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TED Talk presentation review

I recently watched a TED Talk presented by Wanis Kabbaj, the director of global strategy for healthcare logistics at UPS, it was titled What a driverless world could look like and was recorded in September 2016 at TED@UPS. 

A quick summary of the talk: 

"What if traffic flowed through our streets as smoothly and efficiently as blood flows through our veins? Transportation geek Wanis Kabbaj thinks we can find inspiration in the genius of our biology to design the transit systems of the future. In this forward-thinking talk, preview exciting concepts like modular, detachable buses, flying taxis and networks of suspended magnetic pods that could help make the dream of a dynamic, driverless world into a reality"

I found Wanis Kabbaj's presentation to be very thorough and informative. His idea of introducing a mode of transportation that resembles the smoothness and efficiency of blood flow through our veins is quite ingenious. Transportation issues have been plaguing cities for ages, they seem to never go away regardless of new innovations. It's almost as if a new mode of transportation fixes an issue, but then subsequently creates another. However, Kabbaj's idea doesn't seem to be prone to producing additional issues. He mentions that in a driverless world there wouldn't be a need for stop signs, lights or lanes. The technology that would be put in a driverless vehicle would be interconnected with all other driverless vehicles within the same transport network, thus allowing the vehicles to operate as an uninterrupted continuously flowing system much like the way blood flows through of veins. 

This blog post is part of a class assignment, which requires me to answer the following questions about the presentation. 

How were visuals or other props used in the presentation? Were they effective? 

Throughout the presentation, Kabbaj used several images and animation to further exemplify his ideas. He showed an animation of blood flowing through veins to help the audience visualize the concept. He also showed an animation of how vehicles would maneuver through the streets if they operated the way blood flow does.

Were questions asked? Was humor used?

Kabbaj didn't ask the audience any questions. He did incorporate a bit of humor into the presentation. In the opening of the presentation, he talked about how he enjoys seeing cities from an airplane view and how the vehicles light up the road. The humor comes into play when he says although the city streets look nice from up there, in reality it's nothing like that at all. 

How was the pacing? Was there a "path" through the presentation? Were you engaged or inspired? 

The pacing of this presentation was organic, it didn't seem to fast or too slow. There was a path through the presentation, it reminds me of an essay. It had an introduction, body, and conclusion; overall it was very organized. I was fairly engaged throughout the presentation, his delivery was great and the topic was interesting. 

Comments

  1. Great post! I find the idea of driverless transportation interesting and I think that it would create less transportation issues

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very interesting! I think the idea of a world with driverless transportation is pretty cool but i'm sure it would take a very long time to get done. Either way, good blog!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Your post was very informative, a new way of thinking how to deal with congestion on the roadways is always great for commuters.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I came from a country that is over populated. This is an interesting topic for me. I think, the traffic congestion will only become worse if we will not make this dynamic, driverless world into a reality. With regard to the presentation, I really enjoy the images and animation that Wanis Kabbaj used. I also like his energy and enthusiasm.

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