Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2015 - January 2016 i Fast Company

Neda Agha-Soltan, only 26 years old, was shot dead on June 20, 2009. The philosophy student was on her way to watch the protests against the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the Iranian presidential election when she was struck by a single bullet, believed to have been fired by security forces. She died surrounded by onlookers, who held her as she bled—an act that was captured by a shaking cell-phone camera and uploaded to Facebook and YouTube. The video quickly went viral on Twitter, and soon media outlets like the BBC and CNN began broadcasting versions, turning Agha-Soltan into the face of the Green Movement in Iran and drawing attention to clashes between the Iranian people and their government. Never before had citizens in crisis been able to disseminate their…

Businesses focused on social good have been around for decades, but the concept really took off in 2012, as new laws in several states—including the startup-friendly California and New York—allowed mission-based companies to reincorporate as benefit corporations and protect themselves from shareholders who might not prioritize values such as employee wellness or eco-friendliness. One of the biggest proponents of this regulation was B Lab, a not-for-profit that offers its own nonlegal framework for such companies, certifying them as B Corporations. According to cofounder Jay Coen Gilbert, the same unrest that fueled the Occupy movement of 2011 helped propel social enterprises mainstream. “It was clear that the interests of business and society were no longer aligned,” he says. Today, there are more than 3,000 benefit corporations and more than 1,400 Certified…

Elon Musk walks briskly onto the stage as hard rock blasts in the background. The guitar riff, which sounds like entrance music suitable for a professional wrestler or a minor-league cleanup hitter, fades out, and Musk surveys the crowd, nodding his head a few times and then sticking his hands in his pockets. “What I’m going to talk about tonight,” he says, “is a fundamental transformation of how the world works.” The 44-year-old CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX (and the chairman of the solar energy provider SolarCity) is wearing a dark shirt, a satintrimmed sports coat, and, at this moment, a knowing smirk. An admirer of Steve Jobs, Musk is an heir to the Silicon Valley titan in some psychic sense, but in a setting like this, he’d never…

Virginia Tech’s Fralin Life Science Institute Blacksburg, Virginia October 8, 2015 These little swimmers are mosquito pupae. But not just any mosquito pupae. They are transgenic mutants, created by researchers at Virginia Tech’s Fralin Life Science Institute using an extraordinary new geneediting tool called CRISPR/Cas9. Developed contemporaneously in 2012 by separate teams at the University of California, Berkeley and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (and subject to an ongoing patent dispute), CRISPR/Cas9 allows researchers to cut and paste DNA with unprecedented accuracy and speed. And unlike earlier gene-editing tools, CRISPR/Cas9 is species-agnostic, working in insects, fish, mice, monkeys, and, most controversially, humans. CRISPR/Cas9 is already being applied toward cures for diseases ranging from cystic fibrosis to cancer; it could also open the door to the precision engineering of…

KSP Steel Factory Pavlodar, Kazakhstan October 13, 2015 At a steel mill in Kazakhstan, a worker uses an augmented-reality “smart helmet” created by Los Angeles–based tech company Daqri to assess machinery by combining data projected before his eyes (prompted by his gazing at a black-and-white image) with his real-world observations. Daqri, which is developing hands-free tools so that factory workers, oil-rig employees, firefighters, and others can access real-time metrics without needing to fumble with tablets or laptops, is one of a swarm of nascent augmented-reality efforts targeting industry. APX Labs is developing ways for users to control factory equipment with eye motions, for example, and Google is updating Google Glass for the industrial crowd. Research firm MarketsAndMarkets predicts that augmented reality will be a $659 million business by 2018. Although…

ACROSS 1. ’70s Swedish band 5. Place to get shellacked? 8. Actress Cornish 13. ____ chowder 17. Palm smartphone 18. Lord of the Rings CGI monster 19. Exotic fruit flavor 20. Freight-car hopper 21. Fine-arts hub for an online professional network? 24. Sustainable sci. 25. Massachusetts Cape 26. Pint selection 27. Cold and calculating 28. Extremely serious 29. Microsoft’s video chat 31. “Hey, sailor!” 33. Social psychologist Durkheim 34. Article in Le Soir 36. Result of Chinese company’s focus on bridge building? 39. What Elon Musk does before getting in the tub? 43. Valentine misspelling 44. Place to stream The Mindy Project 45. iOS daily-planning app 46. Psych 101 subject 47. Uncomfortably strange 49. Sandwich classic 50. “We didn’t do it!” 52. “Kill da wabbit” speaker 55. San Francisco–to-Stockton dir.…

