Tom Raftery's Weekly Tech for Good Newsletter - Issue #22

Welcome to another edition of my Wednesday newsletter, as I attempt to get you through Humpday, and heading into the weekend in fine fettle

Some interesting stories this week... read on

Tech for Good stories of the week

There were plenty of good news stories from the world of tech this week - many of which we covered in the Tech for Good weekly livestream yesterday (you can catch the replay here).

And this week's stories -

Oil firms should disclose carbon output, says BlackRock

BlackRock, the world’s biggest investor, has said that oil companies and other polluting industries should disclose their carbon emissions and set targets to cut them, in the latest sign of the rapid reassessment of climate risks by asset managers. The investment world continues to pressure companies to report on their emissions - this is excellent news because money is an enormous lever, and this raises the topic to board level.

Covid-19: Vaccine as good in 'real world' as in trial in Israel — www.bbc.com More data from Israel's vaccination programme is suggesting the Pfizer jab prevents 94% of symptomatic infections. This indicates the vaccine is performing just as well in a larger population as it did in the clinical trials.

JLR to make Jaguar brand electric-only by 2025

Jaguar Land Rover, the UK-based carmaker, will make its Jaguar brand electric-only by 2025 as part of a set of sweeping changes brought in by its new chief executive. In a continuing sign that personal transportation is going electric, Jaguar Land Rover has said that all new Jaguars from 2025 onwards will be electric only. At least part of this decision may be down to the fact that EVs have far fewer components, and if they're being built in the UK, access to parts may be trickier in a post-Brexit world.

Mobileye Puts Lidar on a Chip—and Helps Map Intel's Future — www.wired.com

The future of autonomous driving took a big step forward when Intel's wholly owned Mobileye announced that they have managed to put a Lidar on a chip and it will sell for hundreds of dollars. This is an incredible achievement that will leapfrog the move to AVs. The recent past has not been especially kind to Intel. The chip giant has been hamstrung by manufacturing delays, remonstrated by activist investors, and beset by competition from familiar rivals like AMD as well as from Apple, whose M1 processor is an unabashed powerhouse.

NASA Mars rover promises blazing entrance after China, UAE make it to Mars orbit — www.teslarati.com

And finally, this month is a big one for mankind's missions to Mars - 3 probes arrive there from earth. The one from the United Arab Emirates, and the one from China arrived last week and are now in orbit around Mars. Tomorrow (February 18th), NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance mission will arrive and touchdown (hopefully!) on the planet. Beginning around 11:15 am PST (19:15 UTC) on Thursday, February 18th, NASA will provide live coverage of Perseverance’s landing attempt. The agency will carry the coverage on NASA TV and its website, as well as a number of other platforms including YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, Twitch, and more

Digital Supply Chain (DSC) podcast

On the DSC podcast this week I talked to

• SAP's David Vallejo - David is the Global Head of Digital Business Planning at SAP, so I thought it would be good to have him here on the podcast to have a chat about Supply Chain planning, how covid has changed organisation's planning practices, some of the technologies impacting planning, and where to from here with planning in a post-covid world - you can check out that episode here

• Then Monday of this week I had Jacob Shapiro (founder and Chief Strategist at Perch Perspectives, as well as the host of the Perch Pod podcast ) back on the podcast to talk about global volatility, both geopolitical, and climactic, the relationship between the two, and the implications of this. It was an excellent conversation and you can listen in here

Climate 21 podcast

On my Climate 21 podcast this week I changed things up slightly (as a reminder, the Climate 21 podcast goes out every Wednesday morning at 6am CET)

• In this week's episode of the Climate 21 podcast I re-published the interview I did with Jacob Shapiro for the DSC podcast. However in the DSC podcast I edited out some of the more climate relevant chat, and in this Climate 21 episode, I edited out some of the supply chain specific info so that it was far more climate related. You can check it out here

Livestreams

This is another week of two livestreams - my own Tech for Good one, and the SAP Design to Operate: Live series.

• I put out my weekly Tuesday Tech for Good - live show yesterday, and this week's show went really well. The stories were engaging, there was lots of audience participation and 80 comments left by viewers live . You can check out the replay here

• And today (Feb 17th) I'm going live with the SAP Design to Operate: Live livestream (at 5pm CET, 11am ET, 8am PT). This week's stream if focussed on Planning, so my guest will be David Vallejo. If you caught him on my podcast last week and had any follow-up questions, this would be the perfect opportunity to put them to him live (!). Join us on the livestream - it'll be fun. If you can't make it, this link will also allow you to catch the replay subsequently

And finally...

Thanks for your interest and attention. If you like this newsletter, tell a friend. Heck tell all your friends!

And, if you have any comments/questions/suggestions on how to make it better, feel free to let me know :)

Have a great rest of your week