SAN FRANCISCO REPORT

Study trip

DAMIETA RUTTERS
2IBM03
Damieta Rutters 2IBM03 Study trip report

Table of Contents
Introduction............................................................................................................................................. 2
The search for a goal ............................................................................................................................... 2
The trip itself ........................................................................................................................................... 4
Bibliography............................................................................................................................................. 5
Damieta Rutters 2IBM03 Study trip report

Introduction
In this short report I will be explaining my goal that I had for the study trip to San Francisco and how I
experienced the trip. I enjoyed the challenge of trying to find a goal. It truly was a challenge, because
it proved to be quite difficult to find a good goal, which was achievable, as I will explain in the first part;
the search for a goal. In the second part of this report I will give my opinion on the trip and how I
experienced it as a whole.

The search for a goal

My first idea was to go to a meet-up with language lovers, as I place a high value on languages. I think
its important to be able to express yourself in different languages, as people will appreciate the effort.
I also believe that people will be more inclined to do business with someone who speaks their language
and understands their customs than with someone who needs an interpreter. That is why I thought
this meet-up seemed great, it was an opportunity to converse with people in languages I dont use in
everyday life such as Swedish or French. However, the timing of the meet-up didnt fit into our
schedule, because it was during the timeframe in which we would be at Belcham. I know I could have
skipped Belcham, but I figured that it would be an invaluable experience as it was about Belgian
businesses. Because of all these reasons I decided to place my hope on my second goal which I had
sent in.

This was a business visit and interview at Viki. Viki is a daughter company of Rakuten, which is a
Japanese e-commerce company based in Tokyo (Wikimedia Foundation Inc., 2017). Viki itself is a TV
site where you can watch dramas from countries such as South Korea, China, Japan, Taiwan, etc. I
initially wanted to visit the company because I like the Asian culture. I also have an account there and
watch dramas regularly. I had wanted to inquire about internship opportunities and how they
compete with other TV show providers such as Dramafever. However, it was difficult to find the right
email address to use, so I eventually just emailed @info and got the reply that their offices arent open
for the public, but that they would love to answer any questions that I had by email. This led me to see
a need to find a new goal.

I had also been thinking about just speak to random people I meet on the street in order to get over
my anxiety a little bit, but this didnt seem very feasible as someone told me that homeless people
would be reluctant to talk to me. Because of this I decided to find a different goal.

With the help of some friends who were also still looking for a goal, we found an event at the California
Institute of Integral Studies. It was a conversation between Amina Khan and Arianne Gelerdin. Amina
Khan is a science writer at the Los Angeles Times and she wrote a book named: Adapt: How Humans
Are Tapping into Natures Secrets to Design and Build a Better Future. Arianne Gelardin is a co-curator
at StoreFrontLab and works as a consultant on design and the fabrication of Art (California Institute of
Integral Studies, 2017). When I found this seminar, I immediately wanted to go because of one
sentence on the website: Nature can teach us about sustainable technology and innovation
(California Institute of Integral Studies, 2017). I really liked this sentence because I am very interested
in technology and innovation. I wanted to go to get some insights in how we can create a better future
Damieta Rutters 2IBM03 Study trip report

with technology, as our current society is a very technologic one. This conversation took place on Friday
the 21st of April at 6:30 PM. This was on the day after we went hiking, which made Sonja and I tired,
but we still decided to walk to the building of the California Institute of Integral Studies. It proved to
be closer by than we had thought. Before entering, we went to Petes coffee to grab a quick bite to
eat, because we hadnt had any time to eat before the seminar started.

One of the main ideas from this seminar was that when you want to innovate or create something
new, you should look at nature first. This is what scientists have been doing, because nature has
designs and patterns that work. The entire seminar was about her book and her ideas, and this was
very interesting.

She began by explaining the difference between bio-inspired and biomimicry. To explain biomimicry
she used Janine Benyus as an example, as she had written a book which framed what scientists were
doing and that you have to learn from nature, mimic it to create something flawless. While bio-
inspiration means to take inspiration from nature without going deeply into the science behind it. They
spoke about how the U.S. military had spent $5 billion on camouflage research, after which the soldiers
were still visible. Something went wrong in our perception of camouflage, Khan explained. We think
of camouflage as colour-matching, when its actually about the scale. Camouflage is about tricking the
brain into fooling the eye, and masters at this are the cuttlefish. They rely a few basic template patterns
which they use to change the texture of their skin to match with objects. Remarkable is that cuttlefish
are blind, and we do not know how they see and make their colours.

They also compared our brain to a termite mound, as both are made up of many organisms working
together. Khan also used the termites to demonstrate a natural air-cooling system, as termites are able
to stay cool in hot climates. This is because they manage the amount of moisture in an area, to do this
everyone cooperates. Not only air-conditioning can be based on termite mounds, also intellectual
buildings. Termites can change their building based on air and other conditions. There is a current
study at Harvard where they have robots which are inspired by the termite mounds, but this is still
very rudimentary.

They also spoke about philosophical issues, for which they used ants. The old primitive ants could see
a lot and lived in small colonies, of a few 100, while the more advanced ants live in colonies of
thousands, they cant see much and they only communicate in yes/no. The newer advanced ants arent
smart, but they are sophisticated. The philosophy lies in whether you want your system to be
sophisticated, or the individuals within it. They also touched upon the research where people had to
guess how many beans were in a jar. When it was one person he was often closer to the actual number
then when a group tried to guess. This led to researchers being interested to see whether humans
could learn to self-correct.

Amina Khan also spoke about the importance of people having a general knowledge of science,
because it is needed to get them involved. You need to have some knowledge if you want to see
somethings full potential. To do this, both of them see an important role for artists as they are able to
frame a story in a way which affects the understanding of a subject.
Damieta Rutters 2IBM03 Study trip report

The last thing they noted was that innovation has to come from businesses. She gave the example of
a carpet business, which spent a lot of time and money trying to create new and pleasing patterns.
One day, the owner was walking around through nature and noticed many patterns which were
pleasing to the eye, but which were completely random. He decided to use this inspiration in his
carpets instead of wasting too much money on research.

I am very happy that I went to this seminar, as I have now obtained some insights in how nature can
help reach sustainable innovation. I will also read her book, as I am very interested in this subject. I
had never before thought that some of our best ideas had come from nature itself.

I liked the way this seminar was set up, because it was not just one person talking about herself, but
an actual conversation between two people who both had their own opinions and ideas. I think that
in this way, we have gotten some greater insights into this subject as Arianne Gelardin looked at it
from her own artistic perspective.

The trip itself

When we got to our hostel I wasnt as shocked as my friends seemed. We had seen a video of the
neighbourhood before during a lecture and this had sort of prepared me for the reality of where our
hostel was located. On one side, I liked the location of our hostel because its the reality of San
Francisco. If we had been cooped up in a four star hotel, and if we hadnt been to such a
neighbourhood, we may have thought that San Francisco seemed like a perfect place to live. I also
enjoyed the tours throughout the city that we had, and the bike tour, because of the information we
received. The guide explained why theres such a gap between people in San Francisco, and I liked this
background information.

I think that the activities which were organised for us were all very interesting and useful. It was
inspiring to hear young entrepreneurs talk about their own businesses and their ideas for the future.
Everyone had their own ideologies and things they wanted to reach and it left a deep impression on
me. It made me realise that I had to take a minute to sit down and think about my future, about where
I want to be ten years from now. We already had to do this for the Adobe assignment, but then I just
thought that I wanted to get my degree and write a book. However, after having been to San Francisco,
I realised that I dont just want those things. I realised that I want to do something with my life.
Something which may inspire other people. I havent quite figured out what I want to do, but I do know
that I also want to leave an impression on people. Also after seeing how some people live, I realised I
want to do something for them. I am interested in the topic of poverty, in high school I had made a
research paper for my final grade on this very topic and Im still as much interested in it right now as I
was back then.

I liked that there was also a lot of free time in which we could explore the city ourselves. I also made
use of some of this free time to go to google with some friends. We went there fully realising that we
wouldnt be able to enter the building as their offices also arent open to the public, but we walked
around the campus and it was a lovely experience.
Damieta Rutters 2IBM03 Study trip report

One of my favourite activities was going to Adobe. I enjoyed giving the presentation of our assignment,
even though I had stress. It was nice to get to talk to an employee there, when we were in smaller
groups. There we had a small discussing about the skills a leader needs. Our consensus was a little bit
difficult to reach, as some people totally disagreed with the majority. In the end, we did agree on the
three most important skills, which were a bundle of all the skills we had previously summed up.

The least favourite activity was Yelp, because it seemed very short and we only heard about what
makes Yelp great. For me, this was just a lecture on how it came into existence and how it keeps
existing. I dont think there was much added value in having heard this lecture, though, it was nice to
hear the reason why it exists.

I can conclude that I enjoyed this study trip, because the invaluable insights that I have obtained.

Bibliography
California Institute of Integral Studies. (2017). adapting natures design for a better future Amina Khan
in conversation with Arianna Gelardin. Retrieved March 28, 2017, from Eventbrite:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/adapting-natures-design-for-a-better-future-amina-khan-in-
conversation-with-arianne-gelardin-tickets-
31171502804?utm_source=eb_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=order_confirma
tion_email&utm_term=eventname&ref=eemailordconf#

Wikimedia Foundation Inc. (2017). Rakuten. Retrieved May 1, 2017, from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakuten