Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño

My Tedx: The future is not about data

2016-10-20T00:00:00+00:00

How many people need to die before we listen to the facts? 1? 10? 100?

Let’s look at the reaction to the appearance of HIV/AIDS in the USA: By 1983 we knew about the spread of the disease through various channels, for example blood transfusions. So, how many people need to die, before we listen to those facts? The answer, 5000. At least 5000 people died in the 3 years that it took to start implementing the scientific recommendations experts had called for. The Science was clear, but experts were just not getting through.

Scientific facts alone don’t change the world. Specially in complex situations like this one. There could be other reasons, there could be implementation reasons, economic reasons, political reasons, strategic reasons, … Science is an important part, but is only part of the equation; and definitely is not only about pushing the facts by publishing the facts. Science should be fully engaged in the way we make decisions.

But don’t get me wrong, I’m a Scientist. The whole package with extras. Hard core scientist nerd, PhD in astrophysics and postdoc. I do love science. Science is arguably one of the most wonderfuls tools humans have invented to Understand. To understand nature, to understand the world. But if Science is about everything, how many of you, when you are watching in TV these documentaries about science or about zebras in africa…. instead of thinking how amazing it is that we can understand what’s happening there… you think “it’s a good one for a little nap” or “I’m not in the mood”, “I’m stressed”, or you change the channel, you flip the page …

To understand what’s happening here we need to go back a little bit; back when scientists were called “natural philosophers”. Think about the old scientists like Gauss, or Newton,.. they were astronomers and geologists and mathematicians, and … and, and… there were inquisitive people of the world. But as science evolved; it went deeper and deeper into fields that needed more specialization. We started to constrict science into silos, silos of knowledge. Segmenting reality. So scientists started to be astronomers or geologist or mathematicians. Scientists started to engage mostly within their own silo with their own peers, not with other silos, or society in general. And somehow we were okay with that.

Siloed science, segmenting reality, a paper at a time. [[Flickr: Mike Lewinski]](https://www.flickr.com/photos/ikewinski/7314030462/in/photolist-c9jjru-c9ja5A-8QdSmX-8QgWZd-8QgUTY-8qoAmQ-85H9JM-6xsePy-5S7KSp-5S7Kz4-5Qngf7-5QhZP6-5bNqm4-5bSFQA-4sMZcF-4sMZ5H-4sS3Pq-2GytxD)

On top of that, as a scientist your credentials, your funding, your job, depends on publications and the citations of those publications. So if the expectation is to understand everything, you only have time to do what ends up in a paper. There is, however, a strong case to make that scientists are not so because of the facts in the head, or a paper, but because of the way they look at the world, on how we understand.

That’s the reason I left research. That’s the reason I left, back then, my dream job of rocket scientist, for a six months fellowship with no employment prospects afterwards. As much as I loved it, I felt frustrated. There is so much more in science than publishing.

We need science not because of the facts, but because it helps you, help us, all of us, move forward, understand what’s happening. What explains those facts, that data. In this world that depends more and more on technology, that depends more and more on science, there is less and less people that understand Science and Technology.

With this hypothesis in mind I decided to test it. Let’s see what happens. What happens if a scientist that is a researcher, stops being a researcher and keeps being a scientist. I started to look for places to apply the tools I learned, the mathematics. In the end it turns out that the physics of plasma waves in the Sun, is similar to the physics to explain traffic partners in the cities. That’s the kind of work we are doing at the World Bank Innovation Labs. I want to share with you three examples.

Derhi, India.

This is Derhi. It’s a little village in India. If you were there, you would see electrical transformers. You would see the light cables. Electrification is a very important in Development; not only provides more safety, and better jobs but also, for example, allows kids to do their homework after sunset. Electrification, or having lights at night, is very important. But if you were in Derhi at night you wouldn’t see any; because there is no current on those cables. Electricity generation and transmission is a very complicated problem. What we did here is try to measure and monitor this problem. We used satellites that go every night and take pictures of the whole country, and then with a process that is rather complicated, remove the clouds, take into account the moon shining, … but conceptually is very simple: Can we ask how much light there is on every single village? — and there 600,000 villages that we know of — .

India at night. [nightlights.io](https://nightlights.io)

The point is that if you are able to ask the questions of how much light there is in every village every night, we can understand not only were there is light or not, but also when there are blackouts. Furthermore, because these satellites have been doing this for the last 15 years we can also know how effective we were doing this in the past, and how and where we can implement the programs moving forward that best use our resources. So that kids can do their homework after sunset with artificial lights.

Doing homework after sunset. A luxury for those with lights. [USAID]

The second project I want to share is in China, on a very rural province in China. If you live here, one of the problems you have is Accessibility; or in other words, how do you go to the market to sell your product if you’re a farmer, or how do you go to the hospital, or how kids go to school. And it takes a lot of time, because the roads can be like this one, muddy.

What if this is your road to go to school? [Kai Kaiser. Philippines.]

Typically the measure of Accessibility is the percentage of all-weather roads. But we can push it further, make it better, we can make it about the people; we can make it about how much does it take for you from this village — from all villages to get the closest, whichever it is, hospital. So the complexity of the problem becomes simple in a map.

Improving the pink roads makes people in the North reach the closest hospital much quicker. [[Rural Roads](https://github.com/WorldBank-Transport/Rural-Road-Accessibility)]

If you live in the province that is colored green it means that you are going to reach the hospital in less that one hour. If you live in the red part it means it takes a lot of time. So we need to make the red part of the country become greener. We need to calculate which are the roads that, if you upgrade them, makes this change. We can be much better, we can push ourselves to understand the complexity of what’s happening.

Ever stuck in traffic? Those taxis are reporting how to make it better. [Flickr: Manila]

The third example I want to share with you is traffic. How many of you have been stuck in traffic in the city? Probably everyone. In developing countries is worse not only because the roads are not prepared for the number of cars we see, but also maintenance is an issue. Trip cables, traffic lights, signals are not properly maintained. In practice what happens is that you have traffic agents taking calls all the time from colleagues writing reports of what the traffic is and what is the traffic loads, And there are literally pages and pages with this information. We can do better than this. In this case, the idea is to leverage these apps you can call on your phone to call for a taxi. Because every driver in the city has the app running, and is sending the location of all the cars on the fleet, every few seconds. If you put that in a in a map you have a live picture of the phones moving slowly across the city. You get the information of the traffic, and how much time they stop on the intersection, or the traffic light. You can now know how to tweak those traffic lights in response to the life information of traffic. All without having to build more infrastructure.

Using taxis as traffic sensors [[OpenTraffic](https://opentraffic.io/)]

That’s why I think the future is not about data; but about absorbing complexity. We’ve never had as much data as we have today. It’s growing exponentially, most of the data we have today has been generated the last two years. We have never had as many people looking at that data. The opportunity to make data-driven decisions is unprecedented.

What are we going to do with this? I don’t think that more data, just more data, is going to solve our biggest problems, or most personal ones. Think about the environmental crisis, think about migration and refugees, think about the economic crisis, or think about your personal projects or if you get diagnosed with a complicated illness.

When someone comes to you with data, when an expert comes with data -especially if it’s an expect — , when someone comes asking your vote — especially if they want to ask for your vote —, be very unapologetic to ask questions, to try to understand. Because understanding is one of the most empowering tools we have; and science is a tool to understand. You still have your culture, your education, your personality, your feelings… everything, but then you also have these tool to allow you to absorb what it means, to understand the facts that you have around you.

Science gives you visibility of what are the options ahead, and a what are the consequences of choosing one or the other option. It gives you the empowerment to take the right steps knowing what is likely to happen next, having taking into account all the information you had.

We need to recall science as a way of looking at the world versus a body of knowledge.

My Tedx: The future is not about data was originally published by Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño at Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño on October 20, 2016.

Ironman Chattanooga: Race report

2016-09-26T00:00:00+00:00

Sometimes you win, and sometimes you fight, till there’s just nothing left but pure will… iron will. That’s what my Ironman felt like.

I completed Ironman Chattanooga, in 15h20m (roughly 2h over goal time). I trained specifically for this for almost a year (doing roughly 80% of my coached 6 days a week program), I planned and rehearsed, I gave up so much social life, so many Friday nights, so many weekends training, so many before-sunrise bike rides… All for this day, for this race where so many things can wreck the careful balance of endurance, nutrition, hydration and mind. Almost certainly that balance will be broken, and you’ll need to work it out. I have zero regrets, and I’m super proud of finishing; but if you are thinking about doing an Ironman, be mindful of that.

The heat was the killer. Record 97℉ (36℃) for the course. 40% of the 2716 bib athletes didn’t finish, twice the rate of previous year, 200 were treated at medical tents and nine were hospitalized.

