Co-founded by noted futurist Ray Kurzweil and X Prize CEO and chairman Peter Diamandis, Singularity University will begin offering a 10-week interdisciplinary course in exponentially growing technologies this summer.
(Credit: Singularity University)Starting this summer, some of the world's leading thinkers in exponentially growing technologies will be gathering annually at NASA Ames Research Center, in the heart of Silicon Valley, for 10 weeks of discussions on how to change the future. And you could join them.
The gatherings will be part of what is known as Singularity University, a brand-new academic institution co-founded by inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, X Prize chairman and CEO Peter Diamandis, and former Yahoo Brickhouse head Salim Ismail, and anyone can apply.
Singularity University is less a traditional university and more an institution that will feature intensive 10-week, 10-day, or 3-day programs examining a set of 10 technologies and disciplines, such as future studies and forecasting; biotechnology and bioinformatics; nanotechnology; AI, robotics, and cognitive computing; and finance and entrepreneurship.
The founders anticipate that students will come from all over the world, and they hope the program results in the founding of new companies, the evolution of scientific and technological thinking, and the solidifying of professional and personal networks among the highly-accomplished students and faculty.
To Kurzweil, Singularity University is a place to problem-solve and talk about the results of the most recent iterations of the exponentially growing technologies that have shaped modern life. Among them, he said, are vacuum tubes, integrated circuits, chips and microprocessors.
Now, he said, we are on the threshold of an explosion of the newest such technology, including 3D and self-organizing molecular circuits. And to Kurzweil, the ability to bring together the leaders in this wide range of fields is a rare opportunity to jump-start the future. (The program's name is based on the theories Kurzweil popularized in his best-selling book The Singularity is Near.)
For Diamandis, who previously co-founded the International Space University (a space studies program on which Singularity University will be modeled), the idea of building an interdisciplinary academic institution around the concepts of exponentially growing trends seemed natural--and powerful.
So, after bringing together 50 leading thinkers for a founding conference at NASA Ames, Kurzweil, Diamandis, and Ismail got the backing of Ames' director, Pete Worden, and a commitment of space at the center--a highly visual Silicon Valley landmark along highway 101--for the annual summer programs.
In addition to the core 10-week course, which will be open to graduate and post-graduate students, Singularity University will also offer 3-day and 10-day executive programs. The shorter version will be targeted at CEOs and CTOs, while the 10-day program will be aimed at rising-star executives who want to add to their knowledge and networks.
"These programs are there to give executives a look at what's in the lab today," said Diamandis, "and what is likely to hit the marketplace in the next 5 to 10 years."
This summer, Singularity University will kick off with just 30 or so students and will piggyback on the International Space University, which will host 120 students at NASA Ames. But in following years, the new institution is expected to expand to about 120 students, each of whom could be the next Larry Page or Sergey Brin.
"If we do our job correctly," Diamandis said, students "will meet, (discover their) common visions, and start companies together. They'll have a chance to match a nanotech expert from Russia with an AI expert from Silicon Valley and see what magic happens at the boundaries."
A stellar faculty
As evidence of how seriously many people in the fields of focus take Singularity University, it has pulled together what can only be described as a very impressive roster of faculty.
Among them are The Sims and Spore creator Will Wright; George Smoot, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics; Dan Kammen, co-director of the Berkeley Institute of the Environment and a member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change team that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore; Vint Cerf, Google's chief Internet evangelist; and Stephanie Langhoff, NASA Ames' chief scientist.
Befitting the serious nature of the program, its curriculum is not for the faint of heart. The first phase, said Diamandis, is a series of plenary lectures in which all students take the same coursework and learn together about each of the 10 disciplines.
"It's about learning the vocabulary" of the disciplines, Diamandis said, "the basic principles, so they can communicate better between themselves."
In the second phase, students will take deep dives into one of the 10 tracks, typically not one in which they already specialize, learning together in 10-person classes.
And in the final phase, the entire student body will come together to work on a team project.
"This is where the student body will focus as a group in taking on one of the world's grand challenges," said Diamandis, dealing "with global hunger, pandemics, climate change," or something similar.
And while the program's students can expect to work very hard and be deeply immersed in their studies, the faculty will be equally challenged.
