♪♪
Kari: Technology's everywhere.
It's keeping us informed and connected...
This is so cool.
...creating new opportunities...
It's definitely walking on a robotic leg.
Nice.
...and helping the world in some pretty amazing ways.
[ Siren wailing ]
Technology in here saved lives.
It did... big-time that day.
I'm Kari Byron.
Yeah!
It's all meant to make our world
a better place to live in.
Kari: I travel around the world
seeking out stories of inspiring people...
Aziz: When the world is connected,
what power can you harness out of that?
...who are working on solutions
to some of the biggest challenges of our time.
I love firemen. They're just heroes.
The United States has been at the forefront
for science and technology.
Worldwide, it's estimated
that more than five billion people use smartphones,
causing teenagers to spend almost five hours each day
in front of a screen.
Technology is constantly changing
the way we live our lives,
whether it's how we eat, travel, communicate,
technology's everywhere.
Now, we're always hearing about the negative impacts.
My question is, how is technology improving our lives?
♪♪
Silicon valley is a hub for innovation and technology.
Many of the world's successful tech giants operate here.
New, smaller companies are using technology
to bring people together and revitalize human connections.
♪♪
So, I'm supposed to be checking out a startup tech company,
but I am clearly in a condo complex.
This is what I love about silicon valley.
Invention in a garage.
Hello?
Aziz: Hi, Kari. Nice to meet you.
Welcome to our humble office.
This is awesome.
Yeah. This is silicon valley.
We live where we work, and we work or live.
I mean, didn't apple start in a garage?
All great ideas start in the garage.
Kari: Aziz Alghunaim came up with the concept
for his app Tarjimly in 2017
in response to the Syrian refugee crisis.
Tarjimly means "translate for me"
in many different languages, and this is our team here.
What Tarjimly does, it enables any bilingual in the world
to sign up on their phone to be a volunteer interpreter
for refugees and humanitarian workers.
Kari: Unlike other translation sites,
Tarjimly provides instant access to real people
speaking over 30 different languages.
I think every single one of our sessions
changes someone's life at the end of the day.
Part of my job is kind of finding these stories
and really showing them to everyone else.
Nour Eldifrawy oversees user connectivity at Tarjimly.
So imagine, like, showing up to a food bank
with your family, and you don't speak English.
You're really just trying to get food for your family.
And there's this communication barrier,
and then you use Tarjimly, and all of a sudden,
you're able to get your rice, your beans.
And to help someone bring food to the table
on a day-to-day basis is just, like, so valuable
and so important.
Can I see the app in action? Yeah. Absolutely.
I'm gonna pretend that I need help with translation
it says, "I need a translator."
It looks like a regular translation app.
It says "from English," and you picked "to Arabic Egyptian."
Then once I'm ready, I would request the translator.
And it's actually now looking around the world for translators
that are available to connect with me at this moment.
Wow. That's how it works.
And it pinged 18 different translators,
almost like all of the services to get a car.
Nour: Exactly. Yeah.
Kari: The ability to talk or even video-chat
with volunteer translators like Delia...
Hi. ...Sets Tarjimly apart.
So, where are you in the world right now?
Delia: New York City.
Why do you do this app?
When I first found Tarjimly, I just loved the idea.
I grew up in Jordan, and I wanted to pay back.
I also speak, write, and read Arabic.
And my mom, when she came to the states,
she did not speak really good English.
So she had people helping her out.
So I thought if someone else was in the same situation,
they would need help.
Thank you so much. Have a great one.
♪♪
Kari: Since you guys are still in college,
what inspired you to get involved?
I was always interested in social impact,
and I also started getting interested in tech.
And coming into college, I thought those were things
that were kind of different and, like, done separately.
And then it blew my mind in college
that it's possible to still develop your tech skills,
get better at coding and software development,
and at the same time still have an impact in the world.
I live in San Francisco,
which is an incredibly international community.
Could I take this app and use it with my neighbors
and check out how it works? Definitely.
We could try it out right now if you really wanted to.
I do. Let's do it.
Kari: There are at least 350 different languages
spoken across the United States.
In California, roughly 44% of people
speak something other than English at home.
You know this is actually the oldest Chinatown in the U.S.?
I do. I love San Francisco.
So, I want to try out the app.
Do you think maybe we should do some shopping?
Yeah. Let's do it.
♪♪
Woman: Hi! How are you?
So, do you speak Chinese?
Yes. Awesome.
I wanted to try out this app,
and we were gonna use a translator
to maybe help us ask a couple questions.
Okay.
[ Line ringing ]
Alex: This is Alex. Hey, Alex.
This is Nour from the Tarjimly team.
I was wondering if you had a couple of moments today
and you could help us translate in mandarin.
Mandarin? Yeah. Sure.
Awesome. Thank you.
I want to ask about these gold cats.
I see them everywhere in Chinatown.
Do they have special meaning?
Alex: [ Speaking mandarin ]
[ Speaking mandarin ]
Mm-hmm. It's a symbol of luck and prosperity.
Luck and prosperity?
I'm gonna need to buy one of these.
Nour: Can you ask her how much it costs?
[ Speaking mandarin ]
$12.95.
Perfect. Sounds like a deal.
Kari: This app could pass along information about a food allergy
or help with a new menu.
Alex: It's roasted duck.
Roasted duck.
Yeah. Roast duck.
Okay. We'll take some.
Kari: Or use it for navigating an unfamiliar area.
All right. I'm gonna try this one on my own.
I found some Spanish friends.
Hi. Can you translate for me,
"excuse me. Where is the closest pharmacy?"
Woman: [ Speaking Spanish ]
[ Speaking Spanish ]
Two blocks away in the corner.
Thank you very much. De nada.
Kari: Tarjimly is using tech to improve lives
by bridging a gap in communication...
Can you translate for me, "what time is the next bus?"
...to people across the world or in my very own community.
This is so cool.
Kari: Until I actually got here to see it with my own eyes,
I had no idea how big the devastation is.
This fire was so large that it was actually visible from space.
♪♪
Kari: All over the world,
science and technology have been integral
in improving and saving lives in the medical field.
Tech has also given us access to places previously unexplored,
and it's helped with making our communities
and rescue workers safer in the line of duty.
♪♪
Firefighters have one of the most dangerous jobs
in the entire world.
Whether it's putting out a single house fire
or battling a forest fire,
things can go from bad to worse in an instant.
So they're always looking for ways to improve
how they respond.
♪♪
Three and a half hours northeast of San Francisco,
bordered by national forest land, is paradise.
In 2018,
this once-thriving town was the site of California's deadliest
and most destructive wildfire in California history.
Deputy chief Scott McLean and Robert Foxworthy
experienced the paradise fire firsthand.
Wow. I mean, I watched this fire progress on the news,
because I am not too far from here.
But until I actually got here to see it with my own eyes,
I had no idea how big the devastation is.
Yeah. It's quite incredible.
Scott: We're standing in what is the result of the camp fire.
150,000-plus acres.
Destroyed over 18,000 structures, over 15,000 homes.
And unfortunately, 85 individuals perished
because of this fire.
♪♪
Just driving in was incredibly impactful,
to see so much burned out.
There's not that many people left here.
Kari: Almost a year later,
you still see homes and businesses destroyed,
burned-out cars, and very few people.
This fire was so large
that it was actually visible from space with satellites.
Kari: With access to NASA satellite imagery,
services like the national guard and Cal fire
are actively using technology to improve the way they fight
and monitor disasters like the one in paradise.
Is this a thermal camera?
Yeah. The orange represents where the fire is and the heat.
But as you can see, there's no smoke
it can actually take a picture through the smoke.
With this technology, we can see the perimeter of that fire
and know where to send our resources.
Kari: NASA satellite maps also assist with things
like monitoring wind conditions and air pollution.
The advances that we've seen in technology
over the last few years is phenomenal.
And I expect to see a lot more.
♪♪
Tech is aiding rescue workers on the ground
at Cal fire's air force base in Chico,
battalion chief Shem Hawkins utilizes technology
up in the air too.
Hawkins: This is an OV-10 bronco.
It was a Vietnam-era aircraft that we've updated the tech in
to make it applicable to today's standards.
The ov-10 bronco is strictly used for surveillance
and communication.
We get over the top of the fire,
and we can see where the fire is,
where the firefighters are at,
and where we can put the retardant from the air tankers
or the water from the helicopters,
knock the heat out of the fire so the firefighters can get in
and extinguish the fire all the way.
