Democracy 2019 ~ Economist Index of World Pox

The Economist says...

"Democracy is in retreat, according to the latest edition of the Democracy Index from our sister company, The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). This annual survey, which rates the state of democracy across 167 countries based on five measures -- electoral process and pluralism, the functioning of government, political participation, democratic political culture and civil liberties -- finds that democracy has been eroded around the world in the past year. The global score of 5.44 out of ten is the lowest recorded since the index began in 2006. Just 22 countries, home to 430m people, were deemed “full democracies” by the EIU. More than a third of the world’s population, meanwhile, still live under authoritarian rule."

MIT Global Ventures ~ Emergent Newcos 2019!

Great to see all 29 final projects in our MIT Global+Development Ventures class this past Fall 2019, a joint-offering between MIT D-Lab, MIT Sloan School of Management, and MIT Media Arts & Sciences in the School of Architecture & Planning! My MIT Media Lab co-instructors Alex "Sandy" Pentland, Ramesh Raskar, and I are all keen to see where our students will take their projects next. Many have received MIT Sandbox support, others are Legatum Fellows or have Legatum Voyager grants over IAP/January 2020, most are entering MIT IDEAS and/or MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition Accelerate & Launch phases, and a few are engaging up-river in Harvard's President Innovation Challenge! And, of course, there's many more things to do beyond grant-seeking and contests, most especially actually founding, financing, and building these newcos! Here they are alphabetically...

1. 1Room ~ Kenyan Affordable Personalized Learning System
2. AiBaobao ~ Chinese Active Parenting Solutions
3. Aqua ~ Argentinian Digital Banking
4. AZEKI ~ African Designer Brand & Operational Solutions
5. Co.Mig ~ Venezuelan Migrant Integration & Employment
6. CON-DE ~ Architectural Material Reuse Solutions
7. Corpus Law ~ Digital Accessible Legal Info
8. CorruptionMonitor ~ Citizen Reporting Solutions
9. Experimental Fund ~ Fast Harvard Student Project Funding
10. Green Source ~ African Local Sustainble Fair Palm Oil 
11. GRIA ~ African Snack Foods
12. IT VC for EAC ~ East African ICT Investment Fund
13. KAAN ~ Latam Retired Expat Co-Living Communities
14. Kinderoo ~ Affordable Distributed Day Care Services
15. mBody ~ Pakistani Girls Body Literacy
16. Medical Records ~ Ownership & Transportability
17. Molo ~ Cote d'Ivoire Pay-as-you-go LPG
18. MYLA ~ Make Your Life Awesome Virtual Personal Assistant
19. Mylea ~ Sustainable Fashion Materials
20. OneBeat ~ Social Exercise Engagement
21. Pandar ~ African Smallholder Farmer Informatics
22. RateMonk ~ Indian Online Academic Ratings & Informatics
23. Red Feather ~ Canadian Indigenous Certification & Products
24. RISE ~ Colombian Rural Innovations for Solidarity Economies
25. Salut ~ Brazilian Integrated Healthcare Services 
26. TABIGO ~ Chinese Social Travel Planner
27. Text4Health ~ Anonymous Sexual Health Services
28. TOWARDS ~ Presentation Speech & Performance Coaching
29. Wala ~ Ghanaian Blood Supply Solutions

Unicorns ~ Mapping Emergent Gigaventures...

The WEForum spotlights Visual Capitalist's latest Chart of the Week looking at the Unicorn Landscape in 2019...

Sci Fab ~ Envisioneer & Futurecraft ~ Fall 2019

My MIT Media Lab colleagues Dan Novy, Joe Paradiso and I are (finally) re-offering our Sci Fab class this Fall 2019 starting Monday night September 9th from 7-10pm!

In Sci Fab, we read and watch science fiction, and use the inspiration it provides to envisioneer and futurecraft something epic. First, we explore worldbuilding -- imagining science fictional universes across domains and scales. Second, we focus on exemplar artifacts that iconify those worlds, without violating the laws of physics, and iterate towards functional prototypes.

Global Ventures ~ Inclusive Prosperity ~ Fall 2019

My MIT Media Lab colleagues Alex (Sandy) Pentland, Ramesh Raskar and I -- together with instructor colleagues Beth Porter, David Shrier, Indu Kodukula, Thomas Hardjono, and Nathan Eagle -- are co-hosting an upgraded incarnation of our Global Ventures class this Fall 2019 at the Media Lab top-floor E14-633 starting Thursday afternoon September 5th from 10am-12noon.

