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This is a fully automated deep water indoor farm maintained by smart machines

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This is a fully automated deep water indoor farm maintained by smart machines

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This is a fully automated deep water indoor farm maintained by smart machines

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This is a fully automated deep water indoor farm maintained by smart machines https://t.co/EJxhvVjQI2

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This is a fully automated deep water indoor farm maintained by smart machines pic.twitter.com/EJxhvVjQI2
— Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) November 28, 2022

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This is a fully automated deep water indoor farm maintained by smart machines https://t.co/EJxhvVjQI2

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This is a fully automated deep water indoor farm maintained by smart machines https://t.co/EJxhvVjQI2

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This is a fully automated deep water indoor farm maintained by smart machines

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This is the future of farming: Dutch farm produces more food but uses no soil, no pesticides, and 95% less water.

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The Netherlands is the second-largest exporter of agricultural goods in the world. Here's how they do it. Image: Unsplash

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Total agricultural exports from the Netherlands in 2017 Image: Government of the Netherlands

These tomatoes are grown in a geothermal greenhouse grow with a hydroponic system to use less water. Image: WWF/Netflix

Duijvestijn Tomatoes in the Netherlands grows 100 million tomatoes per year. Image: WWF/Netflix

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This Dutch tomato farm can teach the world about sustainable agriculture

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The Netherlands is the second-largest exporter of agricultural goods in the world. Here's how they do it. Image: Unsplash Senior Writer, Formative Content Stay up to date: Sustainable Development Follow Total agricultural exports from the Netherlands in 2017 Image: Government of the Netherlands These tomatoes are grown in a geothermal greenhouse grow with a hydroponic system to use less water.

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For the sake of the planet, Les Knight, the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction movement, has spent decades pushing one message: “May we live long and die out.”

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Earth Now Has 8 Billion Humans. This Man Wishes There Were None.

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For the sake of the planet, Les Knight, the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction movement, has spent decades pushing one message: “May we live long and die out.”

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Betting on change rather than on business as usual

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Betting on change rather than on business as usual

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There are 9 different zones in the Anthropocene to consider when thinking about the future of the planet. At the moment we are focusing on one primarily.

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This group of people thought about something no one had ever explored before. Sending signals of inclusion and diversity.

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The technology is used to estimate the effectiveness of seatbelts and safety features in new vehicle designs.

Until now the most commonly used dummy has been based on the average male build and weight.

However, women represent about half of all drivers and are more prone to injury in like-for-like accidents.

The dummy that is sometimes used as a proxy for women is a scaled-down version of the male one, roughly the size of a 12-year-old girl.

At 149cm tall (4ft 8ins) and weighing 48kg (7st 5lb), it represents the smallest 5% of women by the standards of the mid-1970s.

However, a team of Swedish engineers has finally developed the first dummy, or to use the more technical term - seat evaluation tool - designed on the body of the average woman.

Their dummy is 162cm (5ft 3ins) tall and weighs 62kg (9st 7lbs), more representative of the female population.

So why have safety regulators not asked for it before now?

'A male decision'

"You can see that this is a bias," said Tjark Kreuzinger, who specialises in the field for Toyota in Europe. "When all the men in the meetings decide, they tend to look to their feet and say 'this is it'.

"I would never say that anybody does it intentionally but it's just the mere fact that it's typically a male decision - and that's why we do not have [average] female dummies."

Several times a day in a lab in the Swedish city of Linköping, road accidents are simulated and the consequences are analysed. The sensors and transducers within the dummy provide potentially lifesaving data, measuring the precise physical forces exerted on each body part in a crash event.

The team record data including velocity of impact, crushing force, bending, torque of the body and braking rates.

They are focused on seeing what happens to the biomechanics of the dummy during low-impact rear collisions.

When a woman is in a car crash she is up to three times more likely to suffer whiplash injuries in rear impacts in comparison with a man, according to US government data. Although whiplash is not usually fatal, it can lead to physical disabilities - some of which can be permanent.

It is these statistics that drive Astrid Linder, the director of traffic safety at the Swedish National Road and Transport Research Institute, who is leading the research in Linköping.