Distribution of times. Histogram in %. 2015 left vs 2016 right. Mode time 3h longer. [Analysis by CoachCox](https://www.coachcox.co.uk/2016/09/26/ironman-chattanooga-2016-results-kona-qualification-analysis/)

My coach told me since day one that the name of the game is keeping heart rate (HR) low, yet that was my biggest mistake. My advice?, your watch should only have one screen, HR graph with time. A mistake that probably cost me 2h.

The heat messed my plans by increasing my HR into a zone I wouldn’t be able to keep for 10h+; and by demanding lots more hydration, which meant Gatorade with loads of sugar, or water (that I had to try to complement with salt to avoid the dangerous Hyponatremia). On Friday I also got a stabbing pain right below the knee while walking up some stairs (first time! Pain 5 in a scale of 10). I went to kino-tape it just in case, and hoped it wouldn’t go worse race day.

Partial Heart Rate profile (watch ran out of battery at 12h). [Suunto MovesCount](https://www.movescount.com/moves/move124792340).

Race day means waking up at 3:30am to get a breakfast I can digest before the start. 4:30am at transition checking that the bike and gear is all set, and by 5:30am I took the shuttle to the swim start. Nothing else to do but wait on a growing 2500-athlete line under the stars and building up excitement. 7:30am the cannon shot and very quickly you walk down, see the massive river… and jump from the pier. All the training for this moment that starts now.

The 2.4 miles (3.8 km) swim was super fast (1h 13m) — because it’s a river and the current was moderate (controlled by an electric power plant dam, and the 101-days heat-wave was kicking hard). I think that saved me 15min or more. Beautiful to swim the river as the Sun rises on one side over the mountains. Water was quite hot (83F or 28C, wetsuits very not legal) and with ~5 feet or so visibility, good for keeping an eye on the kicking legs around you. I couldn’t check then, but my HR was already too high (130 ramping to 150 on exit) due to heat and race day adrenaline. Sadly knee pain happened (it was a constant 2 in pain scale) so I decided to reduce leg kicking, and the running on Transition to the bike.

The Bike course (116 miles, 186 km) was incredibly beautiful, and brutally hot. Barely any shade either. Looking at the results I started around ~17mph, keeping it conservative, but by the end I was absolutely on emergency mode at ~14mph. I should have checked HR, I was doing 130–145 for 7.5 hours where I should have been ~120. The hydration rate goal was 1.5 to 2 bottles/hour. It was very hard to avoid Gatorade or gel (one bottle of Gatorade has 34g of sugar, which means ~500g of pure sugar if only taking Gatorade, only for the bike. Way too much for my stomach). I therefore used water with isotonic powder I carried (vega) and salt pills; and only 1/2 of stops with Gatorade. Rest of nutrition were 5 Lara bars, PB pretzels and 4 protein pills (MAP — Master Aminoacid Pattern: proteins are great but you need to break them down to amino acids, these pills are already these, so they are absorbed instantly. They are designed for kids with digestive issues). I took a gel with caffeine towards the end because I started feeling dangerously weak.

On Transition 2 to the run I was done. Couldn’t really walk straight :) Had to take some time in front of a massive fan, and get a full isotonic bottle, so I could mentally face the run. Super long T2, tons of athletes dropping.

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Not a happy camper. About to face a 6h marathon, after 7.5h ride on a scorching heat.

On starting the marathon I just couldn’t… run. Knee was worrying me ( pain 4 of 10) and energy was very low. I didn’t want to have to quit due to knee pain or exhaustion, so I decided to power walk till the nutrition, hydration and sunset gave better conditions. It took a while but ended up actually running :) It’s amazing how much the body recovers given minimal chance. Walk/run training was instrumental to help push. The Marathon course is pretty flat, but with 4 hard hills. I got serious cramps on the second half so I tried potassium (bananas!). With no salt, and sugar quota pretty saturated, I also went for some chicken broth on a couple of aid station (being mostly vegan I was worried it would be too heavy for my stomach… but it was so good. It felt great, even mixed with Gatorade). Somehow I got in my head on the half run point that 15h20m was the cut, and I calculated I wouldn’t probably make it. So I started pushing as much as I could. Knee pain faded away, but probably because rest of the body joined the same pain level. I did 15h28m so I’m glad I was wrong on the cut time :)

High respect for everyone who makes an Ironman, but absolutely in awe for all those 50+, 60+ years old athletes (age is marked on your calf so I had lots of time to think about that as people passed me or I passed them).

I’m very happy to have finished. And with no injuries (knee hasn’t bothered since the halfway marathon). It was really hard. Despite all the things that messed my plans, I’m positive I wouldn’t have made it without the training, both for the physical and mental endurance. The high moments were incredibly fulfilling, the low moments were very hard tests of grit and perseverance… remembering the reasons, moments and people that helped me be there. And those keeping an eye live online. Thanks!

I’m absolutely proud to have pushed through it, I absolutely recommend it if you really really want to do it, and if you can physically, mentally and logistically afford the training. For me it’s probably going to be a few years till I try another one.

Ironman Chattanooga: Race report was originally published by Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño at Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño on September 26, 2016.

No shades of gray. How social media drives us to the extremes.

2016-08-26T00:00:00+00:00

Originally pusblished on Aug 26, 2016 on Medium

Chances are you either hate Clinton or Trump. You probably can’t understand how can anyone justify supporting “the other side”. Every day you see a new fact or news update that confirms how logical your decision is and how crazy the other side is. Well, you might be right, but you are probably also being played nonetheless.

I felt the same, I could not understand how so many people are so blind with so much mounting evidence. But I also had this skeptical tinkering attitude to try this experiment: I went to Facebook and “liked” and clicked every single page or article of opposing view I could find. For me, and to keep it simple, it meant basically lots of pro-Trump. The more opposed I would feel, the better. Thankfully Facebook, on its hunger to know you better, suggests related pages every time you like or click one. Not 10 minutes later my “About” page looked like this…

Look at the suggestions. Step 1 accomplished. Also essentially an “image suicide” for most of my social network that see me going rogue. Sorry friends, this is for Science!

My hypothesis is that social media is polarizing our attitudes extremely invisibly and effectively. What Facebook really wants is for you to click on every story it puts in front of you. That’s where they get their money. And it’s really good at learning about you and adapting to your reactions.

Almost immediately my newsfeed changed completely. I started to see updates from friends I had not seen updates for long, suggested pages, events and news article were incredibly different. I still got the news from some of my usual friends but I also got — specially on mobile — VERY different facts mixed with friend’s updates. These are the headlines from today within 3 page scrolls:

[Video] The Clinton’s are the real predators…
[video] 11 pictures that prove Hillary is too old and SICK to be president.
ELECTION 2016 -DOES ANY ONE ELSE’S HEAD HURT? RON HOWARD HAS BEEN SUCKED UNDER TO NEW DEPPS! WE NEED TRUMP!
THIS IS HUGE! Trump Just Got MASSIVE News That’ll Win Him The ENTIRE Election!
[video] Donald Trumps The Art of the Deal (2016)- Johnny Depp, Ron Howard, Alfred Molina Movies
NBC Poll has Trump winning by LANDSLIDE
BRAND NEW UNBIASED POLL of 100,000 Voters Shows TRUMP WINNING PRESIDENCY By OBSCENE MARGIN!
The One Video Hillary Didn’t Want Released Before November 8th,
THIS IS HUGE! Trump Just Got MASSIVE News That’ll Win Him The ENTIRE Election!
Donald Trump is Right: Hillary Clinton Is a Bigot. Here Are 10 Examples.
Alex Jones strikes back with a powerful response to Hillary Clinton’s attack against him

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Screenshot of my newsfeed. I still can’t believe how different the [online] world feels.

Now image 1h session of this every single day. Add to the mix the “confirmation bias” nature of our opinion-making (we outweigh what we agree and dismiss what we don’t) you start to see the problem. Every day you are bombarded with nudges to cluster into one extreme, both because you are attracted towards it, and also pushed against the other side.

After a week seeing this I also realized there’s no middle ground. There is no neutral position. There’s no outside of the silo. The mix of my direct friend shares pro-Clinton and the pro-Trump articles is not neutral; it’s schizophrenic. Opposites don’t cancel out in here. Indeed “neutral” articles are not that appealing to click.

My attempt to explain this goes from data (BigData) and ends in blaming computers for making polarized mobs. How? Why? Data is easy. Knowledge is hard. It requires energy, attention, focus and lots of thinking about data. Things we don’t like, but computers have lots of. Our brain loves novelty. As this trend optimizes to our behavior towards more clicks, we get smaller and smaller pieces of information in a constant stream. Then, to choose what to show, computers process the massive flow of data bits to predict how appetizing something might look to us. The flip side of “personalized experience” is “Biased experience”. Silos. We are using technology to make perfect invisible silos so we don’t need to deal with the complexity of opposing views, and the effort to reconsider your opinion or be skeptical. Less and less friction to consume, not to create, not to dig deep or be skeptical. Instead, we get an infinite buffet of perfectly small little nuggets of constant novelty we like to see processed by machines that are actually learning.

Yes, there is a data revolution. But we are not seeing the knowledge revolution of e.g. super-educated people because machines are living the knowledge revolution, while we get distracted with hyped facts on social media they feed us. In a growing ocean of data, we are drowning of very shallow waters.

If this is a pessimistic view is because I am drawn into that conclusion. I love technology, and I think there is a huge potential of greatness; but I fear we are leaving our brains out the process. I really love technology and I know there are many positive sides of this BigData machine learning revolution (that’s my job, incidentally). But may be that’s the point here, let’s not leave our brains out of the process. If this makes you think, that’s good. If it makes you go like crazy pages, … well, go explore other silos, and share what happens :)

No shades of gray. How social media drives us to the extremes. was originally published by Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño at Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño on August 26, 2016.

Half Ironman Rev3 Williamsburg Race report

2016-07-12T00:00:00+00:00

Last weekend I did my first Half Ironman distance at Rev3 Williamsburg. It’s a new course and probably the same for 2017. With the expected heat at finish line of 98F (36C) and no wind, dialing down a notch was quite sensible. My goal was to finish with no injuries and to have fun, as this was my first Half on my way to the Ironman in September!. I did a 6h 8min and I’m quite happy about it. (the 8 minutes extra hurt a bit…). Kudos to DCtri for the awesome support.

The race kind of starts the day before drinking isotonic liquid all day, a nice garlicy pizza dinner and super early bed. On race day I woke up 4am. That is 2h before race time to have last energy in and digested. I had a nice protein bar, protein shake and coffee. Got to Transition 1 hour before to pump the tires, and leave all material ready for T1 and T2. I probably had the best spot, first line out, first bike in the row. Sweet.

With the heat coming later in the day and the long race, the name of the game is keeping the HR low. You don’t want to burn the engine too hot or you’ll ran out of energy soon. And of course calorie intake and fluid (overall I think I had 12 bottles during the race, mostly Gatorade but also some water and Vega). I also used Cashew Lara bars, Peanut Butter Pretzel and MAPs.

The swim leg was good. The water was incredibly warm. I do prefer to swim a bit more distance than being hit, so I started on the back of the wave and swam on the outer side of the track. 2:02/100yd pace quite in line with pool times. I´m a bit worried with the high HR, I was doing 148 bpm average, much more than the pool. 1.2-mile (1.9 km) in 39min 15s

Oddly the Sun was raising exactly over the swim exit, which was a beautiful sight. T1 was fine, but I did hit a bump with my big toe running out of the water and almost fell down. I had to limp a bit hoping the pain would go away for the run. Every athlete is obsessed how quickly a small injury can screw your race…

The Bike was pretty fast, flat and very beautiful across farmland. I was downing basically 1.5 bottles per hour. There seemed to be an accident involving several bikers (could not find outcome or reason) and we had to divert to a slower bike lane for a while. My little rant is that I saw upwards from 20 bottles on the road. Please make sure you bottle secures properly and don´t put normal bottles if they don´t. They will fall typically where speed is highest. My “trick” on the water station was to leave my bottle in the bike, unscrew the top and slid under the tri suit. On the station, take a Gatorade, remove the top and fill my bottle quickly with the new one. Discard the Gatorade, put back top and move on. 1 minute tops.

I got a flat right before the bridge, less than a mile away from the end of the bike. I used a CO2 to see if it could hold the air, but no way. I figured changing the tube was 10 min or so, and running at race pace would be 5 minutes or so, so I ran pulling the bike. My HR peaked to 170 bpm but I think it was the right decision (a bit after the race I timed myself changing the tube – 8 min). It was quite awesome to hear the crowd and fellow runners cheer as they saw what has happened. 56-mile (90 km) in 2h 54 min

The run, being a 2 “loops” of a back-and-forth path under heat, mostly sun, and an arched bridge in the middle, was quite brutal. The “run 9 min, walk 1” technique was quite timed with aid station so that was good. I managed to mix water, gatorade, gatorade cubes and salt to keep GI out. The worst part was the second loop out. I felt I was loosing the balance of hydration, so slowed down a bit more which seemed to work. Had a caffeine GU 2 miles from the finish and finished with an all-out sub 6 min/mile 170 HR mini-sprint. 13.1-mile (21.1 km) in 2h 25 min

I feel good about doubling the swim, ok about doubling the bike, but I´m quite worried about doubling the run…

All pictures here

Half Ironman Rev3 Williamsburg Race report was originally published by Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño at Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño on July 12, 2016.

Big data at Davos a year later, delivering innovation value

2016-01-22T00:00:00+00:00

This post was also posted on the World Bank on 01/22/2016

Last year, we spoke at Davos about Big Data. We were excited to explore the challenges and opportunities; especially in regards to the 2030 roadmap for the Global Goals (Sustainable Development Goals). So, a year on, has big data caught on?

In 2015 we kick-started the Global Goals, with a special emphasis on data. The main development organizations came together, and the goals and targets were approved. Stakeholders collaborated and shared their experiences. Excitingly, big data remained a central component of these conversations. The data4sdgs.org partnership was announced, of which the World Bank Group is an anchor partner and, we have committed US$ 20M for an innovation fund. This partnership will work to ensure big data analytical approaches are not just being used to increase the efficacy of development programs, but that we are using these approaches to monitor and ensure that programs are effective and truly reach those living in extreme poverty.

The excitement around the SDGs and the many ways we can use data science to improve our delivery extends into many facets of our work. For instance, as we continue to pursue our own twin goals, we also include the SDGs seamlessly. But, the most exciting thing? Much of the work done by the Bank, and our partners, relates to innovation delivery, particularly with data. One year ago, the Innovations in Big Data Analytics program in the Bank’s Innovations Labs where I work was just beginning to reach people with this message of dedicating resources to data science. Now, it seems to have stuck.

This year we come back to Davos not just with the messages, but with a full portfolio of projects implementing data science into their programs as well as a growing array of stakeholders, and many lessons learned. For example, we recently demonstrated how cadaster map creation in Kosovo supports women in defining their rightful land rights, and rebuilding their communities. The program not only significantly reduces cost and time, but includes many people in the community to ensure equality and transparency in the process. Such an approach could be used towards mapping conflicts, disasters, or disease outbreaks. Our Innovation Labs Big Data Innovation Challenge winners are mapping traffic patterns of taxis to improve congestion in the Philippines, and using satellite data to monitor the progress of electrification projects in India.

Another interesting big data we have embarked on is using social media sentiment analysis to inform better decision making. Across the world, the explosion of Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Youtube as well as online media outlets has provided us access to an incredible amount of data that directly reflects what citizens want, feel, lack, or need. Although in its nascent stages, we have begun to work with different programs to analyze sentiment in targeted regions to aggregate this data, spot trends in citizen responses, and create more informed and better policies.

Importantly, being in Davos, I realize that we at the Bank are not alone in our dedication to ensuring data science is at the center of our work to end extreme poverty and better the lives of our fellow citizens. For example, the Forum narrative this year explores the so-called 4th Industrial revolution, where the confluence of many transformational shifts (such as big data, shared economy, machine learning, etc.) can fundamentally shape progress in the coming years. Indeed Klaus Schwab, Chairman of the World Economic Forum, has dedicated this Annual Davos meeting as “Mastering the 4th Industrial revolution”.

Operational innovations such as data science are of the utmost value to our clients and to ensuring the end user has a better life. Data science is but one way in which innovation can improve lives and better our programs. As we continue our path to deliver operational innovation, Davos helps us share and learn from the collective effort we are making towards achieving the Global Goals by 2030.

If you are around Davos, reach out to us to talk Big Data, Innovation, and SDGs @brunosan.

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Big data at Davos a year later, delivering innovation value was originally published by Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño at Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño on January 22, 2016.

Satellites for development: What's in it for you?

2015-09-11T00:00:00+00:00

Cross posted on World Bank’s blog

In the past few years there have been a growing array of development projects using satellite images. Some recent examples from our blogs are poverty measurement in Guatemala, overview of the ESA satellites partnership with the Bank, monitoring oil flaring, water resources in India, measuring economic output, measuring agricultural yields, agricultural financial resilience in Ethiopia, Planet labs commit 60 million $ worth of images for development.

