OnInnovation : Visionaries thinking out loud™

In a world of convenience, one thing that’s always been a difficulty is suitable health care. Epicenters of progressive and innovative treatments are often in large cities that can be hundreds of miles away from the families that actually need attention. For disorders that have no succinct plan of attack, this can result in more fruitless trips to medical centers than productive ones. Furthermore, for families of autistic children that need constant attention and forward-motion for genuine long-term improvement, this can be very emotionally and financially draining.

Autism is a word that is thrown around a lot but not truly understood. Amidst rumors of vaccine-related cases and the anger that speculation has evoked, a pressing need to address the shortage of qualified therapists for the one in 110 children that falls under the “spectrum” of autism must take precedence.

Autism is described as a “spectrum disorder” because it affects each person differently and to a varying degree. The main symptoms seen across the board include difficulties with spoken language, motor skills, and social interaction. People afflicted with the disorder tend to fixate on objects and details and have difficulties connecting with other people on any social level.

There is no known cause of autism that is singularly responsible for the variety of disabilities that are included under the “umbrella.” There are, however, many types of biomedical and psychological treatments currently being used.

Sensory integration is a form of autism therapy that helps children become familiar with certain situations that might otherwise be distressing to them. It uses a combination of interactive technologies such as sight, sound, and touch to help establish a higher baseline of normalcy that the child can tolerate, in turn making the child more peaceful and at ease with his or her environment. In order for autism to be treated most effectively, it must be diagnosed as early as possible so that treatment may begin immediately.

The gap in the amount of kids that can be treated by qualified therapists is hoped to be addressed by taking therapy to the next level in using robots to interact with the children. The University of Southern California has taken sensory integration therapy, in combination with robotics, to produce a robot called Bandit that has the ability to make simple facial expressions and movements coupled with a complex decision-making ability in response to the child’s behavior.

In order to reach the children on a level they are most comfortable with, Bandit takes what’s known as a “humanoid” form. If he were to be designed too human-like, it would defeat the purpose of his existence since autistic children prefer machines over humans due to their predictability.

Bandit itself can only use pre-programmed visual cues, or cues read by an engineer that can also manually operate the robot, to react to the child and monitor his/her behavior to accurately respond. It also uses cameras and a microphone that can record a compiled video if the child is particularly agitated. Then the video can be reviewed at a later time with parents and doctors to determine the cause of distress.

MIT has developed a wristband that can be worn which would provide added feedback on the emotional state of the child. This in combination with any robot on the market used for autism therapy would make it an even more efficient tool since it could read the heart-rate, perspiration level, and breathing rate of the child and feed that information into the robot for a more tailor-made response. When used in conjunction with a superior monitoring system, such as the wristband sensor system, this innovative robotic therapy becomes a completely personalized autism treatment plan for each individual child that is afflicted.

Temple University has been doing research on their own robot called KOALA that uses fuzzy logic to store behavioral and social cues over time.  With this small amount of artificial intelligence, the robot can personalize itself for the child to which it belongs.

The developer of Bandit, Maja Mataric, wants to put a Bandit in every autistic child’s home for about the cost of a laptop within the next decade. The complexity of Bandit and the need to make it as benign as possible to the children in which it hopes to treat will make an inexpensive price tag difficult. The many moving parts on the face coupled with a quiet motor to prevent distress in the child are cited as the main problem areas for cost.

Doctoral student, Marek Michalowski, at Carnegie Mellon University, and his mentor Dr. Hideki Kozima of Miyagi University in Japan, disagree with other labs about the degree of humanization that therapy robots should have. He believes that in order to truly connect with the child, the robots have to be much less humanoid and more cartoonish to account for the autistic tendency to prefer objects over people. His mentor’s creation, Keepon, is a bubbly little guy whose only movements are to bop and dance around on his platform. As he only has two small camera eyes and a microphone nose, there are no external moving arms, fingers, eyebrows, lips, etc., to drive up the cost.

Considering that the average lifetime cost of caring for an autistic child is between $3.5 and $5 million dollars, the more inexpensive the treatment robot, the better. One amazing benefit that cannot be overlooked is the ability to bring the robot home with the child no matter where the family lives, making long commutes to hospitals and treatment centers in larger cities less frequent.

This is a location-independent treatment option that can revolutionize the way we manage autism by putting therapy more in the hands of families and friends than in the hands of doctors. This has the distinct advantage of keeping children more at ease around those they most trust and love.

By automating the therapy via robotics, we have the potential to reach children that would have never received proper treatment in the past. Not only that, but the human faults that we all encompass – temper, lapses in attention spans, laziness – will no longer be an issue. Therapy-bots like Bandit and Keepon have the ability to maintain decorum, not lose their tempers (because they don’t have them), and keep working until the job is done. Or until their batteries need to be replaced.

What do you think?

Photo Credit: Clint JCL

Here’s an interesting question:

Why is the Retirement Age 65 in most developed countries?

I’ll give you a second to think about it. Or google it.

Here’s a hint: the retirement age of 65 was first selected in 1880.

Here’s the answer: the retirement age was set at 65 because when it was first introduced by Otto von Bismarck, hardly anyone lived that long. Here’s a quick rundown on that:

The age of 65 was originally selected as the time for retirement by the “Iron Chancellor,” Otto von Bismark of Germany, when he introduced a social security system to appeal to the German working class and combat the power of the Socialist Party in Germany during the late 1800s. Somewhat cynically, Bismark knew that the program would cost little because the average German worker never reached 65, and many of those who did lived only a few years beyond that age. When the United States finally passed a social security law in 1935 (more than 55 years after the conservative German chancellor introduced it in Germany), the average life expectancy in America was only 61.7 years.

I’ve asked this question in classes recently, and most people choose an answer that is something like ‘because by the time we reach 65 years, we’re ready for a break.’ But the fact that most of us can now think about being retired for 15 years or so is completely an accident. The original idea is that we retired at 65 because no one was supposed to live past that age.

What changed?

Innovation, and lots of it.

There has been technological innovation, like x-rays and PET scans.

There has been a range of medical inventions that have been turned into product innovations, like penicillin, chemotherapy and vaccinations.

There have been process innovations – possibly the biggest medical invention since Bismarck’s time has been germ theory, which has led to radical process innovations like hand washing and sterilization.

There have been service innovations, like the provision of universal health care in, well, most developed and developing countries.

Basically, all of the medical services, procedures, medicines and routines that keep us alive longer have been invented since the retirement age was set at 65 years of age.

The simple fact of the matter is that the only reason we can expect to have a retirement is innovation. Remember that the next time someone tells you that innovation is just a buzzword that doesn’t mean anything.

What do you think?

Photo Credit: Sean Dreilinger

I’ll start this post by comparing and contrasting two recent technological innovations.

Created nearly ten years ago, innovation #1 was unveiled to the public after months of public speculation and intense curiosity. Built on the reputation of its “brilliant” inventor, this device was lauded for its great utility and revolutionary capabilities. Many saw it as the Next Great Innovation, a technological breakthrough that would change our way of life. Though it’s price tag was high, investors expected sales to brisk and ongoing. However, the hype never translated into general sales, potential buyers were dismissive of the device, and the product eventually faded from the public imagination.

Unveiled more recently, innovation #2 encountered a similar wave of rampant hype and speculation prior to its debut. Built similarly on the reputation of its creators, the product demonstrated revolutionary capabilities and long-term technological promise. Though the utility of the device was clear, critics worried that its price tag and niche targeting would hamper general sales. As it turns, out not only did sales exceed expectations, but the product shows few signs of slowing down.

With all the similarities in their pre-release hype, why did these two products, the Segway (#1) and the iPad (#2) have such different outcomes? The success of the iPad and the failure of the Segway don’t seem tied to their utility. As an urban commuting device, the Segway had a chance to fulfill a valuable niche between walking and driving. Likewise, the iPad’s role as a bridging device between the laptop and the smartphone seems a natural advantage. It’s hard to blame price exclusively, since both the Segway (arppox $5000) and the iPad (approx $500) are luxury items within their industries.

I prefer to view the their success/failure through the lens of the culture of cool. Public acceptance of a product weighs vastly on the link between early adoption and general adoption of a product. In the case of the Segway, early adoption of the product failed to convince a curious public of the usefulness of the device. Rather, early adopters illustrated to the general public the general goofiness of the product. Ridden by silly-looking folks in bright vests and ill-fitting helmets, the two-wheeled people mover became an urban curiosity, something that turned heads for all the wrong reasons.  As a Dylan Tweney from Wired Magazine recently wrote, the Segway “pretty much doomed itself to a niche market: rich guys who aren’t afraid to embarrass themselves in public.”

