Innovative Technology

Abby Fichtner
@HackerChick
Hacker in Residence, Harvard Innovation Lab
Innovative
Technology

@HackerChick This is a really exciting time for technology

@HackerChick New technologies like 3D Printing are opening up so many new possibilities…

@HackerChick Scientists are 3D Printing human organs

@HackerChick NASA is 3D Printing food for its astronauts

@HackerChick
Urbee 2: 3D Printed the world’s most fuel efficient car
They’re about to drive it across country on 10 gallons of fuel

@HackerChick
Mobile computing combined with things like 3D printing that are making it easier to create physical objects is
moving technology out of our computers and into the objects where we care about it

@HackerChick Umbrella that tells the weather

@HackerChick Bike that gives you directions & tracks your riding stats

@HackerChick Fork that monitors your eating to help you eat more healthily

@HackerChick …becomes really interesting once these objects can start talking to each other

@HackerChick
imagine your fork telling your bike
you need to bike 10 extra miles because you ate a little extra at dinner

@HackerChick
Look forward to more practical applications. For example:
TetraScience allows researchers to remotely monitor & manage their lab experiments
(it puts cameras, sensors & electric switches in your lab that you can access from anywhere)

@HackerChick
Wearable
Technology
Consumer-facing wearables to date have had little appeal or utility,
but things get exciting when we look at wearables driven by science & healthcare

@HackerChick
Thync has created a headband that uses neurosignaling to shift your state of mind
Can induce states of Energy or Focus or Calm

@HackerChick
University of Delaware created a vibrating shoe for Parkinson’s patients
that helps them walk faster while maintaining their balance

@HackerChick
The more we look at innovations based on scientific research,
the more interesting things get…

@HackerChick
Next generation DNA Sequencing
Cheaper, faster – no longer just for researchers
becoming accessible to clinicians to diagnose patients

@HackerChick
Cancer Immunotherapy
Manipulating a patient’s immune system to treat the tumor, rather than chemotherapy

@HackerChick
Embeddable
Technology
Wearables are neat,
but imagine implanting microchips right into our bodies to monitor and/or modify us

@HackerChick
Nanoengineers at the University of California have created a digital tattoo for diabetics
that automatically monitors their glucose levels (no more pricking fingers with needles)

@HackerChick
Microchips has created a digital contraceptive implant
that embeds a microchip in you to provide up to 16 years of birth control

@HackerChick
The FDA just approved an implantable weight loss device
that uses electrical stimulation to fool the brain into thinking the stomach is full

@HackerChick
New tools are allowing researchers to monitor activity patterns across brain circuits,
which helps them better understand the brain so they can create NEW patterns…

@HackerChick
This brain implant is allowing a paralyzed woman to control this robotic arm with her thoughts.
Scientists monitored her brain while she THOUGHT about moving her hand and arm.
They recorded what that activity looked like so when she does it now, it controls the robotic arm
See video: bit.ly/mindcontrolarm

@HackerChick
This 23 year old paralyzed his hand in an accident.
Scientists at Neurobridge implanted a chip in his brain that
allows him to now move this paralyzed hand with his thoughts
See video: bit.ly/mindcontrolhand

@HackerChick
EpiBone
EpiBone is using a patient’s own stem cells
to create replacement bones & tissue that can be used in place of prosthetics.
Since they’re from patient’s stem cells, new limbs will continue to grow with the patient

@HackerChick
How does innovation happen?
Some fascinating patterns of innovation in nature & beyond in this book…

@HackerChick
The Adjacent Possible
All innovation happens at the adjacent possible. Just BEYOND what’s possible today
In nature, evolution is a tinkerer, not an engineer.
It doesn’t take huge leaps out of thin air, it finds new uses for the parts it already has…

@HackerChick
… we’re not just going to all wake up in the morning and suddenly we’ve got wings & can fly
(sadly)

@HackerChick
Research by Sara Saraswathy at University of Virginia shows entrepreneurs think differently.
Normal people: Start with end goal, set plan to get there
Entrepreneurs: Start with where they are today, experiment to see where they can take things
What makes
entrepreneurial
entrepreneurs

@HackerChick
Evolution didn’t start with goal of flight. It said what do I have today and what can I do with it?
Wings (shape came from dinosaur wrist bones, which evolved for flexibility)
& Feathers (which had evolved for temperature regulation)@HackerChick

@HackerChick
The Adjacent Possible
If you want to be more innovative: tinker & explore
Find ways to break through the boundaries of what’s currently possible with what you already have

@HackerChick
Liquid Networks
Primordial soup was perfect environment for innovation:
Allows & encourages all elements in system to come into contact in a random fashion

@HackerChick
Liquid Networks
Very different from how we think of innovation (lightbulb going off)

@HackerChick
Liquid Networks
But an idea is not a single, isolated thing that comes to us in a flash of light

@HackerChick
Liquid Networks
An idea is a network.
it happens when a new network of neurons fires in sync with each other for 1st time

@HackerChick
Designed by: graphs.net
Greatest driver of scientific & technological innovation over course of human history:
Our increasing ability to connect & exchange ideas with other people

@HackerChick So much innovation today, it feels like we’re living in science fiction…

@HackerChick Robots to do our chores for us

@HackerChick Self-driving cars

@HackerChick Mind-controlled helicopters

@HackerChick Even things we think of as low-tech like reading the news…

@HackerChick
Gannett is creating Virtual Reality Journalism
where we’ll get the news, not by reading it, but by experiencing it

@HackerChick … or gardening (to de-stress after experiencing today’s news!)