At the same time, the satellite industry is undergoing a fundamental transformation with new nanosatellites, new services to buy images, new tools promising to do very complex analysis. IFC investing in Planet Labs, massive image purchases to help open maps, China launches first commercial high-resolution imaging satellite, worldwide monitoring of deforestation, to name a few.

However, despite the growing potential, satellite assets remain niche in development. Development projects are naturally oriented to reduce risks, and the reality is that there is a lack of pragmatism when introducing how satellites can be valuable tools for non GIS experts.

How can I get satellite images? How can they help my project? What new projects are available? What resolution do I need? How much does a satellite image cost for my area? How long does it take? How is this different from Google Maps? Who can help me process the data? These are just some of the very valid questions our team got as we interviewed development colleagues. There is a huge, gap between GIS experts and the general development community. This gap is growing because the inertial spread of satellite examples are quickly superseded with fundamental changes in resources, tools or prices.

A location in Palawan, Philippines under different resolutions, from right to left 5m, 2.5m, 1.5, 0.5m per pixel, each case suitable for different types of projects.

Today, three of our colleagues are participating at the “Satsummit” a conference designed around the use of satellites in development. Alanna Simpson and Keiko Sato from the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR), and myself from Innovation Labs at the Leadership, Learning and Innovation unit. At this conference, we are launching a “Satellite State of Play”. An interactive online one-pager which aims to offer a pragmatic overview to development professionals interested, but not experts yet, on the satellite industry.

Beyond a comprehensive review, this public good is an exploratory dive into the main space of a rapidly moving landscape. That’s precisely the reason we are working to widen the release as soon as possible with a Creative Commons Zero and MIT usage license, hosted on a public and open repository. This will allow anyone to suggest edits, as well as adopt and adapt the content.

Check out the website, and stay tuned for the update with the repository code and license to send your feedback and edit suggestions.

Satellites for development: What's in it for you? was originally published by Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño at Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño on September 11, 2015.

The missing knowledge revolution

2015-08-29T00:00:00+00:00

We are living a fundamental (as opposed to incremental) data revolution which enables an, also fundamental, information revolution. In the classical DIK view of Data, then Information, and then Knowledge; we are still missing the third layer. That isn’t happening, neither I argue it will if we don’t have stronger leaders shaping the right direction.

Klaus Schwab introducing our panel discussion.

Earlier this month I was part of a WEF panel on the current trends of knowledge and technology. The panel had the Forum’s leads on these topics and the amazing Claire Boonstra (e.g. just check her TED talk on value based education]. The plenary had ~500 fellow global leaders from around the world. We had a great discussion, and these are some thoughts collected before, during and after the session (under Chatham House Rules).

The data revolution stands over several facts, among them the exponentially diminishing costs for generating, storing and processing it. Very roughly speaking every 5 years these costs are one order of magnitude cheaper, and we have one order of magnitude more. “Silicon Valley” is pushing this trend as part of the elastic business model: More data to profile and optimize ads and operations.

All that data, and processing tools, generate lots of useful information. ( I’m going to include here internet “content” – articles, websites, tweets – as information too). As such there is a race for optimizing, customizing and contextualizing the users experience based on it’s usage data. And here is where the current path drive us away from knowledge: shallow information and biased information.

Our brain loves novelty. As technology optimizes to our behavior, we get smaller and smaller pieces of information in a constant stream. Facebook feeds, twitter feeds, news aggregators. Less and less friction to consume (not to create) a river of bite size content made specifically for us. The flip side of contextual is biased. We get what we like, in very effective and oddly transparent silos; far away from a comprehensive view of the world’s happenings. And we get an infinite buffet of catchy bite size content that displaces any other appetite for richer content. For the first time in human history we have instant access to virtually any topic, and most of the content we consume would be considered utterly irrelevant just few years ago (pictures of your friend’s food, passing thoughts, or exboyfriend of actors in shopping malls). We are drowning on information, but we are drowning on shallow waters.

Curiously enough, competing with this passing river of tweets and Buzzfeeds, there is a (growing?) trend of more in depth, long-form, higher quality content. I’m thinking of the Atlantic, the New Yorker, the Economists, or even Medium. For Medium I could dig some statistics, and there the optimal length of a post is a meager 7 minutes of attention.

With ever decreasing friction to access, and ever refined personalization of that we want, and get, we are getting further and further away from the knowledge revolution. Knowledge creation is hard, is slow, is clumsy. In fact Knowledge management is a very important and difficult field in technology where – the point of this sessions – the Forum is investing a lot of effort. In my experience it only works if the incentives for creation and management are very aligned with the core values (like consulting companies enforcing a strict process, since they need to get their consultant up to speed very quickly).

The reason is that Knowledge generation is hard, very hard. It’s the deliberate process of concentrating in filtering and absorbing information and constructing the abstracted logic, the underpinnings that explain the information we get. It requires deep dives with lots of information, it requires focus, and energy.

Interestingly enough, in this trend to optimize information and process it, machines are starting to do “learning” in the very same way we just defined knowledge. These algorithms get access to paramount amounts of data, information, computing time and energy. And they optimize their inner “neural networks” to create abstract layers of representations to explain and predict. They can do, better than us, tasks we always thought needed human understanding, like disease diagnosis, driving cars, understand multilingual conversations in a noisy room. This is extremely fascinating, and by definition we can’t know the scope of where it could go.

We are letting the tool, the technology, drive this process. We get an optimized view of the world and our networks, driven by an infrastructure that favors herd behaviour and shallow constant streams processed by machines that are actually learning. I love technology, and I think there is a huge potential of greatness; but I fear we are leaving our brains out the process. I look around and see personalized social streams polarize fluid mobs of likes and retweets… Ochlocracy is a word we’ll start to hear more and more.

We are not seeing the knowledge revolution because machines are living the knowledge revolution, while we get distracted with social media.

I think we are just unfolding tools that will fundamentally change the ~~future~~ present, and we need strong and transparent leadership to make this process driven by our intended outcomes, not tool outputs, driven by inclusiveness not elites. Encourage academic progress, and blue sky research, but always be in the lookout for applied solutions to our global and local problems. Rethink how technology can support thinking, not replace it. Use technology to steer away from cookie-cutter age based education… Be daring and bold aiming for “moon shot” projects, but keeping the feet in the ground and purpose in mind.

The missing knowledge revolution was originally published by Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño at Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño on August 29, 2015.

500 days as a homeless nomad

2015-05-25T00:00:00+00:00

There are goods and bads of not having a house by choice. Not paying rent is an obvious one. To me the best part probably was accessing and experiencing many styles of living. I didn’t really plan to be homeless for a year, it just happened out of opportunity, and freedom of not having ties. When I left my position in Indiana, summer 2013, I gave away all my furniture to my colleagues. I rented a car to drive back to DC. But I first also did a couple of trips to donate most of my clothes, all kitchen stuff (dishes, blenders, food, … ) and various books to Salvation Army. What was left, everything I owned fit inside the trunk of the car: a luggage with clothes, a box with books and a rucksack with gear (climbing, running), and another with electronics (computer, and a drone, included). The least I’ve ever owned. And I liked it. I felt free.

The plan was to head back to Washington DC, a city I love. But there was a possibility I had to move to San Francisco since I was joining a startup with offices in both places. So I was not “moving back”, I was just moving myself, in the literal sense. Some friends were moving away for 2 months, so I offered to pay their rent since the timing was perfect. And this nomad experiment started, for more than year and a half I lived with no house. I lived at friend’s places while they where out, on Airbnbs, on hotel, on spare rooms, on the floor, on travels, … What started as an organic transition, became a way of life. I could avoid the high cost of settling in and the commitment of a year-long leases, furniture, silverware, bedding and other usual expenses. Living costs that are specially high in the cities I spent most time (Washington DC and San Francisco). Thinking of the shared economy, I offered myself to pay the rent’s of friends when they were out, taking care of the pets, … and yes, sometimes just abusing our friendship and crashing their spare room or floor for a few nights (I really tried to avoid that).

In essence the “living costs” becomes extremely elastic. I could crash the cheapest Airbnb in SF or a super sketchy road motel in L.A. (never again), or I could treat my mother visiting San Francisco on a Victorian row house in Castro. I learnt the good Airbnb choices, the tricks of using Hotwire, favored cheap overnight flights, and lengthen my work trips abroad. I could work anywhere, so tried to extend them so I could learn more of the places I visited.

Sometimes it felt like cheating the system. Like once when I worked in SF until 6pm on a Friday, took the last plane to L.A., rented a car, slept on a crappy road motel, spent time with friends there and ran a charity marathon on Sunday, to fly back Monday 6am and be the first one in the office. And it all was cheaper than staying in SF those days at the typical SF hotel at +200$/night. Combining work and non-work, I went to Spain, Italy, Poland, UK, Denmark, Greenland, China, Mongolia, Panama, Mexico, Dubai, Russia, Morocco, … On DC and SF I also got to live -shortly- at basically every neighbourhood I wanted.

