Time to Make Futuristic Travel Plans

Travel by air land, and water is being reimagined these days. Tesla is the well-known stock market darling of driverless cars, and Elon Musk also promises travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco in 30 minutes in his frictionless train. Later, on February 6, 2018, Musk successfully launched his
 SpaceX rocket to signal what could be the beginning of commercial space travel. Richard Branson also is in the commercial space travel mix with his plans to take us to Mars.

     We've heard about Amazon using drones to deliver our e-commerce orders. But, when it comes to delivering supplies in a medical emergency, drones can be life savers if they fly over traffic congestion, take the most direct route over lakes and hills, and avoid washed-out and impassable roads to reach rural areas. Yet, there are still challenges of battery life, bad weather, and urban neighbors disturbed by the oncoming buzzing sound.

     Matternet of California, Mercedes-Benz vans, and the Swiss firm Siroop are partners in a pilot project, approved by Switzerland's aviation authority, in which a drone successfully returned lab samples to the roof of a waiting van that delivered them to a hospital in heavily-populated Zurich, Switzerland. E-commerce firms could follow a similar procedure using UPS or other trucking services for the last leg in the delivery process.

     In Norway, Yara is investing in crewless, electric container ships that are expected to cost three times as much as conventional models but offer an operational savings of up to 90% over the costs of fuel and crews on comparable cargo ships. Since travel on autonomous ships in international waters could take until at least 2020 to gain approval by the International Maritime Organization, you're likely to be traveling on an autonomous ferry first.

   

Unemployment Breeds Poor Choices

Without a job, people realize how much their lives lack, not only money, but also structure and a community of friends and associates. From this perspective, preparing students to be entrepreneurs or to move into the careers of the future becomes a priority when traditional jobs are declining and the global population of young job seekers is increasing.

     Patrick Cook-Deegan, co-director and designer of Project Wayfinder (projectwayfinder.com), has been thinking about how to help high school students develop a sense of purpose that will motivate them to prepare for the future. Being told what to do and taking tests for four years fail to connect students to their work in the future. Asking students to consider what the world needs and what their interests and strengths are can lead to the conclusion that life requires a broad outline that accommodates twists and turns rather than a narrow path. There is a need to connect students with mentors from local industries so that they begin to see how their natural instincts to listen to music, play video games, build with LEGOs, study fashion magazines, or read detective stories apply to solutions for real world problems. There also is the need to ask students to think about how to resist being pressured into a career they know they will quit.

     In developed and less developed countries, resilient people can avoid becoming a target for opportunists, because they know what their goals are (they keep their eyes on the prize) even when they are young, old, fat, black, uneducated, poor, disabled, working at a fast food counter, or tending bar.

     During the 2008 crisis in the United States, families could not afford the mortgages on their homes and manufacturing jobs continued to disappear. The Governor of Wisconsin promised to return 250,000 jobs to the State. With his promise still unfulfilled in 2017, the Chinese firm, Foxconn, offered to bring 13,000 jobs to Wisconsin. In exchange, the State agreed to provide financial incentives totaling $3 billion worth of taxpayer revenue and to exempt the company from environmental laws and the need to gain approval to build or relocate power transmission lines.

     The story in Ghana is similar. Traditionally, non-citizens were prohibited from the practice, known as "galamsey," that allows small scale gold mining by licensed local residents using hand tools on their own land. With half the 15-24 year-old population unemployed, Ghana's farmers willing allowed Chinese miners to work their land with excavators and heavy duty dredging machines, to reduce export revenue by smuggling gold out of the country, to pollute rivers, and to encroach upon land farmed for cocoa. As the number of foreign gold miners increased so did trafficking in the cocaine and other narcotics miners use to help them work long hours in mud-soaked, dangerous conditions.

     In the 19th century, China itself was a victim of drug trafficking, when its society fell prey to an opium addition from British imports its inefficient. militarily weak government could not stop.

     Seeing how unemployment creates a climate for poor choices by individuals, States, and countries reinforces the need to prepare young people for the careers, global careers, that will employ them in the future.

(Additional information about gold mining in Ghana is covered in the earlier post, "Africans Learn to Play the Game".
 

Women Used by Human Traffickers Need International Amber Alert

"...humans, unlike drugs, can be sold for repeated use."

There is nothing comfortable about the globalization involved in this statement by the president of an Asian movement against human trafficking, mostly of the estimated 7 out of 10 who are women and girls kidnapped or lured into this new form of slavery. 

