Science House and the Imagination Age in Brazil

By Rita J. King with Joshua Fouts

Image credit: André Blas

“We are the children who have survived,” Ana Carolina says as the swings creak back and forth.

Tuesday, November 8:

After a red-eye from New York and a 2.5 hour ride from São Paulo to Campinas, Brazil, Joshua and I don’t have a chance to wash our faces before we get to work.

Dr. Ana Carolina de Mattos Zeri, a physicist and biochemist who directs a Nuclear Magnetic Resonance research lab, is waiting for us at the gated hotel to take us on a tour of the National Biosciences Laboratory and the Síncrotron, the only particle accelerator in Brazil and Latin America. Until Australia recently acquired one, it was the only machine of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere.

But that’s not all.

“We built it ourselves,” Dr. Zeri says. “On site.”

She shows us her lab, including a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer cordoned off with yellow rope for for safety, and explains how water molecules turn into magnets which can be disturbed with the right radio frequency and their equilibrium flipped.

“We can reconstruct protein structures based on frequency, related to conditions in space. What if all of reality is an electromagnetic field?” she asks.

Needless to say, it is at this moment that I know I have a friend for life in Dr. Zeri. I nod knowingly. She nods back. Josh, the director of Science House Foundation, mentions the belief of notable physicists that we may living in a hologram. I like the idea of living in an electromagnetic hologram.

As we move through the lab’s large, pristine rooms, she explains that robots and machines that have collapsed the time once required for extensive lab work. When she says this, she’s gesturing toward a machine called a Matrix Maker.

"The Matrix Maker" Image credit: Rita J. King

It’s time to meet the director of the National Biosciences Laboratory, Dr. Kleber Franchini.

He shows us a slide show with an overview of the lab and goals moving forward. One of the slides showed two steep inclines, one labeled Science and the other labeled Market, with a wide chasm between them. Part of the lab’s mission moving forward is to collapse this distance. At Science House, one of our major areas of focus is bridging that same divide.

By the end of the show I knew we’d be collaborating with Dr. Franchini and Dr. Zeri far into the future, and that Josh’s ideas about creating globally collaborative teams between the United States, Brazil, China and India, a mission he shares with Science House Foundation founder James Jorasch, has just leveled up tremendously.

“We need to take care of the future generations,” says Dr. Franchini, “if we treat them well, we’ll have better scientists and people.”

After our discussion, Dr. Zeri takes us to meet Dr. Tiago Sobreira, who has a PhD in bioinformatics and is a researcher LNBio, and Vivian Scatolin a communications analyst at the National Biosciences Laboratory to visit Project Quero-Quero, named for the fierce local bird of the same name.

Quero-Quero

In a sprawling tropical park in the middle of Campinas filled with peacocks we visited the NGO “Project Quero-Quero.” In Portuguese its names sounds like its call “kay-roh kay-roh”. It is known to be an unusually aggressive bird who will chase humans away if they approach too close to its nest.

Signs warned us to beware of ticks.

Our hosts, Katia Rached, President of “Anhumas Quero-Quero” (the umbrella organization that runs Quero-Quero and its sister NGO, Anhumas, which is also named for an aggressively protective bird) and Constantino Esper Neto, ex-President of Quero-Quero, welcome us to Quero-Quero’s current offices nestled in refurbished houses, formerly part of a massive coffee plantation now known as the Emílio José Salim Ecological Park. The park of rolling hills and wandering peacocks is not well-used by members of the community because it is also home to a community of Capybaras, a large water rat and a known carrier of ticks which carry several lethal diseases that can be transmitted to humans. Signs all over the property warn people to beware of ticks.

Left to Right from Top Row: Constantino Esper Neto, Tiago Sobreira, Joshua Fouts, Rita J. King, Celia. Bottom Row: Katia Rached, Dr. Ana Zeri

Constantino describes the mission of Quero-Quero: to provide new education opportunities to youth from the neighboring favelas, Jardins Paranapanema and São Fernando. Brazil’s ubiquitous slums can be found in and around every major city in the nation. Children who live in the favelas are typically exposed to drugs and crime. Constantino goes on to say that for the favela kids, “childhood is pretty much a euphemism.”

Upon our arrival, Constantino motions toward a cluster of houses, one with a robin’s egg blue window in one of the converted farmhouses covered with fresh murals. The window, he says, is a metaphor for dreams and opportunity. The children who come to Quero-Quero for work might acquire not just usable skills, but aspirations for a better life.

He wants the students to “feel encouraged to dream, to love and trust in the adults who believe in them as people…Then the transformations begin. In children and in space. In space and in children. Children who dream turn into teenagers with personal aspirations and projects, and those responsible and productive adults.”

Image credit: Rita J. King

We sit together in a small room and they serve golden coffee cake with cinnamon sugar sprinkled on top and coffee in tiny plastic cups, smaller than shot glasses. The conversation is passionate but I can’t understand the Portuguese.

Josh, however, speaks Portuguese, having lived in Brazil as a Rotary Foreign Exchange student at the age of sixteen and then again years later while working as the Acting Assistant Cultural Affairs Officer for the US Information Agency at the Department of State. His adolescent imagination was captured by Brazil, and when he graduated from high school in Washington State (where his parents ran Project Washoe), his predicted future was “lost in the jungles of Brazil, still smiling.” To be in Brazil with him after so many years of hearing about his love for and interest in the country is a powerfully memorable experience.

Some of the kids watch us as we say goodbye. Ana Carolina calls my name, pronounced HEE-tah, and waves me over to a small rolling hill, at the bottom of which the male peacock has extended his glorious blue and green feathers into a quivering courtship dome meant to shock and awe the small, plain female standing nearby. Kids and instructors, scientists and visitors, stand together and watch the miracle of nature unfold at Quero-Quero.

A peacock extended his feathers as we got ready to leave. Image credit: Rita J. King

Day Two: Wednesday, November 9. Creating the Teams of the Future

After a breakfast of Romeo and Juliet (guava paste and farm cheese), Dr. Zeri brings us to the National Biosciences Laboratory for Joshua’s talk, delivered in Portuguese with translation help from Dr. Zeri and Tiago Sobreira.

Dr. Franchini is in attendance as Joshua speaks about cultural collaboration in science and mathematics and his work at Science House Foundation, entitled “Creating the Teams of the Future.” [A complete transcript of the speech is available here in Portuguese and English.] He tells three stories about how Brazilian culture is uniquely qualified to take a leadership role in our new era of ubiquitous digital culture and in transforming global educational system and science education.

Dr. Franchini introduces Joshua's speech, 'Creating the teams of the future.'

“Creating meaningful connections is in the very DNA of Brazilian culture,” he says to the audience. “And part of this explains why Brazil has played such an understated and yet influential role in the evolution of digital technology.”

Brazil is well positioned to take a lead in the new global culture and economy for many reasons. Joshua points out a deeper reason for specific success in the digital culture:

Brazil with its long history of carnival may also have a deeper understanding and may in some ways be better prepared to understand the digital revolution because Brazil had a long history of creating avatars well before digital technology allowed us to create them on our computers.

Transforming education policy, he says, requires a new approach to learning. He highlights findings from our the IMAGINATION: Creating the Future of Education and Work report, which describes how education needs to encourage collaborative problem solving.

“Brazil is a culture that fundamentally understands collaboration,” he says. “You can see it in the way Brazil plays soccer. For years countries could not understand how Brazilians were so good at soccer and how it is that Brazil continued to dominate the world sport. At least one reason is Brazilian soccer strategies. Brazil approached the team in a holistic, collaborative way. Many other countries believed in a less-integrated approach to soccer where each play had an individual role that was valued over the group role.”

I notice the look on Dr. Franchini’s face when the door opens at the back of the auditorium and the favela kids from Project Quero-Quero come in quietly, holding the equipment they will use later to interview us. They might want to become journalists in the future, they say. The trick, I tell them, is to learn to ask the right questions and to be fearless in the process. And write it all down, because right away, you start to forget.

"Ask the right questions and be fearless," Rita J. King with André Blas, tells the young journalists from the favelas.

