Why Technology Innovation Needs Inclusion and Purpose

Technology and specifically technology innovation are changing the world, but it’s not doing it alone. In this video, I’m going to talk about the role of technology in society and how we can make sure that everyone benefits from its advances, we talk about inclusion in technology and purpose driven technology, and we also discuss the space race and why it is important.

Hey, my name is Nathaniel Schooler and I believe that technology innovation has the potential to change the world for the better. But it’s not going to happen on its own. We need to make sure that everyone has a voice in shaping our technological future and that its advances benefit everyone, not just a select few. So come with me as I explore why technology needs inclusion, innovation, and purpose.

Here is the audio.

In series 4 episode 5 of the Influential Visions Podcast we discuss how technology is changing the world and the reason space travel is a good thing! I discuss with Nishadi Ranasinghe and Guy Powell the ins and outs of the space race, digital inclusion, ethics in medicine and drug development and more.

Technology is changing the world at an unprecedented pace. But it’s not doing it alone. In this interview, Nishadi Ranasinghe, Guy Powell and Nathaniel Schooler talk about the role of technology in society and how we can make sure that everyone benefits from its advances. We need to make sure that technology serves the needs of everyone, not just a select few. So come with me as I explore why technology needs inclusion, innovation, and purpose.

You can learn more about Guy Powell here and his company here.

We were promised technology would improve our lives, although why has it not been delivered? One reason is that technology needs to have inclusion, innovation and purpose. Without these three factors technology will not fulfil its potential and society will continue to be left behind.

Inclusion in technology is important because it ensures that everyone has a voice in shaping our technological future. Too often, technology is designed for the privileged few who can afford it or have the skills to use it. This exclusionary approach means that many people are left behind by advances in technology. We need to make sure that everyone has a say in how technology is developed and used so that its benefits are shared by all of us.

Innovation is also essential for technology to achieve its potential. We need to constantly push boundaries and explore new ways of using technology and we need to always think of underserved members of society and how we can make their lives better.

We need to be constantly innovating so that technology can make a real difference in the world.

It needs to be driven by a desire to improve people’s lives and make the world a better place. Technology that is developed for the sake of profit or power is not going to benefit society as a whole. We need to make sure that technology is designed with people in mind and that its advances are used to improve our lives.

These are just some of the reasons why technology needs inclusion, innovation, and purpose.

Nathaniel Schooler

00:00:30

I am privileged today to be joined by Nish again, Kim, unfortunately, couldn’t make it. And we are with Guy Powell today, and Guy is a born technologist. His earliest moments memories are of wanting a computer. And when he got one at the age of seven, wow. He started programming. His first jobs were as a software developer during the late nineties internet boom, before moving on to a computer science degree. So in the years, since he’s worked as a software developer and architect and run several tech companies in retail, tech, financial services and blockchain, interesting, and guy also, he runs a software company, a unique software development company, focused on delivering value to clients and wellness tool staff. Well, thank you Guy for joining us. Really appreciate it.

Guy Powell

00:01:20

Great here day.

Nathaniel Schooler

00:01:23

So at the moment, what kind of excites you about technology right now?

Guy Powell

00:01:32

Does

Guy Powell

00:01:34

I there’s? I think we’re in, an interesting position in the world of technology on, on the one hand, I dunno how popular it is as a view to say, we, we feel like we’ve stagnated a little bit. When you look at the, the growth we had of technology, I know, say from the, the seventies to the two thousands, and then you look over the last decade, really phones have got a little bit quicker. You know, there’ve been slight changes on the internet, blockchains become a thing, but there’s, there’s many of views. I think that actually kind of technology has stagnated a little bit. And that as someone that loves technology is, is kind of the opposite of being excited by it. But I think it is where we’ve got to, however, we’re we are then on the cusp of, I think, another boom with a bunch of interesting and kind of life changing technologies coming.

Guy Powell

00:02:26

I think as a, I work in it and computers, but on a kind of wider level, when we look at society with commercial space travel, which I know a lot of people think is a huge waste of money. I personally think it’s an amazing investment in future technologies. You know, we’ve made huge strides in that which fundamentally lays the foundation for a difference to how our species work in the future. We’ve made huge strides, in battery and energy technologies, which aren’t the sexiest of technologies. But again, they’re gonna completely revolutionize where we are. It’s great banging on about green energy, but just slapping some solar panels everywhere isn’t gonna work. You know, so I think maybe computer technology, the internet has actually slowed down and kind of plateaued to a certain point when we get, I think there’s a lot of computer tech that gets banded around as being exciting. And the current thing people talking about, you know, the metaverse or cryptocurrency and blockchains, all the, which things are been part of how revolutionary are is different. I think when we look into outside computer tech, there’s a lot more interesting and revolutionary things out there at the moment that are pretty exciting.