So you have that advantage from above,
and you can say, "there's more fire over here!
Bring the retardant to this area!"
Exactly. Yes indeed.
Onboard iPads and real-time maps have focused their efforts too.
Wow. So you can actually see the red is the fire.
Yeah. That's still the open fire line.
The black is what had been at that point contained.
And see where the fire just jumped over water.
It's crazy.
So you used this in the big camp fire?
We did, yeah.
It was instrumental to helping put that fire out.
That was such a scary fire.
The smoke engulfed three hours south.
I can't imagine how much stress there was to get that out fast.
Oh, man, it was really impactful for me,
because I have a lot of family that lived in paradise.
I knew a lot of people. I grew up in paradise.
And so it was very personal to me.
You grew up there? I did.
It must have been insane
to actually watch your hometown going up in smoke.
It was really sad, because I know those people,
and I know it hurt them hard.
So to watch it happen so quickly
when people didn't have the opportunity to escape quickly
was really difficult to deal with.
Shem started working as a firefighter back in 1992.
I watched the transition of tech into the fire service.
And it's been extremely beneficial,
particularly with the dispatching equipment
and getting equipment to emergencies
as quick as possible.
NASA satellites are a vital part of this future of tech, too.
Man: Looking good, and we've just want supersonic.
Kari: Hopefully this kind of access
will help to prevent future disasters like this one.
Growing up in paradise,
what does it mean to you to be in Cal fire
and actually able to do something about it?
It makes me feel good to be able to get out
and help my community in that way.
My dad was a chief for Cal fire.
So growing up, I was always surrounded with Cal fire,
and I really learned to love the organization
from the perspective that it helps and saves lives
on a day-to-day basis.
I love firemen. They're just heroes.
[ Chuckles ]
Oh, I see.
Kari: I mean, I get it.
If you told me to go exercise,
I don't know if I'm gonna do it
as much as I might, like,
dance with a video game right in front of me.
'Cause you don't know you're exercising.
Mike: Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah!
♪♪
Kari: If you want to know where inventioneers
are testing out their new ideas, visit any college campus.
I mean, this generation is all cybernatives,
so of course they're using technology
to solve the world's problems.
♪♪
Hi. I'm Chris. Kari.
Welcome to the invention lab.
This is cool.
The UC Berkeley lab is a maker space
for furthering technology.
Why are maker spaces important?
It's a great outlet for creativity.
All of design is basically problem solving,
so it can only benefit everyone.
One group is experimenting with ways
to inexpensively build and fly drones.
Woman: This is a paper drone that we're prototyping.
It's easy to use paper because you can prototype it really fast
and it's a cheap, easy-to-use material.
What kind of things can drones be used for for good?
They can go where people cannot.
They can be used to unobtrusively monitor wildlife.
A lot of the studies that we do, whales or seals,
they have to pull them out of the water
and tag them and stuff.
But a drone could just fly over the water
and look down and see it.
Woman: Another use is, like, for search and rescue.
I think it could possibly save lives
in a really desperate time.
Can we fly something?
Definitely. Yeah.
Kari: High school interns like April
can practice programming and design in the lab.
[ Drone buzzing ]
Myers: There we go.
So far, so good.
♪♪
That's impressive.
Wow!
This space has also allowed students
like Evangeline and Mike
a place to experiment with virtual reality.
Kari: How did you get inspired
to merge tech with physical therapy?
Everyone kind of has been seeing, like, VR,
virtual reality, being used in entertainment
and media and gaming, and that's really cool.
But the other students in the lab,
they were using virtual reality for physical therapy.
It's another way, really, to revolutionize therapy
and the way in which we've been seeing it.
They've been working with physical therapists
to develop key movements
and to track patient productivity over time.
The big problem with physical therapy
is a lot of people don't adhere to it,
so they'll drop off
after they're done going into the office.
So this is another way to incentivize them.
I mean, I get it.
If you told me to go exercise, I don't know if I'm gonna do it
as much as I might, like,
dance with a video game that was right in front of me.
'Cause you don't know you're exercising.
Yeah. Exactly. You ready to try it?
I want to do it. Yes.
Kari: The team designed games
like this one for shoulder rehabilitation.
I can already feel this will be a workout.
Players earn points by shielding
the moving butterflies with the orbs.
The more accurate the movement, the more points you can earn.