"We know from injury statistics that if we look at low severity impacts females are at higher risk.

"So, in order to ensure that you identify the seats that have the best protection for both parts of the population, we definitely need to have the part of the population at highest risk represented," she told the BBC.

Dr Linder believes her research can help shape the way cars are specified in the future and she stresses the key differences between men and women. Females are shorter and lighter than males, on average, and they have different muscle strengths.

Because of this they physically respond differently in a car crash.

"We have differences in the shape of the torso and the centre of gravity and the outline of our hips and pelvis," she explained.

But Dr Linder will still need regulators to enforce the use of the average female she has developed.

Currently there is no legal requirement for car safety tests for rear impact collisions to be carried out on anything other than the average man.

Although some car companies are already using them in their own safety tests they are not yet used in EU or US regulatory tests.

Engineers are starting to create more diverse dummies, including dummies that represent babies, elderly and overweight people.

The average female dummy in Linköping has a fully flexible spine, which means the team can look at what happens to the whole spine, from the head to the lower back, when a woman is injured.

US company Humanetics is the largest manufacturer of crash test dummies worldwide and is seen as the leading voice when it comes to the precision of the technology.

CEO Christopher O'Connor told the BBC he believes that safety has "advanced significantly over the last 20, 30, 40 years" but it "really hasn't taken into account the differences between a male and a female".

"You can't have the same device to test a man and a woman. We're not going to crack the injuries we are seeing today unless we put sensors there to measure those injuries.

"By measuring those injuries we can then have safer cars with safer airbags, with safer seatbelts, with safer occupant compartments that allow for different sizes."

The UN is examining its regulations on crash testing and will determine whether they need to be changed to better protect all drivers.

If changes are made to involve a crash test dummy representing the average female, there is an expectation that women will one day be safer behind the wheel.

"My hope for the future is that the safety of vehicles will be assessed for both parts of the population," Dr Linder said.

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The crash dummy aimed at protecting women drivers

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The technology is used to estimate the effectiveness of seatbelts and safety features in new vehicle designs. Until now the most commonly used dummy has been based on the average male build and weight. However, women represent about half of all drivers and are more prone to injury in like-for-like accidents.

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Fashion design of the future?

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Parsons and Roblox Partner to Educate on Digital Fashion and Trends

The concept of the metaverse has been around for almost 20 years now, although the public has only really started to engage with what it has to offer in the past few years thanks to popular platforms and technology companies like Roblox.

Now, the metaverse is set to become a bit more fashionable thanks to a multi-faceted partnership between Parsons School of Design and Roblox that includes a course collaboration where students will create hyper-realistic and inclusive 3D digital apparel. The partnership also includes the 2022 Metaverse Fashion Trends report, which highlights how important self-expression through digital identity and avatar style is for members of Gen Z who have grown up socializing on platforms like Roblox.

"Partnering with Roblox offers Parsons students working in creative technologies an exciting opportunity to engage the complex intersection of visual culture and social structure, and to play with how we make meaning when we dress ourselves - in digital and physical worlds," says Shana Agid, PhD, Dean of the School of Art & Media Technology at Parsons School of Design. "We're excited to see how students' own diverse experiential knowledge, together with their research, critical thinking, and digital and visual design skills, shape the futures of these spaces."

Faculty members at Parsons are leading the development of The New School's next wave of fashion design with creative, education, and marketing experts at Roblox. The course will be available to Parsons students for the Spring 2023 semester, and equip students with the training and tools to prepare for the changing mediums and self-expression of the future.

In the 16-week collaborative and production-driven course, students and faculty will begin to explore the intricate relationship between digital and physical fashion set in an immersive future. The curriculum is focused on researching and prototyping digital and physical fashion for immersive environments, which includes proof of concept prototypes that students will create on Roblox.

Students will learn to apply the latest technologies to create hyper-realistic and inclusive 3D digital apparels that fit any body type, and have the opportunity to work with experienced fashion designers from both the Parsons and Roblox communities to push the experimental nature of digital fashion for our future presence. Ultimately, students will be able to create a retail experience with their physical and digital clothings and accessories at Parsons and in the Roblox Avatar Marketplace.

