January/February 2018

Traveling byVacuum Indian states have started exploring the revolutionary idea of Hyperloop travel, in collaboration with U.S. companies.

S

cience fiction writers and visionary innovators have long dreamt of ways to travel at high speeds through futuristic low-pressure vacuum tubes. Exploratory ideas about these high-speed trains have been floated by various experts, dating back to the early 1900’s.

But, the concept never fully realized. Not until 2013,

2 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

when innovator and entrepreneur Elon Musk unveiled his preliminary idea for Hyperloop—a major update on the idea of moving trains at high speeds through lowpressure tubes. Musk is the founder of SpaceX, an aerospace manufacturer and space transport services company, and co-founder of Tesla Inc., automaker,

Photographs courtesy Hyperloop One

By JASON CHIANG

January/February 2018

V O LU M E L I X N U M B E R 1

https://span.state.gov

Courtesy NASA

CONTENTS CHARLES SYKES © AP Images/Invision

8 22

2

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Traveling by Vacuum

8

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Connected Couture

13

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16

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Eco Innovators

19

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Smart News

22

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The Nexus of Innovation

Reaching for the Stars

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30

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32

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Machine-Made Melodies

35



An Augmented World

38

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The Next Wave of Innovation

41

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Text for Art

Smart Management of Diabetes Evolving Relationships in a Digital Age

Courtesy Saral Usna

16

27

Courtesy Innovision

Top: Hyperloop One’s DevLoop test track in Nevada.

Above: Graphic representation of a control station, from where the Hyperloop will be managed.

Left: Hyperloop One unveiled XP-1, the pod used for full systems tests, in May 2017.

XP-1 is comprised of a carbon fiber and aluminum aeroshell atop a levitating chassis.

38 Editor in Chief Craig L. Dicker Printed and published by Jeffrey R. Sexton on behalf of the Government of the United States of America and printed at Thomson Press India Ltd., 18/35 Delhi Mathura Road, Faridabad, Haryana 121007 and published at the Public Affairs Section, American Embassy, American Center, 24 K.G. Marg, New Delhi 110001. Opinions expressed in this 44-page magazine do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Government.  Articles with a star may be reprinted with permission.

Those without a star are copyrighted and may not be reprinted.

Contact SPAN at 011-23472135 or editorspan@state.gov

Reviewing Editor Karl M. Adam

Editor Deepanjali Kakati Associate Editor Suparna Mukherji Hindi Editor Giriraj Agarwal Urdu Editor Syed Sulaiman Akhtar Copy Editors Bhawya Joshi, Shah Md. Tahsin Usmani Editorial Assistant Yugesh Mathur

Art Director Hemant Bhatnagar Deputy Art Directors Qasim Raza, Shah Faisal Khan Production/Circulation Manager Alok Kaushik Printing Assistant Manish Gandhi

Front cover: Photographs by John Locher © AP Images and courtesy Hyperloop One. Illustration by Hemant Bhatnagar.

Research Services : Bureau of International Information Programs, The American Library

Courtesy Hyperloop One

Right: Tubes being prepped for installation at Hyperloop One’s DevLoop test track in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Center right: A model of a Hyperloop One test sled in Las Vegas.

Far right: A sled speeds down a track during a test of a Hyperloop One propulsion system in Las Vegas.

“ ”

energy storage company and solar panel manufacturer, both based in California.

Musk’s basic plans quickly gained momentum, and created overwhelming excitement throughout the industry. His proposed Hyperloop system has been further developed by companies like the Los Angeles-based Hyperloop One, which aims to have operational systems in place by 2021, to validate the “ability to design, finance and build a safe, revolutionary transportation technology that scales.”

Imagine the potential impact on people’s lives and commerce if travel between Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Visakhapatnam and Amaravati could take The concept place in under two Musk’s reimagining of the Hyperloop system involves moving freight and people quickly, hours.

4 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

safely, and directly from origin to destination.

Passengers or cargo will be loaded into Hyperloop vehicles and accelerated via electric propulsion through a low-pressure steel tube.

The vehicle will float above the track using magnetic levitation and glide at airline speeds for long distances, with ultra-low aerodynamic drag. Hyperloop One says the underground tubes carrying the vehicles will be fully autonomous and enclosed, eliminating pilot error and being immune to most potential weather hazards. It will be environmentally safe and clean, with no direct carbon emissions.

Hyperloop One estimates that the top speed of its passenger vehicle will be 1080 kilometers per hour. This is two to three times faster than high-speed rail, and 10 to 15 times faster than traditional rail. Based on the physics of the Hyperloop system, its experts anticipate that the noise one would hear from outside the tube would be equivalent to the sound of a speeding truck on a freeway— simply a “big whoosh.”

Photographs courtesy Hyperloop One

JOHN LOCHER © AP Images

JOHN LOCHER © AP Images

Forward movement Since piggybacking Musk’s Hyperloop concept and charging itself with making the implementation a reality, Hyperloop One has achieved huge milestones in a very short period of time. After officially forming as a start-up in 2014, Hyperloop One established its Innovation Campus in Los Angeles’ downtown Arts District. Shortly afterward, the company successfully raised $8.5 million (Rs. 55 crores approximately) in investment funds. By 2016, Hyperloop One had developed a test and safety site named Apex, and also developed Metalworks, the first Hyperloop manufacturing plant in the world, both in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The dream of a Hyperloop high-speed system gets closer to reality with every passing month.

In March 2017, Hyperloop One unveiled Development Loop, or DevLoop, at its Apex

testing site, the world’s first and only full-scale Hyperloop test simulation track. Just a few months later, it completed two successful rounds of testing of its high-speed Hyperloop pod inside the DevLoop vacuum tube; setting new electric propulsion speed records. The company’s latest investment round raised $85 million (Rs. 550 crores approximately) in additional funding, bringing the total financing raised by Hyperloop One to $245 million (Rs. 1,580 crores approximately) since its founding.

Hyperloop for India In September 2017, another company, Los Angeles-based Hyperloop Transportation Technologies, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Andhra Pradesh Economic Development Board to develop a Hyperloop route between the city centers of Vijaywada and

Above left: Passengers or cargo loaded into Hyperloop vehicles will be accelerated via electric propulsion through low-pressure steel tubes.

Above: Priyank Kharge (center), minister for tourism, information technology, biotechnology and science & technology, Government of Karnataka, and Nick Earle (right), senior vice president for global field operations at Hyperloop One, sign a memorandum of understanding for a preliminary study to understand Hyperloop’s feasibility in Karnataka, in November 2017.

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Go Online

Screenshot courtesy Hyperloop One

Courtesy Hyperloop One

JOHN LOCHER © AP Images

Courtesy Hyperloop One

Amaravati, potentially turning a trip of more than one hour into a six-minute ride. The project plans to use a publicprivate partnership model, with funding primarily from private investors.

In mid-November, Hyperloop One announced updates to its plans for a national Hyperloop network in India.

The company signed memorandums of agreement with three states for preliminary feasibility studies for the construction of Hyperloop routes, to identify which ones are most utilized. “Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, home to several of India’s largest economic centers including Mumbai, Bengaluru and Visakhapatnam, are conducting studies with Hyperloop One to understand Hyperloop’s feasibility and economic impact in the regions,” says a company press statement.

Hyperloop One

Hyperloop | SpaceX

https://hyperloop-one.com/

www.spacex.com/ hyperloop

Envisioning a National Hyperloop Indian Hyperloop Transportation Network Technologies https://goo.gl/PbhLd2 http://hyperloop.global/

6 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

Top left: The Chennai-Bengaluru Industrial Corridor is among the fastest-growing economic regions in India. AECOM India’s proposed Hyperloop system would strengthen economic development along the route.

Above left: People stand in a metal tube after a test of a Hyperloop One propulsion system in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Above: Workers cutting tubes at the Hyperloop One metalworks tooling shop in Las Vegas.

Left: A comparison of the travel times between Chennai and Mumbai by different modes of transport. With Hyperloop, it might be possible to cover the distance in less than 90 minutes.

Constructing Hyperloops would have a direct impact on the local economy. While Hyperloop One builds the core technology, it would rely on a broader India-based ecosystem of partners to build, operate and maintain the systems. “Investments in Hyperloop One systems will create local jobs in construction, manufacturing, research and development, and services and can have a profound secondary impact on wider industries in India,” says Nick Earle, senior vice president for global field operations, in the press statement. “Imagine the potential impact on people’s lives and commerce if travel between Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Visakhapatnam and Amaravati could take place in under two hours.

Hyperloop could change the face of India just as trains did during the Industrial Revolution.”

Jason Chiang is a freelance writer based in Silver Lake, Los Angeles.

Courtesy Hyperloop One

The Hyperloop One Global Challenge

Go Online

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Hyperloop One Global Challenge https://goo.gl/aGBaaB

Hyperloop India https://hyperloopindia.in/

AECOM India www.aecom.com/in

n May 2016, Hyperloop One announced a global challenge, calling for comprehensive proposals to build Hyperloop networks in cities and regions around the world. The Hyperloop One Global Challenge drew support from government leaders, and inspired exciting new ideas from some of the world’s most creative companies, engineers and urban planners. More than 2,600 teams registered from around the world, out of which 10 winners were selected in September 2017. Two of the winning teams are from India: Hyperloop India and AECOM India.

Hyperloop One’s plan is to work closely with each of the winning teams or routes to determine their commercial viability in the future.

Hyperloop India (Mumbai to Chennai) Founded in 2015 by a small group of students from Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani, Team Hyperloop India is a multidisciplinary think tank consisting of over 60 student volunteers from various engineering, business and design schools interested in reinventing transportation in India. Their proposed Mumbai-Chennai

Hyperloop route would cover 1,102 kilometers in just 63 minutes, and provide a crucial East-West connection. A potential Hyperloop system would catalyze new economic opportunities and industry linkages, and ease the movement of passengers and goods between Mumbai, Bengaluru and Chennai.

AECOM India (Bengaluru to Chennai) With over 2,500 employees located in six regional offices and project offices in 26 states across India, AECOM India is involved in designing and completing Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)certified projects, highways, metro and sea ports. The ChennaiBengaluru Industrial Corridor is among the fastest growing economic regions in India, anchored by two of the region’s crucial urban centers. AECOM India’s proposed Hyperloop system would strengthen economic development along the route, and provide new opportunities for intercity travel and living.

AECOM India projects the 334kilometer Bengaluru-Chennai trip in a Hyperloop transport system to take just 23 minutes.

—J.C. JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

7

With technology becoming smaller, smarter and more integrated, wearing it as apparel and accessories has become the hottest

Photographs courtesy Google and Levi’s

fashion trend.

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Connected Couture

A

By CANDICE YACONO

couture gown that changes color based on the mood of the people viewing it. A diaper that uses a sensor to tell parents when it needs to be changed. Once the stuff of science fiction novels, these products are now a reality. A rush of new technologies has made the fashion industry the hottest hub of tech gadgets around.

According to Forbes magazine, as of 2016, 10 billion pieces of fashion, including apparel, accessories and footwear, were being individually digitally connected.

Take, for instance, the Levi’s Commuter Trucker Jacket With Jacquard by Google. The technology is woven into its sleeve. The conductive fabric sends instructions to a paired smartphone to perform tasks like pausing a song or taking a call by double-tapping one’s wrist. The jacket can be washed up to 10 times,

and costs $350 (approximately Rs. 22,500).

Indian shoppers can purchase this online on the Levi’s website.

“What’s great about the Jacquard jacket is that they [Levi’s and Google] have been able to manufacture the garment so that it is widely available,” says Julie Sylvester, a producer of the Sports and FitnessTech Summit and FashionWare show at Consumer Electronics Show (CES), one of the world’s largest technology trade shows. “A company called Wearable X created a jacket [NAVIGATE] that had a GPS [Global Positioning System] function similar to Jacquard that gave you directions by sending haptic signals from sensors that connected to an app on your phone.”

Rest Devices, a Boston-based start-up, offers smart clothing for babies. Its Mimo

Left, above left and above: The Levi’s Commuter Trucker Jacket With Jacquard by Google uses conductive fabric to send instructions to a paired smartphone to perform tasks like pausing a song or taking a call by double-tapping one’s wrist.

To share articles go to https://span.state.gov JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 9

Model Karolina Kurkova wears a smart gown, created

by IBM and Marchesa, to the opening of “Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology,” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute Benefit Gala in New York City.

Throughout the night, when tweeters wrote about the brands, the

LED lights changed colors to reflect the different emotions like

dress’

excitement and happiness. A series of bulbs and wires powered the pastel-colored creation.

https://goo.gl/U85qR8

Mimo Baby

www.mimobaby.com

CuteCircuit

http://cutecircuit.com/

Anouk Wipprecht

EVAN AGOSTINI © AP Images/Invision

www.anoukwipprecht.nl

Cognitive Marchesa dress https://goo.gl/jaA3LE

Avery Dennison’s smart offerings 10 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

https://goo.gl/eSyg2r

Go Online

Levi’s Commuter Trucker Jacket

that reacted to online conversations about it in real-time throughout the night. The dress tapped into Twitter and changed color according to five moods,” she adds.

IBM reached out to couture design house Marchesa to create the dress just five weeks before the gala, the fundraising event for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, which is considered one of America’s most important annual fashion events. It passed tweets about the dress through a Watson tone analyzer and, then, a computer in the gown’s waist changed the dress’ color using light-emitting diode (LED) lights, based on live reactions to it.

In addition, California-based packaging materials leader Avery Dennison has partnered with EVRYTHNG, an Internet of Things smart products platform, to work with partners, Courtesy Anouk Wipprecht

Baby Sleep Tracker onesie includes sensors to measure a baby’s respiration, pressure, moisture and temperature. It also tracks whether the baby is asleep and its sleeping position. The data is ultimately transmitted into the cloud, from where it can be viewed on any mobile device by parents or caregivers.

Connected fashion also reaches up to the highest echelons of designer couture.

“Intel has supported many designers—from CuteCircuit to Anouk Wipprecht’s robotic Spider Dress,” says Sylvester. While CuteCircuit creates fashion wearable technology collections, designer and innovator Wipprecht works in the field of “FashionTech,” combining fashion, technology and interaction design. “IBM Watson [artificial intelligence platform] was featured at the [2016] Met Gala with a dress

Courtesy Rebecca Minkoff Courtesy Billie Whitehouse (Wearable X)

BEBETO MATTHEWS © AP Images

Below and below right: Designer Rebecca Minkoff’s flagship store in New York City is famed for its connected wall and interactive mirrors. Shoppers can flip through a catalog on a touch screen and indicate the items they want before entering a fitting room, where virtual assistants display the selections and a catalog to modify choices and accessorize.

Right: Experimental designer Anouk Wipprecht’s Spider Dress has animatronic arachnid limbs which know exactly when someone is invading the wearer’s personal space. The limbs are driven by technologies from Intel that allow them to be autonomous, but assistive and adaptive to the wearer’s emotions.

Bottom right: The Nadi X yoga pants from Wearable X have woven-in technology, with sensors around the hips, knees and ankles that provide gentle vibrations for easier yoga. The sensors’ settings are controlled by the Nadi X mobile app.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

11

“

The most viable options are devices that don’t look like technology, but could be

something that you might normally wear that just Below and bottom: The Mimo Baby Sleep Tracker onesie includes sensors to measure details like a baby’s respiration and track its sleeping position. The data is transmitted into the cloud, from where it can be viewed on any mobile device by parents or caregivers.

”

Images courtesy Mimo

happens to have technology in it.

including Nike, to make digitally-connected products. Consumers will be able to connect with these products on their smartphones in unprecedented ways. For example, users will be able to locate a missing sock using their phone, ask their silk blouse how to wash it or repurchase a pair of slacks.

Luxury handbag designer Rebecca Minkoff too has partnered with Avery Dennison and EVRYTHNG to launch a smart bag that allows customers to receive style recommendations, get private styling sessions and shop online.

Minkoff has long embraced technology. Her flagship store in New York City is famed for its connected wall and interactive mirrors. She even offers handbags which include smartphone chargers.

Technologically enhanced wearables are hardly a new concept. In the 17th century, a Chinese abacus ring enabled people to perform math literally on their fingers. “The nice thing was it didn’t have problems with battery life,” says Sylvester.

Rudimentary watches were beginning to be worn around the same time in Europe, and quickly became both a useful tool and an indicator of one’s luxurious lifestyle, just like with today’s Apple Watch.

“In the last 10 years, with chips getting smaller, there has been a surge in ‘wearable’ innovation. The most viable options are devices that don’t look like technology, but could be something that you might normally wear that just happens to have technology in it,” says Sylvester.

The current demand is for “devices that are attractive, have longer battery life and aren’t bulky or heavy to carry around or wear.

Washability and longer battery life excite consumers. The electronics that are built into clothing themselves make washing difficult and complicated. But, I believe, there are a few companies working on solutions to this problem,” she adds.

“As for battery life, as sophisticated as our wearable devices and clothing are, most of them still need some kind of battery to function,” says Sylvester. “The advances in battery technology have been slow, but there has been a renewed focus on finding new ways and new materials to keep devices working—renewable and kinetic energy as well as just finding different materials for the batteries themselves, making them less bulky and more stable.”

Candice Yacono is a magazine and newspaper writer based in southern California.

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The Nexus

of

Innovation

I

By MICHAEL GALLANT

The American Center New Delhi’s Nexus

Incubator

harnesses U.S.-India collaborations to help start-ups thrive.

n the exploding world of start-ups, rising Indian companies have a new ally: the Nexus Incubator.

The innovative program, a collaboration between American Center New Delhi and the IC2 Institute at The University of Texas at Austin, uses an international perspective to help entrepreneurs in India bring their most brilliant ideas to life and to the market.

