User talk:Vtaylor/Computers and Society/CIS2 Grand Challenges
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| Thread title | Replies | Last modified |
|---|---|---|
| Making Water Out of Thin Air | 3 | 00:50, 9 March 2020 |
| Disaster Prediction | 1 | 09:29, 18 February 2020 |
| Lifting Farmers Out of Poverty | 1 | 09:21, 18 February 2020 |
| Johnathan Bounleuth - Providing Energy with Fusion | 1 | 02:48, 14 July 2018 |
When one of the fundamental building blocks of life as we know it is rapidly becoming less accessible, a solution is not only necessary, it is mandatory.
Over 70% of the human body is made up one one thing, water. And though around 75% of our planet is covered in water, there are still individuals today that lack the ability to access clean, fresh water. It can sometimes be a struggle for us in first world countries to grasp this reality, however this is a problem that even in the wonderful United States of America, can creep up. Areas like flint Michigan, or Ridgecrest Louisiana have faulty instructor, contaminating their water, rendering it undrinkable. However the problem does not stop there, in certain disaster areas where nature lays waste to cities, families may find themselves stranded without drinkable water for extended periods of time.
So it is clear, no matter where you live, either under the sunny skies of the US, or in the Sahara desert, the need for water is very real. So how can we solve this problem? It's not like we can just make water out of thing air? Or can we? A project hosted by XPRIZE has stretched this question to its very core, and said the answer is conclusively FALSE! That's right, a team tackling the project has actually developed a way to extract water out of thin air, using entirely renewable energy. This, paired with it's low cost of production, makes it the perfect tool for natural disaster areas for relief efforts, or to integrate into infrastructure around our country as cities original infrastructure becomes dated and out falls behind, taking us one step closer to relying entirely on renewable resources.
This project was inspired by the realization of just how many people worldwide are affected by insufficient water sources. Statistically, over 2 billion people, are drinking from sources contaminated by fecal mater, leading to an estimated 502,000 deaths annually. This tragic reality is a global nightmare, and something that had to be addressed. And so, the goal was set, develop a way to extract at minimum, 2,000 liters of water per day from the atmosphere using only renewable energy, and for the cost to exceed no more than two cents per liter. Once the XPRIZE was set, teams from around the worlds registered for the competition, 92 different reams from 27 different countries in total joined the competition to win a $1.5 million dollar grand prize developing a way to pull water out of thin air.
The winner of this group was a California based team, previously disqualified, however following another teams drop from the competition, the California based team by the name of the Skywater Alliance, raced back into the competition, and eventually into the lead. They gave everything they had to give to their development, even going as far as mortgaging their home in order to finance their project. They were eventually a smashing success, developing a biomass gasification system, which "captured the waste heat and the moisture contained in plant matter to create an augmented environment which made an ideal microclimate for maximum water production," as stated in the XPRIZE article written after the conclusion of this challenge.
Skywater Alliance was able to do what is probably still considered impossible in the minds of many, and their efforts were thoroughly applauded. 2018 they were awarded a check for the sum of $1,5000,000 dollars, for their word on this project.
https://www.xprize.org/prizes/water-abundance/articles/the-path-to-a-water-abundance-xprize-winner
I added your content to the Project page. https://wikieducator.org/User:Vtaylor/Computers_and_Society/CIS2_Grand_Challenges#John_Thurman
Why didn't you do this yourself?
..vt
I though I did. Apparently I did it wrong. I was playing around with it and thought I had done it correctly, but obviously I didn't. Sorry about that. :(
Improved Prediction and Reliable Communication
Is there technologies that can create accurate prediction for earthquakes, tropical cyclones, tornadoes and other disasters and give reliable information in time to save more lives?
GeoCosmo who use semiconductor physics for earthquake prediction, in an opensource platform/program
Geocosmo spc is the commercial evolution of EARTHQUAKE FORECASTING
https://www.geocosmospc.com/
QuakeFinder’s mission is to save lives by finding a way to forecast major earthquakes. QuakeFinder operates as a humanitarian research project of aerospace engineering firm Stellar Solutions. The project’s goal is to develop technology and methods for detection and analysis of electromagnetic earthquake precursors to produce earthquake forecasts based on sound scientific theory and practice. https://www.quakefinder.com/about/
At this time QuakerFinder is monitoring emissions in earthquake prone regions including California, Peru, Taiwan and Greece. Data recorded is transmitted to a data center in Palo Alto, CA where is is analyzed..To date analysis has revealed apparent earthquikes for three significant quakes.
http://ptwc.weather.gov/ NOAA's National Weather service Pacific Tsunami Warning Center
Although tsunami alerts can be issued within minutes of an earthquake occurring, the most effective warning for nearby communities is the earthquake itself.
