yamtimsina

Sometimes we all take something for granted.
We used to brush off things when not in need and we realize its value at the time of need.
Either we don’t understand its value properly or we pretend not to understand it.
Yes, I am talking about the value of our essential workers during the time of crisis like we are experiencing at the moment.
I am thinking about our health care professionals on top of my head, our janitorial friends who clean the hospitals all day and night, our nurses who make things ready for doctors and take care of the infected, our research scientists who are inside the research building to invent vaccines for COVID-19, and the security personnels to smoothen our lives at the time of isolation and social distancing in the society.
Majority of the population is inside the house to be safe.
We must remember and salute these essential workers who are outside their house for us when we are inside.
Please, let’s not brush off these people when there would be no crisis, no pandemic, and no suffering.
Learn the lesson if we haven’t, and treat them with dignity and boost their morale.
Their importance is, as never seen before, in the history of mankind.

We always keep our life and our survival at the top of our priority in the front line, but there are some professions in existence which always focus on other’s life first.
This is the ritual of these professions.
One of my friends said, “I’ve always appreciated essential workers, I pray for them and I love and respect them.”
But many of us have a tendency to forget these people immediately after the crisis is gone.
We follow more actors, models, athletes, and entertainers in social media, spend time in their gossip on television as if essential people.
World’s top actors, top models, top sportspersons, and top media entertainers are inside the house at the moment and scrolling the news everyday for the latest update of vaccines in research laboratories so that they can come out of the house and have a normal life.
There are very few committed individuals working inside these hospitals and research laboratories, and the whole population is counting on them.
I appeal all of you to salute them.
There is nothing more important than human lives so these people’s value and contribution is priceless.

I am not debating who is essential and who isn’t, everybody is an expert of something and has something to offer in society.
I am just reporting the governments’ categorization of who is essential and who isn’t at present that gives us a lesson who we should attribute our value to.
We must protect and nurture essential people every single day irrespective of societal conditions.
Where should our focus be?
My keen target right now is especially healthcare professionals.

Life is unpredictable, five month ago it was normal, no coronavirus, and after five month, it is upside down now but some people on earth try to make it predictable all the time.
They are healthcare professionals.
These people surround themselves with the most vulnerable people: diseased, sick, addicted, and infected in the society and take pride in transforming them into venerable.
They invent hope and give it to their patients when there is no outside hope, no available medications, and vaccines.
You have seen and experienced these vulnerable people at your home, or at your workplace or in your community.
For example, they are COVID-19 positive.
As of today, at time of writing this content, almost 2.2 million people across the globe are already infected and 156 thousands are dead.
In the US only, where I am living, 710 thousands are infected and 37 thousands are dead.
We don’t have any vaccines or medicines yet.
Infected people are isolated from their family but our healthcare professionals are their ultimate hope and they are next to their bed to feed, support, and console them.

It isn’t hard or difficult to become a doctor or nurse.
There is a traced track to become a healthcare professional.
But, It just needs courage to work.
A mantra of three words to inspire- “Do the work” whatever it could be, is inside or outside of them.
Trust us healthcare professionals, you will win this battle of coronavirus.

For some people imagining becoming a doctor or a nurse is the worst job on the planet at this time.
People are getting infected, and are dying every single day.
The viral epidemic is spreading everywhere like an unseen flame.
Smart doctors in the hospital are tirelessly fighting to win.
There is an equal chance that healthcare professionals might get infected while serving the infected people.
Many of them are already infected and some have already died, sacrificing their lives while serving others.
They’re facing incredible challenges from all sides and there is no one and nothing you can depend on or can talk to.
They are fighting with the virus even though they are having limited resources in some situations in many least developed and developing countries.

Imagine how sensitive this person should be as a doctor at the time of crisis.
If doctors tell the patients’ family members that it’s a disaster, we are losing him or her, a dying situation; not only will the patient quit but also their family members will be paralyzed with fear and uncertainties.
A doctor’s job is to smoothen out the emotional roller coaster.
When they see the face of a chronic COVID-19 patient, they have to give a small quiet glimpse of hope from distance and control the emotion.
They never let your patient or patient’s family members experience the same highs and lows as they’re feeling because the odds are patients’ family members aren’t built to handle these kinds of ups and downs like doctors are.

As a responsible global citizen, as we all are now, our number one job is to be there for the healthcare professionals when they are struggling, making sure they feel heard and they know we are on their side.
When we are confined inside our house, they are doing hard work outside to protect us.
If you are a relentlessly positive and candid doctor or nurse, you’re going to have a greater chance of success in your cases and you’re going to be able to remain positive, even in the face of failure.

At this time of global pandemic, everybody is scared.
But still we should not forget how to boost the morale of our healthcare professionals.

There are few things in life that we have control over, few things that we have no control over, and few things that we have partial control over.
It’s extremely important to spend our effort on things that we have complete control over.
We all depend on the doctor’s knowledge, their expertise, their service, their work experience, and most importantly, their unwavering hope.

