Welcome to the 10th edition of Smartspaces!

Welcome to this week's edition of Smartspaces!

"Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish." These iconic words from Steve Jobs not only define a mindset but encapsulate a powerful truth about learning and curiosity. This week, let's explore the power of what we do with our 'free' time and how it can compound into life-changing innovation.

Steve Jobs, while officially a dropout, famously continued to audit classes at Reed College, drawn by sheer interest and curiosity. One such class, which seemed unusual (or even impractical) at the time, was in calligraphy. Little did he know, this class would profoundly influence the future of personal computing. The calligraphy skills he acquired, purely out of curiosity, led to the pioneering typography and UI aesthetics of the Apple Macintosh. It’s a classic case of a seemingly irrelevant interest laying the groundwork for the revolutionary design that set Apple apart.

This story goes beyond Apple. It's about the immense value hidden in our hobbies, the courses we choose for fun, and the books we read out of pure interest. It's about the compounding effect of knowledge and interest. Each piece of information, each skill learned in leisure, can unexpectedly converge to form groundbreaking ideas and innovations.

In your busy life, where “productivity gurus” champion scheduling every minute, dedicating time to explore, learn, and actually be interested can seem like a luxury. However, these pursuits aren’t just “hobbies”, fundamentally, they make you more interesting, optimistic and knowledgable (and as Jobs' story shows, these time “investments” can yield unforeseen and outsized rewards).

So, as we dive into this week's content, we’d encourage you to think about how you can best engage your curiosity. Who knows? You could be on the verge of a breakthrough!

What’s up next week?

As always, lots of great events every day! Many of the top events this week are front loaded at the beginning of the week (Happy Thanksgiving to our American audience!), so plan ahead and don’t miss out. 📆

• ⚖️ Some great AI Safety talks coming up - including Dr. Mhairi Aitken, a renowned AI ethics expert, an Ethics Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute and one of the “100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics” who will discuss children's rights in an AI context. And Catherine D'Ignazio, professor at MIT and Director of the Data + Feminism Lab, and a top voice in AI ethics, she will speak about the implications of Data Feminism in the AI era.

• 🏥 Join Greg Corrado, the Head of Health AI at Google Research and other Google execs for an overview on the impact of AI in healthcare and medical research.

• 🤖 AI’s applications across industries: Healthcare, Procurement, Finance, Biotech, Energy and more!

🚨 p.s. There’s still time to sign up for ex-New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern’s talk on leadership at Harvard later today (Friday, November 17 - 7pm CET)

As always, you can find the details and links to the events in our Highlighted Events section & hundreds of additional upcoming events, indexed & enriched with contextual information about speakers and topics on smrtspace.xyz

💫 Know about a great event or lecture? Submit your event to have a chance to get listed on the website & potentially featured in the newsletter.

🌟 Highlighted Events 🌟

Monday, 20/11/2023