It is Alive in the Lab

Book Ad: The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet

I work in the Corporate Strategy & Engagement team. My teammates include Bill O'Connor, Evan Atherton, Kerry Ann Levenhagen, Maurice Conti, Jonathan Knowles, Shaan Hurley, and Tom Wujec. Jon Pittman is VP of Corporate Strategy & Engagement. Jonathan Knowles manages Autodesk's relationship with Singularity University. Autodesk supports Singularity University's mission to facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies to address the world's grand challenges. We support it through financial contribution, an Innovation Lab, strategic direction, presentations, and instruction.

As a faculty member at Singularity University, Ramez Naam is a friend of Jonathan Knowles. In fact Ramez has gotten to visit our Bay Area office as part of a group from Singularity University. Ramez has a new book coming out that asks the questions:

• Can we innovate fast enough to overcome climate change, fossil fuel challenges, fresh water shortages, and other environmental and natural resource challenges that face us, all while making room for billions to rise out of poverty?
• And if so, how?

The book is entitled The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet, and it comes out April 9th from University Press of New England. Ramez points out that the title might sound highly abstract or aspirational, but it's also a book full of hard cold realities, practical policy steps to encourage innovation and deployment, and a call to action for citizens. In many ways, it's a book about encouraging better and better design — both at the technical level and in the design of our economy.

---

The Infinite Resource: The Power of Ideas on a Finite Planet

Coming April 9th — University Press of New England

Climate Change. Finite Fossil Fuels. Fresh Water Depletion. Ocean Acidification. Overpopulation. Deforestation. Feeding the World’s Billions. Rising Commodity Prices.

We’re beset by an array of natural resource and environmental challenges. They pose a tremendous risk to human prosperity, to world peace, and to the planet itself.

Yet, if we act, these problems are addressable. For the most valuable resource on earth is not oil, gold, water or land. Instead, our capacity for expanding human knowledge is our greatest resource, and the key to overcoming the very real resource scarcity and enormous environmental challenges we face.

Throughout human history we have learned to overcome scarcity and adversity through the application of innovation — the only resource that is expanded, not depleted, the more we use it.

The century ahead is a race between our damaging overconsumption and our growing understanding of ways to capture and utilize abundant natural resources with less impact on the planet. The Infinite Resource is a clear-eyed, visionary, and hopeful argument for progress.

---

Reading will soon be alive in the lab.

OpenSite: Now Is The Time Video

Here is a video I found interesting:

• "This combustible mixture of ignorance and power, sooner or later, is going to blow up in our faces."
  -- Carl Sagan

• "Our only chance for long term survival is to not remain living on planet Earth but to spread out into space."
  -- Stephen Hawking

Autodesk is proud to work with organizations like NASA and Singularity University to reach for the stars.

Science is alive in the lab.

Jason Silva IMAGINE DESIGN CREATE video: Got 69 seconds?

Gallery Curator, Jason Medal-Katz, recently shared this with our team.

Jason Silva is a television personality, filmmaker, gonzo journalist, and founding producer/host for Current TV. He has spent the last three years making really short films that play like movie trailers for ideas. He compares them to shots of "philosophical espresso."

// Check out Jason's IMAGINE DESIGN CREATE video on Vimeo

Jason Medal-Katz and other Autodesk employees met Jason Silva at Singularity University / Fox Studios in March. He subsequently visited our Autodesk Gallery in San Francisco to learn more about our company. Autodesk supports Singularity University’s mission to facilitate the development of exponentially advancing technologies to address the world’s grand challenges. We support it through financial contribution, an Innovation Lab, strategic direction, presentations, and instruction.

// Learn more about Singularity University

As you can tell from the video, Jason is also a big fan of our IMAGINE DESIGN CREATE book.

// Learn more about the IMAGINE DESIGN CREATE book

Other Jason Sivla videos can be seen at: vimeo.com/jasonsilva.

Imagination, design, and creation are alive in the lab.