In addition to the new course, Parsons and Roblox also published the 2022 Metaverse Fashion Trends report, which offers timely research and analysis oftrends in digital fashion and self-expression among Gen Z consumers who are active on Roblox. Combining a wealth of behavioral data from the Roblox platform and survey responses of 1,000 Gen Z respondents living in the U.S.*, the report offers an in-depth look at consumer preferences of those closely familiar with self-expression through digital identity and fashion.

"Gen Z consumers are spending more time in immersive social spaces like Roblox, where they have been expressing themselves through their creations and digital style preferences for over a decade," says Christina Wootton, Vice President of global partnerships, Roblox. "With their growing economic power and influence on fashion, trends from the metaverse are expected to have a profound impact on physical fashion, while trends from the physical world will also continue to move into the metaverse. The data sourced for this report further underscores why the next generation of fashion designers and brands will become deeply immersed in digital fashion - designing digital collections and dressing avatars."

"Collaborating on this research with Roblox has made it even more clear that self-expression through digital fashion is important for digital natives and Gen Z," says Ben Barry, PhD, Dean and Associate Professor of Equity and Inclusion, School of Fashion at Parsons. "Designers of the future will need to create in 3D and push the boundaries of creativity with metaverse-only garments, accessories, and collections that can be made available with lightning-fast speed to millions of consumers globally, on platforms like Roblox. As we prepare the next generation of fashion designers for their careers, we look forward to the future where this creative profession is made accessible to all through the latest technology and creators' innovation."

A virtual panel hosted by Roblox and Parsons School of Design on November 2, 2022, from 9:30am PT/12:30pm ET, will feature top fashion and metaverse experts discussing the report's key findings and predictions for " What's Next in Metaverse Fashion?". RSVP here to hear expert thoughts on the research and what's yet to come in digital fashion.

Key insights from the 2022 Metaverse Fashion Trends report include:

With Gen Z spending more time socializing, creating and expressing themselves in immersive social spaces, the demand for digital fashion, its widespread impact, and, as a result, its prestige are on the rise.
Half of the survey respondents say they are changing their avatar's clothingat least every week, and for 2 in 5 self-expression (via clothing and accessories in the digital world) is already MORE important than expressing themselves in the physical world.

Just like in the physical world, community members on platforms like Robloxtend to connect with and react to others based on the way they look and dress, which can have a profound impact on their self-confidence and relationships.

Nearly 3 in 4 say they will spend money on digital fashion, and two thirds are excited to wear brand name virtual items on their Roblox avatars.

Respondents note the importance of having diverse customization options for their avatars, and the vast majority also agree with the importance of digital clothing designs being inclusive.

Full report findings also discuss most popular metaverse fashion styles and best-selling clothing categories, what virtual closets of Gen Z consumers and digital fashion budgets look like, and more.
Download the 2022 Metaverse Fashion Trends report here.

*Methodology: To obtain the most recent consumer insight data, Roblox, in collaboration with the Parsons School of Design, commissioned a poll from Momentive (makers of the SurveyMonkey platform) fielded September 19-21, 2022, among 1,000 U.S. people ages 14 to 24, living in the United States. The sample has been balanced for gender using the Census Bureau's American Community Survey to reflect the demographic composition of the US population in that age range.

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Parsons and Roblox Partner to Educate on Digital Fashion and Trends

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The concept of the metaverse has been around for almost 20 years now, although the public has only really started to engage with what it has to offer in the past few years thanks to popular platforms and technology companies like Roblox.

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When my eight-year-old son told me he was making his friends happy and fighting bullies in a video game, I was curious. He told me about Kind Kingdom, a game his school librarian recommended. On his computer, my son walked his character toward a friend whose head was down and handed the other character a heart. The friend picked up his head and smiled. Then my son maneuvered the player along a path and came across a bully who was jumping up and down with his teeth clenched. One swift series of button presses, and the bully was behind bars.

