Tom Raftery's Weekly Tech for Good Newsletter - Issue #28

Aaaand we're back.... Welcome to another edition of my weekly Wednesday newsletterI was on vacation last week, so if you wondered why no newsletter last week, now you know why. We're on lockdown here in Spain, so it was a quiet week off at home doing DIY mostly, and a little drone flying, but little else. Such are the times we're in right now, but hey, it's temporary. And it could be a lot worse so, onwards and upwards...

April 07, 2021

Aaaand we're back.... Welcome to another edition of my weekly Wednesday newsletter

I was on vacation last week, so if you wondered why no newsletter last week, now you know why. We're on lockdown here in Spain, so it was a quiet week off at home doing DIY mostly, and a little drone flying, but little else. Such are the times we're in right now, but hey, it's temporary. And it could be a lot worse so, onwards and upwards...

Tech for Good stories of the week

NASA is prepping the Ingenuity helicopter for its first flight on Mars. The flight is scheduled to take place this coming Sunday 11th, and data/images from the flight should make its way to earth on the 12th, so 🤞🏻 for a safe first flight on another planet

I'm not a huge follower of motorsports but the highlight of my 2019 was being invited to attend the finale of the Formula E season in New York. Regular readers may have figured out by now that I am a fan of electric cars (!) so, getting up close and seeing those fully electric race cars tearing around the track was an experience I'll never forget

And the organisers of Formula E have started e new motor sport called Extreme E. This is electric car racing in the most extreme of environments to highlight how those environments are being impacted by climate change. It is a highly sustainable motorsport, similar to Formula E, and the teams are 50:50 male:female which gives an incredible boost to young girls who might wonder about the possibilities of a career in racing. The first round of the Extreme E season took place last weekend in the Saudi desert, and the videos of the races are absolutely stunning

In case you want to see for yourself... here's the Extreme E YouTube channel

Warning - I cannot be held responsible for time lost if you click on this link 😉

Sticking with EVs for a sec more... Volkswagen has confirmed that it will switch all of its new electric vehicles to support bidirectional charging starting next year. This could have huge implications for electricity grids stability and consequently significantly boost the ability to add renewables to the generation mix

Speaking of adding renewables to the generation mix, a record of over 260GW of new renewable energy capacity was installed in 2020, despite the impact of Covid-19, according to new data from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). That is 50% up on 2019, and compares to 60GW of fossil fuel generation installed in 2020!

Seeing the shift away from fossil fuels to electric, BP has joined an initiative run by BMW Group and Daimler Mobility AG to increase the number of electric vehicle chargers available, and ease access to them

ABB has launched a drone based system for the detection of methane leaks. The system uses an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to detect, quantify, and map leaks “up to 300 ft from natural gas distribution and transmission pipelines, gathering lines, storage facilities, and other potential sources quickly, safely and reliably.” Given that methane is a greenhouse gas 25x more potent than CO2, this is an important development

As the father of a teenager with Type 1 diabetes, this one looks promising. Using nanomaterial layers to package insulin, researchers have developed a stable and effective method for administering the hormone orally to rats without subjecting it to destruction by stomach acids, solving a long-time problem in pharmaceutical science. Next up, human trials...

And a new article is reporting promising results from a Phase 1 human trial testing a vaccine designed to help a patient's immune system better target brain tumors. The data suggests the vaccine is safe and stimulates a significant immune response

Digital Supply Chain (DSC) podcast

On the Digital Supply Chain podcast this last week I invited

  • IBM's Global Director, Enterprise Weather Strategy Paul Walsh to come on the podcast to discuss ways we can use weather related data to our advantage in supply chains. Check out that episode here

  • Netclean's CEO Anna Borgström to come on the podcast. Netclean have technology to detect known child sexual abuse images on computer networks. This is a difficult topic, but given that 1 in 500 computers in the workplace is used to consume child sexual abuse material, I felt it important to have the conversation. You can check out that episode here

Climate 21 podcast

On the Climate 21 podcast this week the conversation turned to the carbon footprint of IT

Livestreams

My regular Tuesday Tech for Good went out yesterday

  • I put out my regular weekly Tech for Good - live show yesterday, and as ever this week's show went really well. We had lots of great stories (some of which you can see further up in this newsletter - but we went deeper into them in the livestream) and there was great audience participation as well. You can check out the replay here

  • And later today Wednesday April 7th I'm hosting the 5th and final of the Design to Operate: Live livestreams on LinkedIn Live. This episode is all about operations and connected assets, and specifically how connected assets are critical to a sustainable, resilient supply chain. I'll be talking to my colleague Patrick Crampton Thomas live on at 5pm CET, 11am ET, and 8am PT. Mark your calendars now and you can join us live, or catch the recording if you miss it live here

Wednesday whimsy

This woman, 82, dresses to the nines each Sunday for virtual church. Her selfies have become legendary — www.washingtonpost.com “I started hearing from people everywhere who said my photos made them smile,” said La Verne Ford Wimberly, 82.

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

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