As a doctor, if you are constantly learning about body organs and their connection to our emotions, many things are under control- many good things will happen.
As a doctor you are the most successful person on how to do finishing.
Finishing is extremely more difficult than starting.
You only realize this when you have to finish.
You have to finish this pandemic.
And you have to save millions of lives.
When Donald Trump was running for president, campaigning and winning the election was finishing for him.
Now after winning, running the office as a president is finishing for him.
People are dying every moment, he is surrounded by a bunch of doctors everyday and trying to finish the pandemic.
The country is virtually on lockdown.
Finishing is difficult but it’s the only option now.
But still, our president needs to finish it by listening and supporting the healthcare professionals, and his desperation to finish is reflected in his briefings everyday in white house.
As a doctor, your role is the major force, you have the mindset and experience to finish the disease.
You finish the pain.
You finish the suffering.
Ultimately, if you can not finish then you allow God to finish the suffering of the patient.
After the final finish also, you come back home and play with your kids.
If you remember that final finish done by God in hospital, how do you play with your kid?
But you still play with your kid because you have a power from God to do so.
This may be one of the reasons that many people see you as a form of god when they visit hospital with little to no hope.
No doubt, you have seen, experienced, and understood the hard part of finishing more than anybody else on the planet.
Therefore, we encourage you, support you, love you, and care for you.
You are an angel for us.

I would like to ask all of you a few questions to reflect your life at the time of crisis.
“What problem do you solve on a personal level?”
Think for a moment for your answer, your life, and your work.

“What pain do you remove from other people’s lives?”
Again, take time and think about what you are doing at the moment.

What I am trying to say is that many of the great doctors or health professionals in the world are destined on the promise of removing pain from people’s lives.
We, as humans, have a huge problem right now and we are looking for a solution.
Healthcare professionals are working tirelessly to find this solution for us.
Lets salute them.

Keep in mind, we have many blind spots than we have clear vision in our life.
For example, unexpected global pandemic coronavirus is one of the blind spots in human life.
We must unlearn what we have learned in the past to defeat the coronavirus.
We have to unlearn ego, we have to unlearn selfishness, we have to unlearn hatred, and we have to unlearn resentment in all human relationships.
Lets express our sincere gratitude for all these fighters, our health professionals, across the globe.
Thank you so much for your service to humanity.

And finally thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

We all are living in very critical conditions across the globe. We are fighting everyday, every hour, every minute, and every second to survive. The viral pandemic is engulfing the whole planet, nobody is untouched.
Our priority has become to protect our family. During this painful lockdown period, our mind flows mostly with what’s happening around us.
Our mind does not like anything incomplete. It constantly asks why, why, and again why?
If we have a vacuum in our mind, especially on a topic not understood or clear, it tries to fill the gaps itself. When that does not happen, our mind goes searching for it.
This is the nature of our mind. It is very curious.

Sometimes, curiosity helps to turn mundane small talk into interesting beneficial intense discussions.
We don’t experience anything without interesting people, that’s what happened to me in one of my latest conversations.
I was talking to one of my virologist friends who does research in the national institute of health in Bethesda, Maryland.
I quote the words of Johann Wolfgang Goethe, “Those who aren’t curious learn nothing.”
I directed my attention to my virologist friend, completely shifting my focus to him.
I asked him many ‘why’ questions so that I can console my curiosity.
The following is just a small part of my conversation.

Moreover, recently, I was talking to many of my family members and friends and everybody seemed interested to know about this contagious coronavirus.
This kind of situation invokes our mind, we set aside our regular tasks and become more curious.
I am utilizing the time to ignite your curiosity.
Plutarch, a Platonist philosopher, has said, “Our mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting.”

I asked him, “What is the main tool to defeat coronavirus caused disease COVID-19?”
He said, “We don’t know yet.
It could be vaccines or more people with antibodies.”

I asked my another curiosity, “Why is it different from the common cold?”
He said, “There are some coronaviruses that cause common colds. Most often, however, the common cold is caused by rhinoviruses, according to the CDC (Center for disease control and prevention). However, what we are dealing now is a new or novel coronavirus, this means it mutated in some way and became more deadly for us.”
“Actually, there is no cure for a cold, according to the CDC, and up to now the same applies to COVID-19.”

I asked, “Do we know the source of the coronavirus?”
He replied, “At present, the source of the coronavirus is unknown. Available evidence suggests that it has a natural animal origin and is not a constructed virus. It might have had its ecological reservoir in bats.”

I asked him the most common people’s question, “ Why don’t we have a vaccine for Covid-19?”
He added, “This is a little bit of a long process. We need to know about a virus to create a vaccine.”
“Our immune system has to learn how to fight a virus by knowing its face, which is actually the outside of the particle including telltale antigens.
The easy part is, scientists have already made the coronavirus RNA sequence available.”
“After its design, vaccines need to be produced, tested, approved, and manufactured in large quantities by big pharmaceutical companies.
The bottom line is, it takes at least one year to eighteen months, as health experts say.”

