A postcard from Nobel Week in Oslo
Blessed are the peacemakers, plus: predict the future for me!
Sree’s newsletter is produced w/ Zach Peterson (@zachprague). That’s me & Alfred Nobel at the Nobel Institute in Oslo, minutes before the official press conference for Nobel Week (I was one of 12 journalists in the room where it happened). He wanted to honor those who have “conferred the greatest benefit on mankind” and he changed the world.
🗞 TUNE IN: NYT Readalong guest this week was Kim Todd (@arden4est), author of Sensational: The Hidden History of America's ‘Girl Stunt Reporters’ - watch this episode, and our archives, at http://readalong.link/youtubeplaylist. The Readalong is sponsored by Muck Rack. Interested in sponsorship opportunities? Email sree@digimentors.group and neil@digimentors.group.
My Digimentors team is working with companies and nonprofits around the world to create virtual and hybrid events. We’ve worked on events for 50 people and 100,000. See our updated brochure. Please talk to us if you need events help or social media consulting: sree@digimentors.group.
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Last week, in the midst of the pandemic’s latest surge, in the shadow of Omicron, I flew into a foreign city in a fresh lockdown. I needed to fly 4,000 miles, take five planes and undergo five Covid tests in six days, but I decided it was all worth it.
After all, it was Oslo during Nobel Prize Week celebrations and a chance to witness history, on behalf of India’s Scroll.in, as journalists Maria Ressa of the Philippines and Dmitry Muratov of Russia received the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of all endangered journalists worldwide.
You can read my epic Twitter thread by clicking below - even if you’re not on Twitter.
The Nobels are celebrated in two cities each year. The Peace Prize in Oslo and all the others in Stockholm. I was honored to cover the 2019 Nobel Week in Stockholm (mainly the Economics laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, whose pioneering work on randomized controlled trials was done with Pratham, the India-based education nonprofit I’m lucky enough to work with, and also to celebrate John Goodenough, Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino whose development of the lithium-ion battery is the basis for today’s modern tech). But this was my first time in Norway, Nobels or otherwise.
Journalists are already among the most self-congratulatory and self-examining of all professions, with more prizes, more associations and more navel-gazing than necessary. (I’m guilty of founding multiple orgs and multiple awards programs myself.)
So, it turned out it was more than just journalism being honored when Ressa and Muratov became the first journalists in 85 years to win the prize.
The wording of the October announcement reads:
The Nobel Peace Prize 2021 was awarded jointly to Maria Ressa and Dmitry Andreyevich Muratov "for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace."
Their brave work fighting for the truth and fighting against misinformation and disinformation, even as their colleagues are killed indiscriminately, isn’t about just the media. It’s about making sure we have democracy at a time when the world slides toward authoritarianism, toward right-wing nationalism and worse.
As we have seen in the 20 months of the pandemic, truth and trust have been prime victims of a simultaneously coordinated and haphazard campaign of lies that have extended the crisis and unnecessarily killed hundreds of thousands.
For all our celebrations of the Nobels, we must never forget that Mahatma Gandhi never won one.
- Sree | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn | YouTube / Cameo
SURVEY TIME! This time of year, we see trendspotting pundits of all kinds making predictions about what the following year is going to be like. This year, instead of just reading such predictions, we want you to help make them. Please take a look at the first-ever Digimentors Work, Travel and Events. Will take you less than 10 minutes; all participants will be entered in a draw for a $101 Amazon gift card. Preliminary results will be published in my newsletter next Sunday.
In a recent piece in TechCrunch, Vikas Mehta, COO of early portfolio company ACV Auctions, highlighted how the company has deployed machine learning, AI + improved OCR tech to streamline title transfer for cars sold on ACV's proprietary platform.
Based in Buffalo, ACV Auctions went public in March of this year.
