Now watch all episodes on the Dassault Systèmes’ website
Science in the Age of Experience 2020 celebrated how science is propelling innovation to improve our world. Virtual sessions over four episodes highlighted scientific innovations underway in life sciences, sustainable manufacturing and sustainable cities. Now all the episodes from the four-day virtual event are on the public Dassault Systèmes’ website.
Science leaders joined online from around the globe for presentations of their work, roundtable discussions and interactive Q&A. The goal is to build a global scientific community across the industry spectrum.
Bernard Charlès, Dassault Systèmes’ Vice Chairman and CEO started the event describing the company’s journey “to manage complexity, connecting the dots, looking at simple phenomena, connecting them together and observing the total result in a holistic way.”
Experience is about knowledge and know-how, the ability to capitalize on phenomena in the real world by using the tools of the virtual world. “Experience is human,” said Bernard. “We believe this is not only touching our minds and our hearts, it allows people to participate . . . by understanding and sharing more about how it can improve the world.”
Here are my choices for Top 5 sessions. Watch the episode replays and discover yours.
#1 – Dr. Frances Arnold, 2018 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, and Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology.
Dr. Arnold describes herself as an engineer inspired by the chemistry of the biological world. “Nature has figured out how to transform a wide range of natural resources into living, adapting, moving, sometimes even thinking, organisms,” she began.
Nature has been evolving over 4 billion years; the natural mechanics for generating diversity are limited; but not so in a test tube. What if you free nature from supporting the constructs of current life and explore what is possible? According to Dr. Arnold, the innovation is already there – we need to discover it in the vast collections of functions that nature has already made. Watch her full presentation in EPISODE 1: POWERING A BETTER FUTURE WITH SCIENCE.
#2 – Dr. David Hoganson, Boston’s Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, whose clinical focus is newborn infants and children with congenital heart disease needing surgery.
Dr. Hoganson described how repairing congenital heart disease is fundamentally a physics problem. “We’ve put together an engineering team that utilizes proven modeling and simulation tools for industry,” he said, “to really change the paradigm on how congenital heart defects are visualized, procedures are planned and operations are conducted.” Watch his full presentation in EPISODE 2: A NEW ERA TO RE-DEFINE SUSTAINABLE LIFE.
#3 – Dr. David Fajgenbaum leads the Castleman Disease Research Program at the University of Pennsylvania. After almost dying from the disease, he has revolutionized how to research and treat this “orphan” disease.
Castleman is a rare and deadly condition where the immune system attacks and shuts down the body’s vital organs. Dr. Fajgenbaum began his quest to find effective treatments to keep himself and others alive, and perhaps cure the disease. Watch the presentation in EPISODE 2: A NEW ERA TO RE-DEFINE SUSTAINABLE LIFE.
#4 – Dr. Guru Madhavan, the Norman R. Augustine Senior Scholar and Senior Director of Programs of the National Academy of Engineering is a systems engineer by background.
His activities cover broad scope and complexity, focused on engineering practice, education, research, communication and policies. He took us through The Tale of 3 Efficiencies, showing that scientific research and resolution are not always clear-cut.
Hard Efficiency is narrow and bound-able, Solved by scientific principles with specific results; Soft Efficiency is vague and political factors can creep in, and issues cannot be brute-force-solved, only being Resolved with effort and insight over time; and Messy Efficiency has a starting point and many unclear ideas about possible destinations. Watch Dr. Madhavan in EPISODE 3: SCIENCE TAKES MANUFACTURING TO NEW LEVELS.
#5 – François Amman, Co-founder & Co-president, Aden Group described AKILA Care – a consortium of companies connecting the dots to build complete turnkey hospitals, deployable anywhere in the world in a matter of months. The first project was the hospital built in Wuhan, China near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
AKILA Care comprises China State Construction Engineering Corporation (cSCEc) for construction, Sinopharm for medical equipment, Aden for operations and maintenance, Chendong Housing for modular building, Saint-Gobain for high-tech materials and Dassault Systèmes for 3DEXPERIENCE. Its mission: to reinvent healthcare and make long-lasting infrastructure available across the globe.
Watch the full presentation from François Amman along with Dassault Systèmes’ Philippe Obry, Director, Business Innovation & Transformation and Ossian Heulin, Client Executive, Business Diversification about building the hospital and customizing it based on local requirements in EPISODE 4: TOMORROW’S SUSTAINABLE CITIES.
BONUS SESSION – Emmanuel Vanoli, Senior Business Consultant for Dassault Systèmes was personally inspired when his grandmother contracted COVID-19 and placed in hospital. Using his expertise and Dassault Systèmes’ simulation and 3DEXPERIENCE platform, Emmanuel modeled the hospital, measured airflow and traced contaminated particles in space and time to identify risk of exposure. The work showed that simply opening windows in strategic areas and wearing masks would reduce chances for infection.
Emmanuel is something of a hero at Dassault Systèmes. His grandmother has recovered; he performed more simulations requested by other hospitals; and for his work, a public citizen initiative group recognized Emmanuel with an award. See Emmanuel’s story in EPISODE 4: TOMORROW’S SUSTAINABLE CITIES.
Every session of Science in the Age of Experience 2020 offered a piece of knowledge, know-how, human insight, surprises, technology, humor or new challenges. It was an inspiring Age of Experience event.
As a professional writer in science and technology for over 30 years, I enjoy having a front row seat to the revolutions and innovations in how we live and work.