Using Technology for Sustainability
During the weekend, we went to a boat event and noticed how other boats around us have been throwing their trash out into the sea. We’re not asking everyone to be extreme environment activists, but there has to be a certain level of respect for our one and only planet Earth 🌍 So we decided to add another section “Tech for Sustainability” in our newsletters to raise awareness and show how technology can be used to do our parts. Let us know what you think!
Here’s what we’ve put together for your weekly Spark reads:
💙 NEWS FROM OUR MATESBehind the Product with Morgan launches with first episode featuring ex-Googler Prakash Chandran 🚀
Behind the Product unravels stories of innovators and trailblazers of products we love, and conversing on their highs and lows, lessons learned, things they would change - all the blood, sweat and tears that no one talks about: the realities of product development! The first episode is with Prakash Chandran who has since started Xano, a no-code platform that helps you develop your apps’ backends no matter how complex.
The podcast is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and all your favorite channels. Listen in and let us what you think!
PS: If you have a guest you’d like to see on the show, feel free to suggest them.
🤸 FUN PRODUCT WE LOVEAutomate captions for videos and podcasts using Aria Captions 🎥
If you’re looking to up your social media videos game, we highly recommend using Aria Captions! You can upload any video or even podcasts to be auto-captioned into templates you prefer within minutes. You can customize each template’s colors, fonts, background, add an overlay and more. It also auto-frames it so you can use it on any platform, whether it’s just a general post, a Story or a simple landscape size.
Do note it’s only currently available on Apple’s App Store, it’ll come to Google’s Play Store soon!
💭 TECH FOOD FOR THOUGHTThis powerful microscope is made of LEGO and smartphone lenses 🔬
The biggest impact that technology has brought to all industries is accessibility. Professor Timo Betz, biophysicist at the University of Göttingen in Germany, built this microscope completely with LEGO to make microscopy accessible to anyone, especially kids! With the right pieces, it could take you 30-minutes or an hour to build, but a lifetime of discovery in how microscopes work. We’re cleaning out our dusty LEGO pieces to try it for ourselves!
🌱 TECH FOR SUSTAINABILITYGoogle Maps release eco-friendly routing options 🚗
Just today, Google Maps have released new routing options in the US to help you find the fastest and most fuel-efficient routes. With this new feature, Google expects to reduce carbon emissions by 1 million tons per year - the same as removing 200,000 cars from the road! Google is also set to release 2 other features in the coming months called “Lite Navigation” to give cyclists routes without turn-by-turn directions, and where you can find sharing stations for bikes and scooters.
💥 WHAT’S ON @ SPARKMATESparkEvents in Hong Kong on “How To Bootstrap Your Product” 📣
We’re running a fireside chat with BistroChat’s Hacene Taibi, and Sleek’s Adrien Barthel, as well as Morgan next Wednesday on Oct 13! They’ll be answering questions all entrepreneurs and aspiring ones would have on bringing their products to life and anything else on #leanproductdevelopment.
We’ll be recording these question-answer segments and post them on our Instagram Stories, so if you have some questions yourself that you’d like us to include, send us your questions here:
Exciting things are happening every day ⚡️ Follow us on social media to stay tuned!