Nathaniel Schooler

00:03:37

So, so niche, what, what do you think, what excites you the most at the moment around tech? I love what guy said by the way about, about the space program, because I mean, so many people slate the space program, but if they actually realized that the devices they were talking on were kind of, you know, a product of what, of, of what president Kennedy invested in today’s money is 150 billion us dollars, right? Like, so I’m really excited about that too, because the capabilities are just growing. So sorry, I got a bit of sidetracked there. Initial had, to, had had to, had to go on a little bit about what Guy said. So what do you think, Nish?

Nishadi Ranasinghe

00:04:19

No, I think that I’m really interested in, in green technologies as well, having just myself invested in, an electric car, all of the tech that comes around with that is pretty impressive. And I think that when you look at things that the applications of certain things in society, it’s pretty interesting. So space program, as you mentioned, it’s, it’s an investment into the future of our species, but then you think about what’s happening on our planet as well, and how people are switching to more green technologies, but then, you know, you do for me, the other thing is, is it what, what the people or societal application of some of these technologies are? So when you do talk about things like the metaverse, it’s not just about, you know, sticking a pair of Oculus on and then going to watch a football match. It’s more about what does that mean for us as what does it mean for us as a society?

Nishadi Ranasinghe

00:05:10

What does that open us up to? Things like blockchain in theory were things that could have really revolutionized transactions, but why is it that that hasn’t necessarily be things haven’t found the application for that? Is it adoption? Is it because people aren’t ready for it? And I remember when, you know, when Steve jobs first came out with the iPhone, it was actually, he created the iPad first, but realized that the, the world wasn’t ready for it yet. So I had to do the iPhone first in order to kind of get people ready for the iPad. And I wonder what the, what the stepping stone is to, to get people up along the same curve, as some of some people who are actually quite excited about certain very, you know, fast, very interesting technologies, such as a space program, what are the human applications and how do we ensure that people are excited about the same things, not just excited about, you know, sticking virtual reality goggles on and going to look into jewellery store, you know, so that’s, I know that’s kind of where I sit with this whole future technology thing.

Nathaniel Schooler

00:06:18

Yeah. I mean, I think from where I’m sitting, we’ve got massive issues when it comes to inclusion like that, that’s, that’s something that I’m, I’m a big advocate of inclusion. You think that nearly 50% of the world don’t have internet access, right? Like it’s whilst it might be an opportunity it’s also, you know, practically a human right now. I, I don’t know. What do you think, guys, do you think that technology companies could do more around inclusion for old people, disabled people, et cetera, et cetera.

Guy Powell

00:06:51

Yeah. I mean, I think, I think from a commercial perspective, the reality is that most tech companies would have every single person of every single age and every single part of the world using their products if they can because it’s about money at the end of the day. You know, if, if we’re looking at Facebook and the metaverse, if Facebook can get everybody from age 11 to age, 111 across the whole world using their platforms, they would, I think there’s, there are practical issues. So talking about inclusion and actually space comes with this as well. You know, it’s not easy to provide an internet connection in the middle of village and Sub-Saharan Africa, you know, the the cost of build out. As I, I mentioned before we started recording today, I live in broadly the middle of nowhere in, in the jungle somewhere. And I, I am lucky enough that I live somewhere where there’s a, a large enough population.

Guy Powell

00:07:44

That’s paid to get an internet connection laid here, but it’s the absolute minority and the cost per is ridiculously expensive. So, you know, how do you serve those underserved communities in a way that makes commercial sense? And I think what we have with kind of new satellite internet technologies like Starlink Elon, one of Elon Musk’s companies potentially start to really change that because suddenly you’ve got not just accessible internet, but good internet available to communities that are underserved and unable to get it at the moment you’ve currently got satellite internet options. I looked when I moved here, you know, two, $300 a month, it would’ve been the speed of a home internet connection from 15 to 20 years ago. And I’d have had bandwidth limits on it. And it would’ve been really, really slow for requested things to go through. So it just isn’t practical.

Guy Powell

00:08:36

So a good, reliable satellite internet technology coming on, like Starlink is a fascinating proposition for bringing inclusion, but at the end of the day, as much as I think, you know, commercial companies, there’s a, there’s a commercial case there for Starlink comes on as a business, it provides greater good. But I think when it comes to engaging other sets of communities, part of it does have to come to governments, playing their parts as well. I think there’s only so much in non-profitable areas that private companies are ever gonna be able to do. And it comes down to, to governments and societies at large helping inclusion. You know, I mean, we can, we can all talk about inclusion with mentioned older people as well. Yeah. How many people helped their families learn how to use zoom during lockdowns in 2020? You know, we can all play a part in sharing these technologies with those that maybe aren’t as much a part of the technology in lives as they otherwise could be.

speaker 5

00:09:25

Yeah.

Nathaniel Schooler

00:09:28

Yeah. I, I agree completely with, with what you just said there actually, but I think, I think when it comes to teaching, perhaps retired people how to use the internet, especially people with dementia and things like this. I think that Amazon voice technology is just incredible. And actually in the coming, I, I see that becoming massively important for dementia sufferers. I think that they will end up building that out in the next few years because the, the way that they, it they’re delighted and they can say the same thing to, to this device and the device isn’t gonna like disappear or, or, or stop talking to them. Or, you know, I think that compared to Siri, the Amazon echo and whatever else is is absolutely brilliant. I mean, do you guys use those yourselves or, or not? So,

Guy Powell

01:10:25

So I don’t due to privacy concerns. So I choose not to use any of those voice services. That being said as a, as a general concept, whether, whether it’s it’s Amazon or, or Syria or other platforms think about dementia. One of the areas that the area that I was researching and I was doing robotics was socially assisted robotics. I was specifically looking at the research with regards to, to mental health, but there’s, there’s a lot of interesting work groups within socially assisted robotic or dementia for other areas to actually help people. The, university I was studying at had an entire like house of the future set, filled with socially assistive robotics. And there were all kinds of little things I know was one that was a simple one. Like it was a mug that when you, the person drank it, it would just create a, like a, I know an artificial flower to just move slightly.

Guy Powell

01:11:21

It looked like it was blowing in the breeze and it was designed so that the family member could have that flower at their house. And then, their elderly relative, they would know just whenever they were making a cup of tea, they’d know that they were slow okay. Going about their lives. And there was some kind of connection backwards and forward between the two, even if it wasn’t a cool, so there’s, you know, that’s, that’s a really subtle note. We think about, you know, big robots and artificial intelligence, but there’s a lot of more subtle, really useful, interesting work going on in, in robotics, particularly in socially assisted for, for helping in those areas.

Nathaniel Schooler

01:11:52

Wow. Wow. That’s very interesting. Thank you guy for sharing that. That’s, that’s amazing. So what do you think their niche on, on, on this sort of stuff?

Nishadi Ranasinghe

01:12:01

No. So I do have, I’m not gonna say her name and I’m an am as an echo. She’s right here. So if I say the name it’s gonna fire up. Yeah. But no, I, and to be honest with you, I mean, aside from my application for this is when I moved. So I actually got that as a gift when I moved abroad and I was abroad for about two years. And I do think that that little device, when I, when you’re in a new country and you’ve got no friends yet, I’d sit there and ask her to make jokes for me, you know, there’s little things like that, that they help with. Cause I was like, oh, okay, well, there is someone here who I can talk to. And you know, these ideas that, you know, you do need, you know, whilst, you know, when people are far away or, you know, during the lockdown, you mentioned also people who are in nursing homes or apart from their families, for whatever reason, you know, would it, whether that be, you know, even provide a medical condition such as dementia, it could be, it, you know, there is a comfort in trying to bring people together using these technologies and, you know, having little drop-ins with, with video conferencing, things like that.

Nishadi Ranasinghe

01:13:07

And yeah, even as simple as you know, you know, I remember upgrading my phone to include FaceTime, things like that, just to make sure that these, that, that you feel more connected to people. And if that’s some, an application that technology can use or one application that we know that technology is using at the moment, actually post lockdown and how we’re all, I mean, we work in a remote team guy, you and I work in a completely right team. And every day we are seeing people on VC and make sure that we stay connected in different ways. So, that is something that’s really important. And the socially connectable devices is something that’s a really great application for tech. The other thing is medical advances to make sure that you don’t treatments can be, can be, you know, made quicker advances in, I guess, pharmaceutical technology, if they can start sort of making, doing research into their, in, in like testing quicker and make, bring all that back to our, back to our doctors and hospitals and that quicker.

