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Good Foods Taste Great: David McInerney
Good Foods Taste Great: David McInerney
Join FreshDirect’s co-founder David McInerney, as he champions changing the way people eat as a featured speaker at the 2013 TEDx Manhattan conference. McInerney travels the world meeting with hundreds of farmers, fisherman, and ranchers to source the healthiest, freshest, highest quality foods in existence for FreshDirect’s customers. During his travels, McInerney has become keenly aware that there is a fundamental flaw in our food system, which forces our farmers to grow food for transport rather than taste. What’s more, today fresh foods don’t taste like they should; people aren’t eating them, and processed foods are winning–and its crippling our country’s health. During TEDx Manhattan, McInerney calls on the retailer and the consumer to help change our broken food cycle and join in his taste crusade, to allow farmers to grow good foods that taste great, helping to change the way people eat, and change the world.
David McInerney has been on a “tastes-great” crusade for the past twenty years. A former French-trained chef, he is a co-founder of FreshDirect.com, the leading online grocer in the U.S.
In strategically setting the direction for food at FreshDirect, David helps educate and provide higher quality fresh food to millions in New York and Philadelphia. Every year, he spends the majority of his time visiting and building relationships with local and global farmers, ranchers, and fishermen, giving him a rare view across the entire sustainable food spectrum. David started his food career while studying and working in Burgundy under renowned chef Bernard Loiseau at his Michelin 3-Star restaurant La Cote d’Or and later under legendary New York Chef David Bouley.
He is a sought after speaker and food educator. He has dedicated his life to changing the way consumers eat, and how the industry sources fresh, healthy, sustainable foods.
Eric Dishman: Health care should be a team sport
Eric Dishman: Health care should be a team sport
When Eric Dishman was in college, doctors told him he had 2 to 3 years to live. That was a long time ago. Now, Dishman puts his experience and his expertise as a medical tech specialist together to suggest a bold idea for reinventing health care — by putting the patient at the center of a treatment team.
Eric Dishman does health care research for Intel — studying how new technology can solve big problems in the system for the sick, the aging and, well, all of us.
WHY YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO HIM?
Eric Dishman is an Intel Fellow and general manager of Intel’s Health Strategy & Solutions Group. He founded the product research and innovation team responsible for driving Intel’s worldwide healthcare research, new product innovation, strategic planning, and health policy and standards activities.
Dishman is recognized globally for driving healthcare reform through home and community-based technologies and services, with a focus on enabling independent living for seniors. His work has been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post and Businessweek, and The Wall Street Journal named him one of “12 People Who Are Changing Your Retirement.” He has delivered keynotes on independent living for events such as the annual Consumer Electronics Show, the IAHSA International Conference and the National Governors Association. He has published numerous articles on independent living technologies and co-authored government reports on health information technologies and health reform.
He has co-founded organizations devoted to advancing independent living, including the Technology Research for Independent Living Centre, the Center for Aging Services Technologies, the Everyday Technologies for Alzheimer’s Care program, and the Oregon Center for Aging & Technology.
“‘All of health care is based on one idea from the 1850s,’ says social scientist Eric Dishman, Intel’s director of health innovation. ‘That it has to be delivered in a face-to-face setting.’ His research on aging is behind evolving systems to provide more effective home care. His goal is to enable 50% of care in the U.S. to be delivered in the home by 2020.” Fast Company
Laura Snyder: The Philosophical Breakfast Club
Laura Snyder: The Philosophical Breakfast Club
In 1812, four men at Cambridge University met for breakfast. What began as an impassioned meal grew into a new scientific revolution, in which these men — who called themselves “natural philosophers” until they later coined “scientist” — introduced four major principles into scientific inquiry. Historian and philosopher Laura Snyder tells their intriguing story.
Laura Snyder weaves tales of Victorian-era scientists that have been described as “fit for Masterpiece Theater.”
WHY YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO HER?
A work of history should be more than a collection of happenings, at least from Laura Snyder’s perspective. The Fulbright Scholar, historian of science and professor of philosophy at St. John’s University believes histories should aim not only to tell a story, but also to transport a reader through time.
Snyder’s work presents three-dimensional characters that readers connect with. Her most recent book, The Philosophical Breakfast Club, traces the friendship of four 19th-century scientists who met at Cambridge: Charles Babbage (mathematics and computing), William Whewell (math economics), John Herschel (astronomy and photography) and Richard Jones (economy). Inspired by Francis Bacon‘s ideas, they coined the word “scientist” and were central in transforming science from the province of the amateur (practitioners were until then called “natural philosophers”) to a professional system.
Colin Camerer: Neuroscience, game theory, monkeys
Colin Camerer: Neuroscience, game theory, monkeys
When two people are trying to make a deal — whether they’re competing or cooperating — what’s really going on inside their brains? Behavioral economist Colin Camerer shows research that reveals just how little we’re able to predict what others are thinking. And he presents an unexpected study that shows chimpanzees might just be better at it than we are.
Colin Camerer is a leading behavioral economist who studies the psychological and neural bases of choice and strategic decision-making.
WHY YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO HIM?
