Tom Raftery's Weekly Tech for Good Newsletter - Issue #30

It is Wednesday again. How did that happen?

I've some great stories for you this week in the world of tech for good. And we kick off with one of the biggest ones... Nasa has produced oxygen on Mars. This is an incredible achievement, which is to my mind even more important than getting their Ingenuity helicopter to fly there. Anyway, on to the stories...

Tech for Good stories of the week

Nasa's rover makes breathable oxygen on Mars — www.bbc.com

NASA continues its string of firsts on Mars - this time making oxygen on the red planet. This is a hugely important milestone for a couple of reasons: 1) humans will need oxygen to breathe on Mars and carrying it there from Earth is not a viable option, and 2) oxygen is also used to fuel rockets so, if it can be made on Mars future missions to Mars can make the fuel for their return trip there rather than carrying the fuel there from Earth

‘Insanely cheap energy’: how solar power continues to shock the world

The International Energy Agency now states unequivocally that solar power is the cheapest source of electricity ever, and the price of solar is falling year on year. Most people have not yet thought about the implications of living in a world of cheap abundant electricity

Move Over Turbos, Porsche CEO Says Tech Takes Strategic Priority — www.bloomberg.com

It seems like Porsche are waking up to the fact that cars are becoming computers (or as Marc Andreessen famously put it "software is eating the world") and if they want to succeed in this new world, they better prioritise making great tech

How much cheaper is it to drive an electric vehicle than an internal combustion engine one? — tomraftery.com "How much does it cost to drive an Electric Vehicle?" and "How much cheaper is it to drive an Electric Vehicle than a petrol/diesel car?" Those are two questions I get asked a lot and it's not as easy to answer as you might think. Why? Well, it depends on two main factors the price…

How Elon Musk is planning to put motor insurers out of business — thedriven.io High-tech car makers like Tesla are using reams of customer data to sell cheap bespoke insurance. Incumbent insurers may struggle to keep up.

Red Hat touts safety in future Linux OS for cars — venturebeat.com Red Hat is set to launch a new Linux-based operating system for road vehicles, with a focus squarely on safety and certification. 

Oxford malaria vaccine proves highly effective in Burkina Faso trial

Malaria kills over 400,000 people a year. A new vaccine developed by scientists at Jenner Institute, Oxford, shows up to 77% efficacy in trial over 12 months - this could have huge implications for quality of life for people in Africa

Digital Supply Chain (DSC) podcast

On the Digital Supply Chain podcast this last week I

• realised recently that many episodes of this podcast are very Europe/North America centric, so I set out to get a different perspective. I invited Dr Bashar Eljawhari a partner at PwC, and his colleague Haitham Khalifa, Director Enterprise Solutions at PwC Middle East to come on the podcast to discuss supply chains in their region, how they have fared in the last year, and why they have fared better than other regions. Check out that episode here

•  I try to cover as many aspects of the supply chain as possible on this podcast - everything from planning, engineering, manufacturing, warehousing logistics, delivery, but to-date I haven't featured anyone talking about field service management, so this episode finally fixes that! I invited Craig Blumberg to come on the podcast to talk about what is happening in field service management today, what the trends are, and where it is all going. Craig is the solution owner for Field Service Management and scheduling at SAP, so if anyone knows about field service it is going to be Craig. You can check out that episode here

Climate 21 podcast

On the Climate 21 podcast this week the conversation turned to the design, and how design can help reduce climate emissions

• On the Climate 21 Forums I created for discussions about this podcast a user called Siobhán commented that "I would love to hear how design can help in the fight against Climate Change..." When you think of design and sustainability one name stands out - William (Bill) McDonough. Bill is an internationally renowned architect, designer, and co-author of the book Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. I reached out to Bill and he graciously agreed to join me on the podcast. We had a fascinating conversation This is a phenomenal episode of the podcast. You should check it out (click here)

Wednesday whimsy

Google Argentina's domain name bought by man for £2 — www.bbc.com

A web designer in Argentina snapped up the Google domain for Argentina when it became available, and for a brief moment people browsing to Google.com.ar were directed to his site!

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