During this nomad phase I met a lot of people. Specially via Craiglist and Airbnb. It was weird to explain I was local but nomad, so I would (half) lie sometimes that I was just moving in or out. With some people I really connected, so I would meet them many months later for coffee. It felt a bit like parents catching with the kids that emancipated from home. I still have contact with a few of them.

I don’t know if due to my extensive use or not, but Airbnb contacted me to take part on a new service they were trying (Airbnb Events) where the host just invites Airbnb-ers in town to hangout. It was super fun (albeit a bit odd with so many photographers). Unfortunately Airbnb Events never launched.

Moving that often meant I reduced my belongings even more. I basically had my box of books at some friend’s place, a suit and a small stash of clothes at both offices. So I only had to fly with my laptop. I even bought the same cheapest bike on Amazon twice (one for each office). Less clothes means you rotate them more often, so a few times I just reordered the worn clothes on Amazon and trashed or donated the used ones when it got to whichever office I was at.

In general I don’t think being nomad is economically advisable. With my best efforts I could average 80$/night, but any mistake, like cancelled trip or Airbnb cancellation would throw me to the industry pool of expensive hotels, or asking friends to crash their places. It also meant I always had to follow a rather complex system of calendar alarms, reminders, budget tier decisions (do I want it cheap now, or do I treat myself). If I found a good deal, a set of trips or sub-rents, I could relax for a month or two, but at the worst it meant overlapping reservations chains starting with Craiglists, Airbnb, Hotwire and hotels.

This absolutely uncommitted settlement predated over the rest of my life. I became extremely uncommitted to anything. How would I make plans for next week or even 3 days in the future If I didn’t know If I would sleep around there, on the other side of the country, or the world. Any material gift would feel awkward, since I had to ditch it immediately, or somewhat make room for it on my tight system. I started finding normal questions odd. Like when entering the US, paying taxes, or a first date asks “Where do you live?”. My natural answer would be “What do you mean?”… even when the most accurate answer for most of us would probably be the office (since we spend there most of the waking time).

Two months ago I left that life. I decided to sign a year lease in DC. The nomadic life was fun, I learnt a lot, and offered a lot of uncommon moments and though processes. But it was also very taxing in my mind. Signing the lease was oddly a relief, and gave much much mental space to focus on my new job and other things, instead of where I would sleep next week. Still it was very uncomfortable to buy forks, or bedding for the new place. I love sleeping in my bed, but I can’t help it to have a very minimalistic place now.

My new “experiment” is that everything I have is bought online (Ikea, Amazon and From the Farmer is 99% of all I need). My friends tells me it looks like an Airbnb spot, and I guess it makes sense.

500 days as a homeless nomad was originally published by Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño at Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño on May 25, 2015.

Bringing Space down to Earth

2015-05-10T00:00:00+00:00

Cross posted on “Voices”, the World’s Bank blog.

Just over five decades ago humans sent the first artificial satellite into space– Sputnik. At the time the World Bank was barely 10 years old and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) was just created. But, space has quickly grown to be a critical asset for our society, and increasingly indispensable for development. For instance, last week IFC announced an investment in a micro satellite company — Planet Labs, and at our event on Big Data for a More Resilient Future this week we displayed one so audience members could understand how small, agile, and mobile these machines have become since the days of Sputnik. Space’s role in society and development is the main narrative of the report that was just released by the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Space.

Satellites are not used, or made, only by developed countries. In fact, more than 60 countries own at least one of the roughly 1000 currently serving us. In space there are no borders, allowing for satellites to potentially offer us the same services regardless of location. This is especially important in development where remote sensing is able to provide new infrastructure, or complement traditional local infrastructure. Space services serve as socioeconomic enablers or multipliers, as they offer new and better types of data, faster turnover rates, consistency across wide geographic areas and long timeframes. The report discloses more than 40 case studies that show the value of this on environment, weather and climate, education, food security, transportation, water resource management, disaster relief and response, just to name a few: all of which are relevant to the World Bank Group’s (WBG) twin goals of eradicating extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity by 2030.

It is not surprising then that the report highlights efforts in space service that the WBG has pioneered and will continue to support. For instance, we use satellite images to monitor electrification in India or Vietnam; gather information after natural disasters; enable education in rural Africa; improve child health in Latin America; and improve traffic in Philippines.

Innovation Labs, housed in the WBG’s Leadership, Learning and Innovation (LLI) vice presidency recently held the 2015 Big Data Challenge where about 50% of the applications from across the entire institution included critical use of space assets. As a member of the Space Council at WEF, I have the chance to collaborate with fellow major stakeholders from other public entities, academic, private institutions, NGOs and civil society, all of which are focused on using space services to improve social outcomes. Our report is a testament to the shared recognition of value and highlights the growing role of Space in development.

Read the full report.</div>

Bringing Space down to Earth was originally published by Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño at Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño on May 10, 2015.

Big Data in Davos

2015-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

Cross posted on “Voices”, the World’s Bank blog.

Last week I was invited to speak at the Annual Conference of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

There were more than 2800 official attendees, convening 1,500 business leaders from more than 100 countries, around 40 heads of state and 300 members of government and international institutions, 14 Nobel Laureates and 800 participants from academia, NGOs and civil society. An overwhelming number of people for a data geek like me, but the potential to maximize stakeholder engagement and forward looking conversations. With more than 300 sessions, it was a perfect landing space to grow and test the network we need for my new role as a data scientist at the World Bank Group’s Innovation Labs.

Data is a fundamental source of insight, monitoring and accountability. It helps us to know what is needed, what is working and what is not and identify gaps in our understanding. For the World Bank Group, innovations in big data and technologies provides new opportunities with which we can better measure our twin goals of reducing extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity, and making progress on the sustainable development goals.

Today, we have an increasing range of new sources of data on population, space and time. They are cheaper than traditional approaches like household surveys which are however, richer in focused information. New sources of data like aerial images of road networks, crops, digital health records, phone call records, night time lights from satellites, social media sentiment, and environmental sensors provide more frequent data flows that can be used to complement official statistics, empower citizens, and provide better monitoring and feedback loops.

One of our goals, eradicating extreme poverty, is hard to measure. The lack of access to welfare systems like basic healthcare, financial tools, or shelter also means there are fewer digital sources. With new types of data, we can combine and analyze them in detail so we can, for example, understand geographical data gaps that can provide much needed information on school dropouts or profile risks and opportunities within and around slums.

When we aim to boost shared prosperity we focus on the bottom 40% of the population. With the help of all these new dimensions of data, we can help double their profits per acre of crops, we can optimize distribution networks and focus on improving the weakest links.

Climate change was the cross-cutting theme at Davos. The effects of climate change will disproportionately impact the poor. Extreme events, like floods, droughts, heat waves and cold storms can quickly disrupt the fragile livelihoods of those who can’t afford to save money, who can’t afford to wait for the next harvest, or can’t afford to get a warmer shelter. Climate change action needs data – big data. Data to measure and monitor carbon emissions on the mitigation side; data to understand environmental vulnerabilities and adaptation needs; and data to understand how to increase the resilience of communities and livelihoods to current and future climates.

Capacity building,was another explicit and recurrent discussion topic during my time at Davos. Properly generating and processing Big Data is a core activity at Innovation Labs. We just closed our first internal competition to support, with $1.5M the most promising Big Data related projects already ongoing at the World Bank. More than 100 projects were submitted, from a wide range of regions, sectors and units, which clearly shows the upcoming trend, and highlights the need to build capacity to absorb the opportunities, in our client countries.

As a scientist and technologist, I also had a very grounding experience at Davos. We geeks tend to focus on interesting problems like deep neural networks to recognize high levels of abstraction. There is certainly a huge value to, for example, recognizing geographic and temporal patterns of call records and financial transactions to infer wealth, corruption or infrastructure bottlenecks. However, sometimes interesting problems are not the most important ones. Sometimes basic capacity building is far easier to do, and has much greater impact, like streamlining the input of digital health forms, mapping current project locations, or flagging data gaps. A lot of new data work in this revolution will come from finding out upstream where existing jobs can fix existing sources of data, and publishing them properly. We will need to work on interoperability, on harmonization across time and regions, on validations and feedback channels, and moving from exploratory case studies to operational capabilities.

As it was clear and explicit at Davos, 2015 is a very important year for data driven development. Big Data will grow into more sectors, more applications, and more volumes of data with a growing potential to reach our mission. We have clear goals, and we have plenty of data and space to innovate, build capacity and optimize our resources.

Big Data in Davos was originally published by Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño at Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño on January 29, 2015.