My other query was, “ Is it seasonal?”
He replied, “We have no idea yet. Viruses are unexpected creatures.”
“They enter without alarms and surprise us in different ways.”

I asked, “Is this virus like the flu or zika or ebola?”
He said, “The answer in most part is no or we don’t know. Yellow fever, measles, mumps are also caused by viruses but the vaccines developed in the past are very effective for them.”


I asked, “So what is the solution?”
“The answer is we have to control the virus in some way. We have to win over the virus,” he said.

I asked, “How does it spread?”
“It spreads through different ways of infected human contacts, sneezes and coughs. But now we are learning more and more about this virus, it can spread by just talking or even just breathing. We might pass them object to object to us. There is likely that we might be carrying this virus without symptoms,” he added.

I asked, “How does it grow?”
He said, “The genetic material of a virus is RNA, but it is DNA in humans. Therefore, when viruses copy their genetic material, it doesn’t proofread its work. These mistakes are referred to as mutations.”

By the way, “what exactly is mutation?,” I asked.
He said, “It is abnormal growth in viruses. Viruses can cause mutation in the human genome or they can do genetic material change in their own genome.”

I further questioned, “How does it mutate?”
He said, “This is an animal virus. There is a possibility, it will continue to mutate. It gets mutated and adapted to another animal. It jumps from animal to human and continues as human to human transmission. As it goes infecting people, it also passes through a stabilization, which is also a part of the mutation process.”
“It might mutate different parts of the world in various forms depending on various factors, for example population density, it influences the number of people infected and how many chances the virus has to mutate.”

Finally, I asked, “What are the best precautions not to catch coronavirus?”

He said, “At the moment, avoid close contact with other people and wash your hands frequently with soap and water.”
“Alternatively, use an alcohol-based sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol.”
“Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth.”
“Stay home.”
“Cover when you cough or sneeze and then trash it properly immediately.”
“Clean and disinfect touched objects and surfaces.”
“Use a face mask if you are sick.”

We have to learn a lesson here, yes we have to learn a lesson here, we are not better prepared to combat the epidemic. We must be better prepared. Let’s focus on not spreading the virus at the moment. Until the major source of this virus is known, there is a high risk of its re-introduction and new outbreaks in humans.
Therefore, let’s fight against this virus and save lives.
We are together in this fight.

The information in this content is based on CDC (Center for disease control and prevention) and WHO (World health organization) information. However, as the situation surrounding COVID-19 continues to evolve, it’s possible that some information might change.

Thank you for your time.
– Yam Timsina

My hometown is on lockdown due to a pandemic coronavirus.
Most of the time I am working from home spending significant time on reading, brainstorming, planning, and analyzing the past experiments and results.
At this moment, world leaders and politicians are forced to go to the bottom of this pandemic, they are paying a lot of attention for not spreading the coronavirus pandemic.
They are processing and absorbing every single information of this nasty virus in more depth.

We support and encourage our world leaders and politicians to act fast against this viral tsunami to curb it. We will do our best to wipe out this pandemic as global citizens.

History has taught us that this type of pandemic occurs from time to time in our lifetime but I still assume that the huge devastation it has created is a consequence of our ill-preparation and foundation.
All politicians and leaders are learning hard lessons and we are paying the price of not having a focused robust research and development priority.

Keep in mind—we have no medications or vaccines to protect us from coronavirus until now. The only tool we have is physical separation (social distancing) from one another. Therefore, we need to use physical separation to stop this virus from spreading further at this point.

There are no shortcuts and quick schemes in medical research, we have to invest and investigate continuously to improve human lives.

Despite our geographical boundaries, coronavirus has taught us how to bring people together to fight against such pandemics, and how to share information together to protect us.

Another lesson for policy makers: research successes of yesterday are not enough but we have to continuously and consistently look for the challenges of tomorrow.
And how are we going to do this exactly?
The answer is: by investing, by inventing, and by innovating unwaveringly.
My pique questions.
What sets us off when we look for long term consistent A-level research and development?
What sets us off when we become eager to cut research funding?
What stimulates our desire to add funding in sports, politics and entertainment by cutting funding in scientific research and development?

This is the time to grade our leaders and politicians especially in advanced countries whether they have a growth mindset or fixed mindset especially for medical research.
People and leadership with a growth mindset never cut funding in scientific research and development.
We appeal to all visionary leaders to invest in young novelty seeking curious minds who make new inventions and innovations as attitudes towards their lives.

Suddenly, my cell phone rang and my uncle Addy was on the line.
We chatted a little bit about coronavirus, lockdown and its impact in society as well as in our professional life.
My uncle Addy said, “One day my department head of research entered my office and told, ‘Addy’- he is a new scientist in our group, pointing to a very young guy who came with him to his office.”
To Addy’s surprise, the new scientist looked very young and inexperienced.
My uncle Addy has been working in a pharmaceutical company for the last 30 years as a principal scientist.

Addy was quite shocked and went to his boss’ office the next day and asked, “What degree and experience the new scientist has?”
His boss replied, “He doesn’t have any previous work experience but he will succeed in our group.”

