A look back at wearable inventions through the years – from the surveillance dress (2003) to the air-conditioned shirt (2007). These kooky things were invented for a purpose; be it disguise, protection or comfort.
But really, would you wear them?
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Maddy Bandera’s a Lean Six Sigma Blackbelt at IBM.
No…Her black belt isn’t about beating people up. Rather it marks her as practitioner of Lean Six Sigma – a way of improving business processes.
And that’s what she does for IBM.
As a Black belt, I work with internal clients within IBM to address problem areas in the business by applying process improvements using the Lean Six Sigma (LSS) approach. Process improvement and standardization is important to any organisation because it ensures that it is operating at an optimal level, costs are kept down and customer satisfaction is met or even exceeded.
Interestingly Maddy didn’t envision herself as an engineer.
That changed when she enrolled into an Industrial Engineering course. It gave her a mix of Business and Engineering that she could parlay into a successful career.
It also allowed her to indulge in her wanderlust as she travels quite a bit for work. However she “loses track of what time zone I’m in”, but that’s a problem that we’d love to have, yes?
In a nutshell, it’s the science of making things work: how things or systems work together to achieve its intended purpose.
The thing I like most about this job is that it gives me the opportunity to have global exposure. Being in a global project, I work a lot with colleagues from various parts of the world and learn a lot culturally. This helps to broaden my view about the world and also improves my understanding of different cultures and practices.
In any situation, change is not easily accepted. I think one of the best approaches would be to listen and understand where the resistance is coming from and be open to suggestions.
Also, you have to be able to communicate well the intent of any changes that would be introduced and assure them that it is for their and the organization’s benefit.
A little technology goes a really long way, from boatmen in remote parts of the world having access to the internet or mobile phones to help promote and manage their business, allowing tourists to book easily, to paperless boarding passes which use barcodes stored as images in your cellphone to make flight check-ins a breeze. These inventions make our lives easier and give us more time to dream of the next big invention.
Dare to dream and when you do, dream big. Don’t be afraid to learn and explore, nor fail. Because being good at something is really a process and starts with you deciding what you want to do and pursuing it. If you stumble along the way, don’t hesitate to start all over and ask for help.
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Pop rocks are candy that generate alot of gas. Add coke to that, and it’d be a huge gas-a-thon, yeah? Apparently an urban legend has it that mixing pop rocks with coke will blow up your stomach. True or false? The Mythbusters put it to the test!
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When we say “to design”, we usually mean “to look good”, “to make pretty”, or “to decorate”, rarely do we think “to plan”, or “to devise”.
That’s also design, and Wikipedia defines design as “planning that lays the basis for the making of every object or system…it means applied arts and engineering” (Wikipedia).
Thus design is an integral part of engineering. Like the rest of this series, we’ve gotten our Creators’ of Tomorrow take on design and engineering.
So to design or not to design? To design, of course!
But really, shouldn’t we be asking “how to combine design with engineering?”
Coke + Mentos = massive jets of sugared water! But do you know why it happens? The Mythbusters think it’s due to nucleation. What is it? Press play to find out!
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Reader Mihir Pandya was invited to World Cities Summit 2010 (WCS). In this post, he blogs about his experiences and impressions of the event.
Disclaimer: This article is not an advertising platform and the comments in this article are not to be taken as a professional guidance. The purpose of the article is only to share the happenings at WCS 2010 with the rest of the community.
Before I share my experiences, let’s have a little background.
This is the second World Cities Summit (WCS). It is an event that provides a platform for trade and corporate professionals to network and share their solutions regarding the development of cities. This year’s theme is “Liveable and Sustainable Cities for the Future”.
Companies from around the world came to WCS to walk the talk of “saving the earth”, this year. Many showcased their technology-based ideas and solutions to achieve sustainability in several sectors of our life. Singapore played a key role in WCS by showcasing its top-notch projects at the summit.
There were many ideas being showcased: ideas that were as small as a Pocket Projector to as large as replacing the entire power grid with a ‘smart’ grid.