Before the first W opened on a quiet stretch of Lexington Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, staying at an American hotel chain usually involved starchy floral comforters and sad, beige carpeting. Though trendy boutique hotels like the Royalton and the Mondrian were already prioritizing design at the time, the W was the first to take a highend aesthetic and make it available to everyone regardless of status. By the following year, when the young brand opened its 10th outpost, W Hotels were packing in celebrities, socialites, and—most significantly— loyalty-pointshoarding business travelers. The W was the vision of former Starwood Hotels & Resorts CEO Barry Sternlicht, who, a few years earlier, had realized that while brands such as Pottery Barn and Banana Republic were bringing a new sensibility to the shopping mall,…

Remember life before the iPhone? We used to watch movies on our living-room TVs, hail taxis by raising an arm, and lovingly crumple photos of our kids into leather carriers we called “wallets.” In the eight years since Steve Jobs introduced those ubiquitous little devices in June 2007, they have altered—and, yes, improved—our daily routines in countless ways. But the smartphone’s impact has been far greater than just changing the UX of our lives. It’s also affected our digital infrastructure, our design sensibilities, and even the way we think about modern labor practices. Here are some of the biggest transformations brought on by the iPhone. ( 1 ) THE SOFTWARE REVOLUTION When was the last time you heard somebody talk about software or applications? A year after launch, the iPhone…

“Mark is fixing stuff.” I’m killing time in the Frank Gehry–designed Building 20, whose signature feature is its soaring 434,000 square feet of open space, the latest addition to Facebook’s campus in Menlo Park, California. A PR handler is explaining why CEO Mark Zuckerberg is running slightly behind schedule for our chat. I express surprise. Mark still fixes stuff? “To say he’s actively involved,” she confides, “is an understatement. He notices things that are broken before anybody.” As recently as 2012, the year Zuckerberg set a personal goal to code every day, that might have meant he had detected something glitchy on Facebook’s site and was reprogramming it himself. When he emerges a few minutes later, unspecified stuff presumably fixed, we sit down on adjacent couches in a fishbowl conference…

Chickpet Market Bangalore, India October 9, 2015 India is now officially the world’s fastest-growing economy. By 2017, it will surpass the U.S. to become the second-largest smartphone market. But the majority of Indians don’t yet have a ton to spend on phones. Beijing-based electronics maker Xiaomi— which sells high-end devices nearly at cost, generating profits from web services—is moving quickly to meet the country’s need. Since toppling Apple earlier this year to become the largest smartphone vendor in China, Xiaomi has bet big on India, partnering with Foxconn to assemble its first India-made phone, the $100 Redmi 2 Prime, thanks to recent tax laws that lower manufacturing costs. (The phone is now Xiaomi’s top seller in the country.) Meanwhile, the company is corralling superfans like 32-year-old IT–firm owner Guru Hangala…

Santander, Spain October 10, 2015 Since the northern Spanish city of Santander installed more than 12,500 sensors downtown between 2010 and 2013, it has become a hotbed of smart-city experimentation. Now, officials know when streetlights aren’t working, when garbage cans are full, and when people face higherthan-normal levels of pollution. The European Union–funded project heralds a new era of urban responsiveness and cost efficiency. Santander is already spending 20% less to light its downtown parks, for instance, because lamps now come on only when people are actually present. The city’s high-tech infrastructure has attracted innovators from all over the world. Recently, it piloted an LED streetlight from Ericsson and Philips that doubles as a Wi-Fi and 4G antenna. This should allow residents to function as part of the city matrix…

Cannabis farm (name withheld) Mendocino County, California October 5, 2015 Until recently, scenes like this, of marijuana farmers harvesting their annual crop, would be shrouded in secrecy, but marijuana is slowly coming out of the shadows as laws criminalizing it topple one state at a time. The end of prohibition is opening up an industry that is expected to reach $8.2 billion by 2018, a figure that’s hardly surprising given that half of Americans already report consuming the substance. A raft of new startups have emerged to capitalize on this market, offering marijuana-infused food and skin-care products, pharmaceutical-grade concentrates, genetic testing and analysis for growers, and more, while farmers are developing highquality strains of the leaf. (The New Age family farmers pictured here are the exclusive suppliers to Oakland medical-cannabis…

