November 2012
13 posts
“We do not hold on to our original idea out of sheer stubbornness, or because our ego is tied up with its rightness. Instead, we move with what presents itself to us in the moment, exploring and exploiting different branches and contingencies. We thus manage to turn feathers into flying material. The difference then is not in some initial creative power of the brain, but in how we look at the world and the fluidity with which we can reframe what we see. Creativity and adaptability are inseparable.”
—Robert Greene, Mastery
Building a Science Park worth P22.44M in Zamboanga →
sunstar.com.ph
Inspired by the travelling exhibits of the Science Centrum, Zamboanga Mayor Celso Lobregat decided to build the very first science park in Zamboanga City.
“The proposed park will be constructed in the 1,828-square-meter lot adjacent to the City Museum and right behind the laminar jets fountain, where the statue of the late Mayor Maria Clara Lobregat is located.
The park will house 56 exhibits such as the Pipes of Pan, Van de Graff generator, Pedal generator, Bernoulli Blower, Laser Harp, Musical Tunnel, Wonder House and a lot more.” -Sunstar.com.ph
PhilDev Blog →
phildevfdtn.wordpress.com
Check it out!
Sequoia Capital: How to Choose Your Startup Idea →
sequoiacapital.tumblr.com
Tackle a small market (that’s going to be big eventually), look for bizarre behavior, and other great advice for those developing startups.
Editor’s note: This is a guest post on TechCrunch by Greg McAdoo. Greg’s interests include collaborative consumption, the cloud infrastruture and the post-PC era. He currently works with companies like Airbnb, Bump, Songkick and Y Combinator.
“
First, master your fears—this is related to letting go of perfection.
The second involves testing, iterating, evolving. It’s about evolutions not revolutions. When you test and iterate, you have more opportunities to figure out what works.
Third is, stick to your roots. Know who you are. For me, I’m Filipina American, and I didn’t realize until my mother pointed out to me that the largest source of caregivers for the U.S. is the Philippines.
And the fourth piece is: stay true to your passion. I had an opportunity to be a CEO of a mobile entertainment company and I turned it down because my mentor asked me, are you in the pain business or the pleasure business? I wanted to solve the pain point of finding caregivers.
” —PhilDev Trustee Sheila Lirio Marcelo
Read more at http://vator.tv/news/2012-11-02-carecoms-sheila-marcelo-on-women-business-funding#TfJF24IpvC4Y7cFZ.99
October 2012
11 posts
Calling for submissions!
A wonderful initiative for Filipino scientists!
Are you a Pinoy scientist? Do you have friends who are? We need contributions to keep this site going. If you’ve been meaning to submit, please do so soon. There are not too many of us, so every post counts. It shouldn’t take too long to put one together; you can find instructions here. I look forward to your emails!
Scaling Up Health Innovations by Pinoys →
ayalatbi.wordpress.com
Ayala Technology Business Incubator (AyalaTBI) connects tech startups with seasoned professionals and practitioners from the health field, to help Filipino technopreneurs develop health-related ventures. Read more about it on the AyalaTBI blog!
Fewer Pinoys get agri jobs →
rappler.com
“The decline in the number of farmers may be due to the fact that the agriculture sector pays farmers so little. The BAS said the average basic wage paid to agricultural workers in the country amounted to P158.20 per day in 2011.” -Rappler.com
“If we’re going to get science policy right, it’s really important for us to study the economic benefit of open access and not accept the arguments of incumbents. Existing media companies claim that they need ever stronger and longer copyright protection and new, draconian laws to protect them, and meanwhile, new free ecosystems, like the Web, have actually led to enormous wealth creation and enormous new opportunities for social value. And yes, they did in fact lead in some cases to the destruction of incumbents, but that’s the kind of creative destruction that we should celebrate in the economy. We have to accept that, particularly in the area of science, there’s an incredible opportunity for open access to enable new business models.”
—Tim O’Reilly on “the Clothesline Paradox”, timely and enormously important. (via explore-blog)
September 2012
8 posts
Popular Science's Brilliant Ten: →
popsci.com
Teaching robots to learn from humans, using bacteria to build semiconductors, creating solar cells the size of glitter - these are a few of what PopSci’s brilliant ten are doing with science and technology.
“Scientists are just like novelists in a way. We’re all trying to tell a good story that explains how the world works, and we’re interested in understanding how it works in exactly the same way that perhaps the early philosophers were. But we have much better tools with which to dissect it and understand it today. And the thing about science is it’s always based on the facts. So if facts change and you discover new ones, or many more new facts don’t fit the old ones, then you have to change the story. That’s how major scientific revolutions happen, as, for example, when people suddenly realized that the Earth goes around the sun. So science is indeed a theory. But I really like what the very famous American physicist [Richard] Feynman said. He said, ‘Science is imagination in a straitjacket.’ We are constrained by all the things which we already know, so you can’t simply conjure a story out of the air. It has to explain all the current facts and the new ones that have just been discovered. And it has to make predictions that can then be tested to see whether in fact that story continues to hold when we know even more information.”
— Frances Ashcroft, NPR Interview
About PinoyScientists
We’d reblog every entry if we could! Great site featuring Filipino scientists at work and play.
This site shows Filipinos doing all kinds of science in all kinds of places. We hope that this helps displace outdated and unrealistic stereotypes of scientists as “white men in lab coats” or “lone geniuses”. Our message to the next generation of inquisitive, young Filipinos is: You can be a scientist, too!
