TORONTO – It’s all in the name: ‘ideacity’ is the conference to attend for anyone wishing to gain a little insight in to some big ideas.
From the idea that a robot might one day have enough artificial intelligence to outsmart even the most brilliant of human beings, to that of using synthetic biology to create sustainable natural lighting through growing plants – this year’s ideacity covered a broad range of topics.
Canada’s own version of Ted Talks, ideacity is where technologists, inventors and artists gather to network, mingle and present speeches to an audience of around 600 attendees.
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The conference, which wrapped up last week at Toronto’s Koerner Hall, took on the theme of ‘technology’ this year, bringing bright minds from areas including 3D printing, robotics and quantum computing.
Here are some highlights from this year’s presenters.
Don Tapscott
“We don’t have a generation gap – we have a generation lap,” said author and expert on the social impact of technology Don Tapscott during his talk at ideacity.
What Tapscott was describing is how kids may know more about the digital revolution than their parents do – in some cases making children the new head of the house. Children and young adults are lapping their parents when it comes to understanding the Internet and gadgets, for example.
“Who does the systems administration in your home,” asks Tapscott, pointing out that many kids are now the household go-to for tech support.
Aside from describing the changing landscape of today’s family, Tapscott touched on how adults should embrace the idea of “reverse mentors” – youth who can educate their elders in areas they would otherwise forgo (think social media etiquette, for example).
Tapscott is CEO of the think tank The Tapscott Group and has authored many books on discussion innovation, media and the economic and social impact of technology. He is also the Adjunct Professor of Management at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.
Cody Wilson
Best known for putting the blueprints for the world’s first 3D printed gun on the web, Cody Wilson joined the onslaught of idealists to talk about the underlying reason for stirring up so much controversy in the online printing world – politics.
“The 3D printer to me was fascinating because it looked like it could contest the definitions of certain social and political spaces,” said Wilson during his talk at ideacity.
The gun, smaller than a 9mm, is made almost entirely of plastic, except for a metal firing pin, and could cost about $60 to make with access to a consumer-grade 3D printer. The gun stirred up quite the controversy in the 3D printing world due to the idea that access to weapons be readily available online, not to mention completely untraceable due to a lack of serial number.
Read More: 3D printed gun files no longer available
Blueprints for The ‘Liberator’, a functioning 3D printed gun, were removed from Wilson’s website Defcad.org in May due to orders by the US Department of Defense Trade Controls – but Wilson noted during his ideacity talk that part of the goal behind the gun was somewhat achieved.
“There is all this rhetoric about a revolution of manufacturing – we hear it all the time, in fact it’s the advertising buzzword that sells you the retail 3D printer. But what does that word mean, if not the kind of upsetting, subversive, fundamental shifting implications that something like the distributed personal production of firearms might entail,” said Wilson.
“It seems like an obvious consequence to me – so we pursued it.”
The University of Texas student even mentioned the recent controversy surrounding Edward Snowden – the person responsible for leaking information about the U.S. government’s once secret Internet surveillance program PRISM to the press.
Upon mentioning Snowden’s name, a section of the crowd burst into applause.
“What he did was tremendous,” said Wilson.
Kathleen Kajioka
Baroque violinist and violist Kathleen Kajioka’s job description hardly resembles that of a technologist – but her unconventional view of composer Johann Sebastian Bach places an unique link between composing and hacking.
According to Kajioka, Bach found a way to hack music by placing illegal moves and strange movements throughout his pieces that are largely considered no-no’s in music. Using her violin, Kajioka played some of Bach’s melodies, demonstrating both how Bach wrote the piece and how another musician of his time would have composed the piece.
Kajioka regularly performs with Tafelmusik, Scaramella and Toronto Masque Theatre and teaches Early Music at the Royal Conservatory of Music’s Glenn Gould School. She is also a host on New Classical 96.3FM in Toronto, where she is the weekly host of “In the Still of the Night” and “Dinner Classics.”
Gabor Forgacs
“Imagine a world where leather and meat could be made without killing a single animal,” said Gabor Forgacs while opening his talk at ideacity.
Forgacs, biophysicist turned entrepreneur, has been using 3D printing combined with biofabrication to create genuine leather and meat products without actually hurting a cow.
To put the idea into layman’s terms – Forgacs grows cells, originally taken from cows, layering and growing them to create sheets. He then turns those sheets into designs and finishes them making them look identical to the leather we wear daily.
According to Forgacs, not only is the leather cruelty free (“genuine leather fresh from the laboratory,” as he put it) but the leather would be free of any imperfections such as blemishes from marks on the cow.
But Forgacs is not only giving Danier Leather a run for its money – he says the same technique can be used to make meats.
Though the manufacturing of 3D printed meats would be much harder to make a business off of – due to international health regulations and apprehensive consumers – Forgacs says he continues to pursue the idea.
Forgacs is the founder of San Diego-based company Organovo which makes a printer that creates three-dimensional, functional human tissue called the NovoGen MMX Bioprinter.
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