How to make a flying car
I grew up with a copy of this magazine I found in a box.
A busy man looks like he has just come home and is backing his flying car into the garage. This was 1951, well the date on the magazine was 1951, I was 15 and it was in the 80’s when I found the magazine. It captured my imagination. When I grew up I wanted to have a flying car. They have been promising them since the 1950’s so they must come soon. Surely.
Actually we have been talking about flying cars since 1916. 100 years. Popular Science have been putting flying cars on it’s cover for 100 years.
So where are they? What have we been doing for the last 20–50–100 years?? What has been the biggest accomplishment in technology? We have been to the moon. What else.
Well, we made The Internet and on it, email, gifs, Twitter and YouTube. And ever since then we have been obsessed with the Internet. Shopping, entertainment, social, cat pictures.
“We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” — Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal, early stage Facebook investor and long time Vend investor
We have been so distracted by the Internet for 25 years, surfing and sharing funny pictures we have forgotten to get around to inventing the future we all grew up dreaming about. Replicators, Jetpacks, Hover-boards, Robots and AI. Or have we?
Well actually, while we were all sharing cat pics the future has been arriving, and arriving fast.
Driverless cars. Exist.
Jetpacks. Exist.
Robots. Exist.
Hover-boards. Exist.
VR and AR. Wow, exists and gets better and better.
Replicators. Exist. You can even 3D print organs.
AI. Exists, and will probably take your job.
Yay! Oh, wait? What?
Over the next few years there is going to be so much technological innovation and change it will be a whole different world. You probably won’t be in the same job. Your job may not exist.
On the positive side, there is some really cool stuff. Automation will simplify so many things in our lives, technology will detect intent. You may think a clap-on light was pretty cool in the 90’s but how about a personal operating system that knows your intent, so can turn your reading lights on in your living room because it knows you are carrying a book and you have your reading glasses. Knows when to turn the music down or the heat up, because it can measure you personal comfort levels and body temperature. That’s cool right?
We will have devices that can detect illness and health conditions at early stages. And we will wear them, or they will be inside us and they will help us eat the right foods with the right nutrients we need, because they can measure our biometrics. They will prevent disease and sickness. How does this change our whole medical industry which is built around reacting to sickness, not preventing it?
Driverless cars and automation will reduce human error to almost zero so no more accidents. Technology and the Internet of things are minimising theft, you will be able to track everything. What does this mean for the insurance industry?
Artificial Intelligence will do any job that has complex rules and patterns and a bit of intuition. It is learning how to think better. Better than you. Find fraud, negotiate contracts, forecast sales. Better than you. News articles are being written by AI today. Can you tell which ones?
Where do all the accountants, lawyers, drivers, factory workers, writers, artists, doctors and business people go?
What happens when technology becomes so smart it is smarter than us? It is predicted that 50% of all jobs in 10 years time won’t exist. When a robot can be a better surgeon, stock manager, driver and pilot and Artificial Intelligence can do audits, create legal contracts and make better business decisions than we can, then the future is going to be a radically different place to today. And it is only 10 years away. If that.
How do we adapt to live in a world where the rate of technological change will be so drastic? Well if you are over 33 you will probably just have to roll with it. It’s going to be a crazy ride, so hang on. But what about our 10 year olds today? How do we prepare them for jobs that don’t currently exist?
Well we start today by ensuring every kid has access to the technology that will shape their futures, and give them the knowledge to understand it, shape it, control it, and invent it. Our 10 year olds today will in 10 years time be in a crazy new future we haven’t dreamt yet. Let’s give them every opportunity we can to do amazing things in that future.
It’s going to be a cool future, don’t get me wrong. I believe technology will be shaped for good, and our quality of life will increase exponentially. I steer away of the Terminator Skynet version of the future because I know that human nature is honest, just and caring and our kids will be full of ethics because we will teach it to them.
How do we do that? Well I co-founded a charity here in NZ to do just this. It is called OMG Tech! and it’s purpose is to inspire and educate kids, teachers and parents on how to invent the crazy good version of the future. With hover-boards, and robot doctors and food printers. We teach them how to understand systems, and logic, and coding, and design and data and ethics. But we do it in a fun and engaging way. We do this by teaching them how to program robots, and use 3D printers, fly drones, design in augmented reality, create chemistry experiments and heaps of other fun ways to let them dream and invent their future. What they learn is Science Technology Engineering and Math, STEM. We add an A for arts into STEM to make it STEAM, because the art is where the magic happens :) They become digital inventors.
The NZ government has recently announced it will start including STEM into the core curriculum at all levels of our schools in NZ. I think this is great and am behind them in this move 100%. Some don’t think it is enough and is too late. The education system is one of the areas of our kids life that is going to go through rapid change, but you can’t do it over night. The goal is to introduce STEM into the curriculum by 2018. We think that is a great positive start and we can help do that in a way that goes one step further. We don’t just teach kids how to code, we teach them how to apply blended STEM and digital skills across all subjects. It’s not enough to teach a kid how to write in a programming language, or design a database. Databases may not exist as we know them in 10 years. We need to teach kids how to apply a mix of fundamentals, how devices work and talk to each other, data constructs, analytical thinking, working in teams to solve problems and collaborate, put some creativity in there with art and design and then encourage lateral thinking and finally a solid sense of ethics. They can then solve math, english, history, science and technology problems with a better digital toolset.
We need to change how we teach to equip kids with skills to rapidly adapt to a rapidly changing future. We are committed to help with the challenge of creating the future digital workforce in New Zealand. We approach this with a start-up mentality, we just have one mission, to introduce every kid in NZ to the future and enable them to have a career in it. We will do whatever it takes to get us there.
We also focus on the positive, and the future is going to be really positive and full of amazing New Zealanders inventing it. We want to focus on that.
Let’s start building the next generation of digital kids who can be a part of shaping their future. Flying cars and all.