Unspun

Was at both the the Presidential Lecture at the Jakarta Convention Center and the Government Leaders Forum at Shangri-la Hotel. At both functions both Bill Gates and President SBY spoke. Bill was, of course, interesting for his insights and some of the cool things they were doing with software like an astronomy internet application to be launched later this month. It’s like Google earth, except that its about the stars. The clever thing was that people could go in and conduct tours of the heavens and then safe them. gates then showed a tour conducted by a six year old of a ring nebula. All very cute. Social network meets Google Space.

Craig Mundie, who was asked by Bill to present some ideas in medicine also had some cool stuff to show. He said personal healthcare of the future could be such: if you feel ill you blow into your handphone of the future which, because it is linked by the Net to some super duper computers that analyze what’s wrong with you. Super compute then sends you your prescription on your handphone. You take your handphone to the nearest dispenser, which could be in remote Papua or anywhere else, you dowload your prescription to the dispenser, which is nothing more than a laser printer of the future. The only difference is that instead of ink what the dispenser does is to print formulas of medicines onto tabs on a flat sheet of paper. The medication rolls off the printer and you break off a tab at prescribed times and put it in your mouth.

Sounds neat and most of the technology is there, but apparently humankind still cannot do all that yet.

Then there was President SBY. Participants at the two functions who has seen the President speak in English a couple of years before were struck by how fluent he has become this time around. His pronounciation was good 98% of the time, he seemed much at ease in English and he came across well. Much less stilted as before. Whomever is coaching the President certainly deserves a pat on the back and Indonesians should be proud of a president that takes pains to improve himself (OK, the next thing he has to work on is the speed of his decision making but, as they say in the movie Contact…Baby Steps).

Disclosure: Unspun’s company helped handle the PR surrounding the GLF and Bill G’s visit but its not in the work scope that Unspun has to blog about the event. This is a purely personal choice.