An Arm, A Finger And A Couple Of Ears Please

Here is an idea to consider. According to Zacks.com, 3D printing is taking off at the moment, having "only just brushed the surface of its potential applications, and looks set to take off in a big way in the near future". Today and into the future we wont just be able to 3D print a scale model of you house, but something much more important and life changing. Organs, limbs and skin.

Despite advances in modern medicine people are still dying every day from diseases of their organs, or from infections of things like massive burns. These are vital and at the moment, hard to replace parts of the machine that is the human body. Take a moment then to consider the possibility that if you had a terminal disease of something like the heart that you could just order up a new one to be surgically installed. This is the reality that 3D printers, or more specifically, 3D bio-printers offer. Using live cells, new body parts and organic components will be built up, layer by layer, into an exact copy of the piece its replacing.

A piece of experimental breast tissue implant for those who have had a mastectomy being developed by QUT - Image taken from abc.net.au

The quality of life for many people with chronic illnesses or pains of joints would be drastically increased. We could print off new cartilage for those who really need it, like retiring sportspeople and the elderly. Do you have early onset liver cancer? No problem. We can just take it out before the cancer can spread and put in a new one. Finger chopped of in a workplace accident? Just copy and paste the other remaining finger and you're good as new. Waiting lists could become a thing of the past.

Now I do realise that I'm massively over simplifying the complexity of turning some cells into a fully functioning organ or piece of tissue. But for the sake of those who don't have a strong biological background or aren't that interested I have done this deliberately. The point however remains the same. Sometime in the near future it may be possible to be admitted to hospital and have life threatening diseases removed from your body by removing the diseased body part. How this will work for something like the brain is still uncertain but for those who don't need a brain replacement (although I can think of a few who do), the fairly near future looks very bright.

Thanks for reading and if you have any thoughts or comments, please post below. I'd be very interested to see what you think of this technology.

3 Ways To Be A Better Learner And Prepare For The Future

Thinking back to the year I was born, 1995, I can't imagine that half of the things we take for granted every day were even beginning to be thought of. Mobile phones with a million different functions, touch screens controlling the functions of your car, tablets, 4G mobile data, Bluetooth the list goes on. Every single one of these modern marvels requires a host of people to turn raw materials into the technological piece that they are.

If you had approached a electrical engineer at a major TV maker 20 years ago and told them that they would need to build a 4k screen, 3D imaging and Netflix into it they'd probably bend their head to the side and go 'huh'? What you can buy today is made using an entirely different rule book and instruction set to what was being built 20 years ago. can you imagine what the next 20 years will hold? To keep up with modern developments people have to re-skill and relearn to constantly stay up to date.

I can feel that some of you may be thinking 'well since we don't know whats coming how can we train for it?' and it' a fair point. But, and its a big fat juicy but, what if we could teach our children and ourselves to self educate, allowing us to be better poised to take on any new developments in the future and be better equipped to acquire the skills to take part in future industry. Here are 3 ways I think this can be done:

Image taken from Steli Efti of Quora.com

1. Instil a message that education does not end after you finish school or University. It's and ongoing process that never really ends. By doing this we can better inspire our kids to be life long learners and be open to new information later on in life.

2. Make sure that failure is seen as a positive thing because with new knowledge comes lots and lots of learning and forgetting and then relearning. Rarely do things go in the first time but need constant reinforcing and that's important to understand because it can be disheartening when you don't understand something the first few times

3. Be ready to be confused and challenge yourself. The whole reason that you learn new things is because you don't understand them. It can be quite uncomfortable feeling like you don't know something. But rather than it being a this to maybe be embarrassed about, turn it into a positive. You're going to learn something new today!

Hopefully this helps some of you in the future and I think that these 3 things are a good start towards better readying ourselves and those to come next for the future. As always comments and thoughts are always appreciated and thanks for reading!

It's Important To Have Faith, And I'm Not Talking About God

A quick one for you today:

A fundamental pillar in the halls of entrepreneurship is the belief in ones' ideas.

Speaking of my own experiences with my business that I'm trying to get started, I have had people tell me that my idea has been done and that I should move on. That what I'm trying to do is not worth it, and that I should think of something else. It is of course extremely important to always at least listen to feedback. There often are pieces of valuable information being given when someone critics your idea. In fact some of the biggest changes we have made and some of the best innovations we have come up with have been born out of other peoples comments on what we are trying to do.

On the other hand I have had 3 out of 4 people representing larger institutions tell me that what I want to offer will address a long term issue they have had are a willing to test the product once its been built. The person who said they didn't need it still said it was a good idea.

