How To Make Technology Solve Big Problems? | Jessika Trancik | TEDxCambridgeSalon

Technology is both a reason behind several major threats to people and the planet, and a potential solution. Climate change is one example, where energy technology largely created the problem, and will also be required to address it. But how good are we at developing technological solutions to the big problems that matter most, and how can we do better? Jessika Trancik, Associate Professor at the MIT, shares how we can measure and understand the drivers of technological progress, to make better investments of time and money in solving societal-scale challenges like climate change. Jessika Trancik is an Associate Professor of Energy Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is also an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute. She received her BS in materials science and engineering from Cornell University and her PhD in materials science from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. Before MIT, she spent several years at the Santa Fe Institute as an Omidyar Fellow, and at Columbia University as an Earth Institute Fellow, where her research focused on energy systems modeling. Her research group studies the dynamic costs and environmental impacts of energy technologies to inform technology design and policy. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at ted.com/tedx