Nishadi Ranasinghe

01:14:11

So that is another area, which I think is a really good investment for it. But yeah, it’s difficult to see how it’s difficult to see C or I suppose, differentiate between technology that we see in society having, you know, social applications versus whether research is going into, whether it’s actually, whether, you know, pharmaceutical companies, medical companies are investing in actual, you know, like coding technology to, to advance it versus, you know, just up upgrading their rubbish internal, you know, database systems. So yeah, I guess it’s just something that you’d hope that is happening at the, like, like you mentioned at the government level as well that people are investing in these and we we’ll see the benefits of it in years to come, but yeah, that’s another area. I think medical technology,

Guy Powell

01:15:08

Well, medical technology, I think is, is an interesting one that I hadn’t mentioned cuz on, on many levels we are not that far removed, from the days of leaches and kind of, you know, really basic medicine that still works. You know, I, I say that as a bit of a joke, my, my dad was a, a GP, a doctor for his whole life and he ended up having an issue with his, his circulation and blood and he’d been trained in the twenties and he, he was in the late nineties. He was like, I just need some leaches. It’ll be fine. Like that, that was still somewhat part of like his view on the world of medicine from, you know, being born in the twenties. And it’s not really, you know, not even a hundred years ago that my dad would’ve been born, but you look to where we are for now.

Guy Powell

01:15:55

And suddenly we have really interesting work going into to genetics and CRISPR and the idea of being able to create tailored medicine to individuals where, you know, you, you are targeting it. Now. I worry about the profit motive behind actually curing disease anymore because it’s much better to not cure disease from a profit perspective and to treat people. So I think this is where there’s, there’s a difference between commercial academia and eventually, kind of the commercial world can’t ignore technologies. And if you can get to the point of creating, you know, new things that actually cure diseases and help people, then I think at some point the private sector have to otherwise really easy for the private sector in, in medicine to, to treat, not cure because there isn’t a profit motive for a cure, you know, say it’s one pill that cures a disease for a hundred thousand dollars, or you can keep someone paying for 50 years.

Guy Powell

01:16:52

I’m not saying scientists or anyone behind it happen, but when the research goes down one direction and that then becomes the pattern of working that you’re used to and the templates for, how do you find a vaccine? How do you cure something all around treatment then very, it’s very easy for a mindset in an entire sector to go down that way. Not because there’s some big plan that that’s what everyone should do, but just because that’s how things evolve. So I think med medical technology is an interesting cost of, we have these, these really interesting research developments, but what do they actually translate to for, for people’s real life medical outcomes rather than just theoretical and kind of fringe test cases.

Nathaniel Schooler

01:17:28

Yeah. That’s very interesting. I’ve been doing a bit of research. I’ve been reading, reading MIT technology review. I subscribe to that and that it’s absolutely fascinating, you know, and, and if you think about how they’ve apparently come up with a cure for malaria, which will save, I think it saved 600,000 people a year, this, this new cure that they came up with and yeah, I’m, I’m hopeful of the future, but you raise a very good point there where commercialization meets ethics in a way, I suppose you would, you would call ethics and, and business models. Right. But you know, also there’s this productivity revolution that we’, that we are seeing, right? Like now you’re able to, to use G P T three, when it comes to writing, you’re able to have it right in your own voice. You’re, you’re able to, to have a consistent approach to blogging if you, if you so desire to augment your methodologies.

Nathaniel Schooler

01:18:27

Right. And they say we’re at the beginning of a, of a, of a productivity revolution that we’ve never seen before. And frankly, it’s about time because you look back to the industrial revolution back in the what 19th century, right. We were, the dream was sold to everybody back then, but then what happened? Everybody started working longer hours, right. And, and then the, the divide between rich and poor became even even bigger. So I’m kind of excited about it, but I think that the people are gonna suffer the ones that are really not innovators, the ones, the people that think, well, I’ve always done it that way. I don’t want, I don’t need to save time. It’s like, but they don’t seem to understand that the, the difference between them having a job and not having a job is a continual innovation continue on the job training. Right. And it’s unfortunate that that mindset of, to kind of laggard kind of lazy mindset, it is still prevalent really in, in society these days. You know,

