Technology
Into the unknown
UK-BASED SPEAKER BUREAU SPEAKERS CORNER SHOWCASED THREE OF ITS CONFERENCE KEYNOTES
AT LONDON’S THE BREWERY, COVERING BIONICS, BRANDS AND AMBIENT COMPUTING
“We’re trying to change the cultural
tide of what it means to have a
disability. We’re trying to turn
disabilities into superpowers.”
Samantha Payne, CEO of Open
Bionics, is explaining how her
company brings affordable and
customisable prosthetics to people
around the world – particularly
children. She is delivering one of three
keynotes as part of a Speakers Corner
showcase in London’s The Brewery, on
the subject ‘The Incredible Power of
Technology Brought to Life.’
“We ran amputee workshops with
children, and asked them to design
their own bionic limbs,” says Payne.
“The amazing thing is that these kids
are not constrained by what they think
is possible – they designed hands with
USB sticks in the fingers, or
smartphones embedded into the palms.
Their designs said a lot about them as
a person, and nothing about their
disability.”
Payne and her company took this
principle forward into the design of
their product, which uses 3D printing
to bring down costs. Open Bionics’
Hero Arm costs £150 (US$192.3) in
the UK, and is available free on
government health plans in France.
The company also exports to the US
and Ireland, but keeps all of its
manufacturing in its Bristol, UK base.
The second keynote came from
James Poulter, CEO of Vixen Labs, a
design studio and consultancy which
helps brands utilise the power of the
voice. “Voice is the new interface for
consuming the internet,” says Poulter.
He points towards the massive uptake
of voice-powered devices such as
Amazon’s Alexa in recent years.
Poulter says we are entering a new
age of ‘ambient computing’, where
technology will be ubiquitous but also
unobtrusive. “It’s important that we
speak nicely to our computers in the
years to come. Our children, who have
grown up not knowing life without the
internet, might not know whether
they’re talking to a human or a robot.”
This theme of interacting with
technology carried into the final
keynote. Rachel Botsman investigated
our relationships with big brands, and
suggested we are using an outdated
definition of ‘trust’ when we talk about
Facebook, Amazon, Google and so on.
“In our daily lives”, says Botsman, “we
can put our trust in capability, but also
in character. That is, we might trust
Amazon to deliver our package on
time, but not to use our data ethically.
“For all companies, trust is the
currency of interaction. We don’t often
enough ask ourselves: do our customers
trust us? Do they just trust our
capability, or our character? It’s an
important distinction to make when we
ask people to take a leap into the
unknown.”
We don’t
ask ourselves:
often enough
do our
customers
trust us?
Do they just
trust our
capability,
or our
character?”
ISSUE 105
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CONFERENCE & MEETINGS WORLD
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