So just as in life its important to have a little faith sometimes and believe in your idea. More than that, you need to take the blows and envision your grand idea because a vision is something to aim for. The road towards success is not an easy one.

Here is one of those cliche motivational videos. You don't have to watch it, just listen to it because what it says speaks true to the challenges of being an entrepreneur and I think that for some of you reading this, it may inspire you to get up and keep going with whatever business or idea you think can become a success.

Science Needs a Voice

If you happened to watch the TV series Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, you probably know that the charismatic presenter is Neil Degrasse Tyson. I recently had the pleasure of going to an event that he spoke at called 'An Evening With Dr Neil Degrasee Tyson'. My goodness was it an experience to remember, full of humor and wit as well as a clear message that science is vital to humanity now and into the future.

This got me thinking about the world around me and how much science plays a role. After spinning that idea for a few minutes I then hit what I believe is a fundamental question for all of science. How can science, and scientists, become better communicators?

Below is an image which pretty much summaries 6 key parts of being an effective science communicator. Being authentic, particular in a world where everything from product endorsement to politicians are as fake as a that 'genuine' Gucci Bag you bought for $20 on a beach in Italy, is critical to effectively talking about science. I think that when the public think of science they immediately construct an image men and women in white coats laboring in a laboratory. While this is true for many scientists, there are I think equally as many who want to speak about what they're doing to someone else other than their colleague. It's just about building a conceptual bridge between the public and science. Do I have an answer? If I did I certainly would't be writing about, you'd have already hear about it on the news. But I do think that the list below is a great place to start.

Image taken from Jack McMartin's post in Kuleuvenblogt

Telling a story conveniently brings me back to where I started, talking about the Cosmos TV show. This show was received by the public with so much interest, not because it had a major celebrity presenting it or the endorsement of some major company, but because it told a story. The story of us and the universe we live in. Neil Degrasee Tyson and the production team took science and turned it into a big novel that we could all follow along with. He isn't the only person doing this either. Brian Cox, Bill Nye, Michio Kaku and the late Carl Sagan have all done or are continuing to do the same thing. (Cosmos is actually derived from the original series by Carl Sagan)

What I'm trying to say is, everyone doesn't need to know all the time about how important science is in their life. Because things like the arts, sports and engineering are also  critical components of our day to day life. But when it comes to the time when science needs a voice, its important that there are those to speak, effectively, and that we listen with open ears and widened eyes.

Thanks for reading and if you have any comments or thoughts please comment below, I'd love to hear your opinion.

Can Entrepreneurship be taught at University?

As part of my Uni degree we spend a year looking at things like  'what is an entrepreneur?' and 'what makes a person entrepreneurial?'. These are both valid questions and ones with not so simple answers. I think however, that an even harder question to answer is can entrepreneurship be taught at University? As someone who is trying to be entrepreneurial by developing a business to address an issue I have identified, I feel that the answer is no.

Lets stop for a second and consider what a university is. For a kick off its an educational institute that has units with guidelines and marking criteria. Completing a subject and progressing your degree requires you to hit certain standards and work towards a knowledge base that will allow you to answer questions in a test. This process is repeated again and again until you hit the right number of credit points to get your degree. The process as a whole is very linear, worlds away from unpredictability and uncertainty of an entrepreneurial lifestyle.

Last year Business News Daily spoke to 15 successful entrepreneurs and asked them what they thought it meant to be an entrepreneur. Sandra Ponce de Leon of Trunx said "An entrepreneur takes a giant leap of faith in the pursuit of a belief" and David Greenberg, CEO of Updater, said that "entrepreneurship is completely dedicating yourself to creating something out of nothing". Leaps of faith and creating ideas from nothing, are not what I would associate with a Uni degree. At its centre, entrepreneurship is about taking your own bright ideas and turning your vision into a reality. There's no one way of going about it and no set of steps that you must do to achieve your goals. Furthermore there isn't a set time frame that things will also be done in. It can take as long to make your first entrepreneurial steps as it will to complete an entire degree.

All of which brings me to a person who I feel has to deal with this paradigm every day, my unit co-ordinator/lecturer. He has experience in starting up his own business and has learnt what its like to do so. In working through this semester I have seen how he has tried to foster an atmosphere of creativity and encouraged everyone in the unit to try pursue their entrepreneurial passions. We must not forget though that he is also a lecturer who must come up with assessments that can accurately gauge the content we are taught. And so here is the issue. How do you create assessments that can accurately quantify the work of a student when each individual is on a different path? Each idea is different, and will require different amounts of time and resources to make it work. Therefore at any one time each person my be at different places along their path towards potentials success. Everyone isn't always going to be on the same page and yet we must all do so in order to hit those marking criteria. Its a frustrating situation for all involved.

