HTA-0585: Couch Shopping — We Love These Couches

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Summary

Henry hosts a lifestyle segment about furniture and couch shopping.

Full Transcript

00:00
We love these couches.

00:01
So some of the smartest young people in the world gather together at a place called Singularity University, which is a program in Silicon Valley.

00:12
We have two of the students with us.

00:14
And among the things that they create is projects, projects that have exponential potential for growth and for helping the world.

00:23
We've got some interesting projects here for you.

00:24
Let me introduce you to Caitlin Sparks.

00:27
She's a student, Graduate Studies Program 2011.

00:29
and Yasmin Pedoroglu, she's also a student graduate program, and they both developed some fascinating concepts.

00:36
First of all, would you explain Singularity University and the idea in this program?

00:40
Sure, you bet. It's really a new model for education that is part think tank, part business incubator.

00:47
And it brings together 80 executives every year from all over the globe to look at exponentially advancing technologies

00:54
technologies and figure out how to develop businesses that address the world's biggest problems.

00:59
Okay, let's talk about your project then, okay?

01:03
And let's bring up a picture here of one of the key elements of your project.

01:11
What is that and how is it going to help save lives?

01:14
Sure, that is a quadcopter and the project that we developed was focused on global poverty alleviation.

01:21
So the quadcopter technology is a piece of our project that is a new paradigm for transportation,

01:29
seeking to facilitate a leapfrog in traditional infrastructure

01:33
and do delivery transportation of high-value goods with aerial vehicles.

01:38
So let me explain.

01:39
This thing is not much bigger than like a foot and a half on each side, maybe two feet.

01:44
Correct.

01:44
They're small.

01:45
They're easy to fly.

01:47
But how is that going to help transport stuff?

01:49
It can actually carry a payload right now, that version.

01:54
Disaster relief supplies, medical supplies, medical tests, blood, food packets for disaster relief.

02:02
Things that are a very high value, time sensitive delivery.

02:06
And so it's called Matternet because basically it's a network in which you're really moving physical matter from place to place.

02:12
The analogy is the internet.

02:14
So what the internet did for information, the Matternet seeks to do for the transportation of goods.

02:19
Okay. Yasmin, your project involves a pretty ugly looking site from space and we've got some video of the threat here and something that we knew quite well, which is that there's an awful lot circling the planet. It's kind of a junkyard out there.

02:33
Exactly. So I am a French entrepreneur and Singularity University gave me the skills and the tools to challenge the biggest, to find solutions for the biggest challenge.

02:48
And my goal is to create an X-Prize competition as a team leader myself to clean up all the space debris, such as the NASA satellite that fell on the Earth.

02:59
And this could happen to you because every year one big satellite, like the six-ton satellite, is falling on the Earth.

03:07
You have yourself one chance on 10,000 to get hit by this kind of satellite.

03:14
Your chance to win the lottery is 13 million.

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It could be you.

03:18
Better chance, yeah.

03:19
So how do you eliminate the risk?

03:22
So by leading this X-Prize competition,

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we are, some company or international organization

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will compete to create the best tools to clean up the space.

03:36
Okay.

03:36
Let me tell folks about Singularity University

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because I want to sign up.

03:41
December 1st through 8th is their 4-7-day executive program,

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and in January 2012 their five-day future med program,

03:48
summer 2012 their 10-week grad student program.

03:51
Registration is now open.

03:53
You can go to singularityu.org, which is a fascinating website,

03:57
and you're looking at two young people here who really are, I think, going to change the world.

04:02
Marty and Isabel, what are we doing to change the world?

04:06
Well, we're going to tell you about some big changes in Pacifica.