By James M. Patell, Special to CNN

Last week, at the invitation of my niece Alexis, I video chatted with a sixth grade class in the South Jefferson Middle School about a unique course I teach. Design for Extreme Affordability is a graduate-level course at Stanford in which interdisciplinary teams design new products and services, together with the associated implementation plans, for the world’s poor.

The class, offered jointly by the Graduate School of Business and the Mechanical Engineering Department, is now finishing its tenth year; by this June, we will have completed 90 projects with 27 partners in 18 countries. Cumulatively, these projects were conducted by 365 students from 27 programs across Stanford, including all seven schools: Business, Earth Sciences, Education, Engineering, Humanities and Sciences, Law, and Medicine.

One thing the middle schoolers wanted to know was why we had chosen to mix students from various fields to work on the projects instead of limiting it to just engineers.

They aren't the first to wonder. Conducting a truly interdisciplinary course is challenging for the instructors and for the students. The various schools have different grading systems, different registration systems and so on. Even the simple logistics of finding a class time-slot is difficult, because each department has its own norms that dictate which times of which days are reserved for required courses and other mandatory tasks. Why bother?

Having fresh eyes and child-like curiosity is important. Seeing the world through different lenses also is important. Our engineering students recognize systems of forces and flows, while our business students see intersecting webs of potential consumers and producers. Medical students envision vectors of transmission for disease or treatment, while our international policy students identify competing interest groups. The different frameworks that they use to model causal relationships, and the different “mental filing systems" and vocabularies they use to store and express their impressions, allow us to gain “3-D empathy” for our users, before we conduct the first brainstorm or build the first prototype.

One of the founding tenets of the d.school (the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford) is human-centered design. Rather than beginning with shiny new technology, we start by trying to establish deep, personal empathy with our users to determine their needs and wants. We must fill in two blanks: Our users need a better way to ___ BECAUSE ___. The because portion is a big deal.

We are working across cultures, across geographies, across political systems and across myriad differences in the contexts of daily life. The hardest lesson for designers to remember is that we are not designing for ourselves. We must listen carefully and we must watch carefully. We must ask polite but probing questions about those elements of our users’ lives that strike us as "curious.”

We cannot assume we understand their preferences. We cannot assume that they can articulate those preferences in terms we will understand. We cannot assume that our users will emphasize elements that are so deeply ingrained in their daily existence that, from their perspective, "go without saying." And we cannot assume that they are aware of the full menu of possibilities from which they could be choosing new ways of doing and living.

Getting interdisciplinary teams to work well is not easy. We try to model the behavior we need in the teaching team, which consists of a business school professor, a mechanical engineering professor, a business entrepreneur, a practicing clinical psychologist and a recent graduate of the medical school.

I am the Business School representative. My colleague Professor David Beach is a revered teacher in mechanical engineering and the patriarch of the Product Realization Laboratory - the "machine shop" in which our teams' physical prototypes become real. Mr. Stuart Coulson is a high-tech serial entrepreneur who founded and sold two companies before volunteering to join the teaching team five years ago.

Dr. Julian Gorodsky has been a psychological counselor to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and companies for several decades, and previously served as a field assessment psychologist for Peace Corps trainee groups. Dr. David Janka took the course as a fourth-year medical student two years ago, and then joined the teaching team as a design fellow, the sixth Design for Extreme Affordability alum to do so. Ms. Joan Dorsey and now Ms. Rita Lonhart have been the coordinators who keep the course on an even keel.

As with the students, even finding a time we all can meet is a challenge, but we have come to appreciate the different perspective that each member brings in selecting course partners, deciding which students to admit, determining where we need to up our game as teachers, and especially in counseling teams who are struggling.

We have a straightforward mission statement: every student deserves a great educational experience, and every course partner deserves a great new product or service. We are convinced that interdisciplinary teams, of both students and instructors, give us a better shot at achieving those goals.

Few people in our lives are as influential or important as teachers. The truly great ones not only educate their students, they infuse them with excitement and inspire them to make an impact on the world.

Jim Patell is one of those teachers. For the past 10 years, he has given his students a unique opportunity to learn real-world skills and use them to improve the lives of the desperately poor.

