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AI Pioneer Radhika Dirks Discusses Technology’s Disconnect from Humanity in New TEDx Talk

 Scientific study was born out of a desire to answer big, philosophical questions on the meaning of life. When scientists and technologists forget this nascent connection, says Radhika Dirks, they run the risk of creating without considering the ethical implications of their work. In her TEDx talk, Dirks reminds us why relating technology back to our humanity is of the utmost importance.

“Physics has seen some of its greatest breakthroughs result in some of our greatest tragedies,” says Radhika Dirks. And while carrying the burden of a post-nuclear physicist may be heavy, it’s not without its advantages. Namely, it allows Dirks to see things a little bit differently: “Unlike most people in [artificial intelligence], when I’m building AI, or quantum, or biotech, I dwell in these really difficult questions,” she explains, noting that it helps her identify where things are missing.

 

The way Dirks sees it, we have lost the link between physics and philosophy, and it's showing up in the technology we’re building today. “Science is nothing but applied philosophy,” Dirks says. Yet nearly all the innovations we’re seeing emerge from Silicon Valley have been made without a consideration of the big questions; without a consideration of meaning. It’s no wonder the dissonance between tech and humanity is so pronounced. As Dirks says, when science left the humanities, it appears to have left humanity too. With captivating storytelling, historical examples, and real-life parallels to today’s tech industry, Dirks shows us why it's so necessary to shift our thinking—for our progress, our well-being, and our society as a whole.

 

Watch her full talk below.

 

The Lost Link: Technology's Disconnect from Humanity | Radhika Dirks | TEDxSonomaCounty

 

To book speaker Radhika Dirks for your next speaking event, contact The Lavin Agency and connect with a knowledgeable member of our sales team. 

Pushing Tech Forward: WIRED’s Nicholas Thompson Explores How We Can Learn From Our Mistakes

Technology has undoubtedly transformed our lives—for better and for worse. In his latest essay, WIRED Editor-in-Chief Nicholas Thompson investigates the mistakes we’ve made in the name of tech, and how we can push forward and rebuild what we broke. 

“For several years now, we've been living in a time of intense backlash against the technology industry,” writes Nicholas Thompson. The Cambridge Analytica scandal rocked a nation and raised difficult ethical questions, some coming from within the tech organizations themselves. Suddenly, everything was chaos, and Silicon Valley was to blame. “Antitrust law, disdained for decades, suddenly became exciting. Worries that had been playing as background music in society for years—online privacy, the fears of artificial intelligence taking jobs—began to crescendo. Ad targeting was redefined as surveillance capitalism. […] The reputation of an entire industry tanked, just as had happened eight years earlier to finance.”

 

It’s been a murky few years for software companies, to say the least. Because though they might operate in the digital realm, their actions still have consequences in the physical world, says Thompson. In order to move forward, we’ll have to come together—builders, users, people inside Silicon Valley—to fix the mess we’re in. “And that's what this issue is about: the builders who understand the consequences of their choices. It's about people who recognize the awesome responsibility of the technological powers bequeathed to us by our predecessors.”

 

Read the full article here.

 

To book speaker Nicholas Thompson for your next speaking engagement, contact The Lavin Agency and talk to a member of our sales team.

 

Fast Company Names Antisocial and The Age of Surveillance Capitalism to Their Must-Read Books on Tech for 2020

Looking back on the decade, it’s easy to pinpoint key tech developments that sparked a massive shift in society and the economy—not the least of which is social media. And leading business publication Fast Company knows better than most what those changes mean—so naturally, they chose Andrew Marantz’s Antisocial and Shoshana Zuboff’s The Age of Surveillance Capitalism for their list of must-read books about tech for 2020.

In his search to uncover exactly what the internet has been doing to us, Andrew Marantz exposed himself to some of the darkest corners of social media for the sake of Antisocial. Immersing himself for years in the world of trolls, the alt-right, and conspiracy theorists, he spent plenty of one-on-one time with the perpetrators of fake news and racist propaganda, trying to understand their world and how they’ve been able to successfully harness the power of social media to push those views further into the mainstream. Writes the Guardian, “Marantz has written what may be the definitive book on the nexus of internet culture and the new far right.” Antisocial was named to both the New York Times Critics’ Top Books of 2019, and their 100 Notable Books of 2019 as well.

