 Good morning, and thank you for coming to the event despite all the travel warnings and scary news out there I would like to sort of encourage people not to shake hands, but to We've tried many alternative ways of saying hi the foot bump and hold your heart and the Namaste and Pat Also has the dinosaur greeting, which I'm not sure is gonna take off, but so you can do any of those variants, but Don't shake hands. The last news that we want to come out of here is that there was a bio Summit at the media lab and everybody got infected with COVID-19 We have enough enough news if you've dealt with Recently so I am Running a research group here at the media lab already. I've been here for 30 years and I also happen to be the chair of the executive committee right now as we are sort of searching For a new director for the lab For those of you that actually have not been here or that are new the media lab is 35 years old This year actually and it's really a pretty unique place among Academic research labs. It's a unique in that. It's very cross disciplinary other labs at MIT have All chemists or all biologists and so on All computer scientists AI people but instead here you have one of each neuroscientists Musicians designers and more So we're very cross disciplinary Our funding model Many of our member companies are here today is also unique in that we have this consortium model where Companies join the consortium and they give us unrestricted funding so that we can work on topics that are often a little bit more Risky or more futuristic like the topic that we are talking about today Third our research style is also unique. We tend to bring together All these different people with all these different backgrounds the artists the scientists the designers the engineers to prototype basically possible Experiences and technologies that could in a major way Influence people's lives So instead of having a discipline in common what all of us here at the media lab have in common is that we're interested in emerging technologies and people in fact our mission draft mission statement or intellectual mission statement is That the media lab strives to benefit society by inventing technologies and experiences that enable people to Understand and transform their lives their communities and their environments So we are about 35 years old and we've sort of added different media so to speak to our tool belt over these decades in the first decade The lab started with only sort of using digital media as the tools that we worked with People like Lori Anna Devon port working on interactive movies and the Libman working on networking and communications futures Muriel Cooper Really invented a lot of new ideas in the area of digital design and more In the second decade we didn't stop working on digital tools and digital media But we added physical media or materials People like Hiroshi who's here today Working on tangible media making data more tangible so you can manipulate it and feel it with your hands people like Neil Gershengfeld Started this whole revolution of on-demand fabrication and 3d printing We many of us were working on ubiquitous computing and how the Objects around us would become smart and embedded with sensors and networking capabilities and so on and wearable computers was another Topic that was added at that moment. How can we make computing more mobile? That was by the way before cell phones existed In the third decade We added Biological media as a sort of a on our tool belt of things that we work with you her Of course works on smart prosthetics that can really integrate and talk to the nervous system Neri oxman is a designer who has done a lot and actually as a show at MoMA today Looking at what we can learn from nature to When we manufacture and design things Katya Vega in Joe Paradisa's group who's here today and a student in my group She'll leave worked on Sensor tattoos tattoos that can change color based on Chemical properties of the skin to for example show when glucose what your glucose level is like Hiroshi here also worked on clothing and materials that are living and that can respond in this case to Sweat and for example open up flaps In the the clothing to allow the person to cool off and All of these ideas really at first seemed very crazy In fact, we were working on touch screens actually long before 84 Nicholas Negroponte talked about them in the 70s and back then people were saying about touch screens Well touch screens that I mean they'll never maybe they'll get rid of them now with COVID-19, but They were saying well, they're gonna be Dirty and Your finger will occlude what you see on the screen and so on so people were not necessarily Buying into all of these ideas at first We did things like we had a backseat driver, which is really like a whoops a device or it was a system that would give you car driving instructions based on information about The streets and the location where you are at and so on so all of these ideas seemed kind of a little bit far-fetched initially and involved a lot of Equipment and a lot of money and so on but ultimately They all became reality and they all and they started entire new Categories actually of products like the wearables Of course Google Glass may have not been a success, but other types of wearables watches a new generation of augmented reality systems and so on is becoming available now We really started entire Areas of research with these ideas that initially were far far fetched so a little bit about Where I come from and my group so I run this group called the fluid interfaces and in For today's audience. You're probably thinking oh fluid interfaces. She must be referring to biological Devices and so on but actually initially the or Until Pat where is he Pat? Until Pat joined a group that we were not really doing much work related to biology and fluid Really meant seamless interfaces were in my group very interested in very personal Intimate devices and how can they help us get to know Ourselves and how can they enable us and support us to become the person we want to be so how can Devices help us overcome our limitations and so on and especially devices that are closely integrated now So a lot of our work actually in our group involves Sensing the context and the state of a user and then issuing Interventions to help a person Deal with certain goals that they have or maybe help them overcome some limitations that they have our work ranges from Helping people with Robots that help them with manipulation so that anyone can pick up say a basketball With one hand To devices that help you with creativity with decision-making real-time decision-making Mindfulness communication Attention knowing your own body butter improving sleep and using sleep to help you with other things such as learning and memory and Our work really is inspired by this Insight that Basically, there's different eras of computing and We started of course with the mainframe Then the desktop then the handheld and then the wearable and as you can notice Basically computing and devices become closer and closer to our bodies. This will keep Happening they become smaller and smaller and they become more integrated more ubiquitous more Indispensables in our daily lives They are starting to take a much larger role into what it means to to live Initially, we started with very very work related Applications scientific computation