Oh, I see.
Whoa.
Okay. I can see how you totally lose track
of the physical activity you're doing
because you're concentrating so hard on the game,
which is pretty fun.
We try and make the environment more peaceful the better you do.
It lets you just focus on your movement.
Okay. Starting to feel the shoulder.
Definitely feeling it. You're doing well.
This is good 'cause the game also does motion tracking.
So it's good feedback for the therapists
when their subject plays the game.
I can't believe
that this is just a project you guys are putting together.
This is so awesome.
What a great idea.
I mean, I like playing games,
so this is way more fun than exercise.
Kari: The VR team is broadening their gaming
with other challenges too.
What do you see for the future
of merging technology with this kind of therapy?
Not necessarily selling it or making profit off it,
but mainly just putting it out there
so therapists can even remotely work with their patients
and help them recover
from different types of injuries and disabilities.
A lot of people with mobility issues
or who can't get to the centers that they need to get to,
it just gives them a way to help improve their lives.
Yeah!
So somebody on the other side of the world
can just gorilla-engineer this,
find something that could tweak it and make it better,
send it to you, and then everybody benefits?
That's right. That's the idea.
I love that!
♪♪
Kari: In a state known for music and automobile manufacturing,
motor city students and educators
are doing something groundbreaking with technology.
In the United States alone, hundreds of thousands
of leg amputees face mobility challenges.
The university of Michigan and the Shirley Ryan ability lab
are working to change that by developing a new,
artificially intelligent bionic leg.
This bionic leg is one of the first of its kind.
Unlike a passive prosthetic leg,
lead designer Elliott rouse's bionic model
provides motor-powered assistance.
The main goal of this technology is to get out into the public
to help people like Nick.
Kari: Nick lost his leg in 2018,
when he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma,
a rare type of bone cancer.
Today he's testing this bionic leg for the first time.
The typical prosthesis, like the one that you wear every day,
the ankle joint has no motion, so it's a rigid spring
that can't move at all.
So by being able to move the ankle,
is that what helps you get up and down, like, hills?
Yeah. It helps you roll off your toe when you're taking a step,
conserve energy, and take a bigger stride as well.
♪♪
Nick, you ready?
Yeah. Let's do it.
♪♪
How's that feel? Probably too strong.
Aggressive. Yeah.
That's your determined walk.
That's when you're trying to get somewhere fast
and you, like, mean business.
Got to get that angle.
Yeah. There you go.
Rouse: You have to kind of walk like you mean it.
Kari: Grad students like Kim
adjust and monitor the bionic leg's power and extension.
♪♪
This is pretty sweet with the robotic ankle.
Can you feel the push-off from it?
Oh, yeah.
Kari: The leg's computer looks at signals
and makes predictive decisions about how to react.
Rouse: There's no connection
between his biological signals and the machine.
Any signal coming from humans today
are not as reliable as the sensors on the robot itself.
Their hope is that everyone in need of a motorized prosthetic
can benefit from this public, open-source research.
There's detailed, step-by-step instructions
on how to assemble it, how to control it.
There's also a forum for discussions for researchers
and other people to add comments and changes
so that we can build off this open-source community.
So somebody on the other side of the world
can just gorilla-engineer this,
find something that could tweak it and make it better,
send it to you, and then everybody benefits?
That's right. That's the idea.
I love that!
Kari: Pairing power with prosthetics
could increase mobility for millions of amputees.
There's definitely a lot more swing
it absorbs the shock of each step a little bit more.
It's looking more and more natural.
Yeah. It feels good.
Thank you for sharing that with us.
Of course. [ Chuckles ]
Kari: Able-bodied people can help with testing, too,
by wearing a socket that keeps the knee bent.
It's definitely heavier than I would expect.
I can feel the way the foot is pushing off
and propelling me forward.
It's not like walking on a stick.
It's definitely walking on a robotic leg.
♪♪
We all use technology just to keep ourselves entertained,
but there's so much technology being used
to improve our lives in a very impactful way...
...helping people do their jobs better,
helping people physically... Starting to feel the shoulder.
Mike: You're doing well.
Kari: ...And breaking through the language barriers.
You want to try roast duck? Let's try it.
Mmm!
Wow!
The innovators are the future.
After everything I've seen, I'm feeling very optimistic
about the world right now.