Kind Kingdom was made by Interland, a division of Google, and is part of a four-game series that teaches players about internet safety, like building strong passwords and only interacting with trusted friends online. I particularly liked that the lessons can be broadly applied to life, too.

I found Kind Kingdom listed at Games for Change, a nonprofit that promotes and supports creators that are using games for social good. Arana Shapiro, managing director and chief learning officer at Games for Change, explains that " Kind Kingdom is one game we showcase because it has a good message. It promotes online safety and media literacy. Games are where kids are, and how humans connect. We play and come together. We know that this is a natural state for youth, so we lean into it and use that medium to promote good."

The Games for Change site serves as a portal for others to find games that can teach, encourage, and inspire. The site is searchable and has age ratings and tags for content, like grief or mental health, and it was easy to find more games like Kind Kingdom. For example, Before I Forget teaches players about the emotional struggle of living with dementia and was nominated for a BAFTA award. Attentat 1942 teaches players about World War II through the eyes of Holocaust survivors. 1000 Cut Journey shifts the player's perspective to better understand racism and discrimination, from naked hatred all the way to microaggressions. Best of all, they're all games that help people understand situations they may never personally experience.

Games for Change was founded in 2004 by Benjamin Stokes, author of the book Locally Played: Real World Games for Stronger Places and Communitie; Suzanne Seggerman, a public speaker and adviser on new media and social impact; and Barry Joseph, an expert in digital engagement, with the mission of using video games for social good and a belief in the ability of gaming to teach people history, new skills, and more without necessarily being branded as "educational."

Eventually, the team expanded and started working with outside game developers like Half the Sky from India; Leti Games, a Kenyan game company; and Frima, a Canadian developer that also wanted to design games for social impact. "Over the past six or seven years, the company has been steadily growing because gamification has become so popular. We all have a game console in our pockets. We aren't sitting in basements gaming anymore. Do you play Wordle or Candy Crush? That makes you a gamer," says Shapiro. "Many of us are playing games throughout the day and, if used in the right way, that method of communication can make a big difference in the empathy people have for others."

While Games for Change is a great place to find games with a social impact, it provides many other functions in the gaming space and even gets involved as executive producers on new projects. For example, mental health is a frontier rarely well explored in video games, and the team is working right now with Goliath on a game that puts the player in the shoes of a person with schizophrenia. "There's something about that experience of really feeling and tasting and touching that gives us a different kind of understanding," Shapiro explains.

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This Nonprofit Proves Games' Power to Create Social Change

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When my eight-year-old son told me he was making his friends happy and fighting bullies in a video game, I was curious. He told me about Kind Kingdom , a game his school librarian recommended. On his computer, my son walked his character toward a friend whose head was down and handed the other character a heart.

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All about segmenting how people behave when it comes to sustainable practices

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Driven to understand the sustainable human.
We met with Nicole Tiedtke, UX Director at SinnerSchrader in Hamburg, Germany, to talk about the attitudes and behaviors of the sustainable consumer, leading conscious consumption, and her daughter's dream for the future.
Some of us recycle plastic at home. Others grow their own veggies and fruits. Others go as far as speaking about the damaging effects of consumption to other parents at their kids' school. All these different behaviors tell us something profound about our individual beliefs about the world, and Nicole Tiedtke is convinced that understanding them holds the key to the sustainable future of humanity.

Nicole is the UX Director at SinnerSchrader in Hamburg, Germany, and she has spent a year researching and studying sustainable consumers.

" The most exciting thing about the state of sustainability today is that it's no longer only considering resources and energy, but also significant human-centric attributes. I'm a Psychologist and a UX designer and my passion is to be able to identify these human inner drivers that make people the way they are, their inner truth. What is their driver that makes them behave in a certain way? "

" Our personality affects every decision we make, and when it comes to sustainability I am very curious about understanding the different points of view, the mindsets, behaviors, and the beliefs each person has about this topic."

