Announcement: Serendipity; Cross pollination with Dr Keyan Ghazi-Zahedi.
I'm very excited to report our first live example of cross pollination at The Machine Commons.
Keyan has been working over the last five years towards a piece of software that can flag potential brain damage from video input. His broader interest is in body-mind integration, notably how physical systems can reduce 'cognitive' load; his noble intentions are an early warning system for Alzheimer's disease.
He mentioned he'd missed out on a grant and was uncertain how to proceed... Only last week, I was watching a news report on a footballer driven to an early death, ostensibly due to concussion. Back home in New Zealand, we're a rugby nation and a pitch side concussion detection system is the holy grail.
So, for the interim, I suggested pivoting to a concussion detection system. Incidentally, I said, I'm also pretty confident I know who might buy it for their PR ('Put Smarts To Work', anyone?) - whom also work with the NFL...
I reached out to an old contact at IBM. He got back to me within the hour. Told me it was perfectly aligned with their activity.
The lesson here is serendipity.
You must constantly put yourself out there in order to help our chaotic reality make an opportunistic match.