“When we work with promising new startups, we try to teach them the best ways to run their businesses through entrepreneurship and

innovation,” says Erik Azulay, the incubator’s director. “The U.S. is rightly known as the world leader in innovation, commercialization and entrepreneurship, and the U.S. government is trying to bring the best American practices and expertise to India.”

In other words, the incubator provides carefully-selected “cohorts” of Indian start-up companies with tools, resources, education and anything else that they need to evolve from intriguing ideas into powerful, sustainable businesses. Specific programs for incubator participants could include classes on marketing and market-based research or workshops on finance and fundraising, courses on dealing with partner organizations or one-on-one mentorship sessions with renowned business experts from the United States and India. “We work with startup businesses to try and get them funding, customers and increased revenue. But, there’s an important aspect of diplomacy, international

Courtesy Nexus Incubator

The Nexus Incubator is a collaboration between American Center New Delhi and the IC2 Institute at The University of Texas at Austin.

To share articles go to https://span.state.gov JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 13

“

cooperation and bridge-building, as well,” says Azulay. “We are helping build internationallyreaching businesses in a wide array of fields, and this promotes international cooperation as well as business success.”

Azulay is excited at the program’s progress, momentum and potential to affect change moving into the future. “I’m proud to say that our efforts are absolutely working,” he says.

“We have shown that, when it comes to being a successful incubator of new start-up companies, we practice what we preach, and see actual results when it comes to business success.”

The feedback from participating companies has also been fantastic, Azulay continues. “We conduct surveys with our start-ups and have been hearing how this process has transformed how they think about business and how they look at problems in new ways. Even more importantly, we’ve been hearing about how it

The number one thing we tell people who want to start a business, or who are just getting started and want to get to the next level, is not to try to push your idea where it isn’t necessarily needed or wanted.

”

Photographs by HEMANT BHATNAGAR

Above right: Erik Azulay, Nexus Incubator’s director.

has transformed the way they look at customers, suppliers, partners—and that’s exactly what we’re looking for. We want to affect not just the companies we work with, but the entire Indian [start-up] ecosystem.”

To that end, Azulay and his colleagues have brought in significant players in the world of Indian business as official partners of Nexus.

These include the investor group Indian Angel Network, the Indian School of Business, tax and advisory firm Grant Thornton India, the American Chamber of Commerce in India, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, and more.

Rising companies nurtured through the incubator are hugely diverse in technology and mission. For instance, while Morphedo is an online 3D printing service platform that lets

14 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

companies build quick and affordable prototypes, Dhakka Brakes’ technology improves the safety and stability of the millions of cycle rickshaws in India. Agpulse Organics is an organic pesticide developer whereas S4S Technologies is a food preservation technology innovator. And these are just a few of the Nexus-supported start-ups.

In general, Nexus tends to focus on supporting innovations that help other businesses thrive, often in the fields of medicine, agriculture, manufacturing and customer goods. “In every cohort, about one in four of our companies is what we’d call a social impact entrepreneur—a company that tries to help with an important social issue,” says Azulay. “For us, the most important piece of the puzzle with companies like that is that

HEMANT BHATNAGAR Courtesy Nexus Incubator

We expect them to take the program as seriously as we do, and our companies have done a great job rising to the opportunity.”

If you’re interested in being a part of a future Nexus cohort, Azulay recommends asking yourself a crucial question: Does your business idea solve a real problem in a cheaper, faster or more efficient way? “The number one thing we tell people who want to start a business, or who are just getting started and want to get to the next level, is not to try to push your idea where it isn’t necessarily needed or wanted,” he says.

“Make sure that a solution is relevant and useful—listen to the voice of the market.”

Nexus

https://startupnexus.net

American Center New Delhi

https://goo.gl/LWGGfA

IC² Institute

Go Online

we want them to have a sustainable business model and not just be a well-meaning nonprofit living off of grants.”

Although Nexus is a young program, its inception was fortuitously timed, as India is in the midst of a period of remarkable growth and increased focus on entrepreneurship, Azulay describes. In fact, it’s that very drive that Nexus seeks to harness and help. The competition to enter Nexus is fierce, for example, reflecting the nation’s rapidlyexpanding entrepreneurial ambition.

“We get over a 100 applications and choose 15 companies,” says Azulay. “We don’t take any equity, and the program is free of charge.

Free, but not cheap,” he adds, laughing. “We take the program extremely seriously and work with entrepreneurs who are passionate.

Above, left and far left: Programs for Nexus participants include classes, workshops and one-on-one mentorship sessions with business experts from the United States and India.

http://ic2.utexas.edu

Michael Gallant is the founder and chief executive officer of Gallant Music. He lives in New York City.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

15

Eco Inn

T

By MICHAEL GALLANT

Nexus

https://startupnexus.net

he Nexus Incubator start-up hub at the American Center New Delhi, a collaboration with the IC2 Institute of The University of Texas at Austin, does more than support Indian entrepreneurs. It helps lay the groundwork for innovations that can benefit the environment in India, the United States and around the world.

Nexus start-ups work on a variety of environmental issues, including energy consumption and sustainable agriculture, water pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. Here are three of the many incubator-grown innovations that are making a positive impact.

Courtesy Agpulse Organics

Agpulse Organics New Delhi

T

his start-up uses organic and lowimpact botanical Ayurvedic ingredients to help farmers thrive, without hurting the environment. Their products include environment-friendly pesticides and supplements, neem manure and plant growth promoters.

Agpulse’s herb-based pesticides, in particular, “help grow organic food without residues and toxicity, as the pesticides are organic and biodiversityfriendly,” says Rajeev Ranjan, cofounder of Agpulse Organics.

“Healthy food and nutrition security are key factors in sustainable development goals, which are crucial for [preserving] flora, fauna, underground water, aquatics, livestock and human health,” he continues. Ranjan expects that his company’s innovations would help reduce the greenhouse gases created regularly due to the mass production of synthetic pesticides.

Ranjan first learned about the Nexus Incubator while attending an event at

16 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

the American Center New Delhi. The results of the collaboration have been tremendous. Ranjan describes Agpulse as benefiting from the financial education, customized one-on-one mentorship, access to product showcases and free office space offered by the incubator.

“Agpulse has done a great job of combining traditional essences and herbs into natural, organic products that work well for a variety of farming purposes,” says Erik Azulay, director of Nexus. “They have done testing and gathered data that have shown their

Agpulse Organics’ products include environment-friendly pesticides and supplements, neem manure and plant growth promoters.

products to be effective. Right now, they’re talking to companies in Germany and Africa about partnerships, and have already sold several hundred liters of organic pesticides in India.”

www.agpulseorganics.com

ovators

Start-ups participating in the Nexus Incubator create compelling solutions to protect the environment.

Rays Enserv Punjab

Courtesy Rays Enserv

P

oisoning animals, clogging rivers and polluting oceans, plastic waste presents a formidable environmental challenge—one that Rays Enserv is working hard to solve.

“Rays Enserv takes end-of-life plastics—the plastics that can’t be recycled anymore—and creates diesel fuel with them,” says Azulay. Although the technology of turning discarded plastic into oil isn’t really new, he continues, nobody has yet made it work on a scale that makes sense, both financially and ecologically. And that may be about to change.

“Rays Enserv is about to launch their first industrial plant here in India, which is very exciting,” says Azulay.

“They’ve found a steady, constant supply of suitable plastic industrial waste from the North, which could really have a huge environmental, social and economic impact.”

Ashok Bijalwan, who co-founded Rays Enserv with his colleagues Yash Jain, Ashok Suyal, Sanjeev Sharma and Ishan Jain, is proud of the impact his company is poised to make. He sees the technology helping lessen greenhouse gas emissions associated with dumping of plastic in landfills,

reducing toxic gases created by burning plastic waste and creating a cleaner and greener alternative to standard fossil fuels. “A recent research paper by the Argonne National Lab [in Illinois] showed that synthetic fuel [like the diesel created

by Rays Enserv] reduces greenhouse gas emissions by up to 14 percent, water consumption by up to 58 percent and traditional energy use by up to 96 percent when compared to fossil fuels,” says Bijalwan.

He credits Nexus with making a huge contribution to his start-up’s growth, helping the company prioritize, focus and understand the nuances of starting a new business. The program also helped “provide a window into the

Rays Enserv, which creates diesel fuel from plastics that can’t be recycled anymore, was honored at the Confederation of Indian Industry Innovation Awards 2017 as one of the top 10 promising start-ups in India.

world of opportunities with potential investors, collaborators and partners in the U.S.,” says Bijalwan.

“Rays Enserv has got some great traction so far. And when the commercial plant is up and running, that’s when the rubber hits the road,” says Azulay. “We’re very excited to see what they do next.”

www.raysenserv.com

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Saral Usna Jharkhand

Courtesy Saral Usna

R

ice parboiling is a traditional practice followed in the eastern, central and southern parts of India. “Though the parboiling practice has immense advantages in terms of extra shelf life and nutrition-enriched food, it consumes lots of fuelwood in the post-harvest process and creates stress on the forests close to the villages,” says Krishna Kant of Saral Usna.

