In their fascinating book, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, Nobel Prize-winning economists Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein explain how simple policy “nudges” can have powerful ramifications. The example that has always stuck with me is the vast discrepancy between the number of organ donors in Germany and Austria. Culturally, socially, and economically,…

The future will become more beautiful one step at a time. On April 22, New York City–following on the heels of Denver, Portland, San Francisco, and Toronto–took a small step in this direction by passing legislation requiring new buildings to have “green roofs.” In addition to cooling down a city by mitigating the urban heat island…

It has been said that “sunlight is the best disinfectant.” In this spirit, WattTime, a nonprofit artificial intelligence firm, plans on using satellite imagery and artificial intelligence to precisely track the air pollution coming out of every single power plant in the world. By itself, the information won’t make the world a more beautiful place…

The word terrific is fascinating. In one context it can mean “magnificent” as in “the weather is terrific.” In another context, it can mean the opposite–as in “it was a terrific thunderstorm.” I mention this because yesterday after delivering the opening keynote at a technology conference where the theme was “surviving in an age of…