PopTech Videos: PopCasts

Moran Cerf is a neuroscientist who has shown how to project patients’ thoughts onto a screen in front of their eyes by implanting electrodes deep inside their brains and reading the activity of cells. Oh, and he used to rob banks. “There are at least two people inside our mind.”

Sandro Galea is a doctor and epidemiologist who has researched the role of traumatic events in shaping population health; particularly the health of urban populations. “Ninety percent of people in this country will have a traumatic event in their lifetime.”

David Eagleman is a neuroscientist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. His areas of research include time perception, vision, synesthesia, and the intersection of neuroscience with the legal system. He is a pioneer on the power of the unconscious brain. “Are we free to choose how we act? Is the mind equal to the brain?”

Brad Burnham is a managing partner at Union Square Ventures. Ari Jónsson is the rector of Reykjavik University, Iceland’s leading university in technology, business and law. They discuss the creation in Iceland of an ideal policy framework for innovation on the Internet.

Born without a right hand, Adrian Anantawan began the violin at nine and has since established himself as a rising star in classical music. He helped to create the Virtual Chamber Music Initiative at the Holland Bloorview Kids Rehab Centre — a cross-collaborative project that develops adaptive musical instruments for use by young persons with disabilities within a chamber music setting.

Asenath Andrews founded the Catherine Ferguson Academy, an alternative public high school in Detroit for teen mothers that also provides early education services for their children. The school blends an innovative curriculum with urban farming and a healthy dose of high expectations. “If I expect that you are going to have a future, then you expect it.”

Amanda Ripley is an investigative journalist who writes about human behavior and public policy. For Time Magazine and the Atlantic, she has chronicled the stories of American kids and teachers alongside groundbreaking new research into education reform. “Kids have strong opinions about school. We forget as adults how much time they sit there contemplating their situation.”

Revered as “The Sound of New York,” Young Guru has mixed 10 of Jay-Z’s albums and officially became Jay-Z’s tour D.J. in 2010. He is also a leader in adapting to a challenging music business. “It is always vibe over money."

Revered as “The Sound of New York,” Young Guru has mixed 10 of Jay-Z’s albums and officially became Jay-Z’s tour D.J. in 2010. Watch him borrow a beat from Al Green to show the fine line between art and piracy.

Jay Silver is an inventor who created Makey Makey, a kit that allows users to turn everyday objects into touchpads and combine them with the Internet, like creating a piano out of bananas. He endorses art that is a “hodge-podge of different collections of contributions reflecting everyone’s own internal inspirations, kind of the way nature is, but for humans.”

Jer Thorp, who has launched The Office For Creative Research, explores the boundaries between science, data, art, and culture. His work has appeared in the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. “I come here today because I am excited about data, but also because I am terrified. I am terrified that we are having progress without culture in the world of data.”

Andri Magnason is an Icelandic writer who co-directed the documentary film Dreamland, about a massive industrial project in Iceland that exposed some ugly truths about politics, industry and so-called green energy. He studies what seem like cycles of endless growth simply for growth’s sake. “I was wondering about how rational we are as humans. Where does this come from? Where does this need, this addiction come from?”

Bill Shore is the founder and chief executive officer of Share Our Strength, a national nonprofit that is working to end childhood hunger in America. “Those of us who are passionate about social change and social innovation, we have got to find ways to break the rules. I believe it is a strategic necessity and a moral imperative.”

Revered as “The Sound of New York,” Young Guru has mixed 10 of Jay-Z’s albums and officially became Jay-Z’s tour D.J. in 2010. “When we study hip-hop we are actually studying the history of piracy. If we go back and study all piracy, we see that most things that were created in the world are a remix of something else.”

Dean Karlan is President of Innovations for Poverty Action, a non-profit organization that creates and evaluates solutions to social and development problems, and works to scale-up successful ideas through implementation and dissemination to policymakers, practitioners, investors and donors. He is a Professor of Economics at Yale University. “There are some problems that we can solve. But we have to be pragmatic about it and figure out what is actually working and what is not.”