This is precisely the challenge that Kant and his colleagues address with their technology: a new type of parboiler, made from reused steel barrels, which dramatically saves resources, time and energy.

“Saral Usna’s rice parboiling technology reduces fuelwood consumption by 40 percent and it can be further reduced by the use of leaf litter,” says Kant. “With 330 units introduced in the market so far, Saral Usna has saved 110 tons of fuelwood, which is equivalent to [over a hectare] of forest. With a modest target of 5,000 units per year, we can save [more than 140 hectares] of forests within a five-year period. The use of leaf litter collected from the nearby forests also reduces the risk of forest fire.”

Kant points out that Saral Usna also protects rice grain from breakage during the parboiling process, reducing the amount of damaged rice by more than 50 percent. The company’s 330 units have already saved about 12 tons of rice which would have otherwise been discarded as food waste, he says.

Saral Usna began as a pilot program under the Abhivyakti Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by Kant, and focused on prototyping the parboiler technology on a limited scale. “Though we were sure about its effectiveness and potential, we had never thought about any enterprise to scale it up,” he says.

“The Nexus Incubator not only helped me realize the real potential of scaling up this technology for the ‘bottom-of-

www.saralusna.weebly.com 18 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

Saral Usna, a participant in the Nexus Incubator, uses newly-designed rice parboilers to simultaneously prevent food waste, deforestation and forest fires.

the-pyramid’ population, but also equipped me with the basic skills to work out my business plan and pitch up with ease.”

“Rural women love the Saral Usna product,” says Azulay. “It saves them hours of time and labor, and lets them parboil their rice more efficiently. At the same time, it’s a great technology for helping save wood and reduce deforestation.”

Michael Gallant is the founder and chief executive officer of Gallant Music. He lives in New York City.

Artificial intelligence and voice-user interface have the potential to revolutionize the news industry.

Smart

News

I

magine a day when news comes to you automatically and is customized to deliver information based not only on what interests you specifically, but also on what you’re doing at that moment, where you are and what kind of mood you’re in.

You’re able to ask questions about a news event or topic and, if something intrigues or irritates you, it’s possible to have a “conversation” about it with your favorite news presenter.

Although it sounds like science fiction,

By STEVE FOX

such a day may be fairly close at hand.

That’s the contention of Trushar Barot, who has been a participant of the Knight Visiting Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab in Massachusetts. He believes voice-user interface devices that utilize artificial intelligence (AI) could herald the next revolution in the news industry.

Voice rules Of course, humans are already talking

Trushar Barot

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MARCIO JOSE SANCHEZ © AP Images

Below: HomePod, a smart speaker developed by Apple Inc., being announced at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference in San Jose, California.

https://goo.gl/dCHxYV

Nieman Journalism Lab

www.niemanlab.org

Microsoft Harman Kardon Invoke https://goo.gl/S91MfC

Apple HomePod

Amazon Echo

www.amazon.com/echo

Google Home

https://goo.gl/UyFilV

www.apple.com/homepod 19

Speaking up Millions of people already have devices —sometimes called “smart speakers”—that are about the size of a soup can, plug in to the wall and are always on. The speakers, which respond to voice commands and/or programmed instructions, are sold by tech titans and include Amazon Echo, Google Home, Microsoft’s Harman Kardon Invoke and Apple’s HomePod. Their numbers are growing rapidly—one industry source estimates that Amazon shipped more than 10 million of its Echo line of smart speakers in 2017.

The opportunities for the news industry to capitalize on this third wave of technology are enormous, says Barot. For example, The Washington Post, owned by Amazon’s chief executive officer Jeff Bezos, is developing the ability for Amazon Echo to alert users to breaking news by chiming or flashing. Other news organizations are creating information packages tailored to what users might be doing—10 minutes of “breakfast news” as they’re getting ready for the day ahead, or personalized updates that could be delivered as they’re about to go to bed.

“We’re just beginning to scratch the

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ERIC RISBERG © AP Images

to, and hearing back from, their computers and smartphones. For example, by May 2016, about one of every five search inquiries on Android devices started happening through voice rather than typing, according to digital industry expert Mary Meeker. That percentage is growing, with younger generations, in particular, being quite comfortable with the concept of talking to machines. Voice-user interface—where people interact with increasingly intelligent computers in the cloud—may become the third wave of technology, following the point-and-click of personal computers and touch interface of smartphones.

“It’s important for the news industry and for all of us to understand how significant this technology is,” says Barot. “Artificial intelligence and machine learning, more generally, are the biggest tech revolution that’s going to occur in the next two decades. The world is going to look very different in terms of how we interact with technology.”

surface of all the additional data that artificial intelligence can deliver to us based on what our interests are, how we’re feeling and what’s going on in our lives,” says Barot. “Devices of the future will be so sensitive to the user’s tone of voice that they will be able to return different responses inferred from that tone—whether you’re angry, happy, scared or something else. Research also shows that people are developing quite strong relationships with these devices—they relate to them in kind of the same way as with their pets.”

Finding answers Computers can now realistically synthesize a voice based on hearing it for only a short period of time. Thus, devices using artificial intelligence will be able to formulate and deliver “answers” if users ask their favorite news personalities about what’s going on, says Barot.

“There are opportunities for all kinds of new interactions,” he says. “An AI entity can not only be responsive to your requests, but also be proactive in terms of getting you to engage in ways you hadn’t thought of before. For example, your device might search for information it thinks would be interesting to you or deliver information based on where you are physically. They could become the first and last interaction you have every day.”

As with other areas of technology, smart speakers raise challenges we didn’t have to think about before. Do we want to hear all types of breaking news if children are in the room? As our devices “get to know us,”

“

Let’s say you are a farmer in rural India and you just bought your first cheap smartphone. If you switch on your phone and it asks you, in your own dialect, what you want to know— that would be revolutionary.

”

% of U.S. adults who say they ever...

Use voice assistants 46 % of U.S. adults who use voice assistants on...

Smartphone

42

Computer or tablet

14

Stand-alone Other device device

8

Note: “Stand-alone device” refers to devices such as the Amazon Echo or Google Home. Respondents could choose more than of the above options.

Source: Survey conducted May 1-15, 2017.

PEW RESEARCH CENTER

Above left: Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai talks about Google Assistant, a voice-based virtual personal assistant, during an event in San Francisco, California.

Above: David Limp, senior vice president of devices and services at Amazon, shows how to play a game using Echo Buttons, the first “Alexa Gadget” with the cloud-based voice service, at an event in Seattle, Washington.

Below: Voice-user interface and artificial intelligence have the potential to revolutionize the news industry in India and other parts of the world.

Information courtesy Pew Research Center

ELAINE THOMPSON © AP Images

46% of Americans use digital voice assistants

what happens to the personal information they acquire and store in the cloud? News organizations, digital companies, governments and users themselves will have to decide how to deal with these challenges, notes Barot.

Reaching the next billion Although voice-user interface and artificial intelligence are currently aimed primarily at those in developed countries, Barot notes that tech companies are very excited about reaching what they call “the next billion”—people in developing countries who cannot now easily access the Internet. The technologies could change that rapidly and radically, he believes.

Let’s say you are a farmer in rural India and you just bought your first cheap smartphone,” he says. “If you switch on your phone and it asks you, in your own dialect, what you want to know—that would be revolutionary. You don’t have to know about passwords or touch screens or websites—the barriers to access are gone, and you can ask about crop prices or weather or anything else that interests you.

SHAH FAISAL KHAN

Steve Fox is a freelance writer, former newspaper publisher and reporter based in Ventura, California.

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3

Reaching for the Stars

By NATASA MILAS

O

n August 21, 2017, all of North America was treated to a total eclipse of the Sun. It was dubbed “The Great American Eclipse” by the media, as the last time the contiguous United States saw a total eclipse was in 1979. NASA’s lead scientist for the 2017 eclipse was astrophysicist Madhulika Guhathakurta.

Born in Kolkata and educated in Mumbai, New Delhi and Colorado, Guhathakurta holds a master’s degree in astrophysics from the University of Delhi and a Ph.D. from the University of Denver. She led the Living With a Star program at NASA for 15 years, which focuses on understanding and ultimately predicting solar variability and its diverse effects on Earth, human technology and astronauts in space.

The program gave rise to another initiative, known as the International Living With a Star, which brings together all the space agencies of the world to contribute toward the scientific goal of understanding space weather. Guhathakurta served as the chair of this group for four years and remains a member of its steering committee.

She has been a program scientist for Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO), Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), Van Allen Probes, Solar Orbiter, Parker Solar Probe and other missions. Guhathakurta is a spokesperson for NASA’s Heliophysics Division and has created graduate textbooks on this new discipline, which is a hybrid of astrophysics and meteorology. Her research has focused on the study of the Sun as a star, its influence on Earth, and Sun’s outermost layer, the corona.

Excerpts from an interview.

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Indian American astrophysicist

Madhulika Guhathakurta

Photographs courtesy NASA

talks about her interest in astrophysics and her incredible body of work at NASA.