Nicole got interested in sustainability when she became a mother: " After my daughter was born I started to think about how the world will be when she grows up. When she got older she started to ask a million questions about what we were doing regarding the environment, pollution, and plastic waste... there was no way around it, I had to answer her. "

According to a recent study, being authentic about sustainability claims matters more than ever to younger generations. " I solve problems for a living", reflects Nicole, " and when I talk to my kid I realize quickly that I need to put my knowledge and resources to good use. So I started to work on a sustainable consumer segmentation "

" Understanding what drives people to adopt or reject sustainable behaviors takes a lot of research, and research is really hard work. But I believe that is worth doing it because we can change things for the better. "

Nicole is working with her team on researching consumer profiles, to create mindset clusters so they can better understand what type of behaviors lead to better everyday sustainable behaviors.

" We have been reading studies about consumer mindsets and sustainable behaviors and we have identified 7 clusters, 7 profiles."

The first one is the Evangelist. People who are trying to do the right thing. Think of Greenpeace, people who are showing the world how to lead a sustainable life. Even some parents at school who you might know, who are always passionately telling other parents about how to behave better.

" I see myself more in the second group, the Believer. They believe in doing good but they don't shout it to the world. They feel good by doing good. "

The third group is the ones who follow sustainable practices because they want to be socially accepted, known as the Good, they want to behave as the others do. They check all the boxes: I follow sustainable principles, I'm buying sustainable products, of course, I want to change the world and I want to protect the planet, but if they could decide in private, they might not do it. Being accepted is crucial, not just for them, for most of us.

The largest group is the Follower. People who pretend to lead a sustainable life but actually don't care about fair trade labels, sustainably produced products, or recycling. They do as the majority does, and that's the opportunity but also the danger.

Most of these people expect brands to be purpose-driven and sustainable but only 1 in 4 of the people who expect others to lead a sustainable life actually do it themselves. We call this the intention-action gap.

Everybody wants to be good, but just a few behave that way.

" We've also found an interesting cluster: The rejector and they reject any need for sustainable practices, because they might be too expensive, or because they believe that it's all a conspiracy. As difficult as it might seem to convert them, the key question for us is how can we help these people do better? "

In Calgary, Canada the government launched a campaign to help people deal with grass clippings after mowing the lawn. Basically, the campaign said: do nothing and the grass will help return nutrients to the soil.

But people didn't change their habits and continued to trash the grass clippings. So they relaunched the campaign putting pressure on users by telling them: You can do what you want but your neighbor is already doing better than you. And then people started to leave the grass clippings alone.

" Being part of the reimagined event by Accenture Interactive was eye-opening for me because there was a lot of focus on purpose-driven design, and I realized that we can do a lot of good by addressing the right consumer with the right message at the right time. "

Nevertheless, one of the biggest obstacles we face is the lack of actionable information. " During our research, we often hear "I wish I could... but I don't know how to." Nicole believes that by giving examples of concrete sustainable actions, people would start to behave like The Believer segment we saw before.

"Look at what we have done in just the last 5 years: The automobile industry is obsessed with electric cars. The truth is we all want to do some good."

Conscious consumption is basically about awareness of a hundred micro-decisions we make every day about why and what to buy, where to buy it from, and how and where we dispose of it. This is not a natural mental process for most of us. Especially in an environment where the average person is exposed daily to more than 5,000 messages from global brands urging us to consume.

Ultimately, who is supposed to lead the way to sustainable consumer behavior? Brands? People? The Government?

" But it's not about brands or consumers. it's going to take all of us working together to figure this out. "

I'm a believer.
A growing pressured to implement sustainable practices is pushing some brands to engage in what's known as green-washing, which is a form of marketing spin in which green PR and green marketing are deceptively used to persuade the public that an organization's products, aims, and policies are environmentally friendly.

" My daughter told me the other day: "I want to change the world, do something good, come up with a sustainable idea." We really need to support this new generation to get going and do something with their ideas. "

Follow Nicole on Linkedin

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Driven to understand the sustainable human. We met with Nicole Tiedtke, UX Director at SinnerSchrader in Hamburg, Germany, to talk about the attitudes and behaviors of the sustainable consumer, leading conscious consumption, and her daughter's dream for the future. Some of us recycle plastic at home. Others grow their own veggies and fruits.