Patell is a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is also the founder and driving force behind a groundbreaking graduate course called Design for Extreme Affordability. The course, offered at Stanford’s d.school (the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design), is part education, part adventure and part entrepreneurship.

Over two semesters, Patell and his team challenge the students to design low-cost products that can solve tough problems in the developing world. Forty students from across Stanford’s schools - engineering, medical, business and others - pair up with global partners who have concrete projects to tackle. The goal is to deliver nuts and bolts solutions, a way to implement them, and the means to sustain them over the long haul.

“We’re asking students, are you willing to take a leap of faith?” says Patell, “Are you willing to commit yourself to something for which the solution is not immediately apparent and to take a shot, to give it the best you’ve got.”

So far, the "Extreme" students, as they are known, have taken on 90 projects with 26 partners in 18 countries, and the results have been spectacular.

Here are some of their innovations:

Embrace blanket – It’s a kind of sleeping bag for premature infants equipped with technology that helps them maintain normal body temperature for up to eight hours. The company has been in India for four years with pilot projects in nine other countries. They say they’ve saved 5,000 babies so far.

d.light solar lanterns – These lanterns replace kerosene and candle light in villages with no electricity. D.light’s president says the product has “enabled 10 million people worldwide to upgrade from kerosene lamps to solar lighting.”

AdaptAir – A new device to help treat childhood pneumonia. A team of Jim’s students invented an adaptor for a nasal cannula (a plastic tube for delivering oxygen) that provides a custom fit for babies and children of all sizes. Getting the right fit is critical to treating pneumonia effectively.

Over the years, Jim Patell and his team have developed a kind of formula for success - a way for his students to become what he calls creatively “accident prone.”

“It’s not, if I just squint and concentrate, that idea will come to me,” says Patell. “It’s, I don’t have that idea now. I don’t have that insight now, but I can go through a set of activities that I can execute, when I want, to enhance the probability that the great idea is going to occur.”

By gaining deep empathy with their customers, brainstorming with partners and team members, and producing many prototypes quickly, students learn what works and what doesn’t.

Ultimately, Patell says, “what the course produces is young men and women who we aspire to be able to drop down into any messy situation, have them land on their feet and make progress.”

Jim Patell and his team and his students put their hearts, souls and backs into designing "just right" solutions to enduring problems for those at the bottom of the economic pyramid. He is not only helping to transform the lives of the sick and poor but giving a many of his students the experience of a lifetime.

The world, especially the developing world, has an acute need for food, water and energy. Israel happens to have terrific innovators in agriculture and in water technology, which, if exported, could provide food and water security to the over billion people who are vulnerable.

I’m a solar energy guy. Actually, I’m a trouble-maker, former anti-apartheid and human rights activist who stumbled into the solar world the second my family and I arrived to a remote desert kibbutz to begin a two-year escape-from-suburbia sabbatical.

Sometimes you get lucky, which is what I consider myself for having met at Kibbutz Ketura Ed Hofland and from New Jersey, David Rosenblatt. Together we formed the Arava Power Company and fought the good fight and eventually won the battle to bring commercial-scale solar power to the Jewish state. We also pioneered in Israel, thankfully with success, the concept of Impact Investing—doing good while doing well.

There are 1.6 billion people on the planet who do not have any electric power, despite the fact that the sun shines on them all. We learned some valuable lessons along the way in Israel that, with some luck and hard work, could be brought to Africa and elsewhere.

The UN Secretary General has launched a new initiative called “Sustainable Energy for All,” to provide green power to everyone by 2030. While we support this idea, I believe that we can supply green power to everyone by 2020. The 2030 goal is ambitious with a
world-view focused on raising non-profit, non-governmental funds, which are limited. I think the 2020 goal is ambitious and do-able, since we have developed a way to mobilize nearly unlimited for-profit funds to accomplish a similar goal but faster.

While solar energy is also a business I see it as a human rights campaign. The UN Declaration of Human Rights guarantees lots of things that poor people don’t have: education, health care, and jobs. None of this is really possible in a world without electricity. In the best of scenarios, however, when a poor country begins to provide power to its people, they are hooking up polluting and dirty diesel generators. So some of the poorest people are the planet, as they try to work their way out of poverty, end up becoming part of the climate change problem rather than part of the solution.