 

Barack Obama named The Age of Surveillance Capitalism one of his favorite books of 2019. It’s been called “an epoch-defining international bestseller,” (Guardian) and “…the rare book that we should trust to lead us down the long hard road of understanding,” (New York Times Book Review).  Shoshana Zuboff’s international bestseller is also one of TIME’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2019, one of both the New Yorker’s and Bloomberg’s Best Books of 2019, and one of the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2019. Zuboff explores the dangerous era we’ve entered, where the price on private data is a serious threat to democracy, and ultimately, our shared humanity.

 

All of the books on Fast Company’s list “provide an opportunity to reflect on living life online and how this grand experiment has failed,” and perhaps none moreso than Zuboff’s and Marantz’s compelling, urgent, and timely contributions.

 

You can see Fast Company’s full list here.

 

To book technology speakers Andrew Marantz, and Shoshana Zuboff, contact their exclusive speakers bureau, The Lavin Agency.

Optimizing Tech for Human Flourishing: Digital Theorist Douglas Rushkoff Featured on CBC

Once upon a time, technology was lauded for its potential to bring people together and strengthen human bonds. Today, our ability to connect is being threatened by destructive online forces that profit when we’re divided into increasingly smaller, radicalized groups. Featured on CBC Radio’s Ideas with Nahlah Ayed, Douglas Rushkoff makes the case for putting humans before social media. 

How do we make the world a better place to be human? Especially in a world where social media platforms and algorithms seem to have a vested interest in tearing us apart? In his latest book Team Human, prolific author and preeminent digital theorist Douglas Rushkoff makes a compelling argument for reaffirming our identity as social beings.

We are colonizing human attention, says Rushkoff, suggesting that our lives and minds have become commodities in a technological, attention-based economy. His book offers a hopeful vision for the future. “Instead of using technology to optimize human beings for the market, which is really what we're doing with digital tech today, we can optimize technology […] for the collective human flourishing.”

 

Team Human was named Best Management & Workplace Culture Book at Porchlight’s Business Book Awards, and is currently shortlisted for their Best Business Book of the Year for 2019.

 

Listen to the full CBC  segment here.

 

To book speaker Douglas Rushkoff for your next event, contact The Lavin Agency and speak with a talented member of our sales team.

WIRED Editor Nicholas Thompson Explores Facebook’s Alarming Potential to Disable Democracy

As the Editor-in-Chief of WIRED, Nicholas Thompson published two critical exposés on one of the world’s largest and most influential companies: Facebook. Now, in a conversation with WeTransfer’s President Damian Bradfield, Thomspon discusses the backlash the company has faced for their controversial business model—and how it affects our nation’s democracy.   

Facebook invented one of the smartest business models in the history of the world—a platform that incentivizes users to give up their personal data, which is then used to target better, more effective advertising to them. “The story of Facebook, and the way that people think about privacy, and the way people worry about the targeted ad model, is that, from the beginning of Facebook, Facebook essentially expands the boundaries of what they can collect. And they often do it without the user’s knowing. And they’ll often say ‘we’re just collecting this much,’ but they actually collect a little bit further,” Nicholas Thompson explains. Initially, targeted ads were no cause for alarm; most people considered them better product recommendations and little else. But then Cambridge Analytica scandal happened. “It suddenly seemed like Facebook was selling all of our personal information to the Russians for the sake of disrupting democracy.”

 

And so came the backlash, coming in fresh off the heels of growing resentment towards Silicon Valley and Big Tech. How did Facebook find itself in such a position? And what is its true potential to disrupt Western democracy? Thompson notes, “[…] I’ve always wondered, on sort of a core philosophical level, whether the way the Facebook business model works, which is dividing people into ever smaller groups, helps foster a political system in which we are divided into ever smaller and more resentful groups.”

 

Listen to the full conversation here.

 

To book speaker Nicholas Thompson for your next speaking engagement, contact a sales representative from The Lavin Agency.

The Origins of “An Epoch-Defining Bestseller”: The Guardian Profiles Shoshana Zuboff

We’re being watched, listened to—spied on—by the technology we interact with daily. In 2019, that’s not hyperbole, it’s fact; and one that even the companies harvesting our data openly admit. What does this mean for the future of human society? Few have tackled this topic with as much impact, vigor, and urgency as Shoshana Zuboff, and The Guardian published a profile on her and her book, today. 

That book is The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power—an international bestseller that explores an international problem. As our right to privacy erodes in tandem with technological development, it’s hard for regulators to keep up. Surveillance capitalism—a concept coined by Zuboff herself—defines the current age in which we’ve all opted into the commodification of our personal information.

 

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism has been wildly acclaimed by The Wall Street Journal, praised in the New York Times in three separate features, and Naomi Klein has urged readers to read it “as an act of digital self-defense.” In her Guardian feature, Zuboff’s history and path to writing this vital work for the current conversation are explored; as are her theorems that have struck a timely cultural chord.

 

Zuboff’s book—and her fight for a more thoughtful digital revolution—is not just about our individual lives and minds. The new economic order of surveillance capitalism is shaping democracy anew—in ways that threaten our hard-fought freedoms like never before. From the Guardian: “Every time Zuboff speaks in public, she asks the audience: “What are the concerns that bring you here?” People call out words: privacy; dystopia; control; monopoly; manipulation; intrusion; exploitation; democracy; misinformation; fear; freedom; power; rebellion; slavery; resistance. Everywhere the words are virtually the same.”

 

Surveillance capitalism is encroaching worldwide, and Zuboff’s work is a vital force, urging us all to wake up and protect ourselves—from ourselves—before it’s too late.

 

To book speaker Shoshana Zuboff, contact her exclusive speakers bureau, The Lavin Agency.

 

 

I, Robot: Seth Stephens-Davidowitz Explores Our Changing Relationship With Technology for NPR.

When we want to figure out where to eat, what to see, or the answers to our embarrassing questions, we turn to Google. Seth Stephen Davidowitz, a former data scientist for the search engine, explains how our search history reveals more about us than we know.  

Seth Stephens-Davidowitz is the author of Everybody Lies: Big Data, New Data, and What the Internet Can Tell Us About Who We Really Are. On the latest episode of NPR’s Hidden Brain, he shares the surprising connections he’s found from analyzing our online data—which often tells a different story than the self-reported numbers and surveys. It’s allowed him to make certain predictions; for instance, the percentage of American men who are gay, or parents’ unconscious biases towards girls.

 

“I think there's something very comforting about that little white box that people feel very comfortable telling things that they may not tell anybody else about: Their sexual interests, their health problems, their insecurities. And using this anonymous aggregate data, we can learn a lot more about people than we've really ever known,” he said.

 

Listen to the full episode, here.

 

To book Seth Stephens-Davidowitz for your next event, contact The Lavin Agency today, his exclusive speakers bureau.

How Does Tech Influence Modern-Day Communication? Nicholas Thompson Weighs In

How does technology intersect with different life stages? What is the narrative of technological development today, as opposed to a decade ago? And how does it change the way we relate to one another? Nicholas Thompson—Editor-in-Chief of WIRED—weighs in on the most pressing questions about our digital lives. 

“Silicon Valley now no longer believes that if you let everyone talk, the best ideas will come out. Now, they’re worried about toxicity,” Nick Thompson explains. Social networks may have enabled broader communication, but they have also led to greater extremes and less moderation. Ten years ago, we weren’t having this conversation; today, it’s a shift we feel compelled to examine, as our digital lives become increasingly important—rivalling even our real lives in their significance.

 

Yet the way we think, feel, and use technology changes significantly depending on our generation.“Babies and kids have a different relationship to technology,” says Thompson. “Kids who grow up with it have a different way of relating to it.” Leaders today need to understand that technology’s presence in our everyday lives will not only yield both positive and negative effects, but will change significantly depending on who you’re talking to.

 

To book speaker Nicholas Thompson for your next event, contact The Lavin Agency today.

 

Wealthsimple CEO Michael Katchen Announces New High-Networth Investement Partner

Wealthsimple, the intelligent investment platform popular with millennials, is expanding its financial offerings. CEO Michael Katchen announced the company will be partnering with Grayhawk Investment Strategies, opening their services to high-networth families. 

Grayhawk Investment Strategies manages a portfolio of $800 million for some of the countries wealthiest families. Under the new partnership, Grayhawk will use the ‘Wealthsimple to Advisors’ unit for its technology and advisory services, while Wealthsimple will offer Grayhawk strategies to advisors with wealthy clients on its own platform.