Above: Madhulika Guhathakurta, NASA’s lead scientist for the 2017 solar eclipse.

To share articles go to https://span.state.gov JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 23

Photographs courtesy Madhulika Guhathakurta

“ ”

A mission close to my heart, Solar Probe Plus, is planned for launch in 2018. It will even ‘touch the sun.’

Could you please tell us about your background—growing up in India, your early interest in science and your education at the University of Delhi?

When I was very young, about 7 years old, in Kolkata, I used to watch the night sky. As I looked at the stars, I had the same question that NASA puts in big labels as one of its quintessential problems: “Where did we come from?”

Even in those early years, I’d drive my father up the wall asking this. As an adult, I know how difficult it is to answer this question. You just can’t say “Big Bang” because the question remains, well, what was there before the Big Bang? But I never gave up the quest.

It was in Delhi where I first started my serious pursuit of physics or astrophysics. I finished my higher secondary in science and joined Hindu College to pursue a Bachelor of Science degree in physics and, then, joined Delhi University to pursue my master’s degree in astrophysics and general theory of relativity.

After you moved to the United States to pursue your Ph.D., you focused your research on the study of the Sun. How did you get interested in this?

In graduate school, I chose to study the Sun, the only star we can study in great detail. My personal research has been directed toward the synthesis of a number of multi-wavelength observations, ranging from radio to extreme ultraviolet and, in situ, for purposes of characterizing the source regions of solar wind and coronal mass ejections and their propagation

24 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

through the interplanetary medium. Energetic particles associated with these coronal mass ejections and solar wind cause space weather on Earth and other planets. This has direct consequences here on Earth and on society at large—the very theme of NASA’s Living With a Star program.

In fact, it was during my graduate schoolwork when I was dreaming of this mission called “Solar Probe” to send a spacecraft to within few solar radii of the sun to verify some of the most hotly-debated topics in solar physics. Little did I know that someday, I would be a champion for making this mission real. As a research scientist, I have been a co-investigator on five Spartan 201 missions to study the solar corona in white-light and UV [ultraviolet] radiation and eight eclipse expeditions from ground.

In 1998, you joined NASA. What opportunities did the position provide you?

Please tell us about some of the fascinating projects that you have been involved with.

As a NASA astrophysicist, I have had the opportunity to work as a scientist, mission designer, instrument builder, director and manager of science programs, and teacher and spokesperson for NASA’s mission and vision in the Heliophysics Division. Occasionally, I perform all of these roles in a single day.

At NASA, we are privileged to see and to know so many things that ordinary people don’t get a chance to experience; for example, some of our imagery! I came up with a storyline to share the Living With a Star program and show some

Above: Madhulika Guhathakurta presents the keynote address at the kick-off event for “International Heliophysical Year” at the United Nations in Vienna, Austria.

Courtesy NASA

of these exquisite images. I helped in the creation of two major planetarium shows, “Cosmic Collisions” and “Journey to the Stars,” in partnership with the American Museum of Natural History in New York and the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. I also helped in the production of a 3D IMAX and planetarium show featuring the STEREO mission, “3D Sun.” These shows are running all over the world. Children, general public, older people, are all learning something about the cosmos that they had no way of knowing otherwise. So, these are some of the excitements, I would say. And, just recently, I was the lead program scientist for the August 21, 2017, total eclipse across America.

Please tell us about the Living With a Star program.

Living With a Star (LWS) was formulated and funded by the U.S. Congress as a new initiative in 2000. This program is quite unique in that its plan consists of flight missions, supporting targeted research and technology, and small space environment test-beds, orbital laboratories for new LWS concepts, all with the objective of providing science with societal impact. I became

the first program scientist in 2001, through 2016.

Presently, I am serving a detail at NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley.

The program is highly interdisciplinary, involving domains of study stretching across [150 million kilometers], the distance between Sun and Earth, and varying in scale from the size of atoms to the size of stars. Some of the science goals have direct societal implications: to understand the variability of cosmic rays and solar energetic particles, which is crucial information for astronauts; to understand the Sunclimate connection—how solar electromagnetic radiation and particles influence the thermosphere, mesosphere, upper atmosphere and terrestrial climate; to forecast conditions in Earth’s radiation belts, where spacecraft routinely travel; and to understand the impact of SWx [space weather] on Earth’s upper atmosphere, crucial for satellite safety and terrestrial navigation, such as GPS [Global Positioning System].

We now have four spacecraft in various stages of planning, construction and actual flight. We launched the Solar Dynamics Observatory in February 2010 and Van Allen Probes were launched in 2012. We have started work on Solar Probe Plus, which will launch in 2018. Solar Probe Plus supersedes the Solar Sentinels, which are no longer necessary, thanks to another Heliophysics mission I am involved in—the twin STEREO probes. Finally, we have joined forces with the European Space Agency to equip and launch a Solar Orbiter, which will monitor solar activity from above the Sun’s equator.

Madhulika Guhathakurta https://goo.gl/5eZJrn

NASA www.nasa.gov

Living With a Star https://goo.gl/ih7bBe

Parker Solar Probe https://goo.gl/1FX48M

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

25

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Madhulika Guhathakurta’s work has taken her to many countries, including South Africa (above) and Libya (above right), to study total solar eclipses.

CARLA CIOFFI/NASA

Left: Madhulika Guhathakurta (right) and team members of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) mission address a press conference at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. The screen above them displays a solar prominence image taken by the SDO spacecraft.

Quite incredible when I think of my childhood, when I just marveled at the stars, to actually sending the first spacecraft to a star.

In 2018, you will be leading a team for a historic Parker Solar Probe mission of NASA. Could you tell us more about it?

Parker Solar Probe is a historic mission to answer some of the fundamental mysteries of physics: Why is our star’s atmosphere thousands of times hotter than its surface? And what propels the solar wind that affects Earth and our solar system. We have been wrestling with these questions for decades, and this mission should finally provide the answers.

I have been thinking of this mission since 1983, even as a graduate student, working on theoretical concepts on the physical properties of the corona and fast solar wind and its extension into the heliosphere. In 2001, as I assumed the responsibility of the LWS program, I also acquired the program scientist role for this mission. Since then, it took a long time and many studies to get Parker Solar Probe to a point where it was technologically achievable and financially viable. And, as its program scientist, I remained steadfast in my resolution to make this mission happen. In 2010, NASA selected the instrument payload for this mission, and it is expected to launch in July 2018.

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Other than your work with NASA, have you been academically involved with astrophysics?

For the past 11 years, I have worked with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research to develop five “Heliophysics” textbooks, summer school curricula, and training for the next generation of interdisciplinary scientists.

The program provides a special opportunity to students and undergraduate faculty to learn about heliophysics as a broad, coherent discipline that reaches, in space, from the Earth’s troposphere to the depths of the Sun and, in time, from the formation of the solar system to the distant future.

At the same time, a goal of the summer school is to provide a professional development opportunity to undergraduate faculty to incorporate heliophysics and astrophysics examples into physics, astronomy and earth science courses.

The fourth volume of the “Heliophysics” series— “Active Stars, their Astrospheres, and Impacts on Planetary Environments”—implicitly makes the case for a new research discipline: comparative heliophysics. As humans and their robots spread throughout the solar system, we will need this kind of interdisciplinary approach to understand the places we visit and to anticipate the dangers. What is the weather like on Titan today? How will a solar storm affect the ices of Europe? Is it safe to land on that comet?

What are some of your future plans at NASA and beyond?

I have drawn together the “disparate” strands of solar-terrestrial physics and enabled international cooperation with the ultimate goal of understanding the meteorology of space or space weather. A mission close to my heart, Solar Probe Plus, is planned for launch in 2018. It will even “touch the sun,” contributing to better characterizing and forecasting the radiation environment in which future space explorers will work and live. As such, I hope that all these efforts will help the human species go from being Earth-dwellers to space farers.

Natasa Milas is a freelance writer based in New York City.

Smart Management of Diabetes

By integrating mobile technology, diagnostics and behavior change science, the Aina device aims to aid the fight against diabetes.

Screenshot courtesy www.janacare.com

By HILLARY HOPPOCK

D

iabetes is a serious medical condition afflicting over 400 million people worldwide. The World Health Organization reports the global prevalence of diabetes among adults has nearly doubled since 1980, rising from 4.7 percent to 8.5 percent in 2014, with the heaviest burden resting on middle- and lower-income countries. Known as the diabetes capital of the world, India has an estimated 70 million people with diabetes.

Applying mobile technology to the fight against diabetes offers a bright spot in this grim picture. Early detection, medication and lifestyle modifications are key to successfully managing and controlling the disease. The biggest challenges, until recently, were accessible and affordable blood tests, especially for people in remote areas. However, current advances have brought health care to the

Above: The Aina device, Jana Care Inc.’s cost-effective diagnosis and monitoring system for diabetes, grew out of a U.S.-India Science and Technology Endowment Fund grant. The device can be placed in clinics or be carried by health workers, going doorto-door in the field.

Left: Sidhant Jena, co-founder and chief executive officer at Jana Care Inc.

