Adam is the former content and community director of Techonomy. Before that, he was communications coordinator at The Philoctetes Center and a contributor for the New York Academy of Sciences Magazine.
Adam Ludwig
Contributor, Techonomy Media
Written Articles View All 114
Geoengineering: Smart Science or Hail Mary?
In a recent report, a committee appointed by the National Research Council issued a recommendation that the federal government fund research on geoengineering as a means to address global warming. Geongineering, sometimes known as “Plan...
ICANN CEO Fadi Chehadé: The Internet Is a Tool for Solidarity
Where is the Internet taking us, and how do we keep it secure? There’s no shortage of people ready to offer up opinions on such questions, but few who are truly qualified to answer them....
Jaron Lanier on Why Wealth Concentration Among the Few Is Unsustainable
Technologist and author Jaron Lanier wants to reframe the debate about income inequality, starting with semantics. He takes exception to the notion that income equality would ever be a good thing. “To really make incomes...
Ford’s Ken Washington on the Evolution of Mobility
Young people aren’t the only ones who are starting to think in new ways about car ownership and how they get around. According to Ken Washington, VP of research and advanced engineering at Ford, “the...
Ford’s Ken Washington: Autonomous Vehicles Aren’t About to Drive Off Without Us
Do intelligent machines threaten to not only to steal our jobs, but to rob us of the pleasure of driving? Ford VP of Research and Advanced Engineering Ken Washington says that while “technologies are maturing...
Manufacturing Intelligent Devices That Could Save Your Life
With 200,000 employees across 30 countries, Flextronics is probably the biggest company you’ve never heard of. The American electronics-manufacturing giant is the second largest manufacturer of any kind in the world, after only Taiwan’s Foxconn....
The Markle Foundation’s Philip Zelikow on Reconfiguring Education for the Digital Age
“Imagine an education system that’s built around unleashing the power of the individual,” says Philip Zelikow, professor of history at the University of Virginia and visiting managing director at the Markle Foundation. Zelikow envisions a...
Idealab’s Bill Gross Taps the Crowd to Create Companies
Crowdsourcing predates the Internet, but Web platforms like Wikipedia supercharged the concept, giving it global currency and making it an increasingly indispensable business strategy. “Using the intelligence and wisdom and ideas from everybody anywhere on...
Reid Hoffman to Entrepreneurs: Balance Optimism and Caution
Reid Hoffman knows a thing or two about combining entrepreneurial audacity with savvy risk-assessment. He co-founded LinkedIn in 2003, and his venture and angel investments with Greylock Partners include Airbnb, Facebook, Flickr, Mozilla, and Zynga....
Breakout Labs Aims to Take Science from the Lab to Supercharge the Economy
How do scientists working on radical new ideas translate ingenuity into sustainable business models? And how do entrepreneurs find the science they might need to create a breakthrough biotech product? Lab coats have to brush...
Detroit’s LevelEleven Revs Sales Motivation
What do you do as a manager when the conventional means of motivating your sales team—competitions, prizes, inspirational speeches—fall flat? How can you leverage technology to help rally and focus your team around company initiatives,...
Scripps Bio-Chemist Romesberg: Proteins and Enzymes Could Transform Industry and Medicine
How can a better understanding of evolution help us improve human health? Renowned bio-chemist Floyd Romesberg of the Scripps Research Institute can think of a few ways. For one, cancer cells evolve and grow by...
Upstart’s P2P Lending Platform Aims at Young Borrowers
For would-be borrowers with little credit history, getting a loan can be a nightmare. But one important group of applicants are young, well educated, and entrepreneurial—and would probably be favorable credit risks. Techonomy asked Dave...
Siri Co-founder: Speech Recognition Ready for Leap Forward
Speech recognition has been around a lot longer than Siri, but Apple’s dulcet-toned digital assistant helped bring the technology to a mass audience, and inspire futuristic visions like the one voiced by Scarlett Johanssen in...
Siri Co-founder Cheyer on How Change.org Amplifies Voices
Voice-recognition technology helps users interact with their computing devices. But Siri co-founder Adam Cheyer believes that if you recognize people's voices in another sense—when they advocate for change in society—you can help them do something...
