Problem - Solution - Impact

The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California, has a project: The Tech Awards, described as "an international awards program that honors innovators from around the world who are applying technology to benefit humanity."

What is particularly interesting about the innovations awarded is that the format of information is problem-solution-impact. This is how I have my students focus not only on the respective merits of innovations in their field, but also something to consider in their own projects - including the one they choose for their bachelor thesis.

Innovations are most useful when they solve a real-life problem and have a beneficial impact on the most people. The criteria to be met for The Tech Awards are:

• The project addresses a problem that is well defined and globally significant and uses innovative technology in one of five categories: Environment, Education, Young Innovator (born in 1988 or later), Health, or Economic Development.
• The technology and application are ground-breaking and stand out from existing solutions.
• The innovation is being used in the field and is measurably impactful.
• The organization's annual budget must be less than US$50 million.
• The technology application is in the field and has demonstrated a measurable benefit.

The Tech Awards website: http://thetechawards.thetech.org/

The categories and the 2014 awards:

Intel Environment Award

• Inventive Power*
• Source International

Microsoft Education Award

• Gooru
• Worldreader

Katherine M. Swanson Young Innovator Award

• Nanoly
• PAK-Energy Solution

Nokia Health Award

• Gradian Health Systems
• Operation ASHA

Flextronics Economic Development Award

• myAgro
• Sanergy

The website has information about each winning innovation, and each has an accompanying video (many in a language other than English, but with English subtitles).

*An example of the problem-solution-impact format from the website: Inventive Power (video is 2:21 - in Spanish with English subtitles):

Problem: Many industries need thermal energy provided by hot water or steam for their processes. Natural gas is the most common fuel source for generating industrial thermal energy, but many Latin American countries don't have widespread natural gas distribution systems. Both natural gas and a common alternative, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), are fossil fuels whose combustion generates CO2, contributing to global climate change.

Solution: Inventive Power stripped down the parabolic trough solar thermal energy collector design used to generate high temperature steam for electrical power production. Their streamlined system is smaller and lighter, but generates water and steam temperatures of 180-400°F, which is more than adequate for most industrial thermal processes. The system can fit on the roof of most industrial facilities, and reduces fossil fuel consumption by up to 80%.

Impact: Inventive Power systems have been installed at numerous sites throughout Mexico. For the average customer, an installed system will reduce LPG consumption by more than 50,000 tons over the next 5 years - saving millions of dollars - and reduce CO2 emissions by over 130,000 tons over the same period.

This is certainly a good format for students to use when writing a text - or giving a presentation - that analyzes innovations. And there are many more good models on The Tech Awards website.

101 Science website

From the website's home page

Described as an "internet science portal to more than 20,000 science web pages," 101 Science is a free website focused on students -- but the material is of course very useful for teachers as well.

http://www.101science.com/



More than 30 subject headings listed include:

• astronomy
• biology
• earth
• electronics
• ethics
• geology
• nano technology
• robots
• scientific method
• space
• terminology
• transistor

Clicking one of the subject headings brings you to an explanation of the topic and links to a range of information, activities, experiments for students to try, and articles.

For example, in "robots" there are activities listed for beginning, intermediate, and advanced level knowledge of robotics, articles about many aspects of robotics, and links to further information about the electronics related to the field of robotics.

There is so much information here that it would be impossible to describe it all in this post -- but teachers of ESP in any scientifically related area would certainly find something here that's useful for students.

Consumer Electronics Show 2015

The International Consumer Electronics Show is a global consumer electronics and consumer technology tradeshow that takes place every January in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. This year it was from 6-9 January.

The CES link: http://www.cesweb.org/

The show is described as "the ultimate recognition for the design and engineering of consumer technology products. Since 1976, this prestigious program has honored today's ground-breaking technology. The awards span 28 product categories and cover the most influential and innovative fields in the industry, from smart home to wearable technologies. Entries are evaluated on their engineering and design qualities: aesthetics, functionality and uniqueness."