Like the Segway, the iPad faced an uphill battle in the face of criticism that it would fail to capture a specific target audience. However, in the few months the iPad has been available, the device has outperformed expectations, creating demand that seemed non-existent several months ago. Unlike the Segway, the iPad is slowly earning the Next Big Thing title by capitalizing on its forward-thinking applications and most importantly, Apple’s culture of cool. As a company, Apple succeeds, in part, by pushing technologies just as much as products.  iTunes helped drive acceptance of mp3s, the iPhone brought functionality to the world of smartphones, and now, the iPad is driving Tablet culture. By riding the reputation of its developers and the built-in fan culture, the iPad is succeeding by being an Apple product as much as being a useful device. While the iPad has the history of Apple behind it, the Segway had no such history or community.
While the story of the Segway has already been written, the iPad’s story is just beginning. In the end, both stories demonstrate how that how the Culture of Cool can shape the course of innovation and technological success.

What do you think? Where else have you seen the Culture of Cool make or break the success of an innovation?

Photo Credit: JimmyTheJ

You and I have a unique privilege that not many get to witness during their lifetime. A machine, idea, or resource comes along and sparks a chain of events that historians look back upon as turning points in time. Both technology and culture change in fundamental ways that create new standards of living, and reshuffle the business and political landscape. Unlike a Hollywood script, the repercussions of these changes are rarely recognized overnight; they have influence that echoes for decades before being superseded. These echoes signify steps in which individuals transform a new landscape thanks to innovations technology has afforded them.

According to this set of miraculous predictions from these ~20 year old advertisements, we are now living in the future.While they weren’t so bold as to predict hover cars, they did predict a number of technologies that we now enjoy, and they look quite accurate. When you realize that most of the major technologies in these videos only recently (in the past few years) became practical for the average consumer, it helps put things in perspective. Collectively we are hurtling towards unknown territory as the technologies we adopt are orphaning the “tried and true” methods in both business and life. With computers and the internet as foci, technologies are converging yet expanding outwards in new directions. And as we learn to wield our new tools, we’re finding society echo this change, with the connections between people also converging and expanding. The individuals and businesses who best create new ways to take advantage of the new landscape will ultimately become the Carnegie’s of our generation. Across all subjects over time change is inevitable; the greatest innovators in history were those who understood this fact, embraced it, and had the vision to mold these changes for the collective good.

13 years ago this was an iPhone

I think one of the greatest advances these converging technologies are bringing us, is the realm to multitask. Most people now carry a phone smaller than the 90’s palm pilot, which packs more hardware punch than their personal computer did. I have heard many arguments against multitasking, however anyone who thinks that multitasking is detrimental to progress, probably would have bad mouthed the cotton gin 210 years ago. If one were to take the old adage “we only use 10% of our brain,” then there is no reason the human mind shouldn’t be able to multitask to a scale we can only imagine. This might be the stereotypical Millennial in me, but finding the right balance of distraction, interaction, challenge, and critical thinking is crucial to keeping my motivation fueled throughout the week. Is there a cognitive limit to how much I can do until the law of diminishing returns sets in? Absolutely. Will I ever develop my abilities to their potential if I am not constantly pushing those limits? Absolutely not. The phrase “thinking outside the box” is as cliche as the amount of people who continue to do so. Perfection is an admirable goal, but perpetual improvement is a realistic one which helps concepts and ideas survive the test of time.

Many of the greatest minds in history are notorious for juggling various areas of study, interests, and business. The ones leaving the greatest legacy were those who had impact beyond their field, company, or generation; they were capable of combining vision, with expertise, and the right technology. Simply put: they innovated. We live in an age where people with vision and the tenacity to achieve can ultimately succeed. It’s with this knowledge that businesses, as well as individuals, can hold their heads high facing the tough economic times ahead. We all have an amazing set of tools at our disposal, most of them are free, but the feature that excites me the most is how interconnected we can further become. Not only do we have the largest population of humans to ever roam the earth, but we have the power to tap into this ocean of brain power and set our goals even higher. For the first time in recent history, technology will be influencing the productive capabilities of the crowd versus the individual. We’re already seeing the changes in culture to reflect this shift in power: from a satirical hijacking of an international brand by twitter, elections turning social networks into battle grounds, to people opting to advertise the locations they visit during the day.

So why am I so excited and optimistic for the immediate future of human interactions? I look back at the past century and the great advances in how humans communicated with one another. As part of my job I am exposed to the advances computers and technology are making by eradicating barriers like language and region-centric knowledge. Collaborative technologies hold the promise of a new revolution for the history books. While the 20th century brought us the technology to broadcast a small group of ideas to a large audience, the 21st century flips the pyramid upside down: every individual and business now has the power to be their own apex. The ability of individuals to have a voice as loud as a Multinational company is one that excites me (and terrifies others). However, the ability to see change as an opportunity, and not as a threat, is what separates the innovators from the unoriginal.

What do you think?

Photo Credits: 416Style, Channel R