Take a look: https://tcrn.ch/3Go5sFo
Tech Tip w/ @newyorkbob: Post-Pandemic Hotels: The Personal Touch Gives Way to Touchscreens
By Robert S. Anthony
Each week, veteran tech journalist Bob Anthony shares a tech tip you don’t want to miss. Follow him @newyorkbob.
Hugs and handshakes are the stuff of the holiday season, but the Covid-19 pandemic has severely cut into our movements and the number of touchy-feely moments we can safely have. This is bad news for everyone, but for the hospitality industry, it’s been devastating.
However, help seems to be on the way in the form of high-tech kiosks that can minimize human contact and take over many manual, over-the-counter transactions, thus freeing up hotel staffers, which are now in short supply, to handle other duties.
Of course, hotel check-in kiosks are not new. The Yotel New York, which features a robot which stores luggage, has had them since its opening in 2011. But the pandemic has triggered a fresh demand for contactless transaction solutions, according to attendees at a recent Samsung hospitality tech showcase in New York.
Samsung is well-known for its mobile electronics, but also commands a major chunk of the touchscreen kiosk market for fast-food restaurants and hotels. At the event, Samsung showed off a sleek new kiosk armed with hotel software by Florida-based Grubbrr, which describes itself as “…a rapidly expanding self-ordering technology startup.”
The Samsung kiosk, which has a 24-inch antimicrobial, shatter-resistant touchscreen, can stand on a pedestal or sit on a table and can handle check-ins and check-outs and many other tasks, including scheduling hotel spa sessions or ordering items from a hotel shop, noted Jarrett Nasca, Grubbr’s chief revenue officer (seen in photo above), as he demonstrated the unit. He said the kiosks units can be deployed as needed, like when a major convention or sporting event is in town.
California-based aavgo tries to hit the middle ground and maintain some of the human touch with its Virtual Front Desk, which it bills as “the world’s first contactless, human-assisted virtual front desk for the hospitality industry.” The company showed off the new kiosk at the Boutique Design New York (BDNY) show in November.
Topping the Virtual Front Desk is a 21.5-inch teleconferencing touchscreen which lets customers see and talk to a hotel representative as they perform transactions. In addition to basic check-in and check-out tasks, the unit can scan IDs and passports, dispense room key cards, handle card- and tap-based payments and can even take cash. A smartphone app lets users order room service or contact a real person.
While both units can streamline operations at budget and mid-level hotels and those that deal with high volumes, like casino hotels and those near convention centers, high-end, luxury hotel customers need not fear. Those properties won’t be ditching their uniformed curbside greeters and well-dressed staffers for kiosks any time soon. For that market, the human touch is everything.
From our friends at India Sweets And Spices
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Watch Something
Here’s a tour of Nobel HQ in Stockholm that I got in 2018.
Odds & Ends
🗞 TUNE IN: NYT Readalong guest this week was Kim Todd (@arden4est), author of Sensational: The Hidden History of America's ‘Girl Stunt Reporters’ - watch this episode, and our archives, at http://readalong.link/youtubeplaylist. The Readalong is sponsored by Muck Rack. Interested in sponsorship opportunities? Email sree@digimentors.group and neil@digimentors.group.
Be sure to check out “She’s On Call” podcast with surgeons Sujana Chandrasekhar, MD (@DrSujanaENT), and Marina Kurian, MD (@MarinaKurian).
👀 Did we miss anything? Make a mistake? Do you have an idea for anything we’re up to? Let’s collaborate! sree@sree.net and please connect w/ me: Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn | YouTube / Cameo.
REMINDER… SURVEY TIME! This time of year, we see trendspotting pundits of all kinds making predictions about what the following year is going to be like. This year, instead of just reading such predictions, we want you to help make them. Please take a look at the first-ever Digimentors Work, Travel and Events. Will take you less than 10 minutes; all participants will be entered in a draw for a $101 Amazon gift card. Preliminary results will be published in my newsletter next Sunday.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience in Oslo. I love how you use digital to make your unique experiences nearly IRL for us. Oh, and the movie tip. ;)