Fasting for 3 days

2014-08-31T00:00:00+00:00

After reading for a few days about it, and collecting some facts, I decided to overcome my cultural fear and fast for 3 full days and nights. Only water, avoiding exercise and seeing how it feels.

Your body has an extraordinary array of alternative pathways to get it´s energy. This is a evolutionary advantage to survive starvation longer, while keeping cognitive function and mobility. The main mechanism is glucose (25% of it for your brain, which gets preference always). Glucose from sugars, carbohydrates, or stored as glycogen in your liver and muscles. After ~10h of no eating (or 2 running) you deplete your reserves. Then the body breaks down fat reserves into glycerol that is then converted into glucose. The liver also ramps us conversion of fatty acids for energy, which produces keton bodies that can be used by all organs, including the brain. (One of the byproducts is acetone which is released by breath and urine.) After a several days, the cells start to break down muscle tissue to get the aminoacids that can be converted into glucose. I do not know, however, what happens with the rest, like vitamins, electrolytes, minerals, … or the vital bacteria on our intestines.

Fasting also changes the mind. Some of the coping and metabolic mechanisms trigger mood changing drugs like gluco-corticoids, epinephrine, catecholamine … Fasting can also help migraines, epilepsia, anxiety, depression… This is both accounted in historical texts, research and the fact that many cultures and religions include fasting as a holy practice.

(Limited) research as also shows [e.g.] that on rats and humans, fasting, and intermittent fasting in particular, is correlated with less oxidative damage and inflammation, optimized energy metabolism, lenghtening lifespan, protection against diabetes, cancers, heart disease, neurodegeneration, reduce obesity, hypertension, asthma, and rheumatoid arthritis.

I don´t know where the healthy point is, but is probably closer to calorie reduction or intermittent fasting, than it is to eggs and bacon for breakfast and Chipotle for lunch.

In my experience, at first it felt normal, just a bit hungry after I missed my breakfast and lunch. Just water whenever I felt like drinking. Then I, stopped feeling hungry, and I felt a little bit dizzy, weak, so I avoided exercise. But fine mentally and in good mood. After 2 days I sometimes felt “emtpy” on the stomach, or a tingling sensation in the muscles, heart beating a little faster for a while, but nothing worrying. I went for a 2 hours walk and chat with a friend. Not sure if true, but I felt my senses more acute, my sense of smell and hearing in particular. The people I talked to didn´t notice anything if I didn´t tell them.

I feel I could have lasted more than 3 days, I didn´t have urge to eat (which doesn´t make evolutionary sense), but for a first experience seems enough exploration in unknown territories. Some people told me they fasted for 7 days. It´s good to get to know your body and where you can safely take it, but 3 days seems enough for a while.

Fasting for 3 days was originally published by Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño at Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño on August 31, 2014.

Hello World

2014-08-08T19:39:55+00:00

You’ll find this post in your _posts directory - edit this post and re-build (or run with the -w switch) to see your changes! To add new posts, simply add a file in the _posts directory that follows the convention: YYYY-MM-DD-name-of-post.ext.

Sample Heading

Sample Heading 2

Jekyll also offers powerful support for code snippets:

def print_hi(name)
  puts "Hi, #{name}"
end
print_hi('Tom')
#=> prints 'Hi, Tom' to STDOUT.

Check out the Jekyll docs for more info on how to get the most out of Jekyll. File all bugs/feature requests at Jekyll’s GitHub repo.

Hello World was originally published by Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño at Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño on August 08, 2014.

Talking about the Future of Education at the World Economic Forum

2014-04-20T00:00:00+00:00

I was invited to talk the World Economic Forum in Panama earlier this month. It was a great opportunity to know the country, to give a workshop for NGOs about online mapping and, specially, have the chance to talk at the Fourm about a topic so close to me passion: Science, Technology and the future of Education.

The session was translated into several languages and broadcasted live on Internet. Here´s the link to the video:

The gist of my intervention was that:

Process-based education, as opposed to content based, is going to be key; because we are educating for the future. A future were the tools needed are not yet invented. Where the content is available, and it´s the process of knowing how to use it is what matters.
It is very important to raise the public perception of Science and Tech; via Outreach, and via (local) role models.
Science (and Tech) are not silos, they are skills that permeate all across multiple applications, areas and sectors. Easing horizontal mobility would catalyze it´s impact. E.g. Moving from academia to the private sector.

You can read more about the session, the video and Twitter chatter on this link

Talking about the Future of Education at the World Economic Forum was originally published by Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño at Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño on April 20, 2014.

Demoing the Google Glass to the Spanish president

2014-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

I demoed Google Glass to the spanish president, Mariano Rajoy. It was a funny anecdote, and this is how it happened.

On January my President Mariano Rajoy came to meet Obama, and also made a reception at the Ambassador´s residence. I was invited. I have Glass, and I decided to bring them to the event, not wearing them, but on it´s pouch.

Right after entering I asked someone to make us a picture, we started talking and it turned out that the person was the Head of the Intelligence of the President´s cabinet, Alfonso de Senillosa. We started talking about technology and I mentioned the Google Glass I had on its pouch. He was very keen to try them so I took them out. He enjoyed trying them and I told him I would be honored to demo the Glass to the president if he wanted. At the same time virtually everyone around us also wanted to try them so I spent the next 30 minutes demoing and talking about the Glass with all the invitees and all the national and international media gathered around.

The President came and the official program started. Afterwards, Alfonso asked me to come over and he introduced me to the President, and that I had Glass. We spent the next 5 minutes or so chatting. He knew about Google Glass but had not tried it, so he was very eager to do so. I´m pretty sure the bodyguards were not that happy when I was touching the president´s head showing him how to swipe the timeline to see the pictures and video he had just made of me. Before continuing his way he asked me If I could make him a picture with the Glasses and he took his phone out, and gave it to me to take a picture with the Glasses.

The impact

I had asked my date to take as many pictures as she could during the demo, and then I asked the president a picture with her:

Not bad for one of our first dates.

When media started to ask me about pictures I gave them the photos above. I uploaded them to my Facebook and went to bed.

Then national TV run the pictures, and the radio, and the newspapers, and the night news on all national channels, and many others programs. It was the anecdote of the president´s visit. Quickly, I started getting requests to go live and talk about it. The President´s cabinet contacted me to pass them a copy of all the pictures and video. Everyone was very positive and surprised by the impact, myself the first. The beautiful thing is that the anecdote became the lead to talk about technology and science. I have done science outreach for a few years, so I was thrilled to join national media to talk about that (e.g. Cope and national broadcast). Literally this anecdote and the lead to talk about Tech and Science was heard by millions of people. Silica Labs, the startup I´m advisor from and that got me the invitation to have Google Glass become a reference in Spain for Glass.

Who knew that bringing the Glass to that event would lead to so much fun… and impact… and a cartoon!

Almost a year ago now I did the same with Todd Park, United States Chief Technology Officer, when I went to the White House, but that´s another story:

Demoing the Google Glass to the Spanish president was originally published by Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño at Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño on April 15, 2014.

Moscow, United Nations and, mostly, Mapbox

2014-02-09T00:00:00+00:00

Too long since I have last updated this blog. Turns out working at a startup eats most of your time… On top of being with my head down learning a pushing work with Satellite images, I have been quite busy with long runs, trips far away, the UN, the World Economic Forum, Yale, … I don´t know where is the limit, but I know where it is not ;)

Yale University Module

In October I attended the “Foundations for Leadership in the 21st Century: Impact” module at Yale University. This was organized by the Yale University and the WEF YGL network. The course was interesting, with very good teachers talking about economy, health care, conflict resolution, law, … I felt very lucky for such opportunity. One of our speakers, Bob Shiller was few days short of knowing he got the Nobel Prize in Economics. I also really enjoyed the talk by Barry_Nalebuff and the “Honest Tea” story.

Chicago marathon

I flew to Chicago for the marathon. Arrived the previous evening. Went to the expo to pick up the bib and get excited, then to my favorite vegan restaurant there for a very early and generous dinner, and went to bed super early. Woke up, light breakfast and a short brisk walk to the start line to wake up the body. It was pretty cold but watching the sunrise over the lake was amazing. Security was very high, and lots of people.

I had not build enough training for the race, and had done my first triathlon 4 weeks before… but I felt good and started a bit faster than 8:30 min/mile. I felt great, so I went faster little by little and by the half marathon I was going 7:30 min/mile. I paid it, and the last 2 miles were very hard and 50% walking (~10 min/mile). It was quite sad that, becuase of the Boston bombs, the last strech was closed off to the public, so crossing the line was pretty much in silence. Overall my time was 3:38:07. A full 13 minutes faster than my previous PR.