I want us all to be part of the solution to climate change and global warming, while also accelerating developing of poor countries. So we started a second company, Energiya Global Capital, to do just that.

While we can’t do it alone, we do want to supply green power to 50 million people by 2020, which is about 10,000 megawatts—about the size of Israel’s energy market. And to give investors the opportunity to invest according to their values while creating value in the developing world.

Time is against us.

For the planet to be in balance, we need carbon dioxide levels to be at 350 parts per million. Today, we are at 392 parts, and accelerating quickly. According to some estimates, by 2017 the planet must level off any growth in greenhouse gas emissions in order for radical climate change to not be irreversible.

Since 9 percent of the planet’s electricity is produced from burning diesel oil, we can do something historic by zeroing it out. Not only taking out the carbon footprint of that energy, but also cutting the cost of power in those markets. The price of solar panels has dropped so drastically in the nearly seven years that we have been working to bring solar power to Israel that our costs are sometimes about half the cost of diesel. And solar power has none of the volatility, pollution or money going to autocratic regimes that produce most of the world’s oil.

I think what we have learned in our struggle to bring solar power to Israel can now be applied worldwide. And not to do so would be selfish. Just like with agriculture and water, Israel, through our efforts, has something to contribute in the realm of green power for the people. When President Obama was in Jerusalem last month, he singled out Israeli innovation in the field of solar energy, with its potential to help the world.

This is our journey. We have succeeded in Israel to begin our solar revolution. We cannot afford to fail to spark a solar revolution in Africa and elsewhere.

It's one of science fiction's greatest unfulfilled promises, right up there with teleportation and time travel.

And, no, Terrafugia hasn't built us a Tardis or promised to beam us up. But they say they're closer than ever to giving us a flying car.

This week, the Woburn, Massachussetts-based aerospace company announced it has begun feasibility studies on a car capable of vertical takeoffs and landings. The TF-X would be a four-seat, plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, according to the company.

“We are passionate about continuing to lead the creation of a flying car industry and are dedicating resources to lay the foundations for our vision of personal transportation,” Terrafugia CEO Carl Dietrich said in a media release. “Terrafugia is about increasing the level of safety, simplicity, and convenience of aviation.  TF-X is an opportunity to provide the world with a new dimension of personal freedom!”

Yes, the long-awaited promise of "The Jetsons" may soon become reality.

Lest you think  the company is just getting our hopes up for some cheap publicity, know this - they've already created a flying car of sorts.

The Transition is a street-legal vehicle that's designed to fly in and out of airports. It was successfully flown for the first time in 2009. The second-generation version of the Transition performed a driving-and-flying demo last year.

The new TF-X project comes as work on the Transition shifts "from research and development to certification, production, and customer support activities," the company said.

Terrafugia says it has about 100 orders for the Transition, which goes for $279,000.

MORE: Robotic jellyfish could be undersea spy

The big difference between the Transition, which is scheduled to hit the market in 2015, and the new flying car is that the TF-X would be able to take off anywhere,  like a helicopter, and not just at an airport.

Its automation systems would make taking off and landing a self-driving process, though the driver would be able to take over manual control at any time.

Terrafugia (Latin for "escape from Earth") says it has had "preliminary conversations" with the Federal Aviation Administration about the TF-X and that the agency has "demonstrated their willingness to consider innovative technologies and regulatory solutions that are in the public interest and enhance the level of safety of personal aviation."

In other words, we might actually get to ride in one someday.

What do you think? Will we see widespread use of flying cars in our lifetimes? Let us know in the comments.

More: Rugged wheelchair offers off-road freedom for disabled

Forget tiny iPads - the classrooms of the future might turn entire tables into interactive touchscreens.

Given that many children can sit rapturously before a glowing touchscreen for hours, such gadgets seem like a natural for the classroom. But as with any new teaching technology, it's important to make sure it actually helps students learn and teachers teach before getting caught up in its "cool" factor.

