Tom Raftery's Weekly Tech for Good Newsletter - Issue #24

Ok, I have some really excellent stories for you this week, plus pointers to my most recent podcasts, livestreams, and the latest download stats for the two podcasts. The Climate 21 podcast in particular is growing quickly, despite having only commenced in December. My sincere thanks to all who are subscribed

Anyway, onto this week's stories...

Tech for Good stories of the week

Mars: Nasa's Perseverance rover sends stunning images — www.bbc.com

In last week's newsletter I linked to the video of the Perseverance rover touching down on Mars. This week we have some of the stunning images the rover has transmitted back to earth from around its landing site, Jezero Crater, a 49km (30-mile) wide impact depression just north of the Red Planet's equator. Amazing!

World's first space HOTEL to begin construction in low Earth orbit in 2025 | Daily Mail Online — www.dailymail.co.uk

Speaking of space, the Daily Mail (I know, take this one with a large bucket of salt!) has a story about the proposed development of a large hotel in space. Will it happen in the timelines outlined in the article? Highly unlikely. Will it happen at some point? That is another question entirely, and some of what is hypothesised in the article is very likely to transpire. Would you go? I know, I'd be on the next rocket, if I could

"No future" for ICE: Volvo will sell only pure electric cars by 2030 — thedriven.io

Volvo has joined a growing number of carmakers to embrace all-electric transition, announcing that it will sell only fully-electric cars by 2030. Other car makers who have similar committments include Jaguar, Porsche, Ford (Europe), Audi, GM, and Bentley. Given that most car makers are making this transition, if you were in the market for a new car now, why would you go for an internal combustion engine one when its resale value in a couple of years will collapse?

Tesla's New FSD Subscription Service Coming In Q2, + Updates From Elon Musk On FSD Development & Rollout — cleantechnica.com

Tesla are going to release their Full Self Driving software as a paid update, or as a subscription service (no details of the subscription price yet) - but the point to take away here is that similar to Apple with the iPhone, Tesla have realised that their hardware is a platform from which to sell software. This is something I call the iPhonification of Automotive and so far Tesla are the only car manufacturer in a position to do this. Watch who the fast followers will be...

Electric car batteries need far less raw materials than fossil-fuel cars - study | Transport & Environment — www.transportenvironment.org

We've known intuitively for quite a while that EVs are more sustainable than internal combustion engined vehicles, but the fossil fuel supporting brigade are quick to throw up all kinds of objections - "but what about the resource requirements of EVs?" is a common one. A new comprehensive full lifecycle analysis study released shows an electric vehicle (EV) battery uses up just 30kg of raw materials with recycling compared to the 17,000 litres of petrol burned by the average car

First vaccine to fully immunize against malaria builds on pandemic-driven RNA tech - The Academic Times — academictimes.com

This could be hugely significant - building on the research into mRNA vaccines for Covid, a new type of vaccine technology based on self amplifying RNA (saRNA) may be able to immunise people against malaria. Trials in mice have had very encouraging results, and it is due to be tested on humans later this year.

Bendable concrete and other CO2-infused cement mixes could dramatically cut global emissions — theconversation.com

I love this article because it talks about a new formulation for concrete which requires less reinforcing steel, is stronger, and sequesters CO2 as part of its making! I will be interviewing Prof Volker Sick, lead researcher in this project in an upcoming episode of the Climate 21 podcast - something too look forward to!

How one of Google’s massive undersea cables detects earthquakes - The Verge — www.theverge.com Submarine telecommunications cables could one day serve as a massive network of seismic sensors. New research shows that one of Google’s fiber optic cables successfully detected earthquakes without needing to add additional infrastructure. One day, the new approach might be used as an early warning system for tsunamis.

DJI FPV - Redefine Flying - DJI — www.dji.com

Finally, I came across this yesterday, and it blew me away. No exaggeration. It is a new drone from DJI called DJI FPV (where FPV stands for First Person View). The drone comes with a visor, 4k 60FPS video, and a low latency connection, so as you look through the visor, you appear to be flying. Words cannot describe it. Check out the video on the DJI page above. It really is superlative (the best word to use when all other superlatives feel inadequate!)

Digital Supply Chain (DSC) podcast

On the DSC podcast this week I talked to

• Mark Stanton the General Manager of PowerFleet's supply chain business and we had a great chat about how the big shift to online ordering and e-commerce has impacted the warehouse and logistics industries, and how they are responding. You can check out that episode here

• Then Monday of this week I invited Deloitte's Subit Mathew to come on the podcast. Subit is a Managing Director in Deloitte’s Enterprise Performance Consulting Practice and as such manages Deloitte's cold chain solutions. You can listen in on our discussion around the latest cold chain technologies here

Climate 21 podcast

On the Climate 21 podcast this week I talked to

• IBM's Jacob Dencik. Jacob is the Economic Research Leader at IBM's Institute for Business Value .and we had an excellent discussion on the role of (big) data in environmental sustainability. Check out our conversation 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 regular weekly Tech for Good - live show yesterday, and as ever this week's show went really well. The stories were engaging, there was lots of audience participation and a number of times viewers were able to help us answer questions (what does EPD stand for, for example!). You can check out the replay here

• And today, March 3rd I will be hosting an SAP livestream on the topic of Manufacturing as a critical component of resilient, sustainable supply chains with my colleague Mike Lackey. This is the third of a series of five we're running and the last two have been amazing - each has had between 2.5-3k views and hundreds of comments. The engagement levels are off the charts which makes them great fun to host. The livestream will be at 5pm CET, 11am ET, 8am PT on March 3rd and you can join it here - if you click that link now you can set a reminder to notify you when the livestream commences. This link will also work after the livestream to catch the replay if you can't join in live (or if you just want to watch us again 😆)

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