If anything captured the early promise of the Internet, it was Craigslist. Everything about the classifieds site—its open environment, freewheeling nature, democratized content— embodied the information superhighway. A community hub that evolved into a place where you could look for an apartment, find a job, sell goods, and search for love, Craigslist also looked like the Internet, with its blue links and HTML–gray borders and text boxes. And it still does. What’s most impressive about the site, though, is that its utility is so profound that it has not only survived but receives a whopping 50 billion page views per month. And while Craigslist might’ve contributed to the decline of the traditionalmedia business, which long relied on local classifieds for revenue, it also gave rise to an endless number of…

People were nowhere near as jaded about email in March 1999 as they’d eventually become. So when a missive claiming to be an “Important Message” began popping up in inboxes around the world, many folks reflexively clicked on it—and then, as instructed, opened the Microsoft Word file attached. Bad move. The Word doc—seemingly a list of porn sites—was infected with a virus and automatically emailed itself to the first 50 people in the recipient’s address book. It set off a nasty chain reaction that spread to as many as 20% of the planet’s business PCs, according to some estimates. The virus’s author called it Melissa (after a Miami stripper) and ended up spending 20 months behind bars. The scheme was more annoying than malevolent, but because it was so effectively…

Richard Florida was a little-known urban studies professor at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon when he wrote a book noting a new dynamic playing out in American cities, one in which economic growth was being driven by a burgeoning force of creative workers. The Rise of the Creative Class became a best seller and, following the dotcom bubble, a handbook for cities hoping to engender their own creative resurrections by attracting the same kind of talent as Austin and San Francisco—from engineers and architects to poets and musicians. Florida’s book also resonated with young people who saw themselves in the creatives he described: individualistic, meritocratic, and open to new people and ideas. Entrepreneurship and innovation, rather than traditional financial success, were their prime motivators. As this generation of self-conscious creators pursued their…

The “move fast and break things” philosophy of innovation gets messy when one of the things you’re breaking is the law. In 2014, some of the most promising companies hit their first major roadblocks with regulation, among them Airbnb and Uber, each of which went headto-head with city leaders. How they approached and resolved their regulatory battles spoke volumes— and still does, as their legal scuffles continue. January Mary Barra becomes the first female CEO of a global automaker when she takes over General Motors. May Google is among the first of several companies to reveal its dismal workplace diversity numbers, fueling the ongoing debate about Silicon Valley’s largely white, male workforce. Despite the figures, several companies and organizations launch crucial initiatives to improve gender and racial diversity in tech.…

After Pope Francis finishes his opening remarks at the UN General Assembly, the room’s attention quickly begins to stray. Colombian pop star and UNICEF ambassador Shakira launches into a well-intentioned rendition of “Imagine,” but the gathered heads of state begin to twist in their seats in conversation and mill in the aisles. Then the song ends, and a gentle but firm voice calls down from the upper mezzanine balcony, cutting through the buzz of distraction. “Before I start, may I ask for some quiet. Please pay attention to what youth is asking here.” Chastened, the world leaders take their seats. In elegantly simple language, 18-year-old Malala Yousafzai implores the adults below—who have convened to adopt a series of development goals for the world’s most underserved communities—to follow through on their…

IBM Security Operations Center Dallas October 7, 2015 These computer experts are monitoring real-time global threat activity and possible attacks against IBM’s corporate clients: more than 12,000 businesses in 133 countries. The “Threat Globe” graphic, second from left, combines historical data—attack origin and method—with current intelligence to help pinpoint and evade perpetrators. Lately, security firms have been responding to a rise in waterholing—hacks by organized crime or foreign operatives into systems used by mobile business executives (such as free Wi-Fi at a coffee shop or a favorite news site). In the future, they’ll develop more and more ways to protect employees’ laptops, email, servers, and mobile devices that include software, subscription-based services—and even physical hardware. One company, Norse, has launched an appliance that plugs into a company’s network, tracks attempted…

The Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin October 9, 2015 Treating sick people is hard. Curing today’s inflation-ravaged health care system, in which legacy programs thrive by treating illness as opposed to fostering health, has proved to be even harder. The Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin—the first tier-one med school to be built from the ground up in more than half a century—is dedicated to reinventing medical education for a different future. The curriculum will train leaders to manage change and solve systemic problems and will be predominantly teambased (no more big lecture courses). An independentstudy year in fields such as care delivery, population health and informatics, and more traditional research will also be included. A $295 million teaching hospital will…