of course in the beginning and so on then we started using Desktops to help us with work then we started using handhelds to help us with personal issues wearables and I think this trend will also increase in that We believe and what we're talking about here today is that the next logical step will be that Devices and the artificial Becomes part of our bodies or at least our biome So we will integrate with Digital slash biological devices that help us with help health and all sorts of other issues. I Don't have to tell the crowd here that due to recent advances in Biotechnologies that now we can actually program Biological systems and cells almost like we can program computers and so suddenly this whole fields is basically opening up especially if we combine digital technologies these digital technologies for sensing for computation for issuing things and Taking having certain outputs if we combine those with digital technologies. I think we we actually can Again sort of start a whole new Fields of and open up all these new opportunities, of course Both are very different Biology is slow and messy and so far has mostly been used for agriculture and health care while the digital Technologies are fast and predictable and have other types of applications But if we combine both with and this is again what the workshop today is about we think we can Sort of think of a whole new set of futures and a whole new set of Ideas for how we can help people with a whole range of Problems so the goal today is very much in the media lab spirit to bring all these Very different people together researchers Industry people artists designers and we will brainstorm some possible human futures that involve these intimate Biodigital interfaces We will talk about how maybe one day or this is already happening will ingest things how we will have creams or on our skin with Certain microbes or whatever that that may give us a beat out when we've been exposed to COVID-19 or We will use Biological systems on the objects in our environment and more to do Sensing monitoring to take care of certain functions So that's what the goal is for today and a quick summary and I want to end by thanking and It's not even complete But many of the people that have played a major role in making today possible and first of foremost and foremost that's Pat here who's a student in my group and Who is the instigator for this whole event and who pulled he pulled together? Graduate students from other groups at the media laboratory, so such as Jack I know the people may want to quickly stand up when I mention them Jack and Teja and Rachel Jack is from Hiroshi's group Teja is from the community bio initiative and Rachel is from the mediated matter group We also enlisted the help from IDO in Helping make this an exciting event and thinking about how we can make this fun and interactive and so on and so we have Shuiya Shoan Bruno and Lisa or taco also known as taco is Helping on the IDO side. We also have All of the people of course from the media lab who work on Communications who work on member relations the nexus people I forgot to include here the Who else? many more We also have the whiz institutes collaboration and with Lewis and Peter who are here somewhere and These are at the bottom the sort of fearless leaders for all of these different Individuals or the groups that these different Individuals work with so David Kong leads the bio at a community bio initiative Hiroshi tangible media Neri the mediated matter group Jim Collins who's at whiz and MIT both and then Ari Adler who runs the Cambridge IDO office So, thank you everybody for making today possible. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks Patty mentioned that's correct I'm gonna open with dinosaur and you'll probably know that I'm a big fan of dinosaur as a kid growing up But I'm also fascinated about high-tech gadget and futuristic technology. That's why I'm at the media lab and Yeah, and I'm really excited to be part of this and thank you so much everyone for coming We know we have another biological Situation going on with the corona virus, but I'm glad everyone is here. So I'm super excited. Thank you so much and You know now I know that I can kind of combine bio and digital together for my PhD so I can don't need to pick between dinosaur or futuristic gadget anymore I can do both and as Patty mentioned this is super exciting because we don't need to Separate what is bio? What is digital? We can kind of harness the best of both world together as Patty mentioned bio is slow messy focus more on Agriculture and healthcare digital is fast predictable and have more application now when the blur the line is blurring We can kind of juxtapose and you know add bio to the digital You know we are used to wearable tech now we add wearable biotech What does it mean you tell me at the end or we talk about interface a lot in Internet of Things and Many interface now we can add something that is growable to the mix and see what's going to happen Right, so this is the power of juxtaposition at Mark Weiss. I say the most profile technologies are those that disappear They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it So I think the exciting thing about this workshop is that we're not just gonna think about all what is bio What is digital we're gonna you know think about how the future of bio digital coming together Change the way that we live our life. We're gonna you know think about you know What if the cream can start to compute what is everyday objects that have synthetic biology become part of it or? Coming from digital what if our gadgets can grow right so thinking beyond just the technology But how human experience can be driven or inspired by this would be it's super exciting and to do that We kind of have full category that these are amazingly designed by Bruno and and an ideal team Jason as well. I'm super excited We're gonna break down these kind of the future of bio and digital into full category synthesize reveal augment and cultivate and Today we have a packed agenda in the morning will be it will have inspirational talk from people from MIT and and Harvard and and industry and you know We at the Media Lab are honored to be part of this MIT community We are not the first one to invent synthetic biology many people Like from the views Jim Collins Louis and Peter have done amazing work that we are super inspired by so that's why we kind of you know Have them come here and and share the exciting work with us And in the afternoon we have on brainstorming you can look at the you know at the back Over there with the amazing will we have a lot of Cool and exciting tool for you to make prototype to show what is your vision for the future of bio digital? so I think it's gonna be an exciting day and To prevent corona virus. I think that we should do something Instead of having handshake. I proposed that you know we learn from nature like dinosaur t-rex cannot have handshake Right, so we and I also learned from my my mentor Professor Padima in her augmented human workshop She do kind of this so I kind of call it like t-rex like greed like a t-rex like and then instead of shake hand Just do it like this t-rex style that would be my last thing and To kick our start this I would like to introduce one person that is as strong as dinosaur because he's from here Hiroshi tangible media group Jack Foreman to kick us out. Yeah