Guy Powell

01:19:29

I think you said an interesting question. You raised about productivity and technology and how that translates to, to real life benefits for people. Cuz I mean, yes, you’ve got the industrial revolution, but it’s, it’s a consistent theme that solar technology, if this is going to make your life better. So when washing machines were first created, the whole basis of washing machines was it was going to free the house wipe up and they would have time to do other things. And you know, it doesn’t translate it. It’s never translated. It’s the other stuff comes in and, and fills those gaps. And you know, I, I have doubts with a lot of the, the technology they, I mean, do, do they produce benefits to us? Yeah. Can we, can we get some AI to write some text for us? Perfect. But whether that actually translates to, to better lives for people is a different question, cuz it’s very easy to, to then come up with more things for people to do and invent it.

Guy Powell

02:20:26

And we have a, a society that’s based around a hundred percent employment and everybody being busy all the time and you know, people are working longer working hours, even though technology should allow fewer working hours. The, the more new things we invent, the more time they sat from people and you know, it’s so we at pina Vida, the, the software company, I run worker four day week. And the thing I found really interesting when we’ve interviewed people is actually some candidates are almost resistant to the idea of working a four day week the, oh, there was a poll I saw on somebody’s LinkedIn recently that was, you know, what should we do about the five day week? Should we get rid of it, leave it as it is or tinker around the edges. And only 30% of people wanted to reduce it. Most people, well, we can tinker a little bit with five day week.

Guy Powell

02:21:19

So society, as a whole seems really ingrained in, we must be working all these hours, putting all this effort in showing ourselves, doing all these things. And so then the more technology you create, we just find other things to sync that time. That’s not necessarily wholesome, doesn’t necessarily benefit us. And you know, I love technology it’s my life, but I also strictly limit how much my daughter’s able to use. I try and limit my own technological use, cuz I’m aware how much it can be a negative influence as well as a positive it’s down to how we use the technology.

Nathaniel Schooler

02:21:48

Absolutely. I’ve been giving a lot of thought to this recently and my dad, he used to, he used to quote this, this famous quote that work fills available time. Right. And, and I think moment we, we step back and say, well, you know, we’re actually only gonna work three days or four, like you guys do. And we’re only gonna schedule meetings on, you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And if we wanna do some work on a Monday or a Friday, then, then we can, right. Like that’s gonna that’s, that’s what I’m, that’s what I’m starting to do Kim. And I start to do that this week. Right. So, so then it gives us more control like over our lives, but then I suppose it’s what you enjoy doing. Right? Like you gotta have a balance haven’t you? What, what do you think Nish, are you, are you sort of working towards that yourself? Like getting, getting things more of a lifestyle kind of life that you’re living or how do you feel about

Nishadi Ranasinghe

02:22:39

It? Yeah, absolutely. And I think that over COVID and when we were all working from home and I was a consultant doing two jobs in a week, so I had a three day, week job and a two day week job. And I realized that I was sitting there going is fine. I’ve got loads of time. I don’t have a commute anymore. So I can probably just get all of this done, but it never works out like that. You always, you end up working five days for both jobs because it just ends up just snowballing. There’s never really a cut off for people asking you for your time. And it has to be a mindset shift in order to, in order to actually get somebody to stop and move into a lesser working pattern because we as humans somehow, maybe it is over what you mentioned, that the, the industrial revolution we’ve we the, the five day working week and the two day weekend is a completely hum like a completely societal construct, right?

Nishadi Ranasinghe

02:23:40

Nobody’s ever said like, actually, this is how much we should work. And like guys mentioned, we should be working. We’ve got more technology. We should have more time, but it’s it, there’s this con there’s this, there’s this other thing that happens when you do work a four day working week, psychologically on a Friday or a Monday, whatever day that you choose not to work, you’re there in the morning going, hang on, have I missed something? Do I do everything? So half of your working day is actually thinking about whether you’ve finished all your work for the week prior. So it has to, has to be a conscious shift to moving away from your work and then stepping away from it and recognizing that, that makes you more productive overall. And that comes with the adoption of the technologies and accepting that that is technology that will help you be more productive, use the kind of workflow tools, get your teams all involved in them.

Nishadi Ranasinghe

02:24:29

Because unless like you mentioned before, that’s where you have those laggards where you, where people aren’t adopting it, that’s where you are. That’s where, and, and people aren’t utilizing things in the right way. That’s where everyone else spends more time trying to either explain it to them or work around them or doing all these things. So as soon as everybody sort of gets on board with, with doing things in a certain way, then everybody can sort of reduce and replenish their mental capacity in order to become more, more productive overall. So I’m, I’m a massive advocate for number one, four day working week and also working less, but yeah, not, not reducing productivity. So yeah, I’m completely, I will speak to the Hills on that. No worries.

