Thomas Maillioux's Blog (8)

Year after year of heroic (and let's face it, very often American) movies have taught us that in the face of adversity, there'll always be a lone hero to save the day/the country/the president/the world. Of course as exciting as it feels to watch it happen, it's only a movie : until the early 21st century, it was hard to get actual data on how people - you, me, everybody - would react in the case of a pandemic : information that would prove invaluable to scientists and health professionals all… Continue

Back at the beginning of the 21st century, people were still cursing and cursing at pyramid schemes and Ponzi-like scams as they rampaged through the bank accounts of unsuspecting people who didn't know better. Who'd have thought a few decades later we'd use the principles they were based on to help stop the Blue Flu of 2020 ?



Bookheads all over the world had started experimenting with information and best practices distribution networks by late 2010 after companies, ideological groups… Continue

I'm not gonna lie : I'm a sucker for technology - but not in the way you might think.



To many people, technology is an end : you buy the latest gadget because it is the latest gadget, not because of what you can do with and that's how instead of using technology, technology uses you. That I can't go for - not anymore.



What I can go for, is using technology for a reason or, as Eureka would put it, to change lives. In order to do that you… Continue

The secret that stuck with me the most as I read the 33 (what a magic number !) secrets of social innovation was number 5 from Paul Polak's list, "Think like a child". Why ? Let me tell you story...



When I was a kid - 10 or 11 years at best - my dad shared with me a series of books called Dune, by Frank Herbert. You probably heard of it, if not read it : the story of teenager Paul Atreides, a boy who can see the future and guides his people towards freedom. The character that stuck… Continue

When I woke, one last knock died through the wooden door, into my room.



"Thomas, c'est Youssef ! Réveille-toi !" My mind took some time to piece it all together. Youssef, that was one of the kids I had met during the scouting romp 2 days ago. End of high-school with a brain the size of half planet according to his family, friends and teachers, self-taught programmer, beginner maker, he had shown me some of his projects but shy as he was, our… Continue

I shut the lid of my laptop and sighed, rubbing my eyes. KM scouting and training missions had a way of being a blessing and a curse : the blessing part involved meeting people, talking with them, test their strong points and weaknesses and see which ones had what it takes to juggle mental limes deftly enough that they'd be able to cope with the data that needs to be integrated in local Network nodes management systems : most of the time, that means meeting awesome people with a unique point of… Continue

Typical March Sunday near Paris : cold, sunny, a walk in the park with the wife and kid like so many other couples in the area. People from all walks of life, countries from all over the world - the famine migrations of 2016 have made the immigrant sociocultural fabric so much more of what it used to be that inter-cultural struggles have started to come down. Everyone's an island - but everyone's started to build bridges.



Life with… Continue

"And to wrap this up, here's the best piece of news for the day..." I paused, enjoying the moment. "The last node of the Indian hackerspaces network is now live ! You guys have put together your own, completely built from scratch, nation-wide communication infrastructure tying these innovation spaces together, and to hackerspaces all around the world. Give yourselves a big round of applause !"



It was a room of 50 hackers, but the… Continue