of the changes he proposed included finding better ways for freelancers to obtain benefits through a gig. That could include an insurance expense pool employers contribute towards in relation to the amount of work done for them.
In any case, putting together a team of rock stars is important for innovation, but understanding the effects of what is created is also important.
“Technology is not enough,” said Nathaniel Raymond, director of the signal program on human security and technology at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. He discussed the importance, and implications, of using technology to capture proof of violent acts around the world. In 2010, George Clooney asked Raymond’s team to help design and operate a hi-res satellite surveillance program to detect and document threats to civilians in real-time in South Sudan and Sudan.
The collective effort, with other partners, came to be known as the Satellite Sentinel Project, which the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative was part of through 2012. The system was able to detect attacks about to be launched against communities, Raymond said, as well as document the destruction and looting of humanitarian facilities. “We were able to collect evidence of the intentional creation of mass graves.”
The Satellite Sentinel Project brought new implications, though—such as what effect satellites might have on the security of the civilians they sought to assist. “We don’t know how they may be changing the behavior of armed actors,” Raymond said.
Founded in 2012, the Signal Program on Human Security and Technology was created to give folks working with this type of technology a set of ethics and rules to follow, he said.
Fashion tech is another area of innovation trying to find its way, said Amanda Parkes, chief of technology and research at Manufacture New York, and it may be facing a bit of a dilemma between form and function.
Manufacture New York is a fashion incubator, innovation lab, and manufacturing facility in Brooklyn, and Parkes has been working on designs for the future of fashion and wearable technology. Examples of companies at the incubator include Thesis Couture, which is redesigning the high heel from the inside out, and Dropel Fabrics, whose hydrophobic nanotech for natural fibers would make red wine roll off white linen.
Smartwatches and fitness trackers are devices strapped to the body, Parkes said, but they do not necessarily speak in the language of fashion. Those devices may let you measure your body and track activity, but that functionality is only part of the equation.
“Motion is the killer app,” she said. “Motion is what drives us to wear and create what we love.” Parkes said wearables should aim for helping their diverse users reflect their identities. “Your style is your visual interface with the rest of the world,” she said.
There are some wearables that can fit individual styles. Parkes said she worked with the founder of Ringly, a smart ring that notifies wearers of incoming messages on their smartphones, on its first prototype. Even with wearables as jewelry, they are starting to compete for space on people’s bodies, Parkes said.
She wants to see fashion tech that is seemingly invisible, or literally vanish. For instance, she proposed the possibility of creating garments that dissolve at the end of a season and make room for new apparel.
Some of the inspiration was drawn from a robotic fabrication method for 3D prints that dissolve in water, she said, developed by researchers at MIT’s Mediated Matter group. There are also silk and magnesium circuits, from researcher John Rogers at the University of Illinois, which dissolve inside the body. “Why can’t fast fashion work like Snapchat?” she asked.
Parkes previously worked with researchers at Princeton University on the development of fiber batteries, which would replenish the full power of the battery with each washing. She believes that kind of use of material may transform how wearables are designed. “When you begin with things like fiber batteries, you could have a truly integrated garment with invisible functionality,” she said.