Moscow Discovery trip

Also in October I went to Moscow with the World Economic Forum’s network of “Young Global Leaders”. Huge kudos to Yana Peel and Yan Yanovskiy and their team who organized the whole event. The goal of the trip was to crash learn about this complex and vast country. We met with governmental officials, ambassadors from other countries, newspaper owners, TV channel directors, NGOs, corporations, artists, … Fellow YGL Saleem Ali wrote about it in some detail.

I´m still processing all I have learnt, but I can safely say I do have a much better understanding of the complexity and diversity of issues and opportunities in this country. The end part of the trip was to attend a World Economic Forum regional meeting, where roughly 25% of the attendees where YGL. Truly honored to be part of this network.

UN meeting

I was invited to participate as expert advisor to a scoping meeting for an upcoming UNEP Index on environment. Collaborating with the UN is something I´ve done on the sidelines for a while, and that has been on my mind for a long time and having such an opportunity was extremely interesting.

The UN paid my trip and all expenses to attend the weeklong working sessions in Geneva. It was a pleasure to meet an discuss with experts from literally all around the world, and I truly believe my contribution brought a signal that otherwise would not be present. My experience interacting with the private sector having come from academia, the focus on pragmatism and incremental growth, the data driven answers to early focused questions… This was the essence of my intervention and during the focus groups.

Bonus. The last day I was able to reconnect with an old friend, Rebecca, who is now working at CERN. It was awesome to do a visit to the cavern and talk particle physics for a change.

Mapbox

I have kept myself busy most of the time with Mapbox. Learning, processing, shipping. Repeat.

Some of the things I have written about on our company blog:

… and much more to come

Putting the Google Glasses to my president

Yeah, that happened, but probably deserves a blog post of it´s own. [soon]

Moscow, United Nations and, mostly, Mapbox was originally published by Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño at Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño on February 09, 2014.

Managing work/personal Calendars

2013-10-24T00:00:00+00:00

Lately I have been asked about how do I manage my Calendars. My system is far from ideal, but turns out to be much better than what many people seem to use.

The problem

I want to have separate calendars for personal stuff and work stuff.
I don´t want my coworkers to see my personal details but I want to let them know I´ll be busy.
I want to let someone else manage my work calendar if needed.
I want to have an updated calendar across all my devices. That also means to see/edit/add events using the Cal App on my Mac or my phones (Android and iPhone).

The solution

Tools: Google Calendar for personal use, using Google Apps at work.

TL;DR: Make a work calendar and a personal calendar. Share your personal calendar with your work colleagues as “free/busy”. Share work calendar with your personal email with full access so you can transfer event between calendars.

Personal calendar: Go to the calendar on your personal Google account and make a calendar called “Bruno personal”. Then go to sharing and share it:
- Share with full rights with your work email.
- Share as “free/busy” with the coworkers you need. This is the part that scales bad, you need to add them one by one.
Work calendar: Got to the Google Calendar on your work account, create a calendar called “Bruno MapBox”. Go to settings to share it:
- Share it with your personal email with full rights.
- Select the option to share full details with all your coworkers.
- Add whoever should have edit access.
- Pro tip: The admin of the domain can change the default option across all coworkers to share all details with everyone within the organization.
On your Mac: Set up the accounts, and then go to settings and add, under delegates, the extra accounts you have access to (do not include your personal account on the work calendar or the personal calendar on your work account to avoid duplication). Use consistent colors (in my case I choose red for my stuff and blue tones for work colleagues and team calendars)

On your iPhone/Android: Probably you don´t need to do anything since the settings are mostly inherited from Mac to the iTunes and from Google to Android. Make sure you use the same colors and avoid duplications.
On the web: I like to activate, under labs a few extra options. You can also activate “Tasks” and your (Google) tasks will show up and if they have a deadline they will appear on the calendar. Use consistent colors. If you want you can add the calendars from any colleagues (the admin can activate the option company-wide for work calendars. If not they need to add you manually). Make sure to check the tool “Find a time” under “New appointment”. It allows you add participants and, if you have access to their calendar, you will see if they can make it or not.

If you use Tripit (you should) add it as another calendar to see all your flights, reservations and information from any device.

Done.

Now, wherever you are you can create an event on either calendar (directly from your devices or from the web). You´ll see personal and work stuff in different colors. Coworkers will see your work stuff and busy slots when busy with personal events.

[Cover image from t_trace ]

Managing work/personal Calendars was originally published by Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño at Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño on October 24, 2013.

Running an Olympic triathlon

2013-09-08T00:00:00+00:00

One day, I will not be lucky, fit and crazy enough to do a triathlon. That day was not today. I did the Nation´s triathlon which is an Olympic tri: 1.5 km swimming, 40 Km on the bike and 10 Km running.

“That day is not today” is what I was thinking when I woke up at 4am. I committed to this back in January and since then I had racked up around 500 running miles, 700 miles riding the bike and 60 miles swimming. Far below from any online plan. I was relying on just finishing and having done 2 marathons last year.

7:10 am and I´m eagerly waiting in line on the platform over the Potomac for the whistle to jump into an unknown experience. Was my training enough?, Can I finish this?, Should I start slow, like a marathon?, Will the other swimmers kick me?… As the whistle sounds I jump mechanically into the void. For a moment everything is mute. No sounds from the loudspeaker, nothing to see but brown water. I wait to surface and the race is on.

Forward, pushing always forward. I mentally focus on the training I´ve done, this is the same thing, just not in the pool. The turnaround of the swim is below the bridge far away but I focus on each 100m buoy. It is not easy to sight your bearings and avoid other people. As I am breathing towards the turnaround I get a glimpse of the sunrise over the river waters. Beautiful. Life is beautiful, and I´m so lucky, and crazy. Hopefully fit too. I can feel my body tunning into swimming mode, so I focus on keeping it, reaching out, long strokes, just like the pool. I start to see people from previous waves (another color cap), feels great. I know I´m not a good swimmer, but I´m holding good. Getting to shore feels amazing. Swimming is my hardest leg, and it´s done.

I run to the transition zone, but my body commands to slow down. I just can´t run. Too tired. I walk a bit, get to the bike, gulp some water, some dates, and I´m out with the bike. I´ve only done 2 long rides while training, it is not my bike and I don´t have clip pedals, (so I´m riding with my running shoes). Still I have aerobars that you can lean forward and be aerodynamic. This is going to be interesting. 2 loops of 20 Km each.

Right on the start a guy with a fancy white bike passes me in a swoosh, and without thinking I push to get him. These bikes can be 10.000$ but I´m ready to challenge myself and try my best with the gear I borrowed from a friend 2 days before. Drafting is not allowed, but I speed up to get him because I want to push myself, I need to or I´ll be too slow. I pass him back and another guy with another fancy swoosshy red bike passes me. And I go again. The three of us spent the whole 40K passing each other, every 5 minutes at most. I think this was the key to make an awesome bike leg. I averaged 22 mph (35 km/h). I could hardly push further. We were not the first, but only a handful other riders passed us. I had to force myself to drink and eat energy gels. As we were cruising the city I got glimpses of the landmarks, the river, the monuments, the sun. I felt lucky, fit, and great. Suffering and enjoying it at the same time.

Back to the transition zone. On my forearm I had written my row number. It is hard enought to run but the transition zone is like an beehive of people getting out of the swim and the bike. Drop the bike. Get a bite of an energy bar, and off to the run. No thinking. It was hard to mentally deal with running one more hour, but I had no pain, just tired. No excuses, you´ve done a great job so far. The running movements felt uneasy, forced and new. Can I do this after the swim and the bike? Yes, this is just a 10K run. iYou´ve done many of these runs training! I tried to recreate the feeling of my long training runs or the end part of a marathon, hoping I would find my running state soon. I also saw a guy running slightly faster than me ahead, so I focused on him. Humans evolved hunting as persistence runners, and it also makes it easy to empty your mind. I need to keep the distance to him. It was hard, I could hardly push more, and I had to keep it for one hour more. After 15 minutes or so, they guy ahead saw his family, he sped up, so I was loosing him. But then he slowed down a few feet later. He was mine. I passed him and tried to look for another moving target. I started feeling better so I pushed more (run listening to your body they say). Only 4 miles to go. I was going to do it.

At this point your ups and downs swing quickly. The sun is shinning, a few runners are now passing me super fast, but I focus on my body. It´s hard, challenging, but I can do this, and I enjoy that. Again this weird feeling of suffer and joy at once. No pains at all. The track deviates and it´s very hard to turn when the end line was just straight ahead. The only thing keeping me running now is the body inertia of the pace. If I stop it´s over.