“We still are often thought of as a young millennial shop, and even in our advisor business a lot of people think of us as a ‘Mom and Pop’ advisor,” Wealthsimple Chief Executive Officer Michael Katchen said in an interview with BNN Bloomberg. “But this is a very ultra high-net-worth professional shop that’s been growing very fastit’s only four years oldthat understands the value of a platform like ours.”
 
The company has recently been rolling out other services, such as commission-free trading, and hopes to continue its expansion.
 
“We think that there is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build that kind of platform, based here in Canada, but expanding it around the world,” Katchen says. “It’s pretty obvious where we’re going to go: we want to be the mainstay of our clients’ financial lives.”
 
To book speaker Michael Katchen for your next event, contact The Lavin Agency today. 

The Final Frontier of Privacy: Nita Farahany Considers Mind-Reading Technology

Companies and governments are closer than ever to introducing mind-reading technology. The problem? Our legal system is ill-equipped to handle the privacy concerns that will no doubt accompany it. Neuro-ethicist Nita Farahany joins the conversation in Fast Company.

There are a variety of reasons why mind-reading technology has captured our attention; some altruistic, some not. Regardless of the motive, the technology may be apart of our lives sooner than we think. And at  the moment, there are no safeguards to our private thoughts, even the most intimate.

 

“There’s a significant societal interest in being able to listen to the brain activity of, say, a trucker or a pilot,” says Nita Farahany, a Duke professor and scholar in the field of bioethics. “But we need space for mental reprieve. It’s fundamental to what it means to be a human. Governments are starting to adopt broad privacy legislation, and some of that may implicate when and if companies can track this information. This is data like any other type of data, but I don’t yet see governments focusing on brain data, in particular. It’s something we need to be thinking about.”

 

Farahany predicts the early adopters of mind-reading tech will be in healthcare, aviation, gaming and trucking, to name a few industries. Farahany, who works as the principal investigator at Duke University’s SLAP Lab, recently ran a study to determine how sensitive people considered their brain information. “Participants treated their Social Security number or phone conversations as most sensitive,” she explains. “People don’t yet understand both what’s possible with brain technology and then the negative implications if that information was accessible by others.”

 

You can read the full article here.

 

To book Nita Farahany for your next speaking event, contact The Lavin Agency, her exclusive speakers bureau.

Amazon and the Robot Revolution: Martin Ford Weighs in on the Leaders in Automation

How has Amazon integrated automation into its 600,000+ workforce? What will be the future of its employees? And how are we, as consumers, making that future happen? Martin Ford joins the Land of Giants podcast for a discussion on the Robot Revolution.

Land of Giants, a podcast produced by Vox Media, explores today’s information age and the monolithic companies that dominate it. This season, the podcast is focusing its attention on Amazon: What is the disruptive influence of the e-commerce giant? And how is it changing our lives? The most recent episode covers the robot revolution, automation in the workforce, and what it means for human jobs and working conditions. Martin Ford—the McKinsey-winning author of Rise of the Robots—joins the conversation, addressing the topic of consumer responsibility.

 

“It’s a very hard challenge to get consumers to walk away from low cost and convenience because they’re concerned about what’s happening with workers,” Ford says. “Keep in mind that Amazon delivers enormous value. Your experience as a consumer today, relative to what it was ten or twenty years ago, is dramatically different because of Amazon, and it keeps getting better and better all the time.”

 

How we can continue to progress and optimize, without compromising on equality and fairness? The problem is already bad, and it will only get worse if we don’t address it, says Ford.

 

You can listen to the full podcast here.

 

To book Martin Ford or another Technology Speaker, contact a sales agent at The Lavin Agency for more information.

Should Addictive Tech Be Banned? Psychologist Adam Alter Weighs in on New Regulation

Republican Senator Josh Hawley recently proposed a bill that would ban tech companies from implementing the addictive features that prompt us to spend more and more time on our devices. Adam Alter, the New York Times bestselling author of Irresistible, weighs in. 

Rather than a full-on ban on certain tech features, psychologist Adam Alter suggests that we devote “money, time, attention [and] resources to understanding the problem.” The problem, of course, being that we’re devoting a considerable, perhaps worrisome, amount of our attention to our screens. And while some companies have begun to introduce new features that curb usage, Alter is not convinced that it’s enough: “I think they’re doing the very bare minimum they need to do to be able to convince people that they care about our well-being. I’m not totally convinced that they do. And that’s just because they’re part of a model that tries to make as much money as possible and that requires capturing our attention.”

 

While he acknowledges that we, as users, bear some personal responsibility when it comes to how much time we spend on our devices, Alter says the odds are stacked against us. “I don’t think it’s wrong to say that we all have some role to play as individual consumers. But there is really an army of people who are doing everything they can with considerable resources, with access to huge amounts of data, to ensure that we spend every spare minute on our phones. It’s not really a fair fight.”

 

To book speaker Adam Alter for your next event, reach out to a sales agent at The Lavin Agency today.

 

What Are the Consequences of Facebook’s New Mind-Reading Technology? Nita Farahany Weighs In

Facebook has been funding research at the University of California to develop “speech decoding” technology with far-reaching effects. Neuro-ethicist Nita Farahany explains the potential it has to change our lives.  

A report published in Nature Communications details how researchers used electrodes— placed directly on the brains of their volunteers—to predict the answers to a series of questions. Facebook says the project, which is ongoing, will try to restore communication ability in people who are disabled or have suffered neurological trauma. Eventually, the goal is to design a headset that can control music or interact with virtual reality using only the thoughts of the wearer.

 

Nita Farahany, a professor at Duke University who specializes in bioethics, voiced her concerns to MIT Technology Review: “To me the brain is the one safe place for freedom of thought, of fantasies, and for dissent,” she explained.  “We’re getting close to crossing the final frontier of privacy in the absence of any protections whatsoever.”

 

To book speaker Nita Farahany for your next event, contact The Lavin Agency for more information.

What Are the Benefits of Meeting People Online? Atlantic Editor Derek Thompson Weighs In

The Internet is now the most popular way for couples to meet each other, claims a Stanford University paper. In their study focused on American heterosexual couples, researchers concluded that online dating has now “displaced friends and families as key intermediaries in the formation of new unions.” Senior editor at The Atlantic Derek Thompson weighs in on the disruptive force of technology. 

“We are now twice as likely to meet our partners online as we are through a friend,” shares Atlantic editor Derek Thompson on the Here & Now podcast. It’s fascinating, he says, because technology has successfully disrupted one of the oldest marketplaces in human history: “We have been meeting, mating, amd marrying other humans for 200,000 years, mostly through established networks of friends and family. Human history has seen an utter reversal [of that] in just the last decade.”

 

An activity that was once shared between members of a community has now become a solo act. The responsibility of finding a partner now lies on us, and our choices are filtered through an algorithm rather than a network of intimates. But how does an algorithm compare to trusted sources like family and friends? Thompson shares that we’re more likely to meet someone different than us through an app as opposed to our social network, especially when it comes to interracial dating. Evidence suggests that our social network is actually limiting the scope of the dating market for us by filtering people deemed too different.

 

“One of the real benefits of online dating is that it empowers individuals,” says Thompson. “It frees them from some of the biases […] of their social networks.”

 

You can listen to the full interview here.

 

To book Derek Thompson for your next speaking event, contact The Lavin Agency today, his exlcusive speakers bureau.

Shoshana Zuboff’s Book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism Explored in a New Scottish Production

What challenges does the digital future impose on our democracy, freedom, and humanity? A new production performed by the Scottish Youth Theatre National Ensemble explores the intersection of technology and capitalismbased on Shoshana Zuboff’s acclaimed book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.

Act of Repair is a Scottish production that explores the ways Big Tech uses our dataoften without our knowledge or consent. It all began as a conversation about Brexit. The Brexit campaign was rumoured to have used online technology to manipulate the public’s opinion, an allegation which piqued the interest of the Scottish Youth Theatre National Ensemble. They launched an investigation into the often insidious influence of online forces, eventually landing on Shoshana Zuboff’s groundbreaking work The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power.

 

Zuboff coined the term Surveillance Capitalism to describe the unchecked power of corporations that strive to predict and control human behavior for profit. Her book explores the very real threat this new phenomenon poses to the twenty-first century, similar to the challenges industrial capitalism posed on humanity a century before. Rather than an Orwellian Big Brother State looking over our shoulder, she argues, we now run the risk of a “ubiquitous digital architecture […] operating in the interests of surveillance capital.”

 

The book was a big inspiration for the ensemble, and the play as a whole: “In the past, capitalism has involved us engaging as customers. But in this new data age, we are no longer the customerswe are the raw materials.” Zuboff’s vivid, moving analysis is brought to life in an Act of Repair, which is performed by an ensemble cast of 20 radical artists, and directed by Brian Ferguson. “Nearly everyone has signed up to apps, social media and search engines. They ask us to agree to the terms and conditionsa wee box that most of us tick without even reading the T & Cs. We all know that the companies are using our databut so what? Act of Repair explores the so what.”

 

To book Shoshana Zuboff for your next speaking event, contact The Lavin Agency today. 

Lavin Speaker John Maeda Appointed Chief Experience Officer at Leading Digital Transformation Company

A leader in the world of design, technology, education, and computer science, John Maeda is one of Silicon Valley’s most revered names. Now, he’s spearheading design at Publicis Sapienta digital consultancy firmto guide legacy companies through the peaks and valleys of the digital revolution.

As the Global Head of Computational Design at Automatticthe parent company of WordPressJohn Maeda spent three years overseeing design and user experience. In his new role as Chief Experience Officer at Publicis Sapient, the digital transformation branch of advertising group Publicis, Maeda will help established brands reimagine themselves in a hyper-digital world.

 

The move may seem unusual for Maeda, who formerly taught at MIT and has worked for several startups  leading the charge in digital innovation. However, Maeda has developed a keen interest in what he refers to as “end-ups”: companies that succeeded early, yet are now struggling to adapt in a tech-driven society. “I want to help end-ups succeed because if you let […] the tech world happen, we’re going to be controlled by just a few players,” Maeda explained. “Aspiring to empower established businesses at all scales to realize great experiences for their customers [and] push back on Big Tech is in line with where my heart is right now.”

 

Nigel Vaz, CEO of Publicis Sapient, welcomed Maeda to the team with words of praise: “John Maeda is one of the most extraordinary design and technology thinkers of our age, with an exceptional pedigree as a leader helping companies […] push the boundaries of creativity and innovation to reimagine their business and industry.”

 

To book John Maeda for your next speaking event, contact The Lavin Agency, his exclusive speakers bureau.

Nicholas Thompson’s WIRED Cover Story on What Happened When Zuckerburg Set Out to “Fix” Facebook

WIRED Editor-in-Chief Nicholas Thompson is the go-to authority on the world’s most important story—how science and tech are changing our lives. His most recent cover story details the scandals, backstabbing, resignations, reboots, record profits and time bombs that characterized Facebook’s 2018—“it’s ultimately a story about the biggest shifts ever to take place inside the world’s biggest social network.” 

For Facebook, 2018 was a year “marked by internal dissent, blistering external criticism, genuine efforts at reform, and foolish mistakes … this is the story of that annus horribilis, based on interviews with 65 current and former employees.”

 

Watch Thompson discuss the origins of his investigation into Facebook, and why the topic is such a crucial one. 

 

How Does Facebook Affect “Outrage Culture”? | Nicholas Thompson

 

To book Nicholas Thompson for your next event, contact The Lavin Agency, his exclusive speakers bureau.

Biotech. Beats. Big Ideas. Introducing MIT’s David Kong, the STEM Expert Who Wants to Bring Everyone Into the Lab.

How do we advance scientific progress? We need to be more inclusive, says new Lavin speaker David Kong, Director of MIT Media Lab’s new Community Biotechnology Initiative. We must bring art together with technology. More importantly, we need to invite different minds into the lab and classroom, changing the shape of our institutions. That’s how science will evolve, says Kong.

A Synthetic Biologist, community organizer, musician, and photographer, Kong’s work at MIT and as a keynote speaker is informed by his mission to empower communities through STEM. Co-founder and managing faculty of “How to Grow (Almost) Anything,” an MIT course on synthetic biology, Kong also works to ‘culture hack’ biotech’s narrow public perception. He does this by connecting the discipline with diverse cultural languages, like hip-hop. His Biota Beats project uses a microbial record player to translate microbes from the human body into music.

 

A brilliant, polymathic proponent of STEM, the arts, and radical inclusivity, Kong is a funny, unambiguous speaker, grounding his talks in stories of people he’s worked with as a community organizer and instructor. Watch his appearance at a BioBricks Foundation Summit to get a taste of his natural, intelligent stage presence. 

 

SB7.0 Day 4 - David Kong

 

To find out more about David Kong, contact The Lavin Agency today and speak to one of our agents about what Kong can bring to your event.