I will talk about the ideas that intrigued me.
Greenlots’ booth greeted me as I entered the ballroom. They were showcasing their proficiency in providing consumers with chargers for electric vehicles. Greenlots was smart to show a live demonstration of its charging capabilities with an electric motorcycle on the booth as its marketing ploy. I think it worked as its neighbouring booths did not have business models that allowed them to do it!
Opposite Greenlots was Trane, which showed off its efficient air conditioning systems. They claimed to halve the power usage of most air conditioning systems from 1.2 kiloton/hour to 0.6 kiloton/hour. Their target audience at WSC were estate developers, as the systems being showcased there were dedicated to maintaining a large scale of air conditioning, though the exhibitor told me that they are also in the consumer business.
IBM and Siemens seemed to be competing against each other. A Smart Grid is a power grid which understands consumers’ power usage in townships and cities, and distributes power according to what is needed. This prevents power wastage and fosters a green environment.
Personally, I have great faith in this idea, not only because I’m intrigued by the idea of an electric car powering a house at night and the house powering the car in the day, but also because it helps appreciate the power of technology.
From what I understand, with a smart grid, campaigns on “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” would be obsolete as technology does that for us. And there’s a high chance that technology would do it better than us.
I was bowled over by Siemens’ interactive display. What seemed to be like a normal LCD screen on first glance, was in fact, a projection of images from a wall behind the screen. I realised that as one of the exhibitors’ heads blocked the projection and I turned around to see who threw such a long shadow!
The screen, implanted on a glass panel also had sensors imbued along its frame so that it would sense your fingers and allow you to interact with that projected display. This meant that the only limitation to size was the array of sensors and not the display itself, for interactive displays. I wanted to ask how it worked but thought that the exhibitor would soon lose interest upon not seeing any business opportunity in me, naturally.
Technology will give us time in future. Siemens showed a video that introduced a new modern-age world where the smart grid and electric car has prevailed. Essentially, the electric car is shown to be a medium of smart power usage. The car can recharge itself in a surprisingly short amount of time at recharging kiosks (similar to today’s petrol pumps), and it can also act as a power source to homes and residential buildings at night. Similarly, the car can be charged at home during the day. The video ends by showing the car in constant communication with power stations, probably so that the power station can keep track of the car’s power consumption.
The most interesting booth, however, promoted Future Ready Singapore – a collaboration between EDB and JTC. They had the most interactive interface which instantly made you a part of their community!
The middle of their booth held a large interactive screen that had 14 case studies to choose from. Each case study showed what the Future Ready Programme was contributing in that sector. Some of the interesting issues revolved around the global water crisis, future healthcare, development of urban cities and carbon footprints, each done up in the context of sustainability. Detailed coverage of these issues can also be found on their website.
What was most unique about their booth was that they managed to foster a community within it. They had a couple of iPad kiosks which allowed visitors to pen down their thoughts on each of the 14 issues. Questions such as: solutions for reducing power consumption to half that of today’s consumption, and innovative solutions for water sources seemed to be popular questions.
Each comment would appear on a large curved screen where they were arranged in a spiral. Visitors stood in front of the screen and moved their arms (above the sensor) to browse through the comments.
In WCS 2010, technology was aptly used to bring forward the message of sustainable development clearly. For a technology enthusiast like me, this expo did much to incorporate sustainable development when looking into the future.
By Mihir Pandya
Hmmmm….. We know about the Tenori-on but the girl having an epileptic fit (1:59 mark) is actually making music? Well… it only happens in Japan.
Take the Create2011 engineering challenge and tell us your vision of Future Mobility to win the grand prize of: A Nokia Experiential Journey in Beijing and Singapore! Check out our Facebook fanpage for exciting contests & giveaways!
I'm the editor of UCreateChange. And I started this blog with the intention of putting up my past weekly roundups 'cause it's a shame they're simply disappearing into people's inboxes. Anyways, if you've a question on engineering, drop me a line at creators.of.tomorrow@gmail.com!