To share articles go to https://span.state.gov JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 27

patients’ fingertips through a mobile glucose monitoring system, which tracks blood glucose and syncs instantly with a smartphone.

Developed and produced by Jana Care Inc., the Aina blood monitoring system has become one of the largest chronic disease screening programs in the world.

“Fifty percent of patients with diabetes in the developing world are not diagnosed,” says Sidhant Jena, co-founder and chief executive officer at Jana Care Inc., which is based in Boston, Massachusetts, and has an additional office in Bengaluru. He, along with his Harvard MBA classmate Stephen Chen, recognized the acute need for a low-cost and portable system to diagnose and manage diabetes in the developing world. They applied and received a grant through the U.S.-India Science and Technology Endowment Fund (USISTEF) to develop a mobile diagnostic platform to screen and manage diabetes. The

Screenshots courtesy www.janacare.com

Left: Blood contains biomarkers that indicate disease progression. Jana Care Inc. develops paper-based test strips for these biomarkers.

Below left and below: Jana Care Inc.’s Habits program is also a virtual diabetes coach that helps patients reach their diet goals through personalized daily checklists and care plans, which include tips, tasks, lessons and quizzes.

28 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

Aina device, Jana Care Inc.’s cost-effective, easy-to-use diagnosis and monitoring system for diabetes, grew out of this grant. The device can be placed in clinics and hospitals or be carried by health workers, going door-to-door in the field.

The U.S. Department of State and the Indian Department of Science and Technology established the U.S.-India Science and Technology Endowment Fund in 2009 to support joint applied research and development, and the commercialization of technology developed through partnerships between U.S. and Indian researchers and entrepreneurs. The fund’s activities are administered through the bi-national Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum.

Jana Care Inc. handles research and development at its Boston headquarters and manufactures the Aina device at its facility in Bengaluru. The company partners with large public and private health institutes and medical centers in India as well as with the Massachusetts General Hospital in the United States.

“The current diagnostic systems were expensive, bulky and inadequate for addressing this public health problem,” says Jena.

“Considering you are dealing with a population

Screenshot courtesy www.janacare.com

Right: The Aina device’s mobile glucose monitoring system tracks blood glucose and syncs instantly with a smartphone.

“

pre-diabetes or diabetes diagnosis, the patient gets a text message right away with suggestions for lifestyle changes—eat better, exercise more, etc. The first line of therapy is always behavior, and the idea is to empower patients to self-monitor and take ownership of their treatment,” says Jena.

In 2016, the Aina device was used by over 250 clinics and 1,500 health care workers to screen, diagnose and give treatment to 250,000 patients with diabetes in India. The company projects it will reach double that number in 2018.

The cost of the traditional diabetes test was $15 (approximately Rs. 980) per test in 2011.

“Now, an individual test costs about $1 (approximately Rs. 65), no matter whether it’s an Android phone hooked up to the Aina device in a clinic or the Aina mobile device used by a family health worker in a remote region. Applying technology-based diagnosis, at a very low cost, to areas that really need it goes a long way in expanding diabetes screening worldwide,” says Jena.

The major market for the Aina device is India, with a product roll-out in Singapore and a pilot program in Kenya planned for 2018.

Michal Depa, co-founder and chief technology officer at Jana Care Inc., expects U.S. Federal Drug Administration approval by mid-2018.

Commercializing the Aina device in the United States will enable the company to act on current requests from health care providers and public health organizations to use the product.

Hillary Hoppock is a freelance writer, former newspaper publisher and reporter based in Orinda, California.

Applying technology-based diagnosis, at a very , to areas that really need it goes a long worldwide. way in expanding

low cost diabetes screening

Jana Care www.janacare.com

U.S.-India Science and Technology Endowment Fund

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pool in the millions, it was logistically impossible to go to a community, get them to all fast together, go to the clinic in the morning to get a blood glucose test, eat something and wait two more hours before taking a second test. The traditional method was to test for an average glucose level over six to eight weeks versus using mobile technology to test once and, in three minutes, being able to tell the patients whether they have diabetes, prediabetes or that they are free and clear.”

Blood contains biomarkers that indicate disease progression. Jana Care Inc. develops paper-based test strips for these biomarkers.

These are then read by smartphones, as they are turned into diagnostic platforms using the Aina device optical reader. Equally important, the software allows field health workers from any location to transmit data to remote specialists for decision support.

Of course, detection is only the first step in helping patients with this condition. The company’s post-diagnosis management program, aptly named Habits, uses smart algorithms to provide patients real-time feedback and insights on glucose variations with diet and physical activity, via their smartphones. It is also a virtual diabetes coach that helps patients reach their diet goals through personalized daily checklists and care plans, which include tips, tasks, lessons and quizzes.

The company took the core curriculum of the Diabetes Prevention Program from the Maryland-based National Institutes of Health, one of the world’s foremost medical research centers, and adapted it in collaboration with academic and medical centers in India. “It’s a lifestyle intervention program, with an emphasis on early intervention. After a

www.usistef.org

National Institutes of Health www.nih.gov

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

29

Relationships in

Age

By CRAIG L. DICKER

A review of Sherry Turkle’s book, “Alone Together,” which explores how technology is changing the human psyche and impacting our lives.

30 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

H

umans created computers, robots, the Internet and mobile technologies. As these technologies become increasingly central to our lives, the ways they are redefining our humanity, our relationships and our ways of thinking are being questioned. How has technology changed the way we communicate, how we relate to each other, our definitions of love and friendship, and how we process information?

Sherry Turkle, a psychologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has been investigating these questions for decades. She is the founder and director of the MIT initiative on Technology and Self.

Although her latest book, “Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other,” the third in a trilogy on the impact of technology on our psychological well-being, largely concentrates on the data garnered from interviews with high-school- and college-age youth, her references to the perspectives of older generations serve to anchor and frame her fascinating depiction of how technologies are changing the human psyche.

There are a number of publications on the differences between technological immigrants—those of us who grew up before the age of the ubiquitous personal computer or device and the Internet—and technological natives. Technological immigrants are more inclined to be wary of technology and are concerned about its impact on our lives.

Turkle takes the discussion one step further by exploring how technology is changing our social skills, our conceptualizations of love, friendship and intimacy and our abilities to

Illustration by HEMANT BHATNAGAR

a

and for some of the more revealing, real-time, face-to-face types of communication.

Trying to understand the perspectives of a technological native, I loaned the book to my younger, 22-year-old son. He’s a pretty critical person. I was curious to hear his reactions and see which points from the book he rejects and which he embraces. It turns out that he agrees with nearly everything Turkle had to say about his generation. The book made him step back and consider the impact of technology on his relationships, communication preferences and ways of viewing the world and himself.

So, take a few hours off, curl up with “Alone Together” and reflect a bit on how technology has changed you. I found it well worth my time.

Alone Together http://alone togetherbook.com

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empathize, persevere and accept the good with the bad. She discusses how technological natives tend to see phone calls as not only intrusive but also too personally revealing, whereas text messages and other forms of asynchronous text-based communications are preferred because they seem less intrusive and personally revealing. She writes about how many technological natives create second, online lives, often the imagined lives of the people they think they want to be, thereby developing a way to avoid facing one’s real self and learning to cherish that self. She looks into the impact of technologies on face-to-face interactions, which are becoming more and more rare, and how people increasingly flit from subject to subject, interrupt each other and reach for their mobile devices to either inform or enhance the communication or simply divert from it. Turkle writes about how technologies can be addictive and even controlling. She describes online communities and how they are being seen as substitutes for face-to-face communities, but fall short of the latter in a number of important ways.

The virtual world can be a very lonely place.

The opportunities offered by the Internet may appear to enhance our ability to communicate and enrich our network of relationships, but it may actually serve to further isolate us from one another and ourselves.

Please don’t jump to the conclusion that Turkle believes technology is all bad. In fact, there’s a great deal of good that comes from living in a technologically-enhanced and -imbued world. But there’s a time, place and role for technology-enabled communication

Sherry Turkle www.mit.edu/~sturkle

Craig L. Dicker is the Counselor for Cultural Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi. He is also the Editor in Chief of SPAN magazine.

To share articles go to https://span.state.gov JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 31

Can computers use artificial

intelligence to create great music? Innovative start-ups like Amper Music are trying to find out.

Machine-Made

W

By MICHAEL GALLANT

Photographs courtesy Amper Music

Above: Drew Silverstein, co-founder and chief executive officer at Amper Music.

hether it’s the acoustic piano in the 1800’s, analog synthesizers in the 1960’s or digital recording just a decade later, new technologies have creatively disrupted the way humans have been making music for centuries. So, what’s the latest innovation that can potentially reinvent how people around the world compose, record and perform? Artificial intelligence (AI).

Companies like the New York-based start-up Amper Music are just beginning to explore the many ways cutting-edge technologies powered by artificial intelligence algorithms could change how humans look at the music-making process, and what that evolution will mean for businesses, musicians, video and game makers, and the general public.