The Product Categories are:

• 3D printing
• Accessories
• Audio
• Automotive electronics
• Communications infrastructure
• Computer hardware/software/services
• Content creation & distribution
• Digital imaging/photography
• Electronic gaming
• Fitness and sports
• Health and biotech
• Internet services
• Online media
• Robotics
• Sensors
• Smart home
• Startups
• Video
• Wearables
• Wireless devices / services

The CES website has a review of each of the winning awards, many with a short video. But the background music is a bit distracting. There are short (1-2 sentence) descriptions of the honorees in each category.

The website Tech Crunch has more information on the entries. The descriptions are texts of 1-2 paragraphs, and many descriptions have a video of a few minutes' length.

Tech Crunch: http://techcrunch.com/events/ces-2015/event-home/

Gizmag also has a report of the innovations: http://www.gizmag.com/best-ces-products-2015/35592/

The CES site also has a list of other news coverage: http://www.cesweb.org/News/CES-In-The-News

There are, of course, a variety of activities that could be done with engineering students. For example:

1) Students individually, in pairs, or in small groups can choose an innovation and prepare a short description for the rest of the class.
 2) A class or small group negotiation could be set up. Students can imagine that they are in a meeting to propose a new innovation for the group to invest in. Each pair or small group can choose an innovation and in the negotiation with the other pairs/groups, can try to convince the group that their innovation should be chosen for the investment.

3) A similar set-up as in 2 can be done for sales pitches. Students choose an innovation and try to "sell" it to the rest of the group. Or they can decide which kind of audience they would sell it to, and try out that pitch for the rest of the group.

4) Students can look through the list of websites given above for information about the innovations presented, and rank them according to various criteria. They could focus on the criteria used by the competition judges (engineering and design qualities: aesthetics, functionality and uniqueness) or any other type of criteria, such as:

• most useful
• most innovative
• most technologically inspiring
• most usable by most people
• most profitable
• etc.

An interesting alternative is to focus on the "worst" of the show. The following website has chosen the entries it thinks are the worst, and explains why. Students can do the same, and then compare their answers.
http://www.zdnet.com/pictures/ces-2015-meet-this-years-worst-tech-devices-gadgets/

Answers to what "You Asked"

Time magazine online has a weekly feature (every Wednesday) that started at the beginning of July 2014. It's called "You Asked: ..." followed by a question, and the short article answers the question.

I first became aware of this column through finding material on ESP topics as model texts for students' technical description essays and presentations. But the topics include not only questions about the latest technology, but also about health, nutrition and exercise.

The link: http://time.com/topic/you-asked/

The topics I'm focusing on are -

You Asked:

• How do virtual reality headsets work?
• How do driverless cars work?
• What is Yik Yak?
• How does the internet work?
• What is Venmo?
• What are podcasts?
• Do brain games really improve memory?
• Can computers really ruin my eyes?

Some articles have accompanying videos, but not all. For example, "How do driverless cars work?" has a video (1:20) of a news report about recent developments. The texts themselves are not too long, and are written simply enough for students at intermediate level and above.

This material is very useful for showing students how to explain technology and technological innovations to non-experts -- for example, people outside of their own field of study. Being aware of how to communicate with non-technical audiences will be essential for our students in their future careers.

For my students studying Information Technology and Telecommunications, I will use "What is Venmo?" For those of you who are not familiar with this (I wasn't), it's explained as, "a way to send money from person to person through the web."

I would first ask students to work in pairs or small groups to write a short explanation of what it is to me (a non-technical audience). Then we can compare answers to see which ones are the clearest and/or the most accurate.Which information should be included, and what can be left out? How can it be explained most clearly?

Then, after students read the text (in class or for homework), we will compare their answers with the text, and see what they have in common and what the differences are.

Since my students' curriculum includes giving presentations in which they must explain concepts to a variety of audiences, this seems like it will be very good practice.