Kiva’s Julie Hanna on Tech as a Democratizing Force
Is technology the most democratizing force mankind has ever seen? That's how technologist and serial entrepreneur Julie Hanna sees it. We spoke with Hanna at a recent Techonomy dinner salon in San Francisco. She asserted...
Audible Founder Katz on Discovering the Music in Language
Even the head of an audiobook juggernaut has to admit that certain books were meant to be read on the page rather than listened to on headphones. For Audible founder and CEO Donald Katz, that...
Got Audiobook? Audible CEO Katz on the Rewards of Listening to Literature
Since introducing one of the first digital audio players in 1997, Audible (now owned by Amazon) has become the biggest name in audiobooks. “It really is seen as a service now,” says Audible founder and...
How Warby Parker Doubles Down on Disruption and Social Change
The technology-driven eyewear company Warby Parker has bigger fish to fry than disrupting an industry and hooking up consumers with hip, inexpensive glasses, although it’s done a pretty good job of that so far. “We...
Why Warby Parker Admires Tesla’s Disruptive Drive
Warby Parker has used tech tools to shake up the eyewear industry, making high quality glasses available to consumers for a fraction of what they used to pay. Meanwhile, insurgent carmaker Tesla is changing the...
Audible CEO Katz on Why Audiobooks Boost Literacy
Donald Katz, founder and CEO of audiobook pioneer Audible, can go on at length about why listening to books is a virtue for readers and society. That's not surprising, since his company (now owned by...
Can a Sharing Platform for Artists Point to a More Equitable Society?
What do you do if you’re an artist in need of supplies, but you happen to be broke? Creative people have been pooling and exchanging resources for generations. Now, the emerging Internet-enabled sharing economy makes...
Want to Donate Your Old Sofa to Charity? There’s an App for That
The sharing economy is rooted in the idea that at any given moment, the things that people own—their tools, their cars, and sometimes even their homes—are sitting idle, ready to be used by someone who...
eBay’s Devin Wenig on Retail in a Post-Mobile Age
With mobile connectivity more and more ubiquitous, could we be entering a post-mobile age? eBay's Devin Wenig thinks so, and says it will increasingly define the global marketplace. "The physical and digital worlds are coming...
McKinsey’s Michael Chui on How Tech Transforms the Economy
For insight into big emerging tech trends, look beyond Silicon Valley and Alley, said McKinsey's Michael Chui at a recent Techonomy dinner salon in San Francisco. The developing world is about to jump into the...
Is There a Hacker Hiding in Your Air Conditioner?
Hackers will try any point of entry they can find to access private data. In a recent interview with Techonomy, RSA Security’s Art Coviello said that the number of vulnerable access points—or what he calls...
These Companies Are Giving Virtual Workers a Home
Last year we profiled Web engineering company 10up (which developed this website). Aside from its near-fanatical devotion to all things WordPress, one of the hallmarks of 10up is that it’s a distributed company—its 60-plus full-time...
Techonomists Weigh in on Tech’s Future at Our San Francisco Salon
Techonomy hosted a salon dinner in San Francisco, in partnership with BlackBerry, and we took a few guests aside for further insight. We asked them, among other things, our usual—how is tech innovation changing society?...
SwiftKey CTO Debuts Our “Three Questions” Video Series
Techonomy hosted Ben Medlock, CTO and co-founder of Britain's SwiftKey, in our Manhattan offices for a short video interview. It was the first episode of a new online series we call "Three Questions from Techonomy."...
Can Drones Help Scrub China’s Filthy Skies?
Just how bad is China’s air pollution? A recent M.I.T. study concluded that a huge swath of the Chinese population is losing an average of five years in life expectancy due to pollution. The Chinese...
Zuckerberg’s Vision for Building a Benevolent Internet
Once your Internet company has amassed over 1 billion subscribers around the world, what’s your next move? The most obvious answer is to figure out how to leverage your extraordinary user base to generate revenue....
Lenddo’s Borrowers in Mexico and The Philippines Get Credit Via Facebook
Jeff Stewart believes he can figure out if you will repay your debts by studying who you know and what they say about you. For him, it's better than a credit score. Stewart is CEO...
A New Lab to Reinvent Mexico City
Five months ago, Gabriella Gomez-Mont launched Mexico City’s Laboratorio para la Ciudad, or Laboratory for the City, under the auspices of recently elected mayor Miguel Ángel Mancera. The Laboratorio, as its name suggests, is an...