@HackerChick
Team out of MIT created a produce appliance
to let you grow fruits & vegetables right in your kitchen

@HackerChick
Top inventions by century
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20
World’s Top Inventions
Century
If you imagine the chart of all innovation mapped against the chart
of our increasing ability to connect with others & access information…

@HackerChick …it really makes you question the notion of the lone inventor

@HackerChick
If you want to innovate: don’t just hunker down & try harder on your own
Spend time in places that help you randomly come into connection with new ideas & people
Ex: Harvard Innovation Lab provides single location for Harvard students across ALL it’s disciplines
students working on health/sciences next to social entrepreneurs next to technologists…

@HackerChick
The Slow Hunch
The most important ideas incubate within us for months, years, decades

@HackerChick If you want to be more innovative: keep learning, keep connecting, keep tinkering

@HackerChick
Serendipity
Serendipity is the power of accidental connection
In nature, evolution occurs through serendipity & natural selection

@HackerChick
In life, serendipity occurs when we meet someone with a new piece of the puzzle
To be more innovative: connect with more (& different types of) people

@HackerChick
Serendipity occurs when we stumble onto some new piece of information
Learn a lot, about a lot of different things

@HackerChick Embrace the web’s randomness

@HackerChick
The smartest people have _____ brains
Steven Thatcher, a brain researcher at the University of South Florida,
did a study comparing children’s brain waves with their IQ scores
a) Organized
b) Disorganized

@HackerChick
The smartest people have _____ brains
a) Organized
b) Disorganized
Found children with the more chaotic, disorganized brains had the higher IQs

@HackerChick
Same reason we sometimes figure out problems in our sleep
In dreams (and disorganized minds), the brain makes random, unlikely connections
between all of the ideas/memories/experiences just outside our consciousness

@HackerChick If you want to be more innovative: break free from day to day patterns & habits

@HackerChick
“A shockingly large number of transformative ideas in science can
be attributed to contaminated lab environments.”
Error
Steven Johnson, Where Good Ideas Come From

@HackerChick
out of9
new products
fail
10
We see the benefit of errors in startups, where so many fail…

@HackerChick
Single Biggest Predictor of Failure?
Don Sull, The Upside of Turbulence

@HackerChick
Single Biggest Predictor of Failure?
Don Sull, The Upside of Turbulence
Sticking to Initial Business Plan

@HackerChick
The best entrepreneurs take a scientific approach to innovation.
They conduct experiments to prove or disprove their hypotheses
When an experiment proves them wrong, error forces them to rethink

@HackerChick
Error
… thus, error is a USEFUL part of innovation.
It helps us learn & think differently, guides us down new paths we hadn’t considered

@HackerChick
I have not failed. I’ve just found
10,000 ways that won’t work.
- Thomas Edison

@HackerChick
Lessons from the
Patterns of Innovation
To wrap up….

@HackerChick
Innovation is about being an Explorer.
You can’t discover new places if you don’t let yourself go anywhere you haven’t yet charted out

@HackerChick
It’s not about having perfect plans (how can you plan for something you don’t yet know?)
It’s about allowing our plans to emerge over time to be shaped by what we learn from our errors

@HackerChick If you want to change the world…

@HackerChick
… get comfortable with being uncomfortable
because that’s where the magic happens.

@HackerChick
Lessons from the
And take heed of the lessons from the patterns of innovation…

@HackerChick
Adjacent Possible: tinker!
Lessons from the
Innovation isn’t about making a huge leap that’s disconnected from anything we know today
It’s about taking what we have & finding new ways to take it to the next level

@HackerChick
Lessons from the
Ideas aren’t isolated flashes of insight that come out of nowhere
They’re what happens when we combine what we already know with some new piece of information
The best way to encourage them is by creating “primordial soup” like environments
that promote connecting new ideas in random ways
Liquid Networks: make new connections

@HackerChick
Lessons from the
Great ideas don’t happen overnight
Keep learning, keep connecting, keep tinkering
The Slow Hunch: keep at it

@HackerChick
Lessons from the
Innovation favors chaos
Allow yourself to do things outside of the norm
Serendipity: embrace chaos

@HackerChick
Lessons from the
Remember that errors are what guide us down the path to success
And so celebrate them when they occur, it means you’re getting closer
Serendipity: embrace chaos
Error: celebrate learning

Abby Fichtner
http://HackerChick.com
Harvard Innovation Lab:
https://i-lab.harvard.edu/
Thanks!

Innovative Technology

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