Nathaniel Schooler

02:25:16

But I’m gonna jump in there quickly. You know, we’ve been, we’ve been talking a lot about people and technology, right. And this is kind of part of our, part of our theme throughout this series, really of like, you know, how do we, how do we get people to embrace the technology? And you know, I know you guys put in a lot of systems, you do a lot of big projects. You know, you, you work with a lot of people who, who basically may, may drag their heels, right? So if you got any sort of advice for those people who are worried that this tech you are installing is gonna remove them from their job and stuff like that guy. Oh, I’ve lost him there.

Guy Powell

02:26:01

Sorry. Can’t hear. Or my white friend how’s that? Oh

Nathaniel Schooler

02:26:06

No, can’t hear you.

Guy Powell

02:26:07

Can you, can you hear

Nathaniel Schooler

02:26:08

Me now? Got you.

Guy Powell

02:26:10

Got you. Yeah. Perfect. Yeah. So a lot of the work that we do, doesn’t actually translate to removing people from, from their jobs I’ve had, I think I’ve been reasonably lucky in that a lot of the projects, we’ve I say I’ve been reason. Lucky. I think this comes back to the previous comment is work fills the available week and you make a process more efficient for people. And normally it’s because someone’s trying to increase sales volume or increase the other things. And so you tidy up a bit of the process you put in a new system, but really it’s because other stuff’s increasing and generally it doesn’t take people away. I mean, we have, and I’ll let Nish talk more about this O other resistances that come from people. But certainly in terms of a project perspective, I find that generally most of our clients are not putting in systems because they want to get rid of people they’re putting in systems because of growth and they need, they want to use the same number of people to do more work.

Nathaniel Schooler

02:27:03

Right. Right. So what do you think Nish, is there a kind of struggle that you face when implementing these systems?

Nishadi Ranasinghe

02:27:11

I think that’s always the, the strategic requirement is to, to, you know, have more people doing, everyone’s doing the same stuff, just more of it, but there is always a struggle when you come to actually putting things in and, and that comes down to people, not really understanding where they then fit into the process. Not really understanding that. Actually, if you, you know, instead of writing things down on a piece of paper, people learn how to then write stuff onto a computer. And then instead of sort of writing things out many, many times over, they then just learn how to copy and paste and it’s not. And that it is to, it is to serve this ultimate goal that we do things more efficiently. So hopefully you will be working less for achieving more. And that, that comes with breaking that mindset that you, that we have stagnated in our development today.

Nishadi Ranasinghe

02:28:08

And it comes with educating people that it’s all about developing yourself and developing your own skillset. And, you know, maybe if you have more time to not do what you are spending 80% of your time doing, you’ll be able to work on other things that interest you, whether that be at work, it gives you more time to think about that. But also at home, you know, if maybe gets you home earlier, spend more time with your families and people just don’t are so resistant to that or so resistant to even taking the time to understand it. And part of my job is always having that real, almost theological conversation with people saying, you know, it’s fine. You know, maybe if you stop doing this, you can do more of this. And it’s just, yeah, it, it does end up becoming a lot to do with changing mindsets and changing habits, regardless of whether, you know, the top, regardless of whether the actual overall strategy is to make people more productive overall. Yeah. On the ground. It’s very much hearts and minds exercise.

Nathaniel Schooler

02:29:09

Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine. Well, it’s been, it’s been absolutely fantastic speaking with you guy and Nish as usual. So just before we, before we scoot off, is there anything that like, you know, really excites you? The most of everything that you’ve seen in the technology industry

Guy Powell

02:29:30

Is that question for me.

Nathaniel Schooler

02:29:32

Yeah. What yeah. For you guy to start with. Yeah. I know you’ve said a bit about it already, but I think the one, if you could pick one thing that excites you the most, what, what would it be?

