Social distancing, lockdowns, and quarantine. COVID-19 has upended life as we know it -- but in some ways, for the better. Introducing “Not Going Back to Normal: Life Post-COVID-19,” a new podcast that explores various side effects of COVID-19 and how humans all around the world are responding today with data-driven optimism.
Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your pods on May 7.
EPISODE 001 - Marcius Extavour
In this episode, Marcius Extavour, PHD is the Executive Director of Prize Operations in Energy and Resources at XPRIZE, guides us through the unexpected environmental side effects of the COVID-19 outbreak. This pandemic has brought clean air to the most polluted parts of the world and this unexpected environmental impact got Marcius thinking about other links between the COVID-19 outbreak and our climate.
Both climate change and the COVID-19 challenge our global institutions to rethink their strategies to how they address threats that have the capacity to cripple the world as we know it. But the response to COVID-19 has been tackled immediately while continued warnings to our climate seem to get deferred to future generations. Marcius argues that we should learn from our response to COVID-19 and use this to inform our fight against climate change.
EPISODE 002 - Jacki Morie
In her episode of “Not Going Back to Normal,” Jacki Morie, a technical advisor at XPRIZE, looks at how COVID-19 pandemic has brought the use of remote digital technology to the fore. We are now using digital platforms for our work, for our entertainment and for our social need for human to human contact. But how do we as humans thrive in this immaterial world? Jacki looks into the use of robotic avatars and how these will shape our future, post COVID-19 world.
EPISODE 003 - Devin Krotman & Neama Dadkhahnikoo
In this week’s episode, Neama Dadkhahnikoo, Technical Lead for the IBM Watson XPRIZE, and Devin Krotman, Director of the IBM Watson AI XPRIZE, discuss how artificial intelligence is being used during the COVID-19 pandemic and how this same technology will be able to be rolled out to tackle other problems in our uncertain future. From tracking to predicting the spread of infectious diseases to helping doctors and scientists diagnose patients and discover new drugs expediently.
EPISODE 004 – Dr. Emily Musil Church
In this week’s episode Dr. Emily Musil Church is the Executive Director of Education & Learning at XPRIZE, shares her experience working and parenting at a time when schools are closed indefinitely. Even without this pandemic, Emily reflects on how a world without schools is a reality for many parents and children around the world and how it brought a new light to her time leading the Global Learning XPRIZE, a competition that encouraged teams to create adaptive, learning software that helped kids teach themselves reading, writing and basic math.