Alex Backer
Ph.D. Founder and CEO, ab|inventio,
the invention factory behind QLess,
Whozat, SocialDiligence.com and MyNew.tv
Why We Age, How Aging is Good For You, How to Live Two Years Longer Using Your Cell Phone & Beyond
Alex's talk will be divided in three parts. The first will explain the selective advantage of aging, or why biology evolved a genetic program to age. The second will teach you how to live two years longer using your cell phone. The third will make a specific proposal to extend lifespan: that of redundant organs with failover systems with real-time wireless sensing devices for monitoring, repair and replacement.
A scientist, inventor and entrepreneur, Alex Backer represented his country twice at the International Olympiads of Informatics. Alex holds a degree in Biology and Economics from MIT, and a M.S. and Ph.D. in Computation and Neural Systems and Biology from the California Institute of Technology, where he was awarded the Dean’s award for ‘great contributions and outstanding qualities of Leadership and Responsibility’. He has held positions at McKinsey & Co., the Department of Computational Biology and Evolutionary Computing at the Center for Computation, Computers, Information and Mathematics of Sandia National Labs, and the Biology Division of Caltech. He is the founder of Adapt Technologies™, a pioneer of search engine marketing technology, abinventio™, the invention factory, QLess™, an award-winning wireless solution that has saved more than three hundred thousand users from standing in line at DMVs, retail stores of Fortune 100 companies, restaurants, shopping malls, doctors' offices, colleges and salons across two continents, Whozat™, The People Search Engine™, named one of the 100 hottest start-ups in the world by TechCrunch, a semantic search engine with machine vision, and which beat Google and every other search engine tested 3 to 1 or more in results relevance in a blind people search comparison, and Social Diligence™, which offers the first resume- or file-based search engine, capable of scouring the web for information related to any document. Alex was appointed by the President to serve in the California Institute of Technology's Information Sciences and Technology Board of Advisors. Alex has been an invited speaker at numerous conferences on diverse science and technology topics around the world. Alex and his creations have been featured in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Business Week, CNET, Mashable, and many other leading publications. Alex is always looking for world-class entrepreneurial people to help bring about innovation through technology.
How to Live Two Years Longer Using Your Cell Phone - Alex Backer - H+ Summit @ Harvard
1. Why
we
age,
and
how
to
extend
your
enjoyable
lifespan
by
2
years
using
your
cell
phone
Alex
Backer,
Ph.D.
Founder
&
CEO
ab|invenGo,
the
invenGon
factory
6. Animals
have
a
GeneGc
Program
to
Age
• If
you
knock
aging
genes
off,
a
worm
will
live
twice
as
long.
Leni
Guarente
(MIT),
Cori
Bargmann
(UCSF),
Cynthia
Kenyon
(UCSF),
Javier
Apfeld
(Harvard)
7. Aging
makes
you
fiZer
• Knocking
out
a
gene
is
easy
for
evoluGon
to
do.
• These
animals
evolved
to
age,
i.e.
genomes
of
animals
with
the
aging
gene
outcompeted
those
without
it.
• Why?
How?
8. EvoluGon
has
opGmized
the
geneGc
distance
between
generaGons
• Too
liZle
variaGon,
and
evoluGon
is
too
slow
and
species
cannot
adapt
to
changing
environments
fast
enough.
• Too
much,
and
most
progeny
will
not
survive.
The
apple
doesn’t
fall
far
from
the
tree
-‐-‐but
it
can’t
fall
too
close,
either.
9. The
opGmal
geneGc
distance
between
generaGons
varies
with
fitness
&
environmental
change
• The
happier
you
are
in
your
environment,
the
less
incenGve
to
change
your
genes
for
your
progeny
• The
more
the
environment
has
changed
since
your
genes
were
tested
growing
up,
and
the
more
trouble
you
are
having,
the
more
a
genome
should
be
willing
to
experiment
with
change
9
13. • But
if
there
is
an
opGmal
geneGc
distance
between
generaGons
&
if
geneGc
distance
between
generaGons
increases
with
parents’
age...
13
14. Then
maGng
must
occur
during
a
given
age
range
• It
follows
that
maGng
must
iniGally
increase
and
then
decrease
with
age
15. • MaGng
indeed
decreases
with
age
by:
– Aging-‐related
inability
to
mate
(menopause)
– Aging-‐related
decrease
in
aZracGveness
– Aging-‐related
decrease
in
libido
– Aging-‐related
death
15
16. • But
if
the
old’s
progeny
are
less
fit,
why
not
let
natural
selecGon
take
care
of
them
instead
of
aging
their
parents?
17. Most
of
animal
evoluGon
happened
while
living
in
closely
related
clans
18. • The
old
parents’
progeny’s
inferior
fitness
may
not
be
evident
unGl
later
in
life,
while
they
consume
resources
(parenGng,
food,
…)
that
reduce
their
fiZer
siblings’
chance
of
survival.
18
19. So
now
that
we
now
why
we
age,
can
we
do
anything
to
extend
our
enjoyable
lifeGme?
19
25. waiGnginlinesucks.com
• During
the
duraGon
of
the
World
Cup,
QLess
will
offer
all
new
customers
who
menGon
H+
2
installaGons
for
the
price
of
1,
and
will
donate
50%
of
the
associated
revenues
toward
research
that
can
help
prolong
enjoyable
life
25
26. Gehng
the
human
body
to
achieve
100%
upGme
Lessons
from
soiware
• QLess
has
a
greater
than
99.99%
upGme
record
-‐-‐never
down
for
more
than
3
min
• Can’t
the
human
body
achieve
the
same?
• The
secret
is
redundancy
26
28. CiGzen
Science
• Scientific publishing is outdated.
• The world needs a wikipedia for
original research, where:
– Publication dissociated from peer review
– Live documents can be continually updated
– Publon as small as its author deems it
– Ideas can see the light of day sooner
– Everybody can contribute
28