Citizen Science has a very long history,   despite essentially being marginalised for nearly 150 years when research became a profession [Miller-Rushing, A., Primack, R., and Bonney, R. 2012. The history of public participation in ecological research. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 10(6):285-290].   However, there is some right in discussing contemporary citizen science as a new phenomenon, as its coming back has been heavily influenced by the web, and by our advanced understanding of statistics and system dynamics. In facts, most of the citizen science projects that have hit the headlines in the past decade all share something: they have assumed the character of massive crowdsourcing of problems, leveraging either contributed computing, or volunteered wisdom, by mean of the internet. There is more than meets the eye to this new wave of citizens participation in science, and value is generated and openly contributed in wa

You want to know the whole story? see below for details to view the recording Summary Human echolocation is a phenomenon in some visually impaired individuals, whereby they are able to navigate  their environment with surprising skill using their sense of hearing. Typically they produce “probe sounds”,  flicking their fingers or tongue, and listen for the return (echo).  So far only very few gifted individuals have developed this capability, through years of intensive and dedicated training. This is where we meet   Henrik D. Kjeldsen , a brilliant young scientist sponsored by the Scimpulse Foundation, who has envisioned a way to make this capability technically available to anyone.  The project intends to design a mobile acoustic holographic vision system that will allow its users  to recognise objects in real-world environments and scenarios, and enable informed responses  in terms of real-time navigation and action.  Y

This story comes from Let me see! ... the Prototype (part 2 of 3) Let's think about solutions.  Now that you had the experience of a prototype scenario where the machine helps the blind, imagine that you have one single chance to give this person one gift ... ... one specific solution or power that can give them some glimpse of vision, a touch of the reality around them. You have all the power in the universe to make it happen right here, unlimited by resources, budget or time (besides of course, restoring the eye sight)  What would that gift be? Solutions start coming up, one by one, shaping multiple views and ideas ... from the head mounted visor with a manual remote control ending all the opposite way to the abstract but clear "anti-bullshit machine" ... ... and then, to trigger the ultimate divergence: merge them all ! The exercise ends with the realization that too many solutions may be too much for one person to handle, a ver

CBi is the latest iteration of an evolving experiment at CERN in Geneva. The CBi acronym stands for "Challenge Based innovation", and the experiment pulls in students from several countries and multiple disciplines.  The Scimpulse Foundation collaborates with CERN since 2013 and in this occasion we facilitate a concept design workshop. It's a sunny September morning in Mayrin, the outskirts of Geneva, right on the side of the ATLAS experiment building there is a new shell enclosure where a bunch of students practice and learn about innovation. Dr. Marco Manca is the coach of the team and he wants to make sure that they come out of the experience with a new mindset. That is where we come into play, literally. The challenge is to design   something   that may enable blind people to perceive the surrounding environment; maybe some type of augmented sensory device. We use the LEGO Serious Play* method combined with a bit of acted scenario, getting the group into a d

This story comes from Let me see! ... what is Vision? (part 1 of 3) Contrary to what most people believe, the most difficult part of design is not to ideate something that can "do" something, but to understand the real need of the end user. Missing the user satisfaction factor can make the difference between a successful design and a pile of garbage. We have a few curious spectators in the room, people who heard about the event and coaches of other teams, so I take the opportunity to involve them the next exercise: they have to build a model from the point of view of the blind person guided by a machine, in other words playing a prototype scenario: the blind and the machine. The Prototype at play: The Heisenberg team members blindfold themselves. The other participants play the machine.  The machines stands behind or beside each blindfolded person, to give them instructions. The blind cannot speak and the machine cannot use the hands.