OK Glass, Do Your Shtick
If you enjoyed Trae Vassallo's recent post about how she uses Google Glass to be a more efficient mom, you'll love author Gary Shteyngart's account of puttering around New York, basking in the awe factor...
John Hagel on How Businesses Build Around Innovation
John Hagel is a regular contributor for Techonomy and a director with Deloitte. He and John Seely Brown, co-chairs of Deloitte’s Center for the Edge, recently published a report tackling one of Techonomy’s central themes:...
3D Printing Affects Every Industry, Even Homebuilding
At Techonomy, we’re fascinated by the potential of 3D printing technology (also known as additive manufacturing) to transform domestic manufacturing by creating efficiencies and opportunities for producers both large and small, from industrial fabricators to...
UK Inaugurates World’s Largest Offshore Windfarm
While America celebrated the anniversary of its independence, our erstwhile colonizers celebrated the possibility of energy independence. July 4th marked the official opening of the London Array, the world's largest offshore windfarm. Situated in the...
Samsung Aims at a Networked Home
Samsung appears to be gearing up for an Internet of Everything economy. Already a leading producer of smartphones and LED televisions, the consumer electronics giant is preparing to expand its reach into home appliances. Samsung's...
Video: Kirkpatrick on Facebook Shareholder Unrest
Techonomy's David Kirkpatrick appeared yesterday on Bloomberg TV to comment on Mark Zuckerberg's reaction to angry investors at Facebook's first shareholder meeting. Kirkpatrick asserts that Facebook's formidable reach will ultimately bolster its long-term outlook, citing...
Staples Brings 3D Printers to the Mass Market
Designers have used 3D-printing websites like Shapeways to manufacture and market their wares for several years now, while some intrepid DIY makers have taken production into their homes by investing in desktop 3D printers from...
The Humanoid Robots Start Arriving
Steve Jurvetson, a VC friend of Techonomy's at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, ordered a humanoid "Baxter" robot from Rethink Robotics and shared these shots of taking it out of the box and plugging it into the...
An Online Matchmaker for Designers and Manufacturers
Repatriating U.S. manufacturing jobs isn't just about bolstering the economy. There are practical business problems associated with outsourcing production abroad. It's not uncommon for shipments of products made in countries like China to arrive with...
Rock-Bottom Real Estate Creates Opportunity in Detroit
Jerry Paffendorf and Dan Gilbert have radically different visions of urban renewal, but both seek to leverage the depressed Detroit real-estate market to spur entrepreneurship and opportunity. Paffendorf, a refugee from the Silicon Valley startup...
Investigators Will Crowdsource Clues to Boston Attack
Tracking down the perpetrators of Monday's Boston Marathon bombing will depend in part on determining the techniques they used, an aspect of the investigation that will rely heavily on evidence gathered from videos and photos...
Want to Appear in a Crowdsourced Music Video? Click Here Now
The Dutch design studio Moniker wants you to help animate its new music video. Featuring the music of Light Light, the project, called "Do Not Touch," records the movement of users' pointers as they collectively...
Slumping PC Sales Signal Rise of Mobile Computing
Consumers may be going mobile more rapidly than just about anyone in the computing industry could have predicted. Two new reports show sales of desktop and laptop machines dropping sharply in the first quarter of...
GE-Quirky Deal Opens Tech Patents to Almost Everybody
Independent inventors of consumer products are about to get access to the resources of a $245 billion industrial technology business. In a partnership with the Manhattan-based product-development startup Quirky, GE will open up a trove...
Is Facebook Home More Than Just a Souped-Up App?
The day after Facebook's big announcement about its new Home interface for Android phones, Techonomy CEO David Kirkpatrick fielded questions on Yahoo! Finance about the implications of Facebook's latest play for the mobile market. An...
Kirkpatrick: Facebook Wants to Be There When You Turn Your Phone On
Techonomy CEO David Kirkpatrick appeared on Bloomberg TV yesterday to comment on Facebook's ambitions to amplify its presence in the mobile market. Kirkpatrick dispelled rumors that Facebook intends to launch a new phone, but said...
Girls Who Code Aims to Bridge Tech-Sector Gender Gap
Girls Who Code is a Manhattan-based nonprofit aimed at teaching high school girls software programming, public speaking, product development, and other skills that prepare them to launch careers in the tech sector. It's one of...
Deloitte’s Chris Park: 3D Printing for Cleaner and Leaner U.S. Manufacturing
Revitalizing manufacturing is essential to U.S. economic recovery, but it’s not clear yet how this new phase might look. One thing is certain: it won’t look anything thing like manufacturing did 15 or even 5...
Ford to Crowdsource Fuel-Efficiency App
As part of a campaign to help drivers learn more about how to optimize their fuel usage, Ford announced its Personalized Fuel-Efficiency App Challenge at last week's New York International Auto Show. The app will...
Seeking Consensus on Cyberdefense
The cyberattack that temporarily paralyzed the American Express website last week highlighted the escalating frequency and brazenness of strikes aimed at global financial institutions. In the past six months, similar attacks hit JPMorgan Chase, Wells...
Dutch Firm Plans 3D-Printed Canal Boat
In a talk last January at Learning Without Frontiers, Ray Kurzweil speculated that one day 3D printers will be able to self-replicate by printing parts to make other 3D printers. Kurzweil, now Director of Engineering...
Venture for America Cultivates Detroit’s Innovation Greenfield
Following our first Techonomy Detroit conference last fall, we profiled Venture for America, a program that places young tech entrepreneurs at start-ups throughout the country, targeting cities like Detroit, New Orleans, and Las Vegas that...
A High-Altitude Hack to Bridge the Skills Gap
Hamadoun Touré, Secretary General of the International Telecommunications Union, spoke at Techonomy 2011 about why broadband access should be a universal human right. Now, Touré's United Nations agency is partnering with British Airways to look...
Has the Sharing Economy Already Left Zipcar Behind?
Zipcar was a harbinger of the new sharing economy, but according to Arun Sundararajan of The Harvard Business Review, because the company has to maintain a fleet of vehicles, its business model is really no...
Google Unveils Voice Recognition With Silent Film Demo
As part of the roll-out for its newly developed voice-recognition tool, Google has unveiled a nifty little feature that allows users to add subtitles to silent film clips. Open PeanutGalleryFilms.com in Chrome (it won't work...
Unconstrained and Undisciplined: A New Breed of Disruptors Accelerates Market Transformation
Clayton Christensen's model of business disruption posits that new players can topple industry giants by attacking the low end of a market and building towards competitiveness at the higher margin. But this once-groundbreaking model may...
Online Gamers Could Play Their Way to Breakthrough Science
Can untrained gamers help solve tough scientific puzzles? Some scientists and researchers are starting to think so. In fact, there are problems that professional scientists admit they are helpless to solve without the help of...
Will the Car of the Future Be Printable?
We've already seen 3D-printed guitars, motorcycles, and even stem cells. Is 3D printing ready to disrupt the auto industry? It could happen sooner than you think. The Urbee 2, a lightweight three-wheeled, two-passenger vehicle designed...
A SimCity for Analyzing Urban Efficiency
New York University's new Center for Urban Science and Progress is launching an initiative to develop sensor and data-crunching technologies aimed at creating a smarter, more efficient city. With partners including I.B.M., Cisco, Xerox, and...
North Korea Relaxes its Internet Grip, but Not Much
Last November, Techonomy contributor Gabriel Mizrahi wrote about how North Korea's strict prohibition of Internet access effectively quashes any hopes there for the kind of popular uprising seen in the Arab Spring. "This is the...
7.2 Square Miles: The Data Behind Detroit’s Resurgence
A new report produced by a consortium of Detroit-based organizations uses a wide range of analytics to document the revitalization of the 7.2 square miles that comprise the city's Greater Downtown area. Drawn from local...
Green Card Policy Could Blunt U.S. Edge in Startup Innovation
At last year's Techonomy Detroit conference, salesforce.com's Vivek Kundra, who from 2009 to 2011 was the first U.S. Chief Information Officer, lamented the disconnect between an education system that attracts the world's best and brightest...
City Supports Tech Startups “Made in NY”
The "Made in NY" advertising campaign has been touting the city's efforts to grow and energize local film and television production. Now, Mayor Bloomberg has launched a "We Are Made in NY" initiative that supports...
3Doodler Turns Sketches into 3D Objects
The 3Doodler, a new 3D printing pen from the toy and robotics company WobbleWorks, lets users transform sketches into three-dimensional objects. The pen, currently in development thanks in part to a successful Kickstarter campaign, emits...
Healthcare Entrepreneur Disrupts Addiction Treatment
After confronting his daughter's alcohol and drug addiction, and supporting her through a torturous recovery, healthcare entrepreneur Peter Loeb wanted to help others who struggle with addiction. With his daughter, Loeb launched Lionrock Recovery, a...
Big Data Could Mean Big Jobs for Cleveland Area
Last year, Techonomy held a one-day conference in Detroit to tackle the issues of jobs, urban revival, and U.S. competitiveness in the global economy. While Detroit continues its road to recovery, thanks in part to...
Making Robots Better Team Players
Humans are intelligent, yet unpredictable. Robots are programmed to be predictably logical. Can they get along? These days they don't have much of a choice, as robots increasingly perform human tasks and work with human...
Can Robots Be Job Creators?
In their recent comments on "60 Minutes," and at the Techonomy 2012 conference, MIT economists Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfssonn may have given the impression that robots are poised to swipe the jobs of U.S....
Why Memorize Shakespeare’s Sonnets When You Can Encode Them on a Speck of DNA?
Technology has enabled us to collect and analyze unprecedented amounts of data. As Ray Kurzweil commented at the Techonomy 2012 conference, "The kid in Africa with a smartphone has access to more intelligently searchable information...
From Persecution to 3D Printing Pioneer: The Rise of Geomagic CEO Ping Fu
Removed from her family and forced to live as an orphan when she was just eight, Techonomy participant and Geomagic CEO Ping Fu endured the brunt of China's Cultural Revolution before ascending to the heights...
Can Chinese Investment in Clean Tech Cut Through Record-breaking Smog?
With Beijing suffering its worst levels of air pollution on record, news that China was the world's biggest investor in clean energy in 2012 may offer a ray of hope—hopefully one that can cut through...
Why Robots Might Boost Industry While Killing Jobs
Globalization is an easy culprit for the recent wave of U.S. unemployment, with domestic jobs shipped overseas to be replaced by cheap labor, often without adverse impact on the quality of a company's products or...
Techonomy SuperSession at CES Explores Networked Society
Techonomy hosted the SuperSession "New Network Effect Changes Everything" at CES yesterday, featuring Rodney Brooks of Rethink Robotics, Ford CTO Paul Mascarenas, and Ericsson President and CEO Hans Vestberg. Techonomy founder David Kirkpatrick moderated the...
Canadian Company to Scour Carbon Dioxide from the Skies
The Canadian company Carbon Engineering, formed in 2009 with partial funding from Bill Gates, has developed technology to scrub carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. A pilot plant for capturing the gas will open by the...
Is Telecommuting Overrated?
The futurist Alvin Toffler predicted the rise of telecommuting, calling the home office an "electronic cottage" that could enhance family and community cohesion. A growing segment of today's workforce telecommutes—in a variety of ways and...
Amazon Pushes E-tailers to Deliver Instant Gratification
Retailers big and small are trying to chip away at Amazon's growing competitive edge, in some cases even if it cuts into their own profits. A number of stores and e-commerce sites now offer same-day...
E-tailers Oblige Customers Who Want to Handle the Merchandise
E-commerce stalwarts are beginning to see the virtues of opening brick-and-mortar retail stores. Andy Dunn, CEO of formerly online-only apparel company Bonobos, told The New York Times that he was losing about half of his...
Manufacturing Innovation Will Drive U.S. Economic Growth
Reviving U.S. manufacturing could mean more than creating new jobs; it has the potential to spur a more innovative and sustainable economy. As reported in The New York Times, economic theorists are warning that a...
Can Lifelogging Devices Augment Our Memories?
In one of the latest runaway crowdfunding success stories, the Swedish creators of the lifelogging device Memoto, hoping to raise $50,000 through Kickstarter, wound up raising more than $540,000 in just a month. Clearly, something...
Can Syrian Government Starve Rebellion with Information Deprivation?
