Faith and technology
Hello Outriders!
This week I have been finding out about a ten dollar robot, learning more about how faith works with technology and our Chris Vallance has been out at the Science Museum.
First up is the . The project is open for people to think of ways for kids to engage with science and technology through robotics. Naturally to reach a lot of young minds, the robots have to be easy to make and cheap to manufacture.
Ayorkor Korsah is an assistant professor at Ashesi University College in Ghana. She told me all about the idea and why robotics are important in education. Makes me wish I had a teacher with robots when I was at school.
Also this week; someone let our Chris Vallance out of the building again and naturally he made his way to London鈥檚 Science Museum. He went to the opening of a new exhibition called . It鈥檚 a collaboration with Google and according to its description it aims to 鈥渂ring the extraordinary workings of the Internet to life鈥. Chris reports back on what he found there.
And finally, you might think that computer science can be lacking in spirituality sometimes, but this is not the case.
A top example that my colleague Paul Sawyers wrote about on last week is Google鈥檚 work on Ramadan. Last year they started live streaming prayers from Mecca which if you love tech in any denomination, you have to admit that鈥檚 pretty cool.
This year the big G has gone further and there is a Ramadan channel on YouTube which - given there鈥檚 a lot relating to fasting and food, means hangout with celebrity chefs for planning celebratory meals and important figures opening up discussions. That鈥檚 some nice social technology.
But Islam is not the only religion getting digitally upgraded, there鈥檚 a very amusing billboard not far from where I live, advertising . The newspaper now has iOS and Android apps out and as their billboard jokes - this means it鈥檚 out on Tablets again for the first time in four thousand years....(gettit? lol)
Over the weekend there was a big conference in the US for those who work with technology for the Christian faith. or ICCM is a way for people to get together and talk about advances and uses for their technical work. And to geek out a little bit.
Our friend Antoine Wright was there, he runs the website . We had a chat about technology, religion and the cool things he saw at ICCM.
That鈥檚 all for this week, but as ever, do get in touch of there is something digital, electrical or geeky that has caught your eye.
Tweet at me on Twitter where we are or find us on and Just search for Outriders and you can add us to your feed.
Until next week!
~ Jamillah
Email us
Facebook Group
Add to iTunes