“Amper is essentially a virtual, AI-driven composer, performer and producer that creates unique, professional-quality music,” says cofounder and chief executive officer Drew Silverstein. “And that music can be tailored to any content, whether it’s an online video or a mobile game, in a matter of seconds.”

In practice, this means that users simply log on to Amper’s site and begin by telling the software the style of music they want, choosing from options like “cinematic,” “hiphop” and “modern folk.” From there, users select the desired mood for the music from a short list of options and indicate how long the resulting piece of music should be. Within seconds, Amper does the rest, automatically composing an original piece of music that users can then listen to and revise as needed.

“What’s great about Amper is that it’s not a one-time process,” says Silverstein. “You can collaborate with it and give it feedback. After Amper renders your original composition, it’s easy to tell it that you want the piece to be faster or slower, that you want different instruments or a different mood. It’s as if

32 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

Melodies

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Courtesy Amper Music

Right: Once Amper creates the custom music, users can adjust instrumentation, tempo and other aspects of the composition to suit their needs.

“

It’s as if you’re sitting in a room with a live, human composer who will integrate your feedback and compose a revision in a matter of seconds.

”

Go Online

Amper www.ampermusic.com

Drew Silverstein http://drewsilverstein.com/

Two Sigma Ventures www.twosigmaventures.com 34 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

you’re sitting in a room with a live, human composer who will integrate your feedback and compose a revision in a matter of seconds.”

Once users are happy with Amper’s work, they download the resulting digital file, complete with a royalty-free license to use the music publicly and for profit.

For Silverstein, such licenses, combined with Amper’s technology, hold the promise to transform the music scoring process, for many users, into something far quicker, easier and more affordable than the status quo. “Without services like Amper, the process of searching for the right piece of music for your video and licensing it can be frustrating and expensive,” he says. “We want to, instead, offer the ability to create the perfect piece of music for any piece of content, every single time, regardless of whether you’re an experienced musician and composer or someone who has no musical experience whatsoever.”

Silverstein’s vision has attracted attention from a wide audience, including several investors. “Amper envisions professional quality music as the next creative medium ripe for democratization,” says Colin Beirne of Two Sigma Ventures, the early-stage venture capital arm of the technology company Two Sigma Investments, which has invested in Amper and supports its growth. “In many of the same ways that ubiquitous cameras over the last 10 years have allowed everyone to express themselves visually, Amper is giving anyone with a web browser the power to express themselves through music. By using AI to create professional-quality original compositions in seconds, in virtually any musical style, Amper’s product aims to alleviate one of the main pain points of creators, by allowing them to incorporate the perfect music for their

content, instantly and affordably.”

Mal Meehan, a Brooklyn-based videographer, producer and composer, agrees that the potential for artificial intelligence-powered music making is significant. “If your video production doesn’t have a big budget and you don’t have the ability to hire a composer, the technology can be very useful,” he says.

“Similarly, when it comes to buying music for corporate videos, for example, there’s a dearth of music and all sound very run-of-the-mill.

So, if technology can help you create something that’s unique for your project and stay within your budget, that’s very good.”

Although Meehan doesn’t predict that artificial intelligence-powered music composition will shake the world of top Hollywood film composers any time soon, he does see it opening doors for a wide variety of content creators working on a smaller scale.

“Down the line, especially for smaller video production companies, I can see it being an everyday thing,” he says.

For Silverstein, the alchemy of artificial intelligence and music creation is an inevitability. “Whether it’s Amper or another company, in 500 years, it will have been done,” he says. “People were worried that the synthesizer would replace the symphony orchestra when it came out, and that clearly didn’t happen. There may be fewer orchestras playing now than there were a century ago. It’s just a different landscape. In fact, due to innovations like the synthesizer and, now, Amper, more individuals everywhere can make music than ever before. More exciting and creative opportunities exist.”

Michael Gallant is the founder and chief executive officer of Gallant Music. He lives in New York City.

An Augmented World

By JASON CHIANG

monsitj/iStock/Thinkstock

P

reviously seen as merely gaming or entertainment technology, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) are increasingly being used to better serve people’s day-to-day needs.

Owing to this growing popularity, many innovative companies are capitalizing on this opportunity. One such company is Merxius. With offices in Hyderabad and Bengaluru, the startup has been building extended reality (XR)—augmented, virtual and mixed reality—products and solutions for clients from different sectors like defense, marketing and real estate.

Their products include RED, which creates extended reality experiences To share articles go to https://span.state.gov JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 35

Courtesy Merxius

In a world focusing on extended reality, Hyderabad-based Merxius is making a name for itself with its innovative products and services.

“ ” Go Online

Understanding technology isn’t enough. How technology can help people achieve their goals easier and faster is much more important. If you create and give value, you get value in return.

Merxius http://merxius.in/

Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership https://goo.gl/QqCXm1

36 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

from 3D data, and TranslatAR, which translates printed English text into regional languages like Hindi, Marathi, Telugu, Kannada or Tamil and augments that over print text. In 2015, Merxius became the first Indian company to be invited to exhibit at the Augmented World Expo (AWE), one of the world’s largest conferences and expos dedicated to augmented and virtual reality, in Silicon Valley, California.

Merxius was co-founded by Vaishali Neotia, who currently serves as the chief executive officer. She is an alumna of Stanford Graduate School of Business in California and Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. In 2015, Neotia participated in the Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership, a four-week-long program that connects emerging women leaders from around the world with members of Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Leaders.

Neotia was one of the finalists at the Global Innovation through Science and Technology

(GIST) Catalyst pitch competition at the 2017 Global Entrepreneurship Summit, held in Hyderabad in November. At the competition, which included start-ups from India, the United States and other countries, Neotia had the opportunity to showcase Merxius’ work and pitch to investors and potential partners.

Excerpts from an interview.

What led you to experiment with augmented and virtual reality?

We formed Merxius as a company to help harness the power of technology; contextually, to simplify lives and help people achieve their goals faster and easier. AR and VR were being dismissed as entertainment and gaming tech, whereas we saw their potential for focused-use cases across sectors.

Could you tell us about Merxius’ current suite of products, including RED? We have used our expertise in extended reality technologies to serve the needs of

Photographs courtesy Merxius

involved to get something done. We no longer want data through additional effort. Information should be relevant and available at our fingertips.

Our favorite application of everyday immersive technologies is TranslatAR. This will be available soon to download on your phones.

What were your biggest takeaways from your experience with the Fortune/U.S. State Department Global Women’s Mentoring Partnership that you found most useful in running your own start-up?

Meeting and befriending the 18 amazing women leaders from around the world who were chosen for this program was incredible.

The diversity and commonalities of our life experiences was mind-blowing. Experiencing life in a developed economy and understanding everyday perspectives of people living and working in one was eye-opening.

One thing that really stayed with me was a quote my mentor Dina Powell, philanthropist and U.S. policy maker, told me she lives by: “Ask for forgiveness, not permission.”

Top: Merxius co-founders Hasan Ali Khan and Vaishali Neotia.

Above left and above: Merxius develops extended reality products for use across sectors like real estate, defense, engineering and retail marketing.

clients across sectors like real estate, defense, engineering and retail marketing. We have also built a simple everyday AR app called TranslatAR, with which people can convert signboards in English to regional languages.

We have a great platform where videos or animations can be mapped to appear over predefined images in a matter of minutes, like an advanced QR [Quick Response] code system.

With RED, we are trying to democratize access to these technologies for non-coders.

RED is an authoring software that allows people working with 3D data, like doctors, engineers and designers, to be able to enhance engagement and efficiency, while reducing the time and cost associated with visualizing, and extracting more from their work.

How has computing evolved in recent years? Which Merxius product excites you the most?

Computing has evolved like any other technology to reduce the number of steps

What takeaways did you have from your experience of being a part of the first Indian company invited to exhibit at the Augmented World Expo in Silicon Valley?

We are constantly listening to customers to identify use cases for XR tech, to help solve expensive problems. Being the first-ever Indian company to exhibit at AWE gave us not only immense exposure, but also access to the market, which have helped us understand the cuttingedge developments in the field. We also realized where all the action is and are trying to replicate that kind of cutting-edge technology in India.

We’re always looking for ways to use advanced technology to help improve processes to increase the top line and lower the bottom line. Technology can be exciting, but it needs to be harnessed for real world applications to truly have an impact on our lives.

What advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs interested in augmented and virtual reality technology?

Understanding technology isn’t enough. How technology can help people achieve their goals easier and faster is much more important. If you create and give value, you get value in return.

Jason Chiang is a freelance writer based in Silver Lake, Los Angeles.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

37

The Next Wave of Innovation

Photographs courtesy Surabhi Srivastava

By CARRIE LOEWENTHAL MASSEY

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Far right: Surabhi Srivastava, cofounder of Innovision, which developed BrailleMe (above), a machine that plugs into mobile phones and computers to help visually impaired people access the Internet and other digital content.

38 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

he search is on again, from January through April 2018, for the most cutting-edge entrepreneurs in India. They’ll apply to the India Innovation Growth Programme (IIGP) 2.0, the second phase of an initiative launched

by Government of India’s Department of Science & Technology and the U.S.-based Lockheed Martin in 2007 with the aim of building an innovation pipeline in the country.