     Women are taken by force like the 276 schoolgirls the terrorist group, Boko Haram, abducted in northeastern Nigeria in 2014. They are the objects of sex tourism for old white European men on the coastal beaches of Kenya. And they are promised "good" jobs by the traffickers in India who sell them as maids, prostitutes, and bonded laborers in households, brothels, and factories. If they are rescued and returned, as at least 82 of the kidnapped Nigerian women were, they need counseling and help to be reintegrated into society.

     Slavery prevention requires military and police protection and organizations that provide poor females with food, education, sewing, farming, and other alternatives to earn an income for themselves and their families. By distributing pamphlets, producing street plays, showing documentary films, and putting up posters, organizations also warn girls and women about the false promises used to entice victims.

     Stories about women who have been spotted and rescued on airplanes and trains suggest how teachers, and even students, should be suspicious and ask questions about students who suddenly disappear. U.S. airlines, aware they are vehicles for human trafficking, train their agents to recognize warning signs: young travelers with no identification and no adult with them, small bags rather than luggage, one-way tickets paid for by cash or credit cards not in their last names and possibly flagged as stolen. In one case, when a customer service agent spotted these signs, she told two girls they wouldn't be able to fly and called the local police department. On social media, a man had invited the girls to New York for the weekend to earn $2000 modeling and appearing in music videos. The man disappeared as soon as he knew the police were on to him.

      A woman on a train from Bhopal to Mumbai, India, was able to ask a nun for help, because the man who her husband allowed to take her to a job was riding in another coach. She was told to meet him on the platform at Borivali, a station in Mumbai. The quick thinking nun took a photo of the passenger, told her to get off the train one station before Borivali, and gave the woman the cellphone number of a nun who could meet her and help her get on a train to return home. This story had a happy ending, because the husband thanked the nuns for their help. 

     Other rescues are more dangerous, since traffickers are well organized and financed. In India, trafficking is a multibillion dollar business. By working with the police, a non-government organization in India did successfully free women confined in a fish-processing plant, force the company to pay back wages, and transport the women back to their homes.

     Sister Florence Nwaonuma tells how her experience networking with religious congregations in Nigeria was effective, because training acquainted the nuns with human trafficking issues and prepared them to collaborate and avoid ego conflicts. Working with immigration officials in Lagos, Nigeria, sisters resettled trafficking victims there or helped them go on to Benin City, where other religious congregations were ready to provide short term housing. In many jurisdictions obtaining licenses for shelters also requires cooperation with government agencies. 

     At shelters, traumatized victims of trafficking often require the same services, such as medical attention, as victims of sexual abuse. Psychosocial support is needed to heal memories, provide reassurance about safety, and listen in counseling sessions. In some cases, where legal action is possible, victims are prepared to testify in court. Long term drug therapy also may be needed for those who have contracted HIV/AIDS.

     The U.S. holds a National Human Trafficking Awareness Day on January 11, and the UN-sponsored World Day against Trafficking in Persons is July 30. Plan now, how to mark these days in your communities. In thinking about the future, check the Trafficking Day websites to find out about job opportunities in this important field.

       

        

Cosplay Is No Child's Play

Guess what people are spending $399 for this weekend. It's not a new phone but a chance to attend three days at Wizard World Comic-Con;  to meet and get an autograph from Spider-Man's creator, Stan Lee; and to pick up a gift bag.

     I used to tell bored students to use their imaginations to turn doodles into money-making characters like Snoopy and Hello Kitty. With all the emphasis on equipping students for future careers involving STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math), every so often it's wise to step back and encourage students who'd prefer to make their way in the arts or to combine their interests in the arts and STEM subjects. After all, some comic book characters exist because radiation, lab accidents, and Iron Man's implant gave them superpowers. And drawing and coloring often now is done on a computer instead of by hand.

     The cosplay idea that combines costumes and play grew out of science fiction conventions. In 1984, Nobuyuki Takahashi coined the cosoplay term which now applies to those who wear costumes representing characters in Japanese anime and manga or characters in cartoons, books, comic books, action films, TV series, and video games. Although people who come to today's Comic-Con conventions around the world still make their own costumes, manufacturers also produce costumes, as well as wigs, body paint, contact lenses, costume jewelry, and prop weapons, for sale.