Page added (to sidebar): About Us
Free Online Courses from Stanford! Register now!
Information from John Mitchell, Vice Provost for Online Learning, Stanford University
Introduction to Computer Networks will explain how the Internet works, ranging from how bits are modulated on wires and over the air to understanding application protocols like BitTorrent and HTTP. You will examine many concepts in current practice and recent developments, such as net neutrality and DNS security. Join Stanford professors Nick McKeown (co-founder of Nicira Networks and winner of ACM Sigcomm “Lifetime Achievement” Award) and Philip Levis (inventor of tinyOS and co-founder of Kumu networks) in exploring the Internet in Introduction to Computer Networks.
Begins October 8, 2012. Register at http://networking.class.stanford.edu/
Solar Cells, Fuel Cells, and Batteries will focus on the operating principles and applications of emerging technological solutions to the energy demands of the world. The course will begin with a discussion of the scale of global energy usage and requirements for possible solutions. You will then explore the physics and chemistry of solar cells, fuel cells, and batteries and the promise of materials research to offer next-generation solutions. Join Stanford professor Bruce Clemens (President of the Materials Research Society) in exploring solutions to global energy needs in Solar Cells, Fuel Cells, and Batteries.
Begins October 8, 2012. Register at http://solar.class.stanford.edu/
More courses here: http://online.stanford.edu/courses/
August 2012
2 posts
“The purpose of science is not to cure us of our sense of mystery and wonder, but to constantly reinvent and reinvigorate it.”
—Robert Sapolsky (via explore-blog)
May 2012
10 posts
“We’re not ‘in it for the money’, we’re in it to do something really important. We’re a venture fund, and one way to measure this is financial success. Companies that are financially successful tend to be those that make the biggest impact.”
—Google Venture’s Bill Maris, on why our best and brightest go to Silicon Valley and not Washington, D.C. (via theatlantic)
“At their core, artists and scientists are not so different from one another. Both endeavor to solve our greatest mysteries through the power of imagination.”
—
Bill O’Brien on art and science for The National Endowment of the Arts.
“6. Read obituaries. They are just like biographies, only shorter. They remind us that interesting, successful people rarely lead orderly, linear lives.”
—
Charles Wheelan on 10 things commencement speakers won’t tell you, to complement some timeless smart things commencement speakers do tell you.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do… It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
—Marianne Williamson (via dramaticneed)
“Genuine creativity needs a collision of ideas, something that will never happen if all your thoughts travel in the same direction.”
—Ian Gilbert on the five steps of ideation in a field guide to creativity (via explore-blog)
“It is within the power of technology to deliver personalized experiences on a massive scale. Mass personalization has already fomented revolutions in health care, government, manufacturing, marketing, and dozens of other human endeavors, and it would be a strange quirk of the universe if somehow education were exempt from what seems to be a fundamental human dynamic.”
—
So You’ve Got Technology. So What? - The Digital Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Education (via infoneer-pulse)
Interesting proposition!
April 2012
7 posts
YouTube Offers Live Streaming Video to Nonprofits →
philanthropy.com
Great news for nonprofits!
“One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike — and yet it is the most precious thing we have.”
—An elderly Albert Einstein meditates on science in a letter to Hans Mühsam dated July 9th, 1951. (via explore-blog)
Girls Who Code Summer Program →
girlswhoco.de
A summer program for incoming high school sophomore girls who want to be in tech! Application deadline: May 15, 2012.
From their site: “Founded in February 2012, Girls Who Code is working to educate, inspire, and equip underserved girls aged 13-15 with the skills and resources necessary to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
The Girls Who Code program is an eight-week summer program in New York City designed to introduce high school girls to basic software development skills and is accompanied by yearlong outreach initiatives, mentorship programs, and internship opportunities to realize each participant’s potential.”
Etsy wants to know: Are you a woman looking to become a better developer?
You don’t need to be a US citizen to apply; you do need to get yourself to New York on your own though. But all in all, a great opportunity for women engineers!
New York City startup Etsy, in conjunction with New York-based Hacker School, just announced a new scholarship and sponsorship program, including $50,000 in Etsy Hacker Grants, for women in tech. The program plans to welcome 20 women pursuing engineering jobs to New York and is focused on bringing more women into engineering positions at Etsy and across the industry.
Learn more about the program and apply here.
Awesome, Etsy!
Solar system goes on the road →
newsinfo.inquirer.net
“The activity at Diliman Prep was part of SkyXplore, the first science education road show in the country to focus on astronomy and to have the only mobile planetarium.
The road show has been to hundreds of schools nationwide since former Sen. Anna Dominique “Nikki” Coseteng, the president of Diliman Prep, launched the SkyXplore Astronomy Awareness Program in May 2010.
She created the corporate vehicle, Discover and Probe the Skies Inc. (DPS), to make it possible for everyone to explore the universe.
Unlike fixed-site domes, SkyXplore’s is portable. And because it is digital, it can manipulate time and space to show past, present and future locations of the sun, the moon, the stars and the planets.”
PHL researchers eye green tech for poverty alleviation →
gmanetwork.com
“Poverty alleviation is the goal of national research and development, according to the National Research Council of the Philippines at its 79th General Membership Assembly on March 6 and 7. The two-day event featured a plenary talk by attorney Christian Monsod on the first day and a speech by President Aquino (read by his representative) on the second, as well as the bestowing of the NRCP Achievement Awards on nine scientists for their contributions to Philippine and international science.”
