Innovation Category Archive

SIENNA final conference: 10 – 12 March

Leave a reply Jonny Hankins
The SIENNA Project is holding its final (online) conference on Ethics, Human Rights & Emerging Technologies.

Various project members and a host of professors from various fields will present and discuss results and proposals for the ethical management of new and emerging technologies. The conference has four parts that can be attended separately. The programme is now available for all sessions, and they are all individually free to attend!

Here is just a little taster, all times are CET:

10 March
14:00-17:00 Human Genetics and Genomics: Ethical, legal and human rights challenges

11 March
09:30-12:30 Human Enhancement: Ethical, legal and human rights challenges
13:30-17:30 Artificial Intelligence and Robotics: Ethical, legal and human rights challenges

12 March
13:00-17:00 Governance of emerging technologies: incorporating ethics and human rights

Two panel discussions might be of particular interest to Technology Bloggers readers:

On Thursday 11 March at 11:40, future strategies for human enhancement, ethics and human rights features the following interesting array of speakers.

Lesley-Ann Daly, CyborgNest
Christopher Coenen, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Marc Roux, President of  the Association Française Transhumaniste – Technoprog
Yana Toom, Member of European Parliament, STOA member.

While later in the afternoon (at 16:40) a panel will discuss strategies for future ethical and human rights challenges of AI and robotics, and it also includes some really interesting names:

Cornelia Kutterer, Senior Director on Microsoft’s European Government Affairs team in Brussels
Patrick Breyer, Member of European Parliament, Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance
Clara Neppel, Senior Director of the IEEE European office
Vidushi Marda, Article 19 and Carnegie India

Have a look at the full programme, or go to the conference website landing page to register. It’s free!

A Breathalyzer that can Detect COVID-19

Leave a reply Jonny Hankins

In the Netherlands, the Dutch health authorities are using a breathalyzer machine called the SprioNose to help detect COVID-19 cases. The machine works rather like an alcohol test in that it detects traces of the virus in the breath blown into the machine.

The health department state that in 70% of cases tested, the rapid test can determine with certainty that they are not infected with the coronavirus. For the remaining 30%, the results are not conclusive. If the breath test does not provide a definite negative result, the person will be given another test to find out if they are infected with coronavirus with the common PCR test.

The results only take a couple of minutes, and the screening capability means that many people can avoid the invasive nose swab and the related procedures for analysis, saving a few red noses and a lot of medical testing resources.

The SpiroNose technology was developed by the company Breathomix. The Leiden University Medical Centre and GGD Amsterdam (the health department) have thoroughly tested the SpiroNose at coronavirus test locations. At the moment, some 600 breath tests can take place every day in Amsterdam, but this will quickly increase to more than 2,500 breath tests per day. Moving forward, the rapid breath test will also be used in the rest of the Netherlands.

SpiroNose

Bring it on I say!

Open Source

Leave a reply Jonny Hankins

Open Science

In November I presented at the Berlin Science week, as part of my training as an open science trainer. For more details and a review of the ORION Open Science Train the Trainer MOOC see here.

The course was great, good fun and informative, and as for the presentation…… See the video above!