Last year, a 75-year-old woman in the former Soviet republic of Georgia hacked through a cable with a shovel while scavenging for scrap metal, inadvertently crippling Internet service in that country and in neighboring Armenia...
Who’s in Charge of the Internet, and Who Pays the Bills?
The 12-day World Conference on International Telecommunications will convene representatives from 190 countries next week in Dubai. It's the first such assembly since 1988. Since then, the Internet has become a central driver of business...
Ray Kurzweil Talks About Robot Jeopardy Champ Watson
Ray Kurzweil is a leading thinker, inventor, and futurist known for his track record of accurate predictions. In this video, shot in Kurzweil's office near Boston, he talks to Techonomy founder David Kirkpatrick about Watson,...
Ray Kurzweil on Using Exponential Thinking to Predict the Future
Next week's Techonomy conference in Tucson, Ariz., will feature Ray Kurzweil, a leading thinker, inventor, and futurist known for his track record of accurate predictions. On November 13 Kurzweil is releasing a new book, How...
Tech Companies Pitch in to Provide Storm Support to Startups
Many tech and media businesses have been disrupted by power loss and connectivity issues in the wake of Superstorm Sandy. But several companies, like the social media optimization service SocialFlow, are fortunate to have fully...
Instagram Offers Powerful Views of Storm
When I checked my email this morning, my mother, who lives in France, had sent me links to two Instagram photos of the blackout and flooding in lower Manhattan. Some of the most visually stunning...
Can Facebook Make Mobile Its Gold Mine?
Facebook has "finally gotten religion about the need to really focus on revenue and profit," says Techonomy Founder David Kirkpatrick in a recent interview on Bloomberg TV. Facebook has always focused more on its product...
Agile London Startups Give Banks a Run for Their Money
Refugees from London's financial sector are flocking to the the city's burgeoning startup scene, launching lean, Web-based companies that capitalize on public mistrust of banking institutions, and use tech tools to trim costs and improve...
Chicago Lays Pollution-Fighting Pavement
In an effort to curb pollution one block at a time, the Chicago Department of Transportation is developing what it calls "the greenest street in America." A two-mile stretch of Blue Island Avenue and Cermak...
Do Corporations Stoke Innovation or Smother It?
This election season has predictably amplified the argument that taxation and regulation suffocate growth and innovation. But Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston argues an opposing theory: that "corporate socialism" stifles innovation, and that the...
Shapeways to Open Factory of the Future in Long Island City
The 3D printing company Shapeways today cut the ribbon on its new manufacturing facility in New York's Long Island City, a ceremony attended by Mayor Bloomberg and Empire State Development President and CEO Kenneth Adam....
Plans to Digitize Health Records Draw Skepticism
As the medical industry strives to integrate new technology to improve services and outcomes, venture capital funding for healthcare IT has tripled in the last three years, according to a story by WNYC's Mary Harris....
Venture for America Plants Budding Entrepreneurs in Urban Soil
Before the Techonomy Detroit conference in September, we talked to Venture for America founder Andrew Yang about how his new program is attracting young talent to startups in Detroit and elsewhere. Like a Teach for...
Dick Costolo on How Twitter Redefines the Role of News Media
In an interview with WNYC's Jeremy Hobson, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo elaborates on the heightened role that Twitter now plays in society—particularly relevant given the explosion of tweets surrounding the presidential and vice-presidential debates. "We...
Technology Helps Germany Reconstruct Its Painful History
The Stasi, the police arm of the East German government that crumbled in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall, attempted to destroy millions of documents chronicling decades of spying on its own citizens....
Deciphering Facebook’s Ad Exchange
Facebook is still formulating ways to leverage its massive user base (which just surpassed one billion) to create new models for ad revenue. The launch this summer of its own ad exchange was a step...
Why the Candidates Need to Tout a Digital Economy
The U.S. could be poised to emerge as a leader in a new global digital economy. But Zoe Baird, President of the Markle Foundation, believes that the presidential candidates must do more to articulate a...
Nate Silver Leads a New Era of Techonomic Poll Tracking
The 2012 Techonomy conference will be held Nov. 11-12, so the results of the presidential election are certain to loom large. One aspect of electoral politics that's been transformed by the influence of tech and...