A recent study by researchers at Newcastle University in the UK took touchscreen tables into the classroom for some hands-on tests and found the technology (and training) still have to improve before they are fully effective. The researchers say theirs is one of the first studies of this type of technology in actual classrooms, instead of lab situations.

The tables were used in real classrooms over the course of six weeks for lessons in geography, English and history.  The five teachers involved in the study prepared the projects based on what the kids were currently learning in class. Each table was used by two to four students at a time, though the table's creators say it can hold up to six students. On the screen were a collaborative writing program and an app called Digital Mysteries, which were designed specifically for large tabletop PCs.

These types of tables are already commercially available and can be seen in the wild in locations like museums. SMART Technologies, for example, makes a table with a 42-inch, 1080p display for $7,749. The prices for these interactive tables will likely come down in the future, but they will still remain a big investment for any school district.

And before schools invest heavily in these kinds of tools, the study's authors say that more in-class research and tweaks to the software should be done.

Read CNN's education blog: Schools of Thought

A few of the issues raised were the same that come up in most group work. Some students would complete tasks faster than others, while others would lose focus and fall behind. Teachers in the study found they couldn't always tell when students were working versus just pretending to work and moving items around the screen.

Suggested improvements to the tools included more detailed progress indicators for the individual students. Researchers also recommend that the apps add more flexibility so that teachers can control, change and pause the lessons. In an old-school twist, researchers also recommended that the programs include an option for exporting kids' progress so they can print it out.

Researchers also emphasized the need for more teacher-friendly features and control over the apps, plus proper training for any educator who plans on integrating these types of tables with their regular classroom curriculum.

"To make the most use of them teachers have to make them part of the classroom activity they have planned – not make it the lesson activity,” said Dr Ahmed Kharrufa in a statement.

In other words, even the most advanced technology won't be able to replace good teachers.

[Via PhysOrg]

By Jared Markowitz, Special to CNN

The events in Boston last week were tragic in many ways: human suffering was on display for the world to see, a city was locked down while killers were pursued, and a nation was once again forced to recognize its vulnerability to senseless acts of violence. A week later, the wound is still fresh. Our community continues to mourn the dead, treat the injured, and search for ways to eliminate such attacks. Many lives have been altered irreversibly, yet there is also an abundance of resiliency and hope.

The bombings on Monday left many people with significant injuries and, in many cases, missing lower limbs. The horror of waking up with a different body as a result of a random act of terror should not be understated. Yet thanks to recent advances in prosthetic and rehabilitation technology, many of those who have suffered these devastating injuries have the hope of returning to a full and normal life.

There is now a bionic ankle, foot and calf system that allows the user to walk as quickly and efficiently as non-amputees. Computer-controlled prosthetic knees have been developed that adjust knee resistance continuously, allowing above-knee amputees to walk with improved versatility and stability. Lightweight, compliant running prostheses make it possible for amputees to excel in both sprinting and distance events, including marathons. These technologies are all improving rapidly, with researchers constantly striving to produce more comfortable, responsive and life-like prosthetic limbs.

Despite these advances, the road back from severe lower limb trauma can be long, arduous and expensive. To help those injured in the Boston bombings, the MIT Media Lab’s Biomechatronics Group has partnered with the Mass Technology Leadership Council and No Barriers on two initiatives.

First, we are working with the Mass Technology Leadership Council to ensure that each amputee is provided with the assistive and rehabilitative solutions that best address their injury. To that end, if you have a technology that you believe could help those who suffered traumatic injuries please contact us at www.masstlc.org.

Second, the No Barriers Boston Fund has been established to give the victims devices that will allow them to lead full and active lives. The fund will provide these people with prosthetic limbs designed for athletic activities so that they can run, bike, swim and even dance again. To donate to this important effort, please visit www.nobarriersboston.org.

The symbolism of such events occurring around the Boston Marathon is difficult to ignore. Few endeavors provide such a ready analogy for the highs and lows of life as this race; it is a celebration of the city, running and the human spirit. While the motivations of those who run the Boston Marathon vary, everyone who participates has endured the grueling training required to qualify. During the marathon, runners are tested by the hills of Newton and the unavoidable "rough patches" that come with the marathon distance. However this all melts away during the triumphant finishing stretch on Boylston Street, an experience that validates all of the struggles up to that point.