Colin Camerer focuses on brain behavior during decision making, strategizing and market trading. He is the Robert Kirby Professor of Behavioral Finance and Economics at the California Institute of Technology. A child prodigy in his youth, Camerer received a B.A. in quantitative studies from Johns Hopkins when he was just 17 and a PhD in decision theory from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business when he was 22. Camerer’s research departs from previous theory in that it does not assume the mind to be a rational and perfect system, but rather focuses on the limitations of everyday people when they play actual games, and seeks to predict how they will behave in situations that involve strategy. His studies focus on neurological findings from economic experiments in the lab (on humans — and monkeys!) Camerer is the author of Behavioral Game Theory.
Stewart Brand: The dawn of de-extinction. Are you ready?
Stewart Brand: The dawn of de-extinction. Are you ready?
Throughout humankind’s history, we’ve driven species after species extinct: the passenger pigeon, the Eastern cougar, the dodo … But now, says Stewart Brand, we have the technology (and the biology) to bring back species that humanity wiped out. So — should we? Which ones? He asks a big question whose answer is closer than you may think.
Since the counterculture ’60s, Stewart Brand has been creating our internet-worked world. Now, with biotech accelerating four times faster than digital technology, Stewart Brand has a bold new plan.
WHY YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO HIM?
With biotech accelerating four times faster than digital technology, the revival of extinct species is becoming possible. Stewart Brand plans to not only bring species back but restore them to the wild.
Brand is already a legend in the tech industry for things he’s created: the Whole Earth Catalog, The WELL, the Global Business Network, the Long Now Foundation, and the notion that “information wants to be free.” Now Brand, a lifelong environmentalist, wants to re-create — or “de-extinct” — a few animals that’ve disappeared from the planet.
Granted, resurrecting the woolly mammoth using ancient DNA may sound like mad science. But Brand’s Revive and Restore project has an entirely rational goal: to learn what causes extinctions so we can protect currently endangered species, preserve genetic and biological diversity, repair depleted ecosystems, and essentially “undo harm that humans have caused in the past.”
David Anderson: Your brain is more than a bag of chemicals
David Anderson: Your brain is more than a bag of chemicals
Modern psychiatric drugs treat the chemistry of the whole brain, but neurobiologist David Anderson believes in a more nuanced view of how the brain functions. He illuminates new research that could lead to targeted psychiatric medications — that work better and avoid side effects. How’s he doing it? For a start, by making a bunch of fruit flies angry. (Filmed at TEDxCaltech.)
Through his lab at the California Institute of Technology, David Anderson seeks to find the neural underpinnings of emotions like fear, anxiety and anger.
WHY YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO HIM?
How is emotional behavior encoded in the brain? And what parts of the brain are affected by depression, ADHD and anxiety? This is what neurobiologist David Anderson researches in his lab at the California Institute for Technology by studying the brains of lab mice and fruit flies. By looking at how neural circuits give rise to emotions, Anderson hopes to advance a more nuanced view of psychiatric disorders — that they aren’t the result of a simple “chemical imbalance,” but of a chemical imbalance at a specific site that has a specific emotional consequences. By researching these cause-and-effect relationships, Anderson hopes to pave the way for the development of new treatments for psychiatric disorders that are far more targeted and have far fewer side effects.
Trained by two Nobel laureates, Gunter Blobel and Richard Axel, Anderson is also an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
“You are at a picnic and a wasp is circling. You swat it away, but it buzzes back again and again, more persistent each time. The wasp seems angry. Or is it? Can insects be ‘angry’? David J. Anderson believes that what we perceive as insect anger may share a foundation with human frustration or aggression. “ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
James B. Glattfelder: Who controls the world?
James B. Glattfelder: Who controls the world?
James Glattfelder studies complexity: how an interconnected system — say, a swarm of birds — is more than the sum of its parts. And complexity theory, it turns out, can reveal a lot about how the economy works. Glattfelder shares a groundbreaking study of how control flows through the global economy, and how concentration of power in the hands of a shockingly small number leaves us all vulnerable. (Filmed at TEDxZurich.)
James B. Glattfelder aims to give us a richer, data-driven understanding of the people and interactions that control our global economy. He does this not to push an ideology — but with the hopes of making the world a better place.
WHY YOU SHOULD LISTEN TO HIM?
First a researcher at a Swiss hedge fund and then a physicist, James B. Glattfelder found himself amazed by the level of understanding we have in regards to the physical world and universe around us. He wondered: how can we move toward a similar understanding of human society?
This question led him to the study of complex systems, a subject he now holds a Ph.D in from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. Glattfelder is co-head of quantitative research at Olsen Ltd in Zurich, an FX investment manager focusing on market-stabilizing algorithms. In 2011, he co-authored the study “The Network of Global Corporate Control,” which went viral in the international media and sparked many controversial discussions. The study looked at the architecture of ownership across the globe, and computed a level of control exerted by each international player. The study revealed that 75% of all the players in the global economy are part of a highly interconnected core which, because of the high levels of overlap, leaves the economy vulnerable.
In his free time, Glattfelder enjoys snowboarding, rock climbing, surfing and listening to electronic music.
“As protests against financial power sweep the world this week, science may have confirmed the protesters’ worst fears. An analysis of the relationships between 43,000 transnational corporations has identified a relatively small group of companies, mainly banks, with disproportionate power over the global economy … The study, by a trio of complex systems theorists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, is the first to go beyond ideology to empirically identify such a network of power.” The New S