“I hired him because we need somebody in our discovery group who is young and thinks in a different way than we think,” the research head said.
“Addy, you are 60 years old now, and I am 66 years old. It is no offense, but trying new things for us is very hard. We are a company of invention and innovation. As we become older, our brain mechanism slows us down especially for you and me to immerse in the novelty.” Addy’s boss added.

“For our department we need novelty. This is possible only with people having increased sensory sensitization who immerse, explore, and experiment,” he continuously added.

Research also shows that young people are more likely to take risks, stay on the ball, and approach new and unfamiliar things without anxiety.
At one point Addy’s boss said something very interesting that actually inspired him to hire him right off the bat.

Addy’s boss said, “I already told you, we are old now to run this innovation company through only our perspectives.”
“I asked our new employee the same conservative interview question- Where do you want to be in five years?”
He said, “I would not dream about this but I would ask myself- Where do I not want to be in five years?- I would make a list and just do that”.
During the interview he said, “New ideas and concepts are nothing more than the unusual combination of existing ideas.”
“If we are looking for a completely new invention and innovation, “right” and “wrong” are often a matter of perspective. My “right” or “my truth” is nothing but only a function of my perception,” he added.

The old way of doing things in a new way is today’s necessity and this is possible only by young fresh brains.

This is absolutely no offense for old people. We have to learn from their experiences how to be in our own lane but we have to also evolve through overtaking at the time of crisis.
Science doesn’t lie, it explores the hidden mysteries of time.
When we become older, our curiosity gradually dwindles.
We collect more experiences, we become stronger in our feelings, knowledge, and feel proud how things work.
We don’t seek novelty because we stop asking questions.
We no longer want to go into uncertain situations.
We hesitate to take advantage of “free of charge” health tests because we are more focussed on negative results.
We enjoy comfort.
We want to put all the money in bonds and treasury bills rather than stocks.
We watch the same television channel even though we have 100+ channels on our TV.
We read the same newspaper.
Our curiosity gets lost because of our similar experiences, and same patterns in life.
Ultimately we become unable to break it and our learning becomes self-stabilizing.
When we become old, there is more downside to peek, our knowledge creates certainties and they become habits, and they entrap our mental capacities.
This has serious repercussions especially for research oriented invention and innovation companies.
The only way out of this problem is, old folks have to work with young curious minds.

The most harmful tradition among all is old folks start to instruct young people to follow rules and prevent them from reading their own intuition and trust.
Old folks stop listening to the young folks because old folks feel proud with “ value the old, shun the new.”

I am not making up these statements. In 2004, discovery channel had done a study that says after age 49, curiosity dwindles.

One of my friends told me, “It took me 4 weeks of daily training to ride the bike with confidence with no accident, but for the same level of competence, it took only 9 days for my son.”
My friend is 42 years old and his son is 16 years old.
The fact is: this applies to everything.

Young minds enjoy unconventional tools, procedures, and ideas. They learn faster because their neurons connect faster in different directions which didn’t exist before.

When we see the present interview process, first thing we look for is professionalism, energy, and self-confidence.
We judge these things on academic degrees and previous work experiences.
We assume these past actions as measuring tools for success.
Most of the older interviewers don’t even look at the hobby section in interviewee’s curriculum vitae or resume.
I am not being judgemental, I’m simply reporting.

One of my friends, who is still under 30, is a very successful computer engineer in silicon valley, earns a six figure salary, and told me that we can pinpoint a smart and curious mind from the hobby section of their curriculum vitae or resume.
As he said, “This is extremely important if you are looking for a self-monitored and intellectually curious mind. Their potential talents are reflected in the hobby section of their CV and resume. Interviewer should be qualified to read that. Their degrees and past work experiences make them sincere routine employees but not curious innovative individuals.”

He told me that if the interviewee has an everyday habit of doing mediation and aerobic activity, you simply can’t ignore that. These small everyday habits as an inventor or innovator work as a lubricant for your innovation engine.

The other factor we attribute to the younger mind is that they carry many ideas and they are able to filter bad ideas faster than old minds.
As two time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling said, “If you want to have good ideas you must have many ideas. Most of them will be wrong, and what you have to learn is which one to throw away.”

Young minds observe their environment like anthropologists.
This is a key to success particularly in innovation.
They are interested in people who don’t look, think, speak or act like they do themselves.
They try to get behind the thinking of the others by relentlessly asking amazing questions.

At age 30, the world’s richest man on the planet, Jeff Bezos, had a successful regular job as hedge-fund vice president, but he quitted the job and started Amazon. His mind worked as an anthropologist, an innovator mindset.

Albert Einstein discovered the theory of relativity at age 26.

At age 18, Blaise Pascal invented the first mechanical calculator.

At age 18, Alexander Graham Bell invented the first modern telephone.

At age 17, Robert Heft created the modern day 50 star American flag.
Remember, these are only a few drops in a sea.