STEM Knowledge an Increasing Necessity for All Workers
STEM skills aren't just for job-hunters in tech fields. As reported in SmartPlanet, Dr. Richard Larson of MIT believes that STEM literacy goes far deeper than understanding numbers, formulas, and gadgetry.
Startups That Catch Fire Too Soon Risk Early Burnout
Despite raising $41 million prior to launch, the much-hyped mobile/social/photo startup Color hit a wall once they released their app. Why? As Matthew O'Brien of The Atlantic explains, building something that people don't know they...
We Built That: Will the Quirky Model Be Replicated?
At Techonomy we've heard tons of buzz about social product development company Quirky since our Techonomy Detroit conference, where company founder Ben Kaufman gave a high-spirited, enthusiastically received talk just weeks after finalizing a $68...
Whiskey, Beer, and Wine Producers Clean up Their Act
Could tech make having a stiff drink good for the environment? As reported by David Worthington at Smartplanet, Tulibardine distillery in Scotland has partnered with energy startup Celtic Renewables to turn whiskey byproducts into butanol...
Crowdfunding Hits Can Leave Investors Empty Handed
There's a lot of enthusiasm about crowdfunding's potential as an engine for innovation. But not all crowdfunding is created equal. Case in point: the Elevation Dock for the iPhone received $1.5 million in funding from...
The Maker Movement: A Bottom-up Industrial Revolution?
According to Chris Anderson of the Guardian, we are entering a Third Industrial Revolution: the age of Makers. Characterized by bottom-up innovation, the Maker movement harnesses the Internet, crowdsourcing, and new manufacturing technologies to make...
Skills Gap Widening on Two Fronts, Deloitte Team Concludes
One interpretation of the skills gap is that the knowledge acquired to earn a college degree is becoming obsolete faster than ever before. But, according to research by William D. Eggers, John Hagel, and Owen...
Americans Give Computer Industry Top Favorability Rating
In a recent Gallup poll ranking overall public perception of a wide range of U.S. industries, the computer industry topped the list, with a net 64 percent positive response. The oil and gas industry ranked...
Skills Gap May Be Narrower than Feared
The recession has amplified discussion about the skills gap, accompanied by speculation that 21st century jobs will require college degrees and advanced skills training still inaccessible to many. This compounds worries about a growing barrier...
Obama Campaign Uses Big Data to Target Voters Block by Block
As reported by Richard McGregor in the Financial Times, one voter whose name, age, and address were published in the "Obama for America" app, which helps canvassers target doors to knock on, was decidedly nonplussed...
Ready to Rumble at Techonomy Detroit!
Tim Smith of Skidmore Studio says that he's so excited to speak at Techonomy Detroit, he's already picking out what shoes to wear. More importantly, he's already formulating his slant on the session he'll appear...
With $68 Million from Andreessen Horowitz and Kleiner Perkins, Quirky Aims to Disrupt Consumer Products
Quirky has come a long way. Its roots lie in the distracted musings of inattentive high school student Ben Kaufman. Think of him now, instead, as wunderkind inventor. The New York-based social product design company,...
Can Twitter Hold Out as Defender of Free Speech?
Twitter's chief lawyer, Alexander Macgillivray, believes that defending free speech is smart business. The company has been tenacious in its efforts to keep governments' prying eyes away from its users' content, and is still resisting...
Don’t Call It Crowdsourcing: Quirky CEO Ben Kaufman Brings Invention to the Masses
As he prepared for the 2007 Macworld Expo, 19-year-old inventor Ben Kaufman wondered how he could ever top the buzz his company, Mophie, had generated at the 2006 event. Instead of shooting for another iLounge...
Videos
The Social Path to Productivity and Corporate Transformation
Business is struggling to keep up with employees and consumers empowered by social media to broadcast their desires and discontents with unprecedented speed. Where will the current wave of social media-based enterprise collaboration tools take...
Events
Techonomy 13
A new society is coming into being. People around the world are building it using the rapidly-evolving tools of technology.
Techonomy 12
Techonomy focuses on how the exponential pace of technology progress makes possible a new world. A wave of accelerating change driven by technology’s advance is washing over our lives, bringing great potential for business and...
Techonomy 11
Techonomy is about the centrality of technology to business and social progress and the urgency of embracing the rapid pace of change brought by technology. Every major issue going forward will be affected by how...