We have dinner at a restaurant owned by a journalist named Rafael who will be attending my talk the next day. The restaurant serves outrageous bruschetta: prosciutto and ricotta, figs drizzled with hot honey, brie and strawberry jam. At the end of the meal, Rafael emerges to tell us he’s on a tight deadline with another article but is looking forward to being with us the next day. The moon is an electric dime above our outdoor table.

Day Three: Thursday, September 10

The morning begins with a zipper crisis that requires the full attention of both Josh and André Blas, who works with us on many projects, including life itself. He’s Brazilian, and he has visited New York many times, but it’s the first time we’ve seen him in Brazil. I bought the dress specifically for this talk because it’s iridescent green, Brazil’s color. I almost didn’t get the dress because the zipper, even before I tried it on, stuck slightly at the waist.

“We’re going to do this, Generalissima,” says André, stretching his fingers to go in for another round. He doesn’t look so sure. Five or six times, the team effort to zip the dress screeches to a halt in the same spot. Finally, finally, I hear the zipper slide all the way up and we all hug in the bathroom as a sudden army of ants makes a move on a napkin smeared with dulce de leche. As soon as the napkin is thrown in the trash, the ants disappear like they’d never been there at all.

The journalist, Rafael, waves hello from the middle of the auditorium as I enter to give my talk. Ana Carolina, who is also wearing green, will translate. She also stops me to ask questions sometimes, or adds her own thoughts, or spares the audience too much information when brevity will suffice.

Ana Carolina, also wearing green, translated.

I start off with an Ursula K. LeGuin quote, “The creative adult is the child who has survived.” I explain the Imagination Age, a time of fleeting decades between two longer periods, the fading industrial era and the coming intelligence age, when machines will be smarter than people.

The idea, I explain, was sparked by a little girl who told me that I was the only adult who made her feel like her imagination didn’t have to die when she grew up. At that time I dedicated myself to doing whatever I could to create an environment, a future, in which children could become imaginative adults. Since then the Imagination Age has been in development with diverse clients, collaborators and partners around the world. The Imagination Age has since gone from research and development into practice.

This happened when, earlier this year, I met James Jorasch, master inventor, improv comedian, memory expert and chess champion, at Science House. I was there to give a talk about creativity and imagination. At the end of the night I opened a page in a book to light cones, my favorite symbol.

Soon after we started to meet to discuss Science House and the Imagination Age, a period of cultural and economic development in which diverse, geographically dispersed people can create ideas and learn how to put the best of them into practice efficiently by using technology as a prism held up to the bright beam of the imagination. I immediately felt that Science House was the best example of the core principles of the Imagination Age, and I became the organization’s Executive Vice President for Business Development.

That night, Dr. Franchini hosts us at his home with his wife, a former surgeon who performed twelve hour reconstructive surgeries while pregnant with their three spectacular daughters. Ana Carolina plays the ukulele. We eat, we laugh, we look at family photo albums and the low gold moon over their crystal blue swimming pool out beyond the patio where they host us.

“With so many ideas out there,” Dr. Franchini asks me, “how do you know that the Imagination Age is the right one?”

“It includes all projects and people who understand that the way to cultural and economic development is through collaboration,” I say. “It focuses on science, engineering, math, technology and creativity.”

“You are a futurist,” he says. “How do you know that this idea has a greater probability of becoming the future?”

“All competing ideas are memes,” I say. “If you believe in the Imagination Age and you put it into practice, it will gain greater probability of becoming the future.”

Already, it feels more real to me, and that’s largely due to the support of Dr. Franchini and his marvelous staff at the National Biosciences Laboratory. I’m back in New York now with a treasure trove of gifts given to me by Ana Carolina. We have a pact, to take this vision that we share to the next level.

“If you believe in the Imagination Age and you put it into practice, it will gain greater probability of becoming the future.”

Tags: ana zeri, bioscience, brasil, brazil, kleber franchini, LNBio, NMR, science, sincroton

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 17th, 2011 at 1:25 am and is filed under collaboration, science in the media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.