Age is an important factor for invention and innovation.
Deep immersion and trying out new things, as it appears, gets harder and harder as we become older.
Because of our past history of experiences makes it harder to immerse ourselves in the novelty.
Science is clearly supporting these findings.
In the invention and innovation group, it is essential to include the younger minds.
Invention and innovation loves youth. Nurture it.

Thank you for your time.
– Yam Timsina

I was in a hurry for the office, when I came out of the house I saw uber and lyft stickers on my neighbor’s car.
I had seen him driving a taxi two days ago.
I remember him telling me that he was driving a taxi for the last 13 years.
We had a conversation in our jogging a month ago about life, job, and family.
He is a sole breadwinner for his family.
In our conversation, he’d told me that he has not paid the rent for the last 2 months yet, he doesn’t have regular income, no savings, no 401(K), nor an IRA account.
“My friend, I am a PhD and I don’t have all of these you mentioned. Life happens in hustles, not in plans.” I shared.
I am very familiar with his three kids who are all under age 10.
Sometimes his kids and my kids play together.
He came to see me on Saturday evening and told me that he sold his taxi and loaned the new car to use as an uber drive.
He teared up, looked down and said something, I couldn’t imagine expressing myself here.
“If my mom would have grabbed one extra glass of wine when I was in her womb, I would be better off.” he said.
I consoled him by saying you are not alone. American culture is strange, as a nation we have 23 trillion dollars national debt and 14 trillion dollars consumer debt. At least one in four people who make 100,000 plus a year still report living paycheck to paycheck. We are in a society where we carry i-phone insurance but we don’t buy insurance for our kids. He listened to me but still I could feel his pain in his appearance.

I added, “You can drive an uber for a few years from now but 10 to 20 years from now, you may not drive it because all cars will be driverless.”
“You can not unlearn what you already know but you can transform it into something else.” I emphasized.
We don’t need to create new jobs but we have to invent a new tweak in the same old job.
After we know the basics of our daily job, it’s easier to live in a bubble than reality. What’s important and harder is how to navigate the repetitive daily job with the people, technology, and most importantly, the unknowns around us.

Everything changes with time and change comes a lot faster in today’s fast pace technology.
We must change and adapt with the changing circumstances, therefore, sometimes we might have to be a little bit ahead of time by learning a few new tools and skills.
There are many tough decisions we have to make in life. Deciding to change the way we work in our comfort zone is the most difficult part. It certainly involves making difficult choices and making a habit of saying ‘no’ to many unimportant things in life.

Through my elementary to middle school, my family used to have only a portable national panasonic battery radio in the house as a technological equipment. My mother used to cook breakfast for me everyday for sixteen years until I finished high school listening to that radio. Nowadays, she receives calls from me and other family members and says, it’s not difficult to use a smartphone, push ‘f’ icon to scroll facebook, push a green phone icon to accept a call and a red icon to end the call. My mom didn’t get a chance to study after 6th grade. I am bringing this up here because she was scared of the smartphone in the beginning but now smartphone has become her new best friend, a very comfortable piece of device. She hesitated in the beginning because she thought it was hard and difficult to use, but she was forced to adapt to it because many of our family members are out of home. She needed it to talk to us in time of need. She learned and adapted with it. I love you mom, you are awesome.

Comfort is the result of repetitions. My neighbor was very comfortable as a taxi driver, he didn’t pay attention outside of his comfort zone so he didn’t see that he is losing his job very soon.

Remember that sustainable life is lived outside of the comfort zone that brings growth and independence. Be as aggressive as you want with your repetitive mundane daily job, work harder than you ever thought with it. But the repetitive job may crush you very soon due to automation.

We all grew up with our family, especially parents telling us we were talented, special and unique, the truth is that most of us are almost the same, never try to go beyond the comfort zone. There is pleasure sitting in comfort. We don’t want to lose the pleasure because if we lose it, there is pain. And nobody likes pain.
We all start from different points in life but only those who grow gradually who step out of comfort to win the game of life.

After my conversation with my neighbor, I remembered the quote from late Stephen Hawking, a renowned physicist and cosmologist, “Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.”
If we adapt we survive if we don’t we become extinct.

Uber and Lyft made all private cars accessible for an independent income source for hundreds of thousands of people but the same became hurricane for taxi drivers.
Taxis became things of the past now.

Automation will eliminate more and more jobs in the near future.
Its impact is already in manual labor jobs but it will not be limited there. Many skilled and cognitive labor jobs will also be disrupted immensely, probably permanently.
I recall my uncle’s best friend, who was an investment officer in a bank.
I also remember his quirky face when he was talking about Robo-advisers with my uncle.
He retired early from bank and now is a freelancer as a personal finance expert and teaches finance in undergraduate college.
Robo-advisers are coming after expensive investment advisers and their high paying jobs.

In the age of automation, many jobs will be lost especially to AI.
If we are seriously thinking about this issue as Yuval Noah Harari, a historian, predicted that, “Industrial revolution manifested a working class, the AI revolution will manifest a useless class.”
Automation could invite mass unemployment and destitution if we are unprepared for it.
Looming automation and declining employment will spark financial insecurity for the disadvantaged.
Majority of our institutions, current bureaucratic systems, and government mechanisms are not prepared to manage technology-centric upheaval.
For example, we have 16 million Americans as retail workers, 11 millions construction workers, and 4 million truck drivers, who will be affected directly by automation in the first stage. This is only a very small snapshot of a bigger picture.