It is our hope that the trials the surviving victims are currently enduring will give way to an even greater victory.

As we approach Earth Day we will hear a lot about the threat of global warming and how solar power could be part of a solution to save the environment.

Israeli innovator Yosef Abramowitz is so convinced renewable energy is the answer he’s made it his mission to install solar fields all over the world. The activist, dubbed “Captain Sunshine” because of his superhuman efforts to save the planet, pioneered the concept of “impact investing” to make his solar dream work.

“I went in completely naïve about how hard it was going to be. We have to do something very proactive, very immediate,” says Abramowitz. “The need to replace burning fossil fuels is a clear and imminent danger to survival of our species. We’ve innovated an idea by bringing together technology, finance and regulation to save the world through solar power.”

His idea stemmed from what he calls a serendipitous trip to the desert. In 2006, looking for a more laid-back lifestyle, Yosef and his wife, Rabbi Susan Silverman (sister of the comedian Sarah Silverman), moved with their five kids — including two adopted from Ethiopia — to Kibbutz Ketura in southern Israel. Abramowitz was raised in Boston but had fond memories of volunteering at the kibbutz after high school.

Yosef says their plan for a quiet family sabbatical changed as soon as they arrived.

“The sun, even though it was setting, was just burning our skin. I thought, ‘I’m sure the whole place works on solar power.' ”

But it didn’t, because solar power was non-existent in Israel. Abramowitz began taking classes in renewable energy and talking to people at the kibbutz about forming a company. He found partners with businessmen Ed Hofland, who lived on the kibbutz, and David Rosenblatt, based in New Jersey, and together they started Arava Power, the first company to sign a deal with the Israeli government for production of solar power.
They endured long political battles to secure the deal.

“People told us don’t do it,” says Yosef. ‘You’re an American coming to another country. You don’t have the networks or the full command of the language or really understand the politics.”

Israel’s former Energy and Water Minister Uzi Landau was part of the negotiations.

“We don’t suffer from a lack of red tape," he said. "Like a bulldog he (Abramowitz) just puts his teeth in something and doesn’t give it up until it is done.”

It took five years and significant financing from Siemens, the electronics giant, and private investors, who raised millions of dollars, but Arava installed a solar field in Israel. The company now has a 4.9-megawatt field up and running, nine fields under construction, and plans for forty more energy projects in Israel over the next three years, including the first solar field on Bedouin land. Their goal is to eventually supply one tenth of Israel’s power.

Abramowitz isn’t nearly finished. Last year he and his partners started a new company, Energiya Global Capital, and with funding from the U.S. government and private companies, they are expanding their efforts to build solar fields in Rwanda, Haiti, Romania and a dozen other countries.

“They are rolling out the red carpet for us in Africa,” says Abramowitz. “We looked at 75 markets around the world, which is half the planet that doesn’t yet have commercial solar power. There are 1.6 billion people on the planet today without electricity. 1.6 billion. Look at the hungriest people on the planet. Look at the ones who don’t have clean water. It’s the same people. It’s all preventable.”

In Rwanda, Yosef has developed a new concept: partnering up with a youth village where orphans of the Rwandan genocide are raised and educated (modeled after Israeli youth villages that took in children who survived the Holocaust). In February, with our cameras rolling, Abramowitz installed the first solar panels in the village. If all goes as planned, the solar field will be finished by the end of the year, providing 8% of Rwanda’s energy. And Yosef says the village will partner in the profits.

“We’re not your regular solar developer. We want to empower people and communities. The solar fields can provide revenue and give people life," he says. "I’d like to be the catalyst. I just want to show people it’s possible.”

By David Peterson, Special to CNN

It's now a little over a year from the day when CNN’s "Next List" crew came to Orange County to do an episode on my language-creation work. At the time, I really had no idea what the coming year held in store for me, so I did my best to look busy.

