.
Yet, most countries have yet to adopt a strategic approach in making the best
use of ICT developments in agriculture. E-agriculture strategies will help to
rationalize both financial and human resources, and address holistically the
ICT opportunities and challenges of the agricultural sector while generating
new revenues and improving the lives of people in rural communities. It will
also help ensure that the goals of national agricultural plans are achieved.
The E-agriculture Strategy Guide, published by the
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the International
Telecommunication Union provides a framework for countries in developing their
national e-agriculture strategies.
These strategies would include an e-agriculture
vision, an action plan, and a framework by which results can be monitored and
evaluated. Like all strategies and plans, the outcomes of these processes are
not static and changes in a country’s strategic context will require a dynamic
approach to updating the strategy so that it remains relevant.
This guide consists of three parts to developing a
national e-agriculture strategy: the vision development process; action plan;
monitoring and evaluation. Adopting a national approach to e-agriculture will
result in improved livelihoods and incomes for people living in rural
communities.
MIT: Red lights could someday be a thing of the past
As vehicles become more wirelessly connected,
communicating with each other and the infrastructure around them, traffic
lights may become an unnecessary impediment in getting from A to B. Instead of
stopping for traffic lights, sensor-laden vehicles would communicate with each
other and perform a kind of ballet around each other, according to a new study
by MIT. The study claims this kind of traffic-light-free transportation design,
if it ever arrives, could allow twice as much traffic to use existing roads.
Some plain talk about FPGAs
In
a world of hype, the role of field-programmable gate arrays in data centers—now
and in the future—is beyond dispute. Data centers today can no longer simply
rely on size and scale to address demanding workloads. Increasingly, coupling a
CPU with a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) provides a superior way to
supercharge a wide range of heavy-duty workloads, such as data analytics, AI
inference, financial modeling, video streaming, and database acceleration.
How NASA technology helps in
natural disasters
Much has been written about Hurricane Harvey hitting the Houston area this summer and NASA’s efforts to keep Johnson Space Center’s Mission Control staffed to ensure the International Space Station (ISS) astronauts continue to fly safely. Kudos to the NASA Mission Control personnel who made the sacrifice in the face of danger to them and their families at home.
Now
let’s look at what the ISS contributes to benefit planet Earth before, during,
and after a natural disaster with two major developments to make life better
for victims and also advanced prediction and possible future prevention of such
catastrophic events.
Related
story: NASA Space Station’s top 10 benefits to humanity
Ten reasons teachers can
struggle to use technology in the classroom
Somewhere
in a school near you, a teacher is struggling to handle a query from a student
whose laptop has a flat battery or another who’s watching a funny cat video on
a phone. Perhaps the wireless internet connection is dropping in and out, or
the electronic whiteboard is playing up. While teachers are expected to
integrate technology into the classroom, the reality can be very different. Some
of the issues teachers can face relate to the technology itself. Others relate
to student or parent expectations, or whether there’s enough of the right
professional development to help teachers become proficient in digital
technology. Without addressing these concerns, we risk creating a generation of
students ill-prepared for a digital future.
The Software Product “Issue
Cycle” Phenomenon
In
the software industry, the average engineer, designer, project manager or
product manager stays with the same company for about three years. This short
longevity creates cycles that you can observe if you remain in the same job for
at least four or five years. I tend to be loyal to the companies I work for,
and my average time in an organization is much longer than the average. That
is, I have seen a lot of people coming and going and many cycles go around in a
full loop.
Any
software that was written more than three years ago is regarded as “legacy
stuff,” built by people who are no longer around. When a body of work was
created by individuals that nobody remembers, a funny thing happens. That work
is automatically considered flawed in some way. At that point, people no longer
remember or understand the original vision, the product grew away from it,
nobody feels ownership or attachment to it, and a strong desire to throw it
away and rebuild it grows slowly but incessantly.
Edutech: The Future of Indian
Education System
The Indian education sector is witnessing a continuous transformation brought about by technology and these variations are influencing its key stakeholders in multifarious ways. From helping students to learn more and better anytime anywhere, empowering teachers to develop innovative instructional aids and methods, to driving educational institutes to cross the digital divide – technology is underpinning the edutech revolution in India. Let us see how this transformation is affecting key communities:
Google Executives Misled Staff
In Meeting On China Censorship. Here Are 13 Questions They Must Answer.
Google
bosses have broken their silence on the company’s plan to launch a censored
search engine in China amid mounting internal protests over the project.
On
Thursday, CEO Sundar Pichai admitted to employees during an all-hands meeting
that the censorship project – code-named Dragonfly – had been “in an
exploration stage for quite a while now,” according to two sources who heard
his remarks. Pichai emphasized his belief that Google should return to China,
but claimed that the company was “not close to launching a search product in
China.” Facing employee criticism for shrouding Dragonfly in secrecy, Pichai
vowed that “we’ll definitely be transparent as we get closer to actually having
a plan of record.”
Several
human rights groups have called on Google to cancel Dragonfly, and a bipartisan
group of six U.S. senators has condemned it as “deeply troubling.” Meanwhile,
Google employees — most of whom knew nothing about the China plan until they
read the news reports — want an ombudsperson to be appointed to review “urgent
moral and ethical issues” raised by the censorship.
Publicly,
Google has not yet issued a statement. Dozens of reporters have questioned
Google about Dragonfly, but they have been told only that the company will not
discuss “speculation about future plans.” After two weeks of sustained
reporting on the issue, Google has not issued a single response to The
Intercept.
The 25
Most Disruptive Companies of the Year (2017)
'Disruptive'
may be a trendy word in start up pitches, but Inc. doesn't throw around the
term lightly. To qualify for Inc.'s list, founders needed ground-breaking
ideas--and ambitious plans for bringing them to market. Check out the
finalists: They're working on ingenious ways to grow food indoors, develop
diamonds in a lab, get you from Chicago to Detroit in just 25 minutes, and much
more.
Events / Announcements
Infosys Science Foundation
Nutrition Challenge
The
Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) has partnered with the New York Academy of
Sciences to challenge students aged 13-18 years in India.
The
Challenge: Find a solution to malnutrition for expectant mothers and children
under 5 years of age in India. Challenge commences on September 10, 2018
The
Reward:
- The two top finalist teams, who have best used their STEM skills to present a viable solution to the challenge, will travel to Bangalore to be part of the Infosys Prize ceremony in January 2019
- Both teams get the privilege of a trip to ISRO, Sriharikota, to view an inspiring sight – the launch of a rocket
- The winning team will additionally receive a scholarship of Rs 5 lakhs per team member
Apply
on or before 28th Aug at https://goo.gl/forms/zqTy2Mef51SItWYE2
International Leadership Summit of Women in Engineering. 7-8 Sep
2018 at Kochi
A
global high profile summit with the
theme of the Summit is “emPOWERing TOgetHER”,
showcasing women talents who have accomplished phenomenal success in
their respective fields be it business, technology, arts or humanitarian cause.
To be held at Kochi in Kerala during 7-8 Sep 2018, this international summit
seeks to celebrate womanhood by generating innovative ideas from technologists,
entrepreneurs, artists, architects and humanitarians who are women and to
develop strategies which aims for the wholesome development of women,
especially in their life as a professional or in their pursuits of passion.
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