When we do repetitive tasks continuously, smart technocrats and entrepreneurs always question: is it possible to continue repetitive work in our absence? This is how automation enters in our life to free our time.
If automation and robots do the mundane tasks, we as humans will have more time to imagine, explore, and discover. But this is possible only if we are eager to break the barrier of comfort that we have been living for years.
We shouldn’t only go through the comfort job but grow through it. This is the only way not to be outsourced by robots and technology.
Automation is an achievement of curious minds to make human life easy and luxurious.
Comfort is always broken by curiosity.

We have advanced a lot in neuroscience, we exceled it in its understanding but still we don’t know the full picture of how the brain produces curiosity.
Our body is made up of mainly carbon and hydrogen and the brain also has the same composition but its uniqueness is unknown.
Imagine the power of a curious mind.
Albert Einstein discovered the theory of relativity because of his curious mind.
Think of this curiosity generated machine which is about 2.5 petabytes of memory as one petabyte is roughly 13.3 years of HDTV video.
The more we explore curiosity, the more we discover automated-technology.
Curiosity has human connection therefore, one curious mind links to another curious mind.
For example, Nikola Tesla invented the AC motor, but Thomas Edison refined it for our use and we are utilizing it for automation now. Language processor ELIZA was conceptualized by Joseph Weizenbaum but Siri and Alexa are about to revolutionize us in the age of automation and AI.
The more curious we become, the more chances of advanced technology to reshape our lives.

Mark Twain said, “There are only two important days in life, the day we were born and the day we discover the purpose of our life.”
After finding the purpose, the curious minds go all in to achieve their goals. They make their failure a curiosity towards success. They give us incredible technologies which we consume regularly.

We all have two persons inside us, one is real that represents us and the other is across us who is controlled by others.
The other might be our family, friends, or society as a whole.
Out of these two persons, who do you listen most determines everything in your life including your everyday job.
We must listen inside us, our gut, and our intuition that tell us what needs to be acquired or changed in a everyday job.
Always move with your gut and intuition, break your comfort zone, instill curiosity and live a happier life.
I asked my neighbor friend, “If you were going to build a career from scratch using the available resources, how would you do it?’’
He replied, “I would spend time studying human interest and curiosity.”

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

I was reading an article online, immediately another similar article appeared on my screen. I didn’t have time to read the second article because I planned to read only one article. After seeing the second article, I started to read it without noticing my time. My priority changed because instead of reading one, I read two articles and obviously that affected my whole working schedule.
Suddenly I realized that what is controlling me, and my decision power?
I thought, am I choosing this article or this article is choosing me?
My mind was constantly asking me how am I controlled by something else?
Without any doubt, the incoming second article was choosing me instead of me choosing the article.

When we start to type something into Google, it predicts what we are thinking and typing. It remembers our past searches and it also remembers some similar searches by others.
These are only small glimpses that artificial intelligence (AI) is already affecting our lives.

Now a days, we are constantly bombarded by the term artificial intelligence (AI) all the time, but we have already adopted it unknowingly in our life. We have already reduced our brain memory significantly without much notice.

We wake up in the morning, rather than to see weather outside the window, we ask Siri and Alexa, what’s the weather outside. Amazing.
We have Siri, Alexa and Cortana as our Virtual AI assistants, already affecting significant portions of our personal and professional life.

We browse the google map to check the traffic before taking a next move towards office. Know the traffic situation while in the bed.

My wife always buys stuff from Amazon, at least, I don’t remember buying outfits and other utensils visiting any malls or department stores recently. She goes into the website to buy one thing but she ends up buying two more every time. By the time she clicks the purchase button, five more similar items appear on the side of her screen and she couldn’t resist not to buy.
Amazon is controlling her buying decision.
These consequences may seem like small leaks in our daily lives, but one day they might sink our entire ship if we are unaware of its implications.

The hard truth is, we are already swimming in AI, proprietary algorithms are making decisions for us.
An algorithm is a guide or a bunch of instructions that make a computer program which instruct a machine to make the next move.
Robots, software, and computers are about to disrupt us in many ways.

Fire was the first technology that humans discovered almost 1.5 million years ago.
Before 1940, nobody typically believed we would send a man to the moon, but just after 30 years, it happened.
Let’s look around us, we see TV, smartphone, laptop, tablet, and noise canceling bluetooth headphones. Every single thing was a dream idea for some smart minds in the past.
Twenty years ago, I wasn’t expecting that I would have a smartphone in my hand and I could call my mother instantly who is sleeping on the other side of the planet, and talk to her with her video on my screen.
Oh, how far we’ve come.

We are definitely moving towards superintelligent AI. Progress in technology also brings bewilderness, affecting our thinking, freedom, privacy, relationships, and happiness in different ways. Superintelligent AI is in our doorstep with both great danger and great possibilities ahead.