I had recently joined Syfy's "Defiance" as a language creator, but hadn't yet done any serious translation work, and while I'd finished my work on season two of HBO's "Game of Thrones," there'd been no discussions about season three up to that point. I remained hopeful, but that March I didn't really have much going on.

During my first interview on the morning of twelfth, the "Next List" producer asked me if I'd be working on the Valyrian language for the show's upcoming season. Immediately alarm bells went off, as I started to think back and wonder, "Did I accidentally say anything?"

Though there had been no discussions, I and many assumed that some form of the Valyrian language would make an appearance in season three, but at that stage, any such discussion would have been premature, and certainly would have been covered by a non-disclosure agreement. Trying not to look too perturbed, I asked why she would ask that, and she told me that when she'd interviewed executive producers Dan Weiss and David Benioff earlier, they'd said I'd be working on Valyrian this season.

And that's how I learned I'd be creating a new language for season three of "Game of Thrones."

For those tuning in to the "Game of Thrones" premiere this Sunday, you'll still have to suffer through a few subtitles, but the audio will sound a bit different from seasons past. Though there are a number of Dothraki speakers yet alive on the show, there's surprisingly little Dothraki this season. In its place is quite a bit of dialogue in two related languages: High and Low Valyrian.

In George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire," High Valyrian was meant to occupy the place Latin occupies in the Western world. Latin was the language of the Roman Empire, spoken commonly for several centuries in and around the Italian peninsula and beyond. It's the mother language for all the Romance languages spoken today (Italian, Spanish, French, Catalan, Romanian, etc.).

High Valyrian, in turn, was the language of Martin's Valyrian Empire, an expansive domain that existed for several millennia before it was destroyed by a mysterious event cryptically referred to as the Doom. In its purest form, High Valyrian still exists as a language of scholarship and refinement, though its impact on the region was far greater.

High Valyrian was taken up and creolized by the old Ghiscari Empire, where it's still spoken at the time of action in the books and the show. And it served as the mother language for the various Low Valyrian languages spoke in the Free Cities of Volantis, Braavos, Myr, Pentos, Lys, etc.

This season, I worked on two of the Valyrian languages: High Valyrian (the oldest form of the language) and the Low Valyrian spoken in and around Slaver's Bay. To translate sentences into the latter variety of Valyrian, I would first translate them into High Valyrian, and then apply a series of phonological, semantic and grammatical changes to the text. The resulting language is approximately as different from High Valyrian as Old Spanish is from Classical Latin.

If you watch the "Game of Thrones" premiere, you'll hear some of the Slaver's Bay variety of Valyrian. Both Nathalie Emmanuel and Dan Hildebrand do an outstanding job with their lines. I was extraordinarily pleased with their performances, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did.

And even if languages aren't your thing, I hope the Valyrian won't distract you from what I think is a truly superlative premiere for season three.

Technologic advances don’t happen in isolation. There are many different elements— cultural and technologic — that must come together to turn an innovation into a scalable business product, and then, possibly—but rarely—a cultural phenomenon.

The internet, for example, changed banking, journalism, and commerce in many parts of the world. But the connection, information, and convenience it afforded missed medicine because the innovation and the cultural desire hadn’t yet arrived. Advancing technologies will soon radically change healthcare. The cultural and technologic pieces are coming together like a rising storm. I remember, like it was yesterday, when we hosted our first University of Southern California Body Computing Conference. It was in 2007.

I wanted to bring together various experts, from Academy Award winners to engineers, to imagine the future of healthcare in a digital world. In several instances, people left in a huff, or laughed off the notion of digital technology changing healthcare. Many of the physician-attendees said the change wouldn’t happen “for two decades.”

The reactions interested me because, in my experience, where there is anger, there is also fear and irrationality.
Just this week Congressional hearings debated digital medicine because lawmakers and regulators recognize that there are hundreds of millions of dollars—including the $10 million Tricorder X Prize—being invested in new, consumer-oriented technology. And these products will soon start hitting the market. At this point, some of the products are more marketing fluff than reality, while others are too difficult to use.

