Chika = Technology | People | Society
Technology
I put bologna in my family’s first computer. I remember it was an IBM and my dad just brought it home a couple of days before. I just thought since it had a floppy drive it could take anything floppy.
And that is the official story about how my interest in technology started. Since then, I’ve learned a little more about what’s supposed to go into a floppy drive.
Specifically here are some of the topics that get me excited about the future:
- Analytics– If data is gold, how you slice and dice is the shovel. Whoever has the better shovel will win.
- Blockchain– Learning more about how the blockchain can transform how society works beyond cryptocurrency.
- Decentralization– Normally a buzzword associated with blockchain, it harps on a larger trend of moving away from centralized infrastructure in the physical and digital space.
- UI/UX – We have standard principles for UI/UX for mobile and web experiences but that’s just scratched the surface of how people will engage with emerging systems like your echo, wearables and other items. What does this mean for UI/UX as an industry and where does it go?
People
People are the variable in any system you build
I’m a huge social science nerd. Everything from psychology to political science, sociology… I’m on it. People are fascinating and the intersection of people and technology is an area of specific interest to me.
- Social Media- Social media has a ton of implications (as we are starting to notice) on how people feel about themselves, where they fit within society, and how information is exchanged.
- Psychological Manipulation- We don’t like when its called that but product managers have specialized in leveraging our body chemistry to increase how connected a user feels to a system.
- Digital Economy- How does the digital economy impact the realities of what it means to be a professional? How does one acquire the skills to be competitive? What are the larger societal implications?
Society
“The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn’t think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.”
My goal is to take the learnings from my interest in technology and people and build solutions or support companies who are tackling these major challenges. Here are some examples:
- Based on data, can you develop interventions to help improve student outcomes? Check out Edurecords.
- How can you leverage UI/UX principles to help people have better health outcomes?
- How can you use the affects of social media for good?
- How do you leverage blockchain to solve for healthcare challenges around records, data, scheduling, and etc. (Currently working on that in Parallel Score)