Human brain is very complicated because it is entangled with more than 86 billions neurons, even some connecting and disconnecting continuously, therefore, it is almost unhackable.
This is one of the main reasons AI is coming to explore human intelligence, human cognition, human behaviour, and human common sense.
How do we portray human common sense by technology? There is obviously a challenge, but we are exploring the trend of human psychology and physiology by artificial devices.

Typically, AI is an artificial construct revolving around software, computers, algorithms, and robotics.
This combination is about to bring an exponential feat, especially in technology.

Think of driverless cars and pilotless airplanes, they are not very far from regular access.
Autonomous weapons such as drones are already in use. These are already pilotless because they are controlled in the military bases on video monitors.
If you are living in Auckland, New Zealand, you can order pizza via drones at your home now. It is happening.
The same drone technology can be used to deliver food and medicines to remote under-developed areas. In 2018, Joy Nowai, one month baby became the first baby to receive a drone-delivered vaccine.

Think of robots, they do music composition and singing for our songs, we are about to experience it.
Ask, hey Alexa, can you play a romantic song for me?
You will have your favorite song right away but you wouldn’t identify human is singing or robot is singing. Most possibly, it would be robot singing.

Think of robot scientists and robot doctors, they will be serving us in the near future.
Almost twenty years ago, american surgeon Mani Menon used a robot to remove a cancerous prostate gland.
In the future, AI might cure our cancer, might accurately detect the risk for Alzheimer’s disease, and robots might perform more complicated open-heart surgery. AI experts already predicted that robotic surgical systems will be better than humans in all surgical procedures by 2053.
Robots will be the key players in the operating rooms because they will be able to draw fast and more accurate information from a CT or MRI scan than human radiologists.
Radiologist’s job is in serious danger in upcoming days.

IBM’s question-answering computer system, Watson, is already used by 90 percent of nurses.
Watson can read 25,000,000 published medical journal articles in a week, as 1.8 million scientific journal articles are published annually worldwide. This is impossible by a human doctor.

Think of the situation when AI will recognize our personality traits. It would be a new world.

What happens if we know our death ahead of time?
AI can accurately predict if a person would die in three to twelve months; Stanford researchers reported the preliminary AI death predictor.

The direction we are heading by technology carries a lot of societal responsibility than somebody’s individual technological breakthrough.
We have a huge responsibility to make our kids and grandkids prepared for unimaginable leap in technology associated with AI and robotics.
Our kids and grandkids won’t take these as new technology but as a new normal life.

Imagine for seconds when artificially intelligent scanners are used for face recognition and retinal scanners are used to upload our personal information.
Our personal information can be bought, sold, stolen, and molded for money.
It’s already happening by the tech giants like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix; as they store our personal information using our credit card, playlist, IP address, buying history etc. and use for their benefit.
When we use Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram,we are not paying for them now; but we are being used as products for them, and being monetized.
Our personal data is our precious asset and its importance will be quadrupled in the near future.

There is no doubt, we have to change the world, but we have to change it for the better and prosperous world, and we still need this change within the frame of our societal norm.

Technology is innocent.
It can completely wipe out the planet or provide us a new era of healthy and prosperous life. All depend on our use.
This might be the reason that Vladimir Putin, Russian President, once said, “Whoever becomes the leader in AI will become the ruler of the world.”
There is also a high possibility that the first trillionaire might be a person as an AI entrepreneur.
Human progress is unstoppable so that there is also a great hope.
When AI collaborates with blockchain, 3D printing and CRISPR, many mysteries of life could be revealed.
AI can be used to predict earthquakes, or reduce destruction from other natural disasters.
Aiserve is using AI-enhanced streetmaps as a tool for aiding the visually impaired people.

But whatever the progress we leap, we, the humans, have to lead everything.
When self-driving vehicle crashes into a human, we should take full responsibility.
We have to focus on what we as humans can do that machines can not.
It’s not only technology we should progress, we should also progress towards developing responsible citizens.
All these algorithms are human creations, therefore, human role is a must as a global citizen in the age of AI.

Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina

“ When you finish teenage, spend 20 minutes in aerobic activity, and 10 minutes in meditation everyday, change your underwear and socks everyday, and also floss your teeth everyday, you will live at least 100 years.”

This is my make up statement after reading some research on aerobic activity, meditation and personal hygiene topics. This statement came in my mind when I was running on a treadmill a few days ago.
My curiosity is can I discover the secret of a long life? If I state this as my opinion, everyone will trash it. If I state this as my belief, I still won’t secure the support. But if I state this as my conviction, then there is a chance, I might secure the support of the majority of people.
Conviction comes from my inside, my research and understanding of the content, and largely my understanding of nature, human beings and health. Not only this, my conviction also seeks the large body of existing data regarding the relationship of aerobic activity, meditation, and personal hygiene to life extension.
Conviction comes with emotion to begin action that is called science, the evolution of new knowledge.
Opinions, beliefs, and truths are just evolving concepts in human mind but with conviction they all lead to facts at some point.