As I turn the last bend and I see the arch at the finish line, I start to smile. I can barely sprint as I had wanted, but I can hold this pace (which turned out to be faster than most of my trainings). Every step feels me with joy, pride and the feeling of completing and triathlon. No idea of the time, but it´s here. I cannot resist to smile, throwing the hands up in victory, and people cheer for me. I´m coming alone. The guy with the loudspeaker reads my number, checks the name and he is cheering me by name. Also Antonio and Aniceto are shouting but I didn´t hear them. The last steps are pure joy, pure challenge but knowing it´s done. Pretty tired, but no pain anywhere, and feeling absolutely amazing.

Turns out my estimate of 3 hours was way off. My official time is 2 hours 34 minutes, an incredible time to me. The swimming was just on par to my best trainings in the pool, the bike was the best of my legs, where I averaged 35 km/h on a mostly flat course. The run was 47 minutes, 7:35 minutes per mile (my record in 10K -only running- is 44:15 minutes). Many things could have gone wrong today, but few could have gone better. I can´t say being vegan helps or not, but I lost a few Kg in this training (again, like for the marathon, I´m around 145 pounds/ 65kg) and I feel great.

Overall I really enjoyed this challenge, but the training is just too hard. Just like I felt training for a marathon, the training is worse than the race, more so on a triathlon. Swimming is hard, and bike is both dangerous and time consuming. Training often, training several sports in one day, gathering the gear, … Crossing the line is an amazing feeling, and the most visible step of a huge challenge. Kudos to everyone who raced today, or is currently training.

Running an Olympic triathlon was originally published by Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño at Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño on September 08, 2013.

Joining MapBox as Chief Scientist

2013-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

I´ve joined MapBox as Chief Scientist! This is a long coming love story, possible thanks to my recent extraordinary visa. An amazing next stop on my journey to bridge Science and Technology with Society at large. I am very excited to join this awesome team.

Think of MapBox as a mix of Wikipedia for maps (leveraging the power of open data and crowds) and Apple style to master a product that is beautiful, fast and breaks beyond convention. Faster, better, open maps for anything that has a location.

Opening the geo space… What is MapBox doing?

A cloudless Satellite map of the whole world.
Maps provider for Github, Foursquare, Financial Time, Le Monde, USA Today, … See Showcase
Street level satellite image fresh from space (this was my first blog post, on my first week here) .
Monitoring deforestation in the Amazonas.
Map of Mars.
TileMill, a free app to style your map data.
An incredibly huge code repository, and guidelines to process your data using only open source software (e.g.). …

And this is just a sneak peak of what has already shipped in less than 3 years. Btw, we are hiring.

A real garage start-up… Well, a garage with glass doors that we open on summer days, couches, fossball, free food and drinks, computers hanging on the walls, a bar space, bike rack, meeting rooms that actually are hanging out rooms since there are virtually no meetings …

MapBox, let´s dance.

Joining MapBox as Chief Scientist was originally published by Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño at Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño on August 12, 2013.

Alien with extraordinary Abilities

2013-07-22T00:00:00+00:00

It´s official: I´m an “Alien with Extraordinary Ability”. Today I have received official notice of my O1 visa.

Can I use this as a pick up line?

Alien with extraordinary Abilities was originally published by Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño at Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño on July 22, 2013.

Mi vida en el Max Planck

2013-06-17T00:00:00+00:00

-Last week it was announced that The 2013 Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation has gone to the Max Planck Society. The Asturias newspaper “El comercio” asked me to tell their readers how is it to make a PhD at the Max Planck. This is what I sent. -

Todavía me quedaban ocho asignaturas de la carrera de Física, cuando en febrero solicité mi beca de doctorado al Max Planck. Mi profesor de Física Estelar II me lo recomendó.Yo acababa de llegar de Oviedo a La Laguna para terminar la carrera con la especialidad de Astrofísica y me pareció una locura. Los pocos compañeros a los que se lo dije me dijeron que me olvidase. Imposible. No me lo podía creer cuando en junio me invitaron a ir a dar una charla al comité de selección para la última fase. Nunca me olvidaré de que al acabar la misma todos los asistentes, investigadores de alto rango, se pusieron a dar golpes en las mesas, como llamando a la puerta. Luego supe que esa es la forma de aplaudir en academia en Alemania. Sólo aceptarían a nueve de los veinte candidatos, de entre los más de 500 que se habían presentado. Todos tenían excepcionales cualidades.

Mis tres últimos exámenes de septiembre los pase con la presión y el orgullo de tener una beca en el Max Planck esperándome. En enero de 2005 me mudé a Alemania para empezar mi doctorado en física solar con el Max Planck y la Universidad de Goettingen. En mi caso era el Instituto Max Planck para el Estudio del Sistema Solar y Mas Allá. Mi contrato era de tres años para estudiar la atmósfera solar, con un director de tesis muy experimentado, instalaciones y recursos punteros, acceso a los mejores telescopios solares del mundo (volviendo a Tenerife), un salario de unos 1000 € netos al mes y un despacho. Además, Goettingen resultó ser una ciudad universitaria con mucho ambiente, y situada en el centro de Europa. No sabía decir ni “hola” en alemán, pero no pude ir con más ganas y menos dudas.

El Max Planck es un centro muy competitivo donde se trabaja duro. Reúnen a los mejores investigadores y les ofrecen buenas condiciones, pero también esperan mucho de ellos. Fueron tres años muy intensos aprendiendo con los mejores profesionales. Mi doctorado obtuvo un “magna cum laude”, pero además publiqué tres artículos en revistas académicas -uno de ellos portada- asistí a cuatro conferencias internacionales presentando pósters o charlas. Pasé en total unos 100 días en el telescopio VTT en Tenerife . Publiqué artículos de divulgación dentro y fuera de España. La NASA publicó mis datos de divulgación un par de veces. En el Max Planck participé en unos catorce cursos y seminarios sobre temas avanzados para que obtuviésemos la mejor visión posible de campos similares al nuestro y de lo que nuestros compañeros hacían. Además, cada uno de nosotros teníamos que presentar su trabajo y se incentivaba el cruce de colaboraciones dentro y fuera del Instituto. Para el eclipse solar de 2006 en Turquía nos organizaron un viaje para verlo y que todo el Instituto aprendiese sobre física solar.

Básicamente mi tesis consistía en ayudar a entender por qué la atmósfera del Sol esta más caliente que su superficie. Parece contradictorio si el calor viene de dentro del Sol. Mi trabajo era usar los mejores instrumentos en los telescopios solares de Canarias para registrar la dinámica de las nubes de plasma de la atmósfera solar. Procesar los datos para extraer la mejor señal e información posible, y luego usar las teorías del momento para ver si podían explicar las observaciones. Un largo proceso que involucraba aprender desde Óptica, para entender el funcionamiento del telescopio, hasta magnetohidrodinámica, para entender las ondas de plasma que veía en los datos.

Más de cuatro años después, mantengo contacto con muchos de mis compañeros de entonces. Están los que siguen trabajando en el Max Planck, los que trabajan para la NASA, los que se han vuelto a su país para trabajar en la universidad en puestos relevantes, los que se han pasado a otros campos de la ciencia, divulgación o temas completamente diferentes.

Mi tiempo en el Max Planck terminó cuando tuve la posibilidad de trabajar con cohetes y satélites de la NASA en Washington DC. Pero por encima del honroso título y el paso a mi siguiente capítulo, me formé como científico y persona. Aprendí sobre la física solar, la ciencia en general y la vida; junto con mis compañeros, con quien muchos de ellos aún mantengo un buen contacto. Cada dos años el Instituto organiza conferencias para reunir a los antiguos doctorandos y mantener un grupo unido.

He tenido el honor de comprobar el alto nivel de prestigio que ostenta esta institución, lo mucho que cuida a sus trabajadores y las relaciones dentro y fuera de sus paredes, durante y después de trabajar con ellos. Es por eso que me enorgullece leer sobre el premio que la Fundación Príncipe de Asturias otorga al Max Planck, más que justificado en el apartado de cooperación.

Mi agradecimiento al Instituto Max Planck, que me dio la oportunidad de recibir una sólida formación. Bien me hubiera gustado haber podido realizar o continuar mi trabajo en España, país donde tenemos grandes talentos pero en el que triste y equivocadamente, a mi juicio, la política de inversión en investigación y ciencia no es una prioridad.

Después de dos años en el laboratorio de cohetes, pasé a la Academia de Ciencias de EEUU para hacer política científica. Actualmente soy Director de Ciencia y Tecnología de una ONG sobre cambio climático. Soy “Joven Líder Mundial” del Foro Económico Mundial y asesoro a varias empresas y ONGs sobre asuntos científicos y tecnológicos.

Mi vida en el Max Planck was originally published by Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño at Bruno Sánchez-Andrade Nuño on June 17, 2013.