     If you think about all the revenue generated by and for those who produce and sell cartoons and comic books, films, TV shows, books, and video games, you get an idea of the major global market open to creative students. As I learned from a student who is taking a comic book course in college, there also is a market for those who teach about these "playful" subjects.

Bucket List: Things I Want to Try

My father worked for a company than made point-of-purchase advertising. When you're in a business that looks for new ways to attract the attention of in-store shoppers, you work on the cutting edge of innovation and develop an eye for what's new in all aspects of life.

     At one point, we had a plastic form for displaying bras and motorized roses circling a bottle of liquor on our dining room table. Our dining room table took a beating, when Dad brought home one of the first ball point pens. It came on a pedestal in a see-through cylindrical display container. We immediately took it out to try and gouged our names right through paper into the dining room table.

     When President Eisenhower initiated the Interstate Highway System, Dad drew a picture (not with a ball point pen on the dining room table) of the new type of clover-leaf interchanges it would have. Then, there was his excitement when he told us we'd be taking one of the first passenger jets to see the new Disneyland in California.

     With this kind of background, I realized I had been making a mental bucket list that included the following: (It might be time to make your own and look for ideas from around the world.)

• Flying a dronw
• Using Virtual Reality glasses to see Victoria Falls
• Making something with a 3D printer
• Twirling one of those fidget widget things
• Programming a simple robot
• Seeing how intricate cut paper pop-ups are made for books and cards
• Trying various hearing aid devices
• Playing "The Settlers of Catan" game
• Seeing how a green screen works in movies
• Making all kinds of repairs
• Riding a Hoverboard
• Using all kinds of phones

As I hear about new things, I wish there were somewhere to go to try them. Maybe in abandoned shopping malls.

Technology Heals and Transports

If you think about it, the first uses for new products are not always the ones that become most useful. Satellites led to the GPS; nuclear bombs led to nuclear materials for treating cancer. Almonds and crickets are now made into flour. So, who knows what AI, 3D printing, drones, robots, and sensors will be best known for in the future.

The Trendwatching site introduced me to the way a Pepsi ad used phones to help sets of three people get together during Ramadan in Egypt. Three people had to hold their phones next to each other side by side to view a full Pepsi ad that told them to put away their phones and pay attention to each other. That's the way to overcome the loneliness that undermines health.

Virtual reality glasses provided health and welfare benefits in Brazil's nursing homes. Intel partnered with "Reasons to Believe" to give VR glasses to seniors who always longed to travel to the countries of their ancestors. With the glasses, they could experience these trips. Working with Burson-Marsteller, Intel's public relations agency, a project called "Technology and Life" also will show VR's importance in treating autism and patients with visual and motor disabilities.

You can start listing other VR uses, some already being tried, to show customers in one country items they could buy in another, to help a shut-in or hospitalized child go to the zoo or a ball game, to show a friend a 3-D version of your African safari.... Look through a travel magazine and you'll see Alaska, Iceland, Ireland, Paris, Rome, Prague, Rio, Cape Town, and so many other places you'd love to visit with the help of VR glasses or a VR headset..

So You Want a Career in Fashion. Do It!

Don't let all the talk about artificial intelligence, machine learning, and robotics scare you into another field. Who knows, outfits for robots may be the next new thing? In any case, you only need to watch the "Project Runway" TV show to realize interest in fashion is as global as interest in the Internet of Things. Designers on "Project Runway" are male, female, and other; Japanese-American, African-American, and Muslim. In fact, the Muslim designer's long, modest fashion won the show's second competition. And this season, "Project Runway" also requires designers to create stylish clothes for women who take every size up to and including size 22.

     But "Project Runway" is not the only one breaking the traditional fashion mold. Fashion magazines, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Elle, have responded to competition from the international fashion reach of Facebook and Google. Where consumers and advertisers want products in local languages tailored to cultural dress codes, political policies, and local designers, models, and icons, there are separate editions, such as Vogue Arabia, Vogue Latin America, Vogue Poland, Vogue Czech Republic and Vogue Ukraine. Naomi Campbell, among others, supports the idea of launching Vogue Africa. When it is possible to create editorial content compatible with international interests and brands and using international celebrities, the same major campaign can run in as many as 25, 32, or 46 separate editions.

     Based on consumer interests and advertising trends, David Carey, president of Harper's Bazaar's Hearst publisher, expects local content to shrink somewhat as global content increases in future years.