Also known as Development Ventures, this class has been offered since 2001 and is part of the D-Lab family. GV seeks scalable solutions & exponential innovations for emerging markets and underserved communities anywhere. This class is about planning ventures which deploy solutions reaching as many people as possible with positive impact and maximizing progress towards inclusive prosperity. The most promising class projects have formed the basis for real ventures, including such alumcos as MAX, Sanergy, Wecyclers, Jamii, PEN, WAY, MDaaS, and dozens more. Those interested are invited to join us at our kickoff class session on 9/5/2019!

Revolutionary Ventures ~ Bold Ideas ~ Fall 2019

My MIT Media Lab colleagues Ed Boyden, Joe Jacobson and I are co-hosting the latest version of our Revolutionary Ventures class this Fall 2019 in a new bigger classroom at the Media Lab -- top-floor E14-633 -- starting Thursday afternoon September 5th from 2-4pm.

This offering is the closest MIT comes to having an "Institute-Wide Elective" and is listed in four of our five Schools. Revolutionary Ventures is a project-oriented Action Lab course on envisioning and building ideas and organizations to initiate and/or accelerate engineering revolutions. The overall course focuses on emerging technology domains -- such as synthetic biology, materials, energy, neurotechnology, imaging, AI / machine learning, gerontechnology, and bio-and-nano fabrication -- and their commercialization. The most promising class projects have formed the basis for real ventures, including such alumcos as Elektra, Hive, C16 Bio, Leeruniek, BioBright, and more. Those interested are invited to join us at our kickoff class session on 9/5/2019!

Unfree Speech ~ Economist on Censorship Rise

The Economist spotlights the Change in Freedom of Expression...

Beyond the Cradle ~ Media Lab x Outer Space!

Excellent to see the third year of Beyond the Cradle organized by the Space Exploration Initiative at MIT Media Lab today! Great talk by Nobel physicist Prof Sam Ting this morning plus SF panel featuring Daniel Suarez (of Daemon, FreedomTM, and Influx fame, with Delta-v coming soon!) among others! See live video!

AI for Impact ~ Spring'19 @ MIT Media Lab...

Together with colleague Ramesh Raskar, I'm co-teaching the AI for Impact seminar this Spring 2019 every Mon afternoon starting Feb 11th from 2:30-4:30a in E15-341, the heart of the MIT Media Lab! Our goal is to bring computational, analytics, and AI techniques to bear on solving problems in the high impact realms of health & wellness, cities & sustainability, across scales of action from each of us as individuals to embracing all of humanity, in both developed and emerging markets alike, all broadly understood.  We want to help students identify top AI opportunities for impact and help make progress towards building prototypes, planning action ventures, and/or better understanding the emerging technology and impact trendscape.  Formerly known as "Imaging Ventures" or “AI Ventures”, this “AI for Impact” class seeks answers to the question:  If you could make almost anything, what's actually most worth making, i.e. what problems are most worth picking?  We believe starting with the right problem is 90% of what makes for great projects and ultimately epic, worthy solutions.

Inclusive Economies ~ Spring'19 D-Lab Seminar

Together with colleagues Kate Mytty and Libby McDonald, I'm co-teaching the Inclusive Economies seminar this Spring 2019 every Wed morning starting Feb 6th from 9:30-11:30a in N51-350, the D-Lab classroom area! We explore how innovations and market mechanisms can benefit humanity by rallying impact investments, engaging participants cooperatively, boosting equity and resilience, and broadening prosperity. We look at market mechanisms for maximizing participation, choice, and growth; impact investing approaches which are socially responsible and include metrics that matter; cooperative and mutual ownership structures for shared gains; equitable citizen participation in basic and natural resource wealth; and the role of new technologies and methods towards boosting affordability, accessibility, and overall inclusive prosperity.

Global Growth Rates ~ GDP Forecasts 2019...

The Economist forecasts GDP worldwide in 2019...

Electric Dreams ~ More Blade Runner Extras!

Can't get enough Blade Runner goodness!

Syd Mead ~ Dreams & Designs of Visual Futures!

Nice pieces on designer Syd Mead...