Saturday, November 21, 2009

The future of science is already here... and mostly Asian!

A young genius

His name is Pranav Mistry and he is the perfect model of new stunningly brilliant Asian students who are busy reshaping our future.  He is currently studying in the Fluid Interfaces Group at MIT’s Media Lab.  Before joining MIT he worked as a UX Researcher with Microsoft. He received his Master in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT and Master of Design from IIT Bombay.

But, above all,  he is the inventor of SixthSense, a wearable device that enables new interactions between the real world and the digital world.

And now, he is developing an unbelievable number of new projects like a programming language for children or sticky notes that are understood by your computer…  You can find all this on his website : www.pranavmistry.com

In this jaw-dropping video, he tells us how we use objects in the real world and how we can create bridges between the real world and objects and/or data from the numeric realms. And how he was led to create his strange but true invention…

The Asian Gold Rush

I wanted to introduce Pranav Mistry to you, not only because he is one of the most brilliant and creative minds ever, but because he is the perfect illustration of a interesting phenomenon : Asia is sending more and more students to America.

The three major “sending countries are India, with 103,000 students (up 9 percent from last year); China, with 98,000 students (up 21 percent), and South Korea, with 75,000 students (up 9 percent).” (Source : Miami Herald, 21-11-2009).

From last year, “The total number of Asian students rose more than 9 percent, while the total number of Latin American students rose by 5 percent. The number of European students rose by 4.5 percent, including a 5 percent increase from Spain.”



More and more, highly trained and skilled students are leaving their Asian homeland to study in the US and contribute to the development of science and technology.

But this trend is also a good news for business because this stay in US of the most brilliant Asian students will facilitate future contacts between Asian and American companies and universities.

The other side of this story is that “the gap among developing nations is widening : While Asian countries are sending more students to some of the world’s best colleges, Latin American countries are lagging behind. (…) South Korea, with a population that is less than half that of Mexico, is sending more than five times more students to U.S. colleges than Mexico. And Vietnam, a poor but increasingly globalized Communist-ruled country with a population that is less than half that of Brazil, is sending more than twice more young people to U.S. universities than Brazil.”

Moreover, most of these Asian student graduate in science and technology.

The conclusion is this : Asian countries are investing in very high standards education while some other regions of the world are not focusing on the training of their new generation. On the long run, this will make the difference…

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