PopTech Videos: PopCasts

Equal parts artist, writer and joke teller, Jessica Hagy describes her work as “a little project that helps me make fun of some things and sense of others.” Watch how the creator of the wildly popular blog, Indexed, injects humanity, humor and a modern sensibility into her medium—the 3 × 5-inch index card.

Most of us wouldn’t see anything remarkable about a cell phone battery, a dishwasher switch and the light from a crosswalk signal. But Sheila Kennedy reveals how the combination of these common items can create something groundbreaking: portable, durable, reliable lighting for the third world.

Toy designer Caleb Chung—famous for creating 1998’s hot toy of the year, “Furby” — provides a playful peak into his wild creative process. He reveals that his recipe for success is to blend the uniquely human qualities of artistry and empathy with the science of technology.

Provocateur Daniel Pink has built a career on his keen insights into business, technology and the economy. Engaging, enlightening and funny, the best-selling author heralds a new job market—one that devalues the logical and rule-based in favor of the artistic, empathic and inventive.

Dr. Louann Brizendine, founder of the Women’s Mood and Hormone Clinic and author of the bestselling book, The Female Brain, tells us why the brain is not a unisex organ. She offers compelling insight into how these differences explain distinct emotional and behavioral patterns between genders.

What can we glean about underlying thought structures from the way we ask someone to “pass the guacamole”? Preeminent psychologist and best-selling author Steven Pinker examines how the words we use, from swears to simple requests at the dinner table, reflect how we think.

A machine that builds itself? Adrian Bowyer, leading researcher at the University of Bath, shows us that this seemingly fantastic idea is not far from becoming reality. The self-replicating rapid prototyper, or “RepRap,” could have dramatic effects on people in developing countries.

From his extensive experiences working with the poor of the developing world, Paul Polak has learned a lot about effective market-based approaches to alleviating poverty. He argues that in order to be successful, solutions must be simple, inexpensive, easy to reproduce, and most important, respond to the expressed needs of the people they are meant to benefit.

The co-founder of Kiva.org, the first peer-to-peer microloan website, demonstrates how the Internet can facilitate meaningful, positive connections between lenders and entrepreneurs in the developing world and even help us all become microfinanciers.

Christian Nold thinks we should pay more attention to how our environment shapes our emotional and physiological states. His work with Bio Mapping—which measures people’s responses to their environment and connects those feelings to their physical location—suggests that a map of emotional landscapes represents a powerful tool for analyzing the relationship between place and broader social issues.

Artist Chris Jordan brings the enormous scale of our mass consumption into high-resolution. He shares Running the Numbers, composite photographs of discarded cell phones, computers, aluminum cans and other modern detritus, urging us to consider the consequences of our consumer culture while insisting that each of us has the power to make a difference.

Simply put, Victoria Hale’s organization has saved thousands of lives. Join the founder of OneWorld Health—the first nonprofit pharmaceutical company in the US—as she shares her vision of bringing an end to what she calls the “diseases of poverty.”

Activist Van Jones is tackling two of our biggest problems—urban poverty and environmental peril—with a fresh, dynamic plan. His vision for providing America’s poor with “green jobs instead of jails” touts a Green Revolution that includes everyone.

Expert on race, ethics and philosophy, Kwame Anthony Appiah takes to task the myths of Western culture and civilization, explaining the “Golden Nugget” theory and its five major errors. Get ready for his deconstruction of a monolith.

You say you want a revolution? Ivan Marovic’s got one for you—a nonviolent one, that is. This Serbian activist is connecting the virtual world to the real world with a video game to promote nonviolent strategies. It’s an interactive approach that teaches in a way books and films can’t.