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After making his mark in Silicon Valley, Icelandic designer and tech mogul Haraldur Halli Thorleifsson is now solving a far more analog problem: the inaccessibility of local storefronts. As a wheelchair user, Thorleifsson knows firsthand how exclusion can be built into a city. If you dont see anyone using a wheelchair, he says, its not because they dont existits because they have nowhere to go. Thorleifsson has experienced such access barriers to public spaces throughout his life, but the turning point came on a late-night walk with his family in downtown Reykjavík, when he couldnt join his son in a corner store because of a single step at the entrance. As I was sitting outside, I kept looking at that one step, he recalls. Over the years, steps like that had stopped me from being able to go cafés to meet friends, from going to the barber, or going Christmas shopping with my family. That one step was the main obstacle between me and fully participating in society. And, not just me; anyone who uses a mobility device to get around. I decided that this had to change and since nobody else seemed to be doing anything, I figured it was up to me. So in 2021, Thorleifsson launched Ramp Up Reykjavík to fund the installation of 100 ramps in places with the most foot traffic across Icelands capitalcafés, restaurants, and shops. Four years later, the project has delivered far more ramps than initially promised and well beyond Reykjavík to additional Icelandic cities, garnering a fitting name change to Ramp Up Iceland. On March 14, Thorleifsson celebrated the completion of Ramp Up Iceland with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and the support of the mayor, prime minister, president, and other leaders of the municipal governments across Iceland. Now, the team plans to expand the initiative to Paris and Lviv, Ukraine. [Photo: Ramp Up Reykjavík] An age-old accessibility problem Creating accessibility in any urban environment is often met with logistical and bureaucratic challenges. But in cities with historic buildings that predate modern accessibility standards by decades or even centuries, those challenges are even further amplified. In downtown Reykjavík, most buildings date back to the 18th century with storefronts that sit slightly elevated above street level, making one or two steps a recurring access barrier across most of the citys core business district. And this isnt just an Icelandic issue. In a recent study, 70% of disabled people surveyed said theyve shown up to a building only to realize they couldnt get inside. More than half of them (60%) reported that they had to leave without completing their task because the building wasnt accessible. This study was conducted in the United States, where we have the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a law intended to protect the rights of disabled people and ensure accessible infrastructure. Yet, even with the ADA, there are still massive access inequities in our urban environments. Buildings, sidewalks, and transportation systems often remain out of compliance or are poorly maintained, and