Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
My work experience in NYC
Feeling the pressure to know what I want to do.
This February, I spent three weeks there talking to tons of different people about their careers and how they chose them.
Without exception, they all went to university and recommended doing something you love to do.
One of the highlights of my trip was my talk with Dickson Despommier, who is a professor at Columbia University. He’s the one that came up with the idea of the 'Vertical Farm' (high rise farms). He had been scheduled to speak at a seminar (The Ideas Economy - Intelligent Infrastructure - The Architecture of Progress) organised by The Economist at Pace University. So I registered at the Press desk, as I had planned to write this article for Spunout. He was no longer on the programme though!
Instead, we heard other futuristic ideas about transport and cities. Some of these ideas were a bit mad, but two were fascinating. In particular, we heard about cheaper ways to filter water by using oysters instead of the traditional filtering system. In fact, one US town was ready to spend $2 million on filtering equipment and were persuaded by this non profit organization to filter the water using oyster beds (50,000 oysters) which cost $3,000. The project was a huge success. The creator who gave the talk explained that nature is often better and much much cheaper than technology.
The second idea that grabbed my attention was a talk on futuristic forms of transport. The speakers talked about high speed rail being a futuristic form of transport and how society is not progressing by using electric cars. Personally, I found that a bit of a surprise.
In fact, electric cars were used at the beginning of the 20th century. Most of the cars are smaller than smart cars and can be vertically stacked (for parking) and shared like the free bicycle programme in Dublin. These cars would have a maximum speed of 30mph and be used within cities. When people finished with them they would then be parked at a "stacking zone. Some of these car designs were based on the Minority Report film. The speakers then elaborated on their car ideas and talked about installing a range of sensors in the cars to allow them to communicate with other cars and to do many other things - for example platooning. Some ideas were completely over the top though, for example they had a cuddly sheep car that was utterly ridiculous.
Another idea that seemed out of this world was the concept of a city entirely run on green energy. They are sure that this one is going to happen – somewhere in Florida.
I suppose these ideas inspire tamer ideas...
By: Vincent Webster
Further Information:
www.spunout.ie/health/Work/Work-experience
www.spunout.ie/health/Work/All-aboard-the-Internship
www.spunout.ie/health/Work/How-to-start-your-own-business
