UNSW Centre for Ideas

The population of our capital cities is going to increase rapidly over the next decades. But right now, our cities are bloated, congested, and many urban design choices are no longer fit for purpose. Enter algorithms: those codes that know what we like to eat, how we like to spend our time, and what we secretly want to buy online. But once we lift the veil of mathematical objectivity, we can see that the way these algorithms are used in city planning needs to be more of an art than a science. If algorithms know us better than our friends, is it time we let them help us build the cities of the future?  

Claire Daniel
Claire Daniel is a Scientia PhD candidate in the School of Built Environment, Faculty of Arts, Design & Architecture at UNSW Sydney. They are both an urban planner and a computer programmer researching how data and digital technologies are used by planners, and how this is set to change the way cities are governed. In 2015, Claire was awarded the John Monash Scholarship to study the MSc in Smart Cities and Urban Analytics at University College London. In addition to their academic work, Claire has professional experience in local government and consulting, and is a member of the Planning Institute of Australia’s PlanTech advisory committee. 

For more information, visit unsw.to/ClaireDaniel

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Australian voters ousting a nine-year-old Coalition government. A step towards instituting a First Nations Voice to Parliament. Grace Tame. Entrenched structures of authority have been challenged at home and around the world this year. But what will the impact of these momentous events be on the way we live, and the way our domestic and international parliaments govern? The Conversation’s latest collection of insightful essays from leading thinkers, 2022: Reckoning with Power and Privilege, unpacks this very question.  

Hear Tim Soutphommasane, Professor of Practice at University of Sydney and Michelle Arrow, Professor of Modern History at Macquarie University as they explore the potent forces that continue to shape our world and how those with the privilege of power don’t always prevail in a panel discussion chaired by The Conversation’s Senior Editor, Sunanda Creagh.

To access a transcript of this podcast please head here.

This event was presented by the UNSW Centre for Ideas and The Conversation.

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For a lot of us, the pandemic years were characterised with the rise of working from home. We’ve become all too familiar with Zoom fatigue… one of the many new words we have added to our vocabulary over the past two years of the pandemic along with social distancing, doom scrolling and hybrid working. And while many of us are looking forward to socialising IRL (in real life) again, for those of us who are critically ill, these rapid developments in digital technology have meant an end to social isolation. So as these technologies continue to advance and innovate, but we as a society return to face-to-face life, will digital technology completely replace in person supportive care for young people impacted by critical illness? 

Jennifer Cohen
Dr Jennifer Cohen is a senior research fellow in the School of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine & Health at UNSW Sydney, and the Evaluation Manger at Canteen, Australia. Cohen has over 18 years experience as a clinical dietitian and researcher and her numerous professional publications focus on her research and clinical interests in the supportive care needs of children and young people with cancer, both during and after treatment. Dr Cohen was named the Australian Dietitian of the Year at the 2019 and Staff Member of the Year for the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network in 2018. 

For more information, visit unsw.to/JenniferCohen

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Nearly 400 years ago, scientists made the groundbreaking discovery that fungi were all around us, on us, and inside us too. The development of germ theory – the understanding that microbes like bacteria, viruses, and fungi are responsible for infectious diseases – has since revolutionised almost every aspect of human behaviour. But when it comes to treating infections caused by fungi, we haven’t actually made a whole lot of progress. Even with the handful of anti-fungal drugs we have developed, nearly 50% of all people who develop a systemic fungal infection will die. So why is our current arsenal against fungal infection so limited? And how might we better arm ourselves in the war against fungus? 

Bianca Briscas
Bianca Briscas is a PhD Candidate in the School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences, Faculty of Science at UNSW Sydney. She completed a Bachelor of Medical Science (Distinction) in 2020, and received First Class Honours in 2021. Her PhD research centres on the human microbiome, with a focus on exploring the complex interactions between bacteria and fungi, to inform novel approaches to managing infections caused by Candida albicans, an opportunistic fungal pathogen of humans. 

For more information, visit unsw.to/BiancaBriscas

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Our news feeds are inundated with success stories of people who got rich quick, who climbed the career ladder to the top, even people who became overnight viral sensations. But how much of these people’s success comes down to hard work, versus being in the right place at the right time and having a little good luck on their side? When it comes to being successful is there really any difference between someone who won the lottery and someone who founded a billion dollar tech startup?  Wealthy people overwhelmingly attribute their success to hard work rather than to factors like being in the right place at the right time, but what if lottery winners and successful entrepreneurs have more in common than you think? If we know how this game of chance works -  why do we keep clicking on those stories about successful business people in our newsfeeds? 

Whatever your definition is of success, there seems to be no shortage of advice out there about how you can get a taste of it. In under ten minutes, or roughly the same amount of time it takes to make an elevator pitch to a venture capitalist, Frederik Anseel explains how you can increase your chances of becoming successful.

10 Minute Genius
10 Minute Genius is a programme designed to create a space in which you can engage with new ideas. It is a curated collection of UNSW Sydney's thinkers, dreamers, and envelope pushers to help you make some sense of this relentless information vortex. And because you’re busy, all we ask of you is less than 10 minutes.

For more information visit unsw.to/FrederikAnseel

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Throughout Australia, people want our cities to be more affordable, to have more vibrant social and green spaces, and to be better environmentally suited. And yet our sprawling cities typically fail to meet these goals – often because they have been designed for the convenience of real estate developers, and exclude life sustaining processes and community from them. Even though the ways we work and live have shifted, and we’ve made leaps and bounds in technology, transport, architecture, and infrastructure, our blueprint for a city has not changed since the Second World War. Given our ability to create cities that are socially vibrant, economical, and in harmony with the land and climate of Australia, isn’t it about time we reimagined our cities to reflect the lifestyles we want for the future? 

John Carr
John Carr is an urban and legal geographer whose work focuses on the intersections of urban form, law, planning, and human and non-human environments. His research seeks to address how knowledge from across disciplinary boundaries can be mobilised to make human-built environments more environmentally and socially regenerative. Carr is a senior lecturer with the Environment and Society Group at UNSW Sydney, and teaches in the School of Humanities and Languages, Faculty of Arts, Design & Architecture. For more than a decade, he practiced law in the areas of civil rights, complex litigation, and construction law before entering academia. 

For more information, visit unsw.to/JohnCarr

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By 2062, experts estimate that we will have created machines as intelligent as humans. Already AI has become so integrated into our everyday lives that it’s often hard to detect… from home robots to smartphones telling you the fastest route home at the press of a button. 

So what happens when those algorithms go wrong? Can AI be devious? And how can we be sure that we don’t lose the human touch when we get zeros and ones to do the work for us?

Computers can be frighteningly smart in some ways, but dangerously dim in other ways. We’ve seen plenty of examples in the news of algorithms exacerbating racial profiling, swaying election results, or increasing the spread of misinformation. 

The success of AI means we can and should hand over many routine decisions to machines, but we must ensure we are vigilant in preventing unconscious bias and unintended consequences that creep unnoticed into the algorithms we create.

In less than 10 minutes, or roughly the same amount of time it takes a computer to win a million games of chess, Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence Toby Walsh will explore how we can make sure mutant algorithms don’t go too far.

10 Minute Genius
10 Minute Genius is a programme designed to create a space in which you can engage with new ideas. It is a curated collection of UNSW Sydney's thinkers, dreamers, and envelope pushers to help you make some sense of this relentless information vortex. And because you’re busy, all we ask of you is less than 10 minutes.

For more information visit unsw.to/TobyWalsh

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In 2017 on the lands of the Anangu, Cobble Cobble woman Megan Davis stepped out from the shadow of Uluru and delivered the Uluru Statement from the Heart for the very first time. It was the first time anyone would hear it, and was a process that showed the power of First Nation Voices. 

Before this momentous day, Megan Davis had embarked upon a deliberative process bringing together the 13 regional dialogues around Australia, asking First Nations people for the first time: what does recognition mean to you? 

The answer: “Voice and a Makarrata Commission to supervise a process of agreement making between governments and First Nations and truth-telling about our history”.

Since then the call for an Indigenous Voice to Parliament has not been taken up by the Federal Government, but it’s time to face some hard truths. Why can’t Australian political leaders engage with the wishes of Australia’s First Nations People? Will white Australia ever accept the truth about our history? Would the scandalous policy failure of ‘closing the gap’ bring down governments if it was related to any other issue? Underlying all of these questions lie the uncomfortable conversations about sovereignty, treaty and reparations that we need to tackle now.

In just 10 minutes, Professor Megan Davis will take you through time. Unsettle you. And open your eyes to how we can create a better future for all Australians through constitutional reform.

10 Minute Genius
10 Minute Genius is a programme designed to create a space in which you can engage with new ideas. It is a curated collection of UNSW Sydney's thinkers, dreamers, and envelope pushers to help you make some sense of this relentless information vortex. And because you’re busy, all we ask of you is less than 10 minutes.

For more information visit unsw.to/MeganDavis

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When we think of weightlifting we tend to think of big burly men pumping iron in a gym, but it turns out, women have just as much to gain from strength training as their male gym junkie counterparts. Historically, pumping iron to build muscles has been seen as a masculine pursuit. And research into sport and exercise has largely focused on men too. But increasingly women at gyms are heading to the heavy weights room and picking up the dumbbells to reap the benefits of strength training. 

When she discovered a complete lack of literature on female resistance and strength training former Olympic weightlifter and exercise scholar Mandy Hagstrom decided to take matters into her own hands.  According to her research both male and female strength trainers gain the same relative amount of muscle mass following strength training, so when it comes to fitness, are we compromising the health of half of our population due to a lack of understanding? 

In under ten minutes, or roughly the same amount of time it takes to do a triple set of bench presses, exercise scientist Mandy Hagstrom will explain why being male or female doesn’t make as much difference to growing muscle as you might think.

10 Minute Genius
10 Minute Genius is a programme designed to create a space in which you can engage with new ideas. It is a curated collection of UNSW Sydney's thinkers, dreamers, and envelope pushers to help you make some sense of this relentless information vortex. And because you’re busy, all we ask of you is less than 10 minutes.

For more information visit unsw.to/MandyHagstrom

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

When we gaze upwards and look at stars we’re looking back in time. On a clear night, anyone with access to a patch of night sky can see light that has travelled unfathomable distances and stars that have been twinkling for millions and millions of years. But when it comes to the big questions of the cosmos, it feels almost impossible to comprehend how far away those twinkling stars really are...or whether they even exist anymore. Fortunately we have cosmic archaeologists to answer these mind bending questions. 

While an archaeologist digs down to explore mysteries of our past, a cosmic archaeologist digs upwards through space to illuminate the story of our universe. The relationship between time, light and space is second nature to an astrophysicist. Which is why we measure distance in space as light years -or the distance light travels in one earth year. In under ten minutes, or roughly the same amount of time it takes for light to travel 180,000,000 km, Astrophysicist Kirsten Banks explains how light emitted by the stars can unlock the secrets to our galactic neighbourhood.

10 Minute Genius
10 Minute Genius is a programme designed to create a space in which you can engage with new ideas. It is a curated collection of UNSW Sydney's thinkers, dreamers, and envelope pushers to help you make some sense of this relentless information vortex. And because you’re busy, all we ask of you is less than 10 minutes.

For more information visit unsw.to/KirstenBanks

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.