Education is crucial in saving lives so people need to know how to evacuate immediately to higher ground if they feel a large earthquake. If higher ground is not nearby, another option is to evacuate vertically, by going upstairs in well-constructed multi-storey buildings.
Refining the alogrithm for earthquake early warning to better estimate the earthquake size and to reduce false alarms is an active area of research in the earthquake community.
Technological speed is the only reason earthquake warnings became possible. Improvements will cause warnign to arrive faster.
https://www.shakealert.org/ ShakeAlert is an earthquake early warning system for the West Coast of the United States. This system is to identify an earthquake a few seconds after it begins, calculate the likely intensity of ground shaking that will result and deli ver warnings to people and infrastructure in harm's ways. This type warning comes before the S-wave arrives, which brings strong shaking that usually cause the damage.
Since many parts of the world, communication infrastructure and mechanisms are limited and currently rely on word-of-mouth, we need new forms of communication or new approaches that allow the global standardization of accurate and rapid communication.
Technology needs to improve the timeliness and consistency in the communication of a natural disaster once an accurate prediction has been made. Sometime the information given out prior to a natural disaster is confusing, misleading, or ignored. In order to avoid loss of life we need quick, reliable, connsistent and one that can be accessed by everyone.
It seems like this would be the toughest project to tackle. I think this would be an amazing technology, and it's perceived benefits would be amazing if implemented globally. However it does bring up the realization of a technology that can not be supported by the infrastructure of every country. This technology would need to be paired with an affordable global communication device. Or at least large warning devices similar to those used in the world wars, such as sirens, or other inexpensive warning systems in areas prone to these natural disasters.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/08/chinas-war-on-poverty-could-hurt-the-poor-most/
https://hbr.org/2015/08/to-really-help-the-global-poor-create-technology-theyll-pay-for
More than one billion people are employed are given agricultural jobs. People who have agricultural jobs are one of the most marginalized, exploited, and oppressed groups in the world. It is mainly the poor people who are farmers who become poverty. There are people who are trying to lift farmers out of poverty.
In China President Xi Jinping made a pledge that he would lift 70 million people from poverty by the year 2020. President Xi Jinping’s pledge “…is an extension of the government’s effort, starting in 2012, to move 100 million rural residents into the cities by 2020.” People shouldn’t be in poverty condition. In India governments are unable to reduce poverty to India’s population of farmers. In the 1960’s the government in Green revolution, which was an attempt they made to increase agricultural productivity. They used yielding seeds and chemicals. These are just 2 examples on what people are trying to do to stop poverty.
Technology can lift people out of poverty. Vehicles that use technology to work will reduce number of possible accidents since there is little road and full of grass and food. Technology can solve social needs that can be in a profitable way. Technology can do labor work such as tractors working on the fields. Lawn mover cuts grass for us.
this is amazing, I had no idea that the world of aggriculture was so complex, or so vast. It makes since, because we all need to eat, and even the things we eat need to eat, so it is understandable that this industry is so vast. However one would assume that with such a vast industry, processes would naturally be streamlined and opperting at its highest potential. However the law of supply and demand surely does come into play, in regards to the work force. With so many willing and able to do this work, the need to streamline is nill. It is sad to see the tragic reality of an occupation which employs so many, the more who can, or are doing a particular job, the less valuable it is. Yet I do fin encouragement in the fact that there are people in the world who ponder this problem and recognize that just because this is the current reality, that it does not need to stay the reality. And the ideas proposed in order to revamp the industry globally by even revolutionizing the thoughts behind who can and should do the work is tremendous. However I do have a few questions. If farming becomes more mechanized than it already is, using technology, do you not supposed that this will minimize the amount of jobs available, or lower to value of what is produced? My major concern would be that if it becomes to modernized, than it could be adopted by big businesses who could afford to produce crops with minimal labor, putting even more people deeper into poverty, do you disagree?
Hello everyone, I had just posted to the page. I hope I did it correctly. It was quite difficult to navigate the editing tabs.