Since its inception, the program has been “one of the longest-standing public-private partnerships in India, having supported over 400 innovators, generating over 350 commercial agreements and close to $900 million (approximately Rs. 58 billion) of economic value,” says Nirankar Saxena, assistant secretary general of the Federation of

Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, an India Innovation Growth Programme partner.

“Through a wide outreach campaign spreading over 100 cities across India, the program has received and evaluated over 8,000 ideas so far. IIGP has facilitated access to capital, industry partnerships and resources sought by entrepreneurs,” adds Saxena.

The shift to the second phase of the program, says Saxena, continues its missions of “Make in India” and “Startup India,” but now includes a new partnership between Government of India’s Department of Science & Technology, Lockheed Martin and Tata Trusts. Additional new partners are the Tata Center for Technology and Design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the

www.indiainnovates.in

Aakar Innovations https://goo.gl/hQdkB5

Go Online

India Innovation Growth Programme

Innovision www.innovisiontech.co

India Innovation Growth Programme

The

identifies India’s leading entrepreneurs and, through partnerships with local and American companies and universities, gives them the tools they need to attain success.

Center for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.

“IIGP 2.0 aims to address the specific challenges faced by innovators in scaling their innovations. It is focused on scaling innovations with a strong societal impact as well as cutting-edge industrial innovations, by taking entrepreneurs through the stages of ideation, innovation and acceleration,” says Saxena. Consequently, the program has two tracks for applicants: the University Challenge and the Open Innovation Challenge. Each track focuses on identifying and supporting both industrial and social innovations. For both tracks, “it is vital that the applicant is

able to put across the commercial viability of the innovation as well,” he adds.

The University Challenge focuses on the ideation and incubation of concepts in response to specific grand challenges that take into account technical design, market need and the design costs of the innovations themselves.

It is limited to university-based teams. The Open Innovation Challenge goes “further down the innovation pipeline and caters to innovation and acceleration of concepts,” says Saxena. “The focus here is balanced between the technological innovation versus the scalability and sustainability of the business model itself.”

Finalists who make it through the first two rounds of cuts following initial selection, for

To share articles go to https://span.state.gov JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 39

Photographs courtesy Aakar Innovations

Above: Aakar Innovations, founded by Jaydeep Mandal (below), has developed Anandi, an affordable and 100 percent compostable sanitary napkin. These are made in mini factories run by women.

Since its inception, the India Innovation Growth Programme has supported over 400 innovators, generating close to $900 million of economic value.

40 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

both programs, travel to the United States for further mentorship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In past years, India Innovation Growth Programme finalists have visited the IC2 Institute at The University of Texas at Austin and Stanford Graduate School of Business in California.

“Partnerships with these universities have helped Indian innovators and entrepreneurs learn best practices from the U.S. on innovation and technology commercialization,” says Saxena. “Over 50 incubation managers have been trained on global best practices in incubation in the United States.”

Success stories In its 10 years of operation, the India Innovation Growth Programme has accumulated an impressive portfolio of companies. Many stand out, but Saxena describes two in particular that highlight the range of innovation the program has fostered.

Aakar Innovations has developed a 100 percent compostable and high-quality sanitary napkin, and provides these affordable pads to women and adolescent girls. The Mumbaibased company uses a unique low-cost, low-electricity-consuming machine with the capacity of producing 2,000 pads in 8 to 10 hours through a community-based production workforce of 12 to 16 women. No specific skills are required for operating the machine, though production supervisors get a 10-day

training in topics like production, maintenance, finance and management. Aakar now has operations in Africa as well.

Then, there is the Mumbai-based Innovision (Inceptor Technologies Pvt. Ltd.).

It creates assistive technology solutions to empower the 36 million blind people in the world. Innovision’s product, BrailleMe, enables users to read, type and navigate digital content in tactile form using electronically actuated pins. The company was founded by Indian Institute of Technology Bombay alumni.

With each year of the India Innovation Growth Programme, more and more entrepreneurs expand their reach, which makes a major contribution to the Indian economy and society, says Saxena.

“Innovation and entrepreneurship are two strong pillars that directly contribute to a nation’s economic wealth as well as social development. We are proud that IIGP has been a pioneering initiative to foster innovation-led entrepreneurship in the country,” he says. “The program has provided Indian innovators with the much-needed capacity building, handholding and business development support to ensure successful conversion of ideas into commercial products and services.”

Carrie Loewenthal Massey is a New York Citybased freelance writer.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art makes The

OLGA RODRIGUEZ © AP Images

yacobchuk/iStock/Thinkstock

its entire collection available to people as responses to text messages.

Text for

Art

By CANDICE YACONO

To share articles go to http://span.state.gov JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 41

I

“ ”

We are interested in reaching people on platforms they are familiar with. Of the dominant methods of communication today, SMS seems to be one of the most personal.

Go Online

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art www.sfmoma.org

Send Me SFMOMA https://goo.gl/ieHKce

42 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018

n today’s digitally connected world, has art become accessible to everyone, or do people now think they are all artists? Anybody can create music using the device in their pockets, and filtered selfies are increasingly replacing museum portraits in the public eye.

But the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) begs to differ. Its Send Me SFMOMA text message service has made waves in the art world and across social media for creating a bridge between fine art and the Instagram generation.

“In a world oversaturated with information, we asked ourselves: how can we generate personal connections between a diverse cross-section of people and the artworks in our collection? How can we provide a more comprehensive experience of our collection?” says Jay Mollica, the museum’s creative technologist, who spearheaded the project.

The museum decided to meet art lovers where they spend a massive proportion of their time: on their smartphones. To participate, a user texts the number 572-51 with the phrase “send me” and a keyword, a color, a mood or even an emoji. In return, the user receives the image and caption of a related piece of art from the museum’s collection as a text message. For instance, “send me ocean” might get the user a painting of a wave or “send me” with a flower emoji might yield a Frida Kahlo portrait in which she wears a flower crown.

“Popular emojis include hearts, cats, dogs and sunglasses,” says Mollica. Closer to Halloween, they received a lot of pumpkins, ghosts and clowns. “It’s been interesting to watch the requests evolve in tune to the cultural zeitgeist,” he says.

The popularity of the service was staggering: the museum sent two million texts in just five days after the launch of the Send Me SFMOMA project. “We’ve received over 4.2 million text messages since June [2017],” says Mollica.

In fact, Send Me SFMOMA proved to be so popular during its beta testing phase that many major mobile carriers blacklisted the service’s phone number, thinking that it was a spam service.

The vast majority of a typical museum’s collection sits in storage, including pieces that are rarely on view to the public. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is no exception. The museum has only about five percent of its collection of 34,678 artworks on view at any given time. It estimates that if someone were to walk past each artwork on view right now, the person would walk about 11 kilometers.

But, to view all of the works at once, one would have to walk about 195 kilometers.

The Send Me SFMOMA program has allowed these “hidden” works of art to reach audiences in ways that would have been impossible even 10 years ago.

“People’s methods of communication are constantly changing,” says Mollica. “We are interested in reaching people on platforms they are familiar with. Of the dominant methods of communication today, SMS seems to be one of the most personal. Using SMS as the foundation for the service lent it a familiar feel.”

This informal, highly personal framework, in turn, opens people up to new art experiences, he adds. It allows the museum’s full collection to be accessible, and encourages exploration and creativity in a very approachable way.

“Most people search for art using famous names, which limits discovery. Send Me SFMOMA allows people to search in a semantic and personal way, allowing for more opportunities to discover new artists and artworks,” says Mollica.

The method by which art is sent to a user is a multi-step process utilizing a custom application programming interface (API). It runs a search on the museum’s collection and, then, returns a work of art to match the user’s request. Another user, however, could send the exact same “send me...” text and get a completely different artwork.

“Each artwork was provided with descriptive keywords by SFMOMA’s collection specialists,” says Mollica. “The emojis were mapped to keywords by our content strategy and digital engagement team during the development process. So, the emojis are mapped to descriptive words, not directly to artworks.”

Even the most brilliant system has its limitations, however.

“There are some popular emojis, such as the alien head, that don’t really correlate to any artwork in our collection,” says Mollica.

“Apparently, we just don’t have any aliens.”

Also, the five-digit phone number (572-51) used to ensure the service wouldn’t be ratelimited or blacklisted is not available to all carriers, nor is it available outside the United States. The museum has, however, begun partnering with cultural organizations inside and outside the country, providing them with the structure, code and takeaways from the project.

So, even if you cannot access Send Me SFMOMA, a museum in your city may soon start its own “send me” service to bring to you its entire collection of artworks.

Candice Yacono is a magazine and newspaper writer based in southern California.

Screenshots courtesy SFMOMA

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The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has only about five percent of its collection of 34,678 artworks on view at any given time. It estimates that if someone were to walk past each artwork on view right now, the person would walk about 11 kilometers. But, to view all of the works at once, one would have to walk about 195 kilometers.