Guy Powell

02:29:43

I, I I’ll be honest per personal interest it’s it’s space and the technology that’s going into that the, there are so many implications for us on earth that are absolutely life changing. If you play them forward to successfully colonize space, which is like Elon, Musk’s great mission out there, which is let’s pick that as like the, the leading private sector vision of how to do it at the moment you have to solve entirely new engine and propulsion problems. You have to solve huge energy storage and consumption issues to, to colonize Mars. You have to come up with incredibly efficient electrical systems and storage. All of these things tackle climate change on earth. They tackle inequalities. They provide, you know, ultimately you need to provide much cheaper ways to do these cheaper access to resources. And that filters down into technology to people that can ultimately better lives.

Guy Powell

03:30:36

I mean, personally love the idea of spaceships and exploring space. But when you look at the actual technology filter down from that, and all of the thing like going into space is, is hard and up until recently. And even frankly, now we’ve solved it with a brute force approach, which is a absolutely giant container of explosives and point it at the sky and get there. We, we haven’t solved it smart because you know, to do it in the, in the sixties and the seventies, that was the only way to do it. But turning that into smart, modern technology leads to a, a huge amount of new things, new composite materials, you know, it brings the idea that, you know, commercial aviation, we can suddenly have clean energy commercial aviation because we’re changing the materials we’re building with. We’re changing the propulsion that we’re building with.

Guy Powell

03:31:27

So there’s a lot of people who, who see that as a sector and go, oh, it’s just billionaires wasting their money. They could be doing real things to help people. And you know what, they may well be billionaires that are wasting their own money on a personal project. But that doesn’t mean that that’s incompatible with, you know, the future of our species and making real differences. We’ve had, you know, 50, 60 years of, of government and private sector trying to spend money in ways to build technology. And, you know, I do think that there is a slowdown of technological innovation there, and it takes some billionaires to do some ridiculous things to, to ultimately result in these changes in technology. So as much as yep, a bunch of billionaires flying around the earth, definitely isn’t equality. I personally am really excited at what that means for technology technological trickle down.

Guy Powell

03:32:15

Cause there’s so many parts of it. You know, it will impact everything we’ve talked about today and more into people’s lives. And most people won’t even be aware of it when they pick up a device that we can’t even imagine now in 10 years time, and that’s ended up with some technology that’s come from space technology that’s been done. So yeah, of, of everything that, because I think it, it just crosses the entirety of our society and from a human perspective poses, some really interesting questions of what do we, as a, a human species of the, the 21st, the 22nd century look like going forward. And we are at the point in the whole history of the future of humanity where these things start to happen. And that’s, that’s pretty exciting as far as I’m concerned.

Nathaniel Schooler

03:32:55

Yeah. I’m nodding away for people listening to this on audio. I’ve been nodding away. N is, I dunno, I haven’t been looking at Nish. I’ve been looking at the camera and just nodding away. She’s probably been nodding as well. Imagine. So Nish, do you wanna unmute your mic and tell me what you are, what you are excited about?

Nishadi Ranasinghe

03:33:10

I was certainly nodding away and I think that that’s really interesting cause I have always been off, off the I at what is the, what are all these billionaires doing? Running around the world. But yeah, I mean, that, that is an incredibly interesting perspective that you have on there. The other thing that I want to see, and I think that we’ve seen the start of it now, because I mentioned that I’ve got my electric car now and it auto it, auto adjusts, my whatever I’m driving, sometimes it adjusts to the lines to like, so to stay in your lane. So self-driving cars is something that I think that is not too far away. There’s a huge amount of technology in that car that I can’t even imagine. Every time I push a button, there’s something else that’s happening. But I think that that’s a really interesting one, getting, getting everyone onto utilizing electric energy and helping that and how that would help, you know, the world’s climate change issues is a really interesting concept. Obviously take aside from how much it takes to manufacture them and things like that. Once we’ve got that, right. Which probably would come from innovations in potentially space technology and energy, you know, consumption and use. That’s probably something that would, would be really interesting to see happen. So yeah, that’s something as well.

Nathaniel Schooler

03:34:25

Super, super. Yeah. As you can tell, I’m interested in productivity at the moment, I’m interested in everything. Right. But if I was gonna pick one, it would be creating more balanced lives for people. That’s really, that’s really just so important. It’s like in my mind, that’s what I think that should happen really. But it’s been, it’s been super I’ve. I’ve really enjoyed speaking with you guys. Thank you so much guy for, for dropping by and thank you Nish again. It’s it’s been lovely working with you on this series. Let me just, just fi I’ve gotta find the outro. I kind of have so many things going on here. Here we go. Thanks very much for listening. Please make sure you share this episode with your friends and business connections, and don’t forget to drop us a review wherever you listen.

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