A week in Silicon Valley - Day 2 @ NASA + Stanford University

in #technology7 years ago

The best thing about spending some time in Silicon Valley is meeting truly remarkable people who're doing incredible things. Like Jonathan Trent - he's a lead scientist for NASA and the inventor of something called OMEGA (Offshore Membrane Enclosures for Growing Algae) Basically, Jonathan's vision is to grow oil-producing algae on municipal wastewater and thus create energy in a sustainable loop. Check out his TED-talk here: https://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_trent_energy_from_floating_algae_pods

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Crammed inside a NASA conference-room - what's more cosy than that?

Here's my notes from our facinating talk with Jonathan:

  • 93% (200.000 years) of the time in human history, we have been hunters and gatherers
  • 6% (10.000 years), man has been farming
  • .1 %(250 years), man has been industrialist
  • .025 % (70 years), man has mastered computers
  • In other words, mankind has never had to deal with exponential growing C02 in the atmosphere as a result of us staying in the same place and polluting it (when we were hunters and gatheres we were constantly moving around)
  • Everyone seems to think off-planetary missions are the next logical move for humanity, however no one fully understands the extreme complexity for people to survive in long-term life supporting habitats
  • In either case, in the future, human waste must be the foundation of sources for food, energy, and water. We must get better at recycling, or we will deplete this planet of it's natural resources at a phase that is non-reversible.

Next up was Stanford University where we met with Pedram Mokrian who lectures around innovation, technology and disruptive business models. Some of the discussion points were around how why big companies fail to innovate, which is a very relevant topic for our visiting Nordic executive. IMG_20171128_091839.jpg

What fitting place to hold a off-script, random lecture

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Interesting and fun facts, thanks for sharing! @svein

Thanks @svein - bli med neste gang :D

Hadde vært veldig gøy ja! 😊

Kult! Ser ut som en super tur!

Love outdoor lectures! Only the cool tutors do this kind of improve stuff!

yes indeed @rawdoctor - Pedram is awesome. He was previously with Mayfield which is a huge tech Investment Fund :)

I only know bad thing about the Mayfield football team! Lmao Thats awesome tho!

Are you based in AUS? I was just there - Cabarita and Sunshine Coast (NSW and QLD). Freaking awesome country -

Im am! I love it here to its my favorite country out of 58! Do you have a post on your trip? Did you enjoy Byron Bay?

The post is coming - stay tuned. yes, I was there like 3 times. My all time favorite place on this planet. Did a dive out at Julian Rocks. Where are you based then?

Awesome one of the best places in the world. I love standing at the edge of the lighthouse on the most easterly point of Australia and just imagining looking at myself from 100 km up comma it's just mind boggling. The locals called The Rocks Shark Island. Byron Bay in essence is an amazing place that sits on black obsidian. The stolen that which is used to look in two parallel world's. Alright that's enough Loco for me. I'm based between Brisbane and Gold Coast.

Ps. Just realised that I'm not even following you comma a mistake I corrected. Diving was one of my passions since I was 9 years old. My parents have tried to say I'm 12 to get my PADI certificate. 🙈

@fredrikaa you should meet this guy Jonathan - seriously cool dude!

I want to comment on the post father, but the father riflek my comments, sorry if can not comment sir, thank you