Not only opinions or beliefs or truths, sometimes even evidence on our eyes could be incorrect. In the time of Copernicus, everybody believed that the sun revolves around the earth. Because there was a proof, everybody could walk outside the house and could see the sky. They could see the sun moving from one direction to another. Everyone believed that the earth is the center of the universe. Time passed by with this belief, but later Copernicus discovered the first accurate model of sun-based solar system. Though, he could not see the acceptance of his conviction during his life-time but gave one of the greatest discoveries regarding the universe to the world.

Many opinions and beliefs from Aristotle including the theory of falling objects appeared to be incorrect by Galileo’s conviction. Convictions have to be tested, and precisely measured.
Convictions lead to experiments and observations.

Until now there are no solid evidences, and proofs to support my opening statement. But still my statement looks genuine and makes sense with no guaranteed results. I don’t know the validity of the statement until I commit painstaking observation and interpretation through scientific experiments.
Opinions, beliefs and convictions are not the same. First two can be deviated in different ways but the conviction is substantiated by action.
This is the only way to add a layer on top of layers of knowledge. The origin of more and more science.

Science is not merely a passage for knowledge bank. It is a human evolution for incremental acquisition of understanding of nature through observation. It is basically the continuous understanding of how the universe functions and adapts.
It is also a language of nature, human progress simply depends on how much time and effort we spend to acquire its fluency.

C. V. Raman, a great physicist and first Asian Nobel laureate said, “Science is a fusion of aesthetic and intellectual functions devoted to the representations of nature.” His discovery of the Raman effect would not have been possible if he were not on voyage to London in 1921 where he saw blue sea and wondered why it is blue. Nature gave him a tool for his research.

Our convictions are content of nature. Convictions are what cause a few people to become great scientists. Most of the personal breakthroughs and discoveries begin with a change in opinions and beliefs to convictions.

I spent five plus years graduate career in doing study in cobalt metal and its role in many chemical transformations. When our body’s immune power becomes weak showing fatigue, lethargy or breathlessness, our physician prescribes vitamin B12 to make our immune power strong. Vitamin B12 is one of the largest and most structurally complex vitamins with a biochemically rare cobalt metal. The only organisms to produce vitamin B12 are certain bacteria and archaea.
Nature has already given the power of this metal for human use in the form of vitamin B12. On the basis of that we explore more of its role, understanding and significance for human health.
Nature is the biggest reservoir for lateral thinking, we can take a lesson from it and transfer it to another form, as a scientific development for human progress.
Considering vitamin B12’s humongous impact for humanity, R. B. Woodward and Albert Eschenmoser took one of the classic feats of organic synthesis, total synthesis of vitamin B12 with the effort of 91 postdoctoral fellows and 12 PhD students from 19 nations completing 72 chemical steps giving an overall chemical yield 0.01%.

Nature is not a random force either, everything it does has a reason. We are not aware of the reason deeply. The single driving force to understand nature is through science, the understanding of nature impacts every facet of human lives. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin, the first antibiotic from natural species of fungus, in 1928 by accident in an abandoned petri dish and it saved at least 200 million lives during World War II. He said, “I did not invent penicillin. Nature did that.”

World’s great discoveries, ideas and inventions are inspired by nature. Archimedes’s eureka moment during bath made him run home naked and Newton’s apple falling observation in his grandmother’s orchard are both inspired by law of nature. Both scientists discovered these findings as a dream but both were happening in nature as they observed consciously or subconsciously.

The modern mathematics is still struggling to figure out the 20-faced polyhedron icosahedron. T4 bacteriophage is a virus in nature and its genetic material is captured in a capsid in the form of an icosahedron. Nature made this complex mathematical structure long back but we understand it now.

Modern physics thought that we invented gear mechanism. But recently scientists found that nature already have grasshoppers to use gear mechanism for jumping. Scientists are inspired by this biomimetic form of jumping because it allows micro-robots to travel over many types of rough terrain where no other walking or wheeled robot could go.

More you learn about nature, you realize how little you know about the real things. Most of the time, science explores nature curiously.

But, there is also another side of science, challenge the understanding of nature. People like Bryan Johnson, an entrepreneur and investor, bring scientists together and tackles unnatural things like asteroid mining, artificial intelligence, and life extension. At present he is developing the world’s first neuroprosthesis, brain-implantable computer, to mimic, repair, and improve cognition. This is not a challenge to nature, this is an overdue understanding of nature in the form of extension.

Science works on nature, not in nature.
What do you think is on the other side of nature?
The answer is science. The understanding of nature.
When we step out of our house, we see a giant laboratory, nature.
We all are kids of nature. Kids don’t do what we say, kids do what they see.
Touch it, smell it, feel it, experiment on it, and observe it to transcend humanity.
We are not too young or too old to start our own experiment, we all are blessed by the limitless laboratory, nature.
Remember, science does not grow with spectators, it grows only with active participants. Be an active participant.
Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina