Author: Andrew Maynard

Andrew Maynard is a scientist, author, and one of the nation’s leading thinkers on socially responsible and ethical innovation.

Categories
Risk Innovation

How to make the world a better place … through risk?!

Back in January, I gave a talk at the KEEN National Conference on “New tools for creating value in an uncertain world.”

My talk is now up on the KEEN YouTube channel (see below), and is worth checking out if you are interested in the work we’re doing on creating value through innovative approaches to risk (especially for entrepreneurs and innovators) through the ASU Risk Innovation Nexus.

KEEN is a network of thousands of engineering faculty working to “unleash undergraduate engineers so that they can create personal, economic, and societal value through the entrepreneurial mindset.” It’s a really cool organization that is transforming how engineering is taught, and how faculty and educators mentor the next generation of forward-looking and socially responsible engineers.

If you’re interested, the slides from the talk are available here.

Categories
Future Rising Book

Kindle version of Future Rising

It’s great to see the Kindle version of Future Rising available for pre-order on Amazon – one thing I love about working with Mango is their commitment to making their authors’ work available on different platforms.

The Kindle version is available for pre-order here: https://www.amazon.com/Future-Rising-Journey-Past-Tomorrow-ebook/dp/B084LNT72W/

Categories
Future Rising Book General

TEDxASU 2020

This week’s big news is that I will be speaking at this year’s TEDxASU – which just keeps on getting bigger and better!

More details to come over the next few weeks, but the event is being held on April 4, the theme this year is Flux, tickets go on sale on February 13, and the full lineup of speakers can be found on the TEDxASU website!

Oh, and my talk? I’ll be talking about the future as an object …

Categories
Future Rising Book

Audio preview of Future Rising

Having recorded a number of excerpts from my upcoming book Future Rising for for a potential blurb writer, I thought it might be interesting to post them here.

I won’t be recording the audiobook when it comes out, and as you can tell from these, I’m not a great voice actor. But the recording below does give a nice overview of the book, and where it takes the reader.

Feel free to download this — and if you enjoy it, please share it with others. And a reminder that the book is out on June 16, but can be pre-ordered now!

Also, if you’re interested, here’s the full content outline for the book, and the time points for the sections in the audio clip above:

SECTIONTIME
FOREWORD
INTRODUCTION00:00
PART 1 – A JOURNEY INTO THE PAST04:53
1. EARTHRISE05:07
2. ORIGINS08:31
3. LIGHT
4. MOVEMENT
5. TIME
6. ENTROPY
7. EMERGENCE
8. EVOLUTION11:29
9. ANTICIPATION
10. INSTINCT
11. CAUSALITY
12. MEMORY
13. LEARNING
14. INTENTIONALITY
15. INTELLIGENCE
16. KNOWLEDGE
17. REASON14:18
PART II – UNIQUELY HUMAN17:33
18. FEELINGS17:43
19. FAITH21:03
20. IMAGINATION25:37
21. CURIOSITY
22. CREATIVITY
23. ART
24. FEAR28:34
25. LOSS
26. DESPAIR
27. POSSIBILITY
28. HOPE32:08
29. STORIES
30. INVENTION
31. INNOVATION
32. DESIGN
PART III – BUILDING THE FUTURE
33. TRANSFORMATION
34. ACCELERATION
35. TRANSCENDENCE
36. SINGULARITY
37. SIMULATION
38. HACK
39. COMPLEXITY
40. HUBRIS35:07
41. DELUSION
42. PERCEPTION
43. DECEPTION
44. THREAT
45. BLINDSIDE
46. CHANGE
PART IV – THE EDGE OF TOMORROW
47. RESTRAINT
48. BOUNDARIES
49. CATACLYSM
50. OUTWARD
51. LIFE
52. RE-CREATION
53. HUMANITY39:07
54. MEANING
55. MORALITY
56. ETHICS
57. EMPATHY
58. RESPONSIBILITY
59. STEWARDSHIP43:58
60. FUTURERISE47:18
AFTERWORD

Categories
Future Rising Book

Recording the Draft

Here’s a novel challenge: I’m finalizing the blurbs–those “this is an awesome book: you should read it!” quotes you get on the back cover of books–for Future Rising, and I’ve just been told “sure” by a writer I really admire … “but you’ll need to send me an audiobook version to listen to” (there is a legit reason for this).