But there is a realization that consumers want, and need, products to connect them with their physicians, their medical records, and with relatives who are helping to manage their care. Mobile phones and other ubiquitous devices are becoming so advanced that the technology within them can be turned into a “health device.” Having changed music and communication, consumer device makers are looking for new revenue streams and they are identifying health as a way to create new revenue streams, and the result will be a change in medicine, which has been working from a 2,000 year old paternalistic doctor-patient model. Guided by Apple Computer Inc., digital technology changed the music industry. Why not change medicine?

When it comes to digital health products, the prevailing attitude among physicians is still deep suspicion. While many people look at physicians as the drivers of change in digital health, I am in the minority of innovators in this field. There are some physicians who are on the vanguard of talking about it, but only a few are actual innovators. Many of the advances will come from non-healthcare innovators–the “pull through” demand will come from the public who recognize the benefits of new technology to help them become healthier and smarter about their lives.

Shortly after the first USC Body Computing Conference, I started a center at the University of Southern California to study and create health solutions. We study digital health by evaluating products in clinical and non-clinical settings, as well as create a variety of solutions, including health games. Calling myself an innovator still feels pretentious. True innovation is really difficult. Being in the innovation trenches has taught me many lessons and given me new respect for the world’s innovators. Being creative and bringing different expertise together is difficult but critical in digital health. We work with different innovators, athletes, engineers, story-tellers and others because health is an all-encompassing issue that a physician alone cannot solve. Working with many of the smartest people in this field, as well as bringing “creatives” into medicine, has given me a more holistic view. Being around so many “creative types”—and being exposed to soon-to-be-released technology has also given me special insight into the way the world will look in the near future:

1.  Body worn sensors that can transmit your heart rate, blood pressure, brain waves, and other vital signs. Physicians will be looking at this data, and calling you to check in with your specialist;

2.  Medical content that is of high quality and accurate and specific to you. Currently, medical content is generalized and not very compelling. (We did a study at USC that showed that many popular medical sites have inaccurate information.) Several companies are working on how to “mashup” different bio statistics. It may seem unusual for you to record your every heart beat today, but it might not be too farfetched for your children. Soon there will be inexpensive, tattoo-like sensors that will record information and filter it through analytics—without relying on highly subjective information;

3. New applications that help patients with chronic diseases manage their care, lab results, multiple physicians and medication, and reward patients. A major issue in medicine is compliance. As a physician, I can only get a snapshot of your life, but if I can learn more about you, and if you can help learn yourself, we will be better partners in your care. Eventually, with the information that we learn, we can spend our resources more wisely. There are a lot of promises around Big Data: there are a lot of smart people working on ways to capture and design smart analytics to sift through terabytes of data that could impact millions, if not billions, of people.

Even in the most developing of countries, mobile technology is pervasive. An example of what this could mean: just last year, I was sitting at home. Someone was using a smart phone ECG on the other side of the world. I diagnosed a Nigerian, traveling in Mumbai, who had a heart condition. I can use my unique knowledge and training to help more people, not just my patients in Los Angeles.

There will be people who read these predictions and dismiss them. What about reimbursements? What about FDA regulations? Won’t insurance companies use this information negatively? Won’t there just be medical white noise?

The questions are valid, and they need to be asked. It is always easy to over-simplify and get caught up in the hype. But—as I have learned from other innovators—demanding simplification can return fascinating results. There is a good lesson in the music industry, which stood by helplessly as their industry changed during the digital revolution. There is rapid change happening, and it’s how we address it early, and use the technology to help people, that will dictate our children’s lives. Saying it won’t happen just shows willful blindness.

I welcome the questions. But I’m optimistic. I see the innovation first hand. As a physician, I can see the possibilities for good.

Helping patients deal with the emotions that come with health issues is a large part of the "art" of doctoring. People see their lives and their health as a story. Since that first Body Computing Conference in 2007, I have spent more time with storytellers, especially my colleagues at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts. I have learned a lot about the power of story, of how the story of our lives is in many ways a health narrative.

It is ironic but technology has taken me back to my patients, who are the reason I entered medicine so many years ago. Just as digital technology has enabled us to stay connected to others, it has helped me connect more immediately with my patients. For the patients there is more control as well. Just as we control our finances, our schedules, our travel plans, and music selections through technology we can have greater control over our health and our care.

