Why Design Now? is the fourth installation in the National Design Triennial exhibition series launched by Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in 2000. The Triennial provides a sample of contemporary innovation, looking at what progressive designers, engineers, entrepreneurs, and citizens are doing in diverse fields and at different scales around the world. Included are practical solutions already in use as well as experimental ideas designed to inspire further research. A few projects will provoke controversy, answering some questions while raising others.

Speakers include:

Speaker: Judy Brown (MIT / Wellesley)
Miller Puckette (UCSD / PD)
Brian Whitman (The Echo Nest)
Dan Ellis (Columbia University)
Michael Casey (Dartmouth)
Richard Boulanger (Berklee / CSound)
Youngmoo Kim (Drexel)
Paris Smaragdis (Adobe)
Mihir Sarkar (MIT)

So far, almost all space programs have been led by governments, usually as part of their military programs. Very seldom were these initiatives developed by amateurs. Individual fantasies were often used and fostered by governmental institutions. It’s time to establish a private connection between "I and Universe."

The human problem solution process has attracted an increasing amount of interest by educators, managers, computer scientists, and others. However, it has suffered from the lack of stochastic tools to quantitatively capture both the fine steps of the problem solution process and the diversity of human thinking.

From an early age, humans are able to use intentions and beliefs to understand the behavior of others. While these qualities are not directly observable, they can be inferred from observable behavior and carry great predictive power. This thesis presents a robotic architecture designed to work with the concepts of intentions and beliefs to more efficiently and naturally interact with humans, both by modeling the intentions and beliefs of the human, and by being aware of how the human is also doing the same about other agents including the robot itself.

The lecture will start with a presentation of the non-linear graphic language "Elephant's Memory" and its core feature—an associative grammar dubbed "molecular." A series of illustrated and animated examples will attempt to accustom the audience with its basics. Several exercises may involve audience participation.

All around us people are learning with the aid of new technologies: children are playing complex video games, workers are taking online courses to get an advanced degree, students are taking courses at commercial learning centers to prepare for tests, adults are consulting Wikipedia, etc. These new learning niches enable people of all ages to pursue learning on their own terms.