Of course, I don’t have an audiobook version yet – that won’t be out until the book launches. But I’m so excited by the possibility of getting this person’s endorsement that I’m about to spend the weekend recording the equivalent of a draft audiobook.

This is, of course, a stir-crazy idea, and definitely not one that any sane person would even contemplate.

I’ll let you know how it goes!

Categories
Research

Carbon Nanotube Exposure

Despite having spent years working at the cutting edge of engineered nanomaterial safety, I’m not that involved in the field these days — having moved on to broader challenges and opportunities associated with emerging and converging technologies. But I recently had the chance to work with a group of colleagues on what I think is an important paper that systematically reviews the state of knowledge on workplace carbon nanotube exposure assessment.

The paper — which appears in the International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health — critically assesses published studies on occupational nanotube exposure to get a sense of what we know and what we don’t. It’s important, as even though interest in potential nanotube health impacts have declined substantially in recent years (despite little evidence suggesting they should), this remains a material that could be harmful if inhaled.

For further details, check out:

Guseva Canu, I., K. Batsungnoen, A. Maynard and N. B. Hopf (2020). “State of knowledge on the occupational exposure to carbon nanotube.” International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health 225: 113472. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijheh.2020.113472

Categories
Future Rising Book

A Foreword for Future Rising

This morning I received the final version of the foreword to my upcoming book Future Rising, and I love how this frames the book, and sets the tone for what’s to come — can’t wait until others get the chance to read it!

The foreword is written by my good friend and NASA astronaut Cady Coleman. Here’s a taster to wet your appetite:

Andrew opens his book with the famous Earthrise photo, taken in 1968, an image that had a profound impact. As an astronaut who has flown in space twice on the shuttle and lived on the International Space Station, I was privileged to see our earth from space every day for almost 6 months. That perspective is startling. 

The earth from space does not look fragile – the rock itself will survive long after we do. But there is a sense of our vulnerability, made palpable on my mission when we viewed the aftermath of the 2011 tsunami in Japan, only days after working with Japanese colleagues on the ground to berth their supply ship to the space station.  It was comforting for us as a crew to be able to gather data about the flooding to send back to earth. We also folded origami white cranes and sent video of them floating in space, which played on billboards during the rebuilding to represent hope for the Japanese people.   

From that vantage point, it is also clear that all of us come from one place.  One planet. One home. We are the crew of Spaceship Earth and it falls to us to find a way to continue to thrive on our precious and beautiful planet. From space, it is clear that there are no borders, and nothing to stop us from being the best of collaborators, to form the best teams, to collectively bring our imaginations to bear to solve the critical problems of our times. 

Just over four months to go until publication day!

Categories
General

Notes to self …

I haven’t written a regular blog for years — not since I started writing more polished articles for places like The Conversation, and was seduced by the lure of writing trade books. And of course, social media has changed the whole dynamic around online communication, leaving blogs feeling a little long in the tooth.

And yet, I’ve missed the chance to keep an online log of my thoughts and ideas, or simply what’s going on in my life. And so I thought it would be an interesting experiment to get back into the habit of regular writing — as much as a weird combination of therapy and writers discipline as anything.

These, then, and really my notes to self — snippets of thoughts, ideas and reflections that I find useful to collect for my own use, but that others are free to peruse if they so wish.

Unlike pretty much everything else I write, I’m writing for myself here, not for others. Of course, you’re welcome to browse through and read the posts — they are, after all, out there where anyone can find them. But at the end of the day, this is my personal reflection space, that just happens to be public!