Car sharing with city parking

How car-sharing is already helping cities with their transit issues

July 19

 

WASHINGTON

There's a promising fix for any city with transportation issues -- and car ownership has nothing to do with it.

A new study found that cities that turn to a flexible type of car-sharing stand to benefit from less pollution, less traffic and more parking.

Researchers at the University of California-Berkeley's Transportation Sustainability Research Center focused on the impact of car2go, which is different from car services like Zipcar and GM's (GM) Maven. With car2go, drivers paying a one-time $35 membership fee and can rent a vehicle parked on a nearby public street and leave it elsewhere in the city. There's no need to reserve a vehicle ahead of time, or return it to a designated parking lot. Car2go strikes deals with local governments so that its cars can be parked in public spots.

A call for retraining

new technology and robotics is not a death knell for workers but it is a clarion call for re-training and continuing education. Innovation creates efficiency and new products/services and concomitant new work. There will always be a cohort that has trouble making the transition and we need safety nets for that.

 

Vint Cerf

Doing vs Being

This conversation of Automation - and the worry that innovation and automation is detrimental to the human race does not sit well with me! Something needs to change!!!

is it bad to automate processes that could potentially replace millions of jobs as we know it? Is it bad to reward people in a different way? 

Doing vs being

We are not human doings , we are human beings!

If robots AI and technology are taking jobs, because they can do things faster - this can only be a good thing - it gives the humans more time to be.

Being shouldn't be about randomly doing for wage. It should be about doing to add value to your fellow human being and your environment.

Human beings ( and indeed many other species) have thrived over the centuries and millennia by being in tribes ( or communities) , and creating structure, usually being governed by a strong leader. 

The tribe has developed by working as a team - with the leader allocating functions for survival and growth. 

The way this has been done in the last Millenia is through Economics. 

A system of exchange, giving the human a reward for doing (providing a service or a product ) , so they can be, using "fun vouchers" (money) as a common currency.

As humans have evolved and innovated, they have developed tools, that can do the doing, so they can get more fun vouchers, so they can do more being.

So, if a tribes doing has been automated, enabling their tribe to do more being, giving them  more fun vouchers, enabling them to be rather than do - how can this be a bad thing? 

Humans need a sense of usefulness that has in the last few hundred years been supplied by jobs - but why does adding value and feeling useful have to be related to earning fun vouchers ? 

It's all about lifelong learning

From the legendary Heather Macgowan

The end state of being “educated” is no longer enough. The future of work is learning agility, learning must be part of work

The future is arriving

From 14j contributor Herman Gyr:-

I just returned from Switzerland where I got to be part of history --- very much related to this thread's topics. The Swiss Postal Service's PostAuto inaugurated the world's first autonomous public transportation service in the city of Sion, Switzerland. It was a great honor and treat for me to be invited to this special event, and to get to ride this remarkable vehicle. This project represents the culmination of great vision, committed leadership and extraordinary collaboration among a wide range of interests and capabilities (the Post, the City of Sion, EPFL, politicians, regulators, start-ups). Truly inspiring! Check out the video: https://www.bluewin.ch/de/news/wirtschaft---boerse/2016/6/23/in-sitten-rollen-ab-sofort-autonome-busse-durch-di.html Yep, that's me sitting on the thing at 0:10 to 0:16. 

As part of a strategic blueprinting session in 2013 with PostAuto (the largest bus service in Switzerland) I had offered the following provocative mock-up to stimulate considerations about potential participation in the autonomous mobility space. They decided to go for it, and came up with what's shown on bottom. It's coming fast now --- in fact, it's already here!

Tune in:- Conversation on Automation

Whitehouse Simine Leiro is speaking to i4j member Robin Chase on Automation and is calling for questions to be answered 

Summary: 

Wondering how driverless cars or chatbot lawyers will change the ways we work and live? Join us for a LIVE White House Conversation on automation.

You’ve seen photos of self-driving cars zooming down California highways and read about lawyers that are actually chatbots. These are some of our first encounters with automation and artificial intelligence (AI). And if you’re wondering how these types of technology will change the ways we work and live, you’re not alone.

There's no shortage of predictions. Depending on who's talking, it will be the source of tremendous opportunity or a challenge to even our most basic institutions. In any event, it's no longer just the stuff of science fiction. Our growing reliance on automation implies some big public policy questions. Some that we're already grappling with, and others we'll need to tackle in the coming years.

On Tuesday, July 5, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough will host a conversation with Robin Chase, transportation entrepreneur and author, and Martin Ford, author and futurist, to help shed some light on these issues. They’ll discuss and debate the nuanced aspects of automation, from what it means for jobs to laws to how we spend our days.

In addition to the White House Facebook page, you can watch this conversation LIVE on Business Insider’s and Futurism’s pages, on Tuesday at 1:15PM EDT. You can also get ready for the conversation by checking out more information about automation from Futurism. 

Have a question about automation that you’d like to hear in the conversation? You can join the discussion by submitting your question below.

WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW ABOUT AUTOMATION? *

* Required Field

Simone Leiro

Assistant Director for Online Engagement

GES 2016 takeouts

Jeff Hoffman on outcomes of GES 2016

I'll add my two cents as well.  I judged the international pitch competition for GIST (the State Department program for Global Innovation through Science and Technology) at GES and also did several days of mentoring with the international entrepreneurs for GES+ and for GEN (Global Entrepreneurship Network) where I serve as a board member.  We had entrepreneurs from 140 countries compete for cash in a pitch competition, and I worked with around 30 of those countries personally.  

My key takeaways are these:

1.  The democracy of information (i.e. the internet) is enabling new entrepreneurs from emerging nations to launch companies and create impact in ways they never could before because they DIDN'T KNOW HOW.  With tools like Coursera, TED talks, SlideShare, and so many others, they are learning how to launch and compete.  This is great news for the whole planet.

2.  Despite the fact that we held GES in Silicon Valley and all of the big keynote speakers were internet company CEOs, the focus on important offline innovation in such areas as agriculture, medicine, home building, drinking water, and more was exciting to see this year.  We have to teach people that the word "entrepreneurs" simply means "problem solver", not "website or app developer".

3.  The key to success for global entrepreneurship is CONNECTIVITY.  These people need help, and building networks of people to connect to each other and help each other is more important than it has ever been.  We can all be part of this solution.

Thanks,

Jeff

On Wed, Jun 29, 2016 at 12:52 PM, Robert Cohen <bcohen@bway.net> wrote:

Jeff,

 

I agree with you on your optimism. I find your comments are enormously interesting. These advances might have a far more positive impact on economic development than many expect.

 

Jeff

I would love to get them to interact with I4J.  The media is missing this "movement" because they only cover the big, Silicon Valley funded startups and sexy tech companies.  They don't get down in the dirt where the action is, which is where I have spent the last three years.

Maybe we get a globally diverse small group of these entrepreneurs on a Zoom chat or Google Hangout where we can hear their thoughts, ask what they need, and have a live Q&A?

Might there be a way to help these people interact with I4J?

 

Perhaps Philip and Byron could add some of their reaction to the GES.

 

Bob