"It caused all of us who were invited to be faculty to pause and think about it," said Paul Saffo, a Silicon Valley-based forecaster who is teaching in the Singularity University program. "We're expected to be there for the full nine weeks, which is a breathtaking commitment of time."
But for Saffo, who is helping to organize the future studies and forecasting track with Kurzweil, being intimately involved with the program at every level is precisely the point.
"The real benefit of teaching is being able to participate," Saffo said. "It would be a waste of time to just show up, give a couple of lectures, and leave."
And while their involvement at any level would bring Singularity University the prestige it needs to recruit talented students and faculty, both Kurzweil and Diamandis said they would be teaching each summer.
For Kurzweil, that means teaching some of the future studies and forecasting classes, and for Diamandis, it means helping to build the curriculum and teaching where he is needed.
The students, meanwhile, will need to pony up some serious money to take part in Singularity University. The base fee for the 10-week program is $25,000, though Diamandis said that there will be a significant number of full and partial scholarships available, funded by private companies, and other contributors.
Ultimately, the results of Singularity University won't be known for some time. But given the people behind it and the likelihood of a steady stream of highly talented students, the odds of it producing the kind of deep thinking and world-changing technology the founders hope for are good.
"I have no doubt that society gets ever more complex, and the consequences of ever-growing technology become ever more difficult to anticipate and respond to," said Saffo. "So having a 10-week program of smart, committed people looking at the challenges from an interdisciplinary point of view can only be a good thing."
With Google Earth 5.0, users can now journey to the planet Mars, where they can see 3D views of the Red Planet and dive deep into its canyons.
(Credit: Google/NASA/USGS)While you might never become an astronaut and have the chance to ride a Mars Rover on the Red Planet, Google has now rolled out an Earth-bound alternative for the masses.
With Google Earth 5.0, which was unveiled Monday, users can now explore Mars in the same way they've been able to instantly view 3D images of much of our own home planet for several years in previous versions of the software.
The Mars project, which was implemented in conjunction with NASA, is intended both for casual investigation of our planetary next-door neighbor, as well as serious research. NASA and Google hope scientists and other researchers will use the new Google Earth Mars feature to share data about the fourth rock from the sun.
"The mode enables users to fly virtually through enormous canyons and scale huge mountains on Mars that are much larger than any found on Earth," NASA said in a statement. "Users also can explore the Red Planet through the eyes of the Mars rovers and other Mars missions, providing a unique perspective of the entire planet."
The Mars feature of Google Earth 5.0 lets users see the Red Planet from the perspective of rovers like the NASA Mars Pathfinder Rover.
(Credit: NASA/Google/JPL/University of Arizona)Additionally, the new Mars features allows Google Earth users to view much of the most recent satellite imagery from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, as well as other craft circling the planet. And users are able to add their own generally sharable 3D content to the larger map of Mars.
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MOUNTAIN VIEW, CALIF.--In April 2006, NASA announced that it was bringing in University of Arizona astronomy professor and former brigadier general Simon "Pete" Worden to be the director of its NASA Ames Research Center here.
NASA Ames director Pete Worden has brought a fresh perspective to the facility since his arrival in 2006. At the Yuri's Night celebration on Saturday, he demonstrated his sense of humor and history by wearing a Soviet-era general's uniform in recognition of the first-ever space flight by cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)Since then, Worden has brought a fresh perspective to the helm of one of NASA's most important research facilities, demonstrated through initiatives such as giving a keynote address to the International Space Development Conference from the virtual world Second Life. (Note: My wife works at Second Life publisher Linden Lab).
But along with administrators at several other NASA facilities, Worden has been a leader in hosting Yuri's Night celebrations, something that might not have been possible even just a few years ago.
An evening of art, music, dancing, fire, and science, Yuri's Night has become a much anticipated event for many people, especially the version held annually here at NASA Ames.
On Saturday, as the party throbbed just feet away, and as Worden sat drenched in sweat from having participated in a fashion contest wearing a Soviet-era general's outfit, he sat for an open-ended, if short, interview with CNET News.com.
Q: Why is NASA hosting this event?
Worden: Tonight, there are at least four NASA centers doing it. The fundamental issue facing NASA is that we're embarking on the most significant step that has ever been done in space. The next step is settling the solar system. The U.S. space exploration program is a key part of that, as well as efforts around the world. NASA has always played a key role in other critical issues that face us as well, such as aeronautics, all the way up to understanding the secrets of the universe and addressing climate change. Those are all NASA jobs. But to do that we need the next generation excited about space and the other things that NASA does. But we are a technology agency, and it's a lot of science and math and engineering. Sometimes that's not considered quite as cool as other things. We think it is. And Yuri's Night is an opportunity to bring the next generation in and show them how cool it is. This is an opportunity to reflect on the past, such as the first humans in space, such as Yuri Gagarin in 1961. Our first Space Shuttle flight in 1981. And to the future, where the future means expanding into the solar system. But we're not just expanding as machines and science. We're expanding as humans. There's art, culture, music, and dancing. So it's about all those things as well and to link that with the technical aspects will be maybe the most inspiring thing we can do.
NASA Ames director Pete Worden sitting in his facility during Yuri's Night celebrations on Saturday.
(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)Talk a little about NASA's role in addressing climate change?
It's basically NASA data that has enabled us to understand climate change and that changes are occurring, and that human activities are a significant part of that. Here at NASA Ames, we specialize in measurements of climate change. Second, NASA Ames houses the agency's supercomputer, the Columbia supercomputer, and one of its primary purposes is to run these very significant climate models and to support research from climate researchers around the world. We do the detail work, and we run airborne sensors, and we run the really sophisticated computer models here.
Can NASA Ames be a center of research into peace?
I think we are a center of research into peace. I can't think of anything more peaceful than working with the rest of world to expand humanity into the solar system, or to address some of the pressing issues like climate change that are facing the Earth or researching new green energy solutions. Peace in its fullest and most positive sense is bringing everybody together. Probably the most significant thing NASA did in the 1960s was to take that famous picture of Earth from space. That made people realize we have a lot more in common than differences. I believe that it was that one image that has led to the end of the Cold War, and to growing global linkages.
Please talk a little about NASA's repositioning of astrobiology?
It is one of the most significant areas, and an interdisciplinary field. We're trying to invent a new area based on the fusion of biology, astronomy, physics, and engineering. And there are three key questions: One, where did we come from, and where did life come from; two, Where else is it in the universe; and, three, what is the future of life in the universe. That is a very exciting area. There were some cuts in our astrobiology program, but we're seeing those have been largely restored, and we have a very optimistic program. We're expanding the program.
What's the period, like this one, leading up to a change in presidential administration like for NASA?
Every election is both an opportunity and a potential problem. After awhile you grow comfortable in what your current leadership, both congressional and presidential, tells you to do. But there's going to be new leadership, and I'm pretty optimistic that though there will be some changes, the fundamental direction of NASA is not going to change. The NASA Authorization Act of 2005 passed by huge majorities. There was bipartisan support for it. All of the potential candidates voted for that.
Why was the deal to allow Google's co-founders to keep their airplanes at Ames good for the facility?
The key point is that this is a research center, and it has a lot of facilities that are expensive to maintain. We have very limited usage of the airfield, and we're fortunate enough to have 1,800 acres of Silicon Valley real estate, which is very valuable. Congress and the White House have pushed us to form new relationships with private corporations, and there are 55 corporate tenants on Moffett Field. We also have research partnerships, including one with Google. In addition, we are building public/private partnerships with other people who have airplanes, and we lease those facilities. The use they put it to is some benefit to NASA. In this case, the Google co-founders' airplanes are available for some NASA research use, and we've used those a number of times. Plus they pay us for the hangar, and this is a real win/win, and it's good government. We're defraying government costs. And it's not really a sweetheart deal. The use of the facility is pretty expensive.
Is Google building a facility at NASA Ames?
We're in discussions with Google to lease tens of acres that they would use to build new facilities, offices, research facilities and housing. I would expect in a few months to have some agreement on that. We're also in discussions with a consortium of universities to build a university campus here. Right now, it's the University of California, which is the lead university, and Santa Clara University, Foothill College, and De Anza College, and Carnegie Mellon University. The idea is to have a campus devoted to some of the specific expertise that's needed to power Silicon Valley. And this is an ideal location for it.
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