The fact is that Life with a capital L—my patients’ real, authentic experiences—mostly happen outside of my office. How can I make better observations? How can I—a highly trained person with 25 years of experience—take my knowledge and help more people? Or, help my patients at a deeper level? How can I be a better witness to their story, edit it, and make it better? There are new answers and we hold them in the palms of our hands.

What if tracking your heart rate and blood pressure was as simple as getting your e-mail?

That’s the future Dr. Leslie Saxon imagines at the University of Southern California. She is chief of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at USC’s Keck School of Medicine and founded the university’s Center for Body Computing (known as the CBC). Saxon is determined to create digital tools that will allow doctors and patients to monitor and share health data.

“It's almost obscene to think about how information is everywhere now and shared over the most trivial things, yet patients can't get even the data from an implanted device they have in their body. They're locked out,” says Saxon. “After 20 years, I finally understand that just telling the patient what to do in a paternalistic way doesn't result in good outcomes. Patients have to partner with you.”

At the CBC, Saxon spearheaded a unique collaborative system with the university's schools of engineering, business and film, along with USC's athletics department, to research and develop wireless devices and health solutions.

"The essence of digital health is interdisciplinary connectivity," says Carmen Puliafito, dean of USC's Keck School of Medicine. " And Leslie has been a true pioneer at that."

“Within digital there’s a lot of ability to integrate different skill sets,” says Saxon, 53. “My brother’s a film producer. My husband’s a sportswriter. So I was always looking for a way to integrate what I did with the things I’m also passionate about.”

When she’s not with patients, Saxon researches and develops smartphone applications and wireless sensors that provide personalized medical data in real time. For example, she’s currently working with software engineers from Boston Scientific on a universal programmer tablet that permits direct communication with any implantable pacemaker.

The device can detect deterioration in heart functions and tell the patient how to adjust their medications. Dr. Saxon says once approved, this device will be an enormous time and money saver.

“The patient and doctor don't have to go anywhere so it saves millions of dollars, but most importantly it completely changes the game on patient safety and comfort level, allowing continuous care for a patient you’ve made this big investment in,” Saxon says.

"It’s like having an office visit every day and a complete physical every week. We know their hearts are damaged and have implanted a $30,000 device. Now we can manage them at home. This the first system in history that ... (allows us to) do that in a real-time way.”

Saxon also has been instrumental in the research for an iPhone app that lets doctors take an electrocardiogram of a patient anywhere in the world. At just $199, the AliveCor is a case that snaps onto the smartphone, with electrodes on the back. The case talks wirelessly to the phone, which then transmits the information to the web. A doctor literally on the other side of the world could diagnose an athlete or a patient instantaneously.

“What we like to do at our center is to take a beautiful breakthrough technology like the AliveCor and apply it across large segments of the population but try to imagine on it,” says Saxon. “What is the best use case for this for a USC athlete, or a pro athlete, or a cardiologist, and how can we educate the next generation of patients?”

Saxon, an avid sports fan, devotes much of her research to monitoring athletes. By analyzing devices worn by both college and pro athletes, she can predict injuries, which then helps coaches tweak their training regimen. Ali Khosroshahin, the USC women’s soccer coach, had players wear Saxon’s heart-rate monitors during practices.

“The data helped us come up with a formula that gives the players a lighter or more intense training load. It’s been hugely beneficial,” says Saxon, who believes this information is easily translatable to the general population. "What I see working with athletes is going to work for any kind of patient, somebody with a heart device, or someone with risk for heart disease. It all applies."

And Saxon is working with USC’s School of Cinematic Arts to bring health data into automobiles. She and members of the film school recently formed a research alliance with BMW. They're developing a heart-rate sensor within the car’s steering wheel that will check drivers' vital signs as soon as they put the key in the ignition.

“I've had a long day. I get into my car. I turn it on. I grab the steering wheel. It immediately goes to the right temperature, because I'm warm, I'm tired,” says Saxon, imagining the car. “It then measures my biometrics without me even being aware of it and it plays a song that it knows tends to bring me into a calm zone."

Please Follow us, Like us, and check out our photos!