On Not Knowing: Recent Episodes
Jonathan Lenchner
A series of conversations with prominent and up-and-coming IBMers (as well as occasional non-IBMers) on the theme of science, learning and the growth mindset
About Anu: Anu grew up and was educated in India. She started her career at the India Research Lab in Delhi, but then moved to Bangalore and was one of the first employees of that lab. Anu became a manager in 2009 and was soon thereafter given the opportunity to be a Global Technology Outlook (GTO) co-lead, which meant a move to the US. This experience, where she was not promoting her own ideas, but pushing others to develop their ideas, was a transformative one for Anu.
Anu ultimately settled down with her young family in the US and has become known for how she instills confidence in her own people and pushes them to stretch themselves and become growth minded. In this episode we learn a bit about what makes Anu tick, and some of the secrets to her ability to motivate her people and to make sure they are always growing.
About Victor: Victor grew up amidst the hustle and bustle of Lagos, Nigeria. After contemplating a career in medicine he became interested in computer science, which led him to pursue a Masters degree at the CMU campus in Kigali, Rwanda and then to the IBM Kenya lab where he was first an intern and then a highly influential research engineer. He is now pursuing his Ph.D. in computer science at CMU in Pittsburgh, PA in the USA.
About Julian: Unlike Victor, Julian grew up in the calmness of a modest size German town, where he learned to repair bicycles and other crafts. He developed an interest in physics and then geophysics, with a special interest in the earth and its systems. He now works on the future of climate. Among the different problems he has worked on, one involves parameter estimation (also known as problem inversion, depending on who you talk to). Julian once thought of himself as not being good at languages, but as we hear, he has turned that weakness entirely on its head.
Some recommendations from Victor:
Tyler Cowen's "Conversations with Tyler"
Tomi Adeyemi's "Legacy of Orisha" book series
Paul Graham's essays
Some recommendations from Julian:
Naomi Klein's "This Changes Everything"
Amandine Gay's documentary "Ouvrir la Voix"
Patricia Kuhl, "The linguistic genius of Babies" (TED Talk)
About Rosie: Rosie grew up in London where she cultivated an early interest in mathematics and sports. She learned to scuba dive at a young age and, through diving, developed an interest in the world's oceans. By profession, Rosie is equal parts oceanographer and software engineer. Rosie is leading the marine mammal experimentation on the Mayflower Autonomous Ship, a sleek modern reincarnation of the original Mayflower that will try to autonomously travel from Plymouth in the UK to Plymouth Rock in the USA. In this chat we learn about that planned voyage and Rosie's involvement in it.
About the Mayflower Autonomous Ship:
Sea Change - Setting a New Course for Ocean Research
This Ship Has No Crew and it will Transform Our Understanding of the Ocean - Here's How
Some recommendations from Rosie:
Richard Wiseman, 59 Seconds
Nick Pyenson, Spying on Whales
My Octopus Teacher (Film)
Frederik Imbo, How Not to Take Things Personally (TED Talk)
Robert Sapolsky, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers
About Mahmoud: Mahmoud is the Chief Technology Officer for IBM Global Industries responsible for addressing industry needs and innovation opportunities based on IBM technology and platforms across IBM global markets. He has led major IBM businesses as a general manager in strategic partnerships, business consulting and industry solutions. Mahmoud was for many years a vice president in IBM Research.
In this chat we hear about Mahmoud's journey, from growing up in an ancient town in Iran, to schooling in Europe, grad school at Columbia, and then landing at IBM Research in the heyday of wireless communications and the Internet of Things. We then hear about his voyage out of Research, leading to his most recent adventures, addressing industry needs and innovation opportunities using IBM technology.
What Mahmoud has been reading:
Y. N. Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of our Discontents
R. G. Rajan, Fault Lines
Coleman Barks, Rumi
Yasmin. Kahn, The Saffron Tales
About Claudio: Claudio is equal parts mathematician, artist and engineer, with a certain amount of businessman thrown in for good measure. Claudio is a thinker and an innovator with a fascinating career journey to share.
In this chat, Claudio tells us about how he grew up in Brazil, into a family cinematographers, but with a love of mathematics. His academic interests took him first to Japan and then to the MIT Media Lab, where he combined his passion for art, mathematics and engineering in novel ways. We then hear about his early projects at IBM, including his well-known "Everywhere Display" system. Claudio goes on to tell us about the experience of founding the Brazil lab and the wonderful team of researchers he and his colleagues have assembled there. Along the way, Claudio treats us to a very frank assessment of his career and some of the difficult choices he has made along the way.
What Claudio has been reading:
N.J. Enfield, How We Talk: The Inner Workings of Conversation
Warren Sack, The Software Arts
Kate Crawford, The Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence
Luciana Storto, Línguas Indígenas: Tradição, Universais, e Diversidade
Kristina Balykova and Bruna Franchetto, Indio Nao Fala So Tupi
About John: John is a four-time Emmy Award winning journalist and moderator of the highly acclaimed Intelligence Squared USdebate series. John was also the moderator for the first live debate featuring IBM's Debater system at the IBM Think conference in San Francisco in 2019. In that debate, the Debater system argued in favor of the motion "We should subsidize preschool" and did a formidable job against one of the very best human debaters, Hareesh Natarajan.
In this chat John tells us about his amazing career as a foreign correspondent in the years leading up to and including the fall of the Iron Curtain as well as his coverage of the Iran-Iraq war and two Persian Gulf wars. John is brutally honest about the highs and lows of his career, including a low point as chief White House correspondent for ABC in the Clinton years. John then tells us about the secret of his deep listening ability and the deeply humanizing work he has done on autism, leading to his best-selling book In a Different Key: The Story of Autism, which was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2017.
Some of our favorite Intelligence Squared debates:
Nationalism is a force for good
We should subsidize preschool (IBM Debater vs. Hareesh Natarajan at the 2019 Think Conference)
Smart technology is making us dumb
More clicks, fewer bricks: the lecture hall is obsolete
About Lori: Lori was the recipient of the prestigious 2019 British Computing Society UK IT Apprentice of the Year Award, as well as two other apprenticeship awards in 2020. Lori is well-known for having developed the Virtual Assistant, a chatbot application that handles over 60,000 messages per week. Former IBM CEO Ginni Rometty called it "one of the most sophisticated, proven applications of Watson on the IBM Cloud." Lori somehow manages to balance her crazy work life at the IBM Hursley R&D lab, with time to finish up her undergraduate degree at Exeter University.
In this chat we hear from Lori about growing up in the English countryside, her love for math and programming, and how she coped with being a bit of a nerd as a young person. We then hear how Lori made her way into IBM, ultimately landing in Research, and how she has found her groove with the support of great managers and mentors.
About John: John is an IBM Fellow at the MIT-IBM Watson AI Laboratory. Before that John was the Chief Scientist of IBM's Internet of Things division. He received an undergraduate electrical engineering degree from MIT, and a Ph.D. from CMU. John is known for his thorough-going playful approach to work and his penetrating curiosity. He was the engineer scientist on the Discovery Channel TV show, "The Colony". John's presentation about electricity, entitled "Jolts and Volts", has been performed for more than 50,000 students worldwide, including performances at Walt Disney World, and the New York Hall of Science.
John's take on the joy of science:
Innovation through Play
Engineering Paradise Rap
What John's been reading:
Alan Watts, "The Wisdom of Insecurity"
David Sedaris, "Children Playing before a statue of Hercules"
Haruki Murakami, "After Dark"
Delia Owens, "Where the Crawdads Sing"
Jose Saramago, "Skylight"