So whats the solution or is there even one needed? I'd really love to hear your opinions in the comment section below. It amazing seeing the views go up on this blog but it's rewarding and thrilling to hear back from you, the reader, so I encourage you to do so.

Thanks for reading and for more articles that agree and disagree with me, I've put some links below.

Forbes - http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgedeeb/2014/06/19/can-entrepreneurship-be-taught-or-are-you-born-that-way/

Richard Branson - http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/can-entrepreneurship-be-taught

Wired - http://www.wired.com/insights/2014/12/yes-entrepreneurship-can-be-taught/

Hard Work is Everything

"Entrepreneurship is living a few years of your life like most people won’t, so that you can spend the rest of your life like most people can’t.”- Unknown

There's no way of getting around it, hard work is one of the biggest keys to success.

It doesn't matter if it's Steve Jobs, Richard Branson or Serena Williams, they all worked as hard as they could to become what they are today. Putting in the hard yards doesn't just mean spending months or years working towards your goals. It's also about getting knocked down and getting back up, being put down but never loosing sight of your goal. It's about doing things that most wouldn't do to achieve their vision.

Thinking back to my previous post, or more specifically to Michelle More, I remember her saying that she spent the first 3 years of her career at ultimo working in her bedroom. Big things truly do come from humble beginnings. Jim Carrey, Sylvester Stallone and even Mr Bond himself Daniel Craig were at one point during their lives homeless. And yet today they are some of the most successful and well known people on earth. Why? Because they didn't give in at the first sign of hard work.

To give a more personal example I'd like to use my Dad. Today, along with a dedicated team, he runs a business called Coolkidz,which sells products for mothers, babies and young children. It's been a few years since its conception and I can tell you that today it looks a lot different to it did on day 1. I remember distinctly the afternoon when a 20ft container was lowered onto our driveway to be emptied into the garage. No warehouse, no employees and little to no orders. Thinking back I'm not sure if I could have turned a garages' worth of stock into enough to fill a warehouse that's over 16,000 square feet in size. But he did, and he did it because he pulled endless late nights and early starts. He made phone calls at cringe worthy times to overseas suppliers and spent countless hours on planes chasing new products. For every problem there was going to be a solution. Right there is (as I eluded to in my last post) the key to being an entrepreneur. Not taking no for an answer.

So the next time someone throws a spanner into the works of your big idea remember that being able to overcome those challenges is what will bring you more success than giving in will ever would.

Being an Entrepreneur Isn't About Being Smart, It's About Being Strong

I recently watched an episode of Peter Jones's 'How We Made Our Millions' which is essentially a TV show looking at successful entrepreneurs and how they have become what they are today. As someone who is aiming to be an entrepreneur and create their own wealth I was interested to see not just how effective some enterprise models can be, but also what it takes to drive it. I was frankly quite shocked. To help understand what I'm about to say it would be ideal to watch 20:45 to 21:10 of the episode or even the whole thing if possible.

Many of us would think that being an entrepreneur and becoming wealthy are very similar things and furthermore that its more about having a great idea than hard work. Of course its very important that if you want to be entrepreneurial, you put a lot of time into thinking about what idea you want to turn into a business and how you are going to do it. But the side of enterprising and driving your idea that isn't that well known is the side which takes the biggest toll. Let me explain.

They say that behind every great man is a great women. Behind (almost) every great entrepreneur is someone who is fastidious about being in control and doubts themselves at every step. In the episode I mentioned above at 42:20 Peter speaks to a former investor of one of the subjects, Michelle Mone, who started the lingerie company Ultimo. He mentions, quite powerfully, that under that rock hard exterior of determination and strength, Michelle is actually quite fragile. Many people trying to get a business of the ground find that their own worst enemy is themselves and fight this doubt, giving them the drive to get things done and make them work. So while the public sees these figures turning rags to riches, behind the scenes is a person who finds themselves fighting their own self doubt every day.

Really then, those entrepreneurs who succeed do so, not because they've got the best idea, but because they have the strength to carry on in the face of overwhelming risk and failure. There is a lesson in this. Often barriers standing between you and making it big are ones created not by external factors, but by yourself. Instead of saying I can't, people like Michelle simply don't take no for an answer. Any issues are just problems to be solved and deal breakers generally don't exist.

Really then, if you want to be an entrepreneur, be ready to challenge yourself on both a mental and physical level and get your mental hiking boots on because there's gonna be a big mountain to climb. But by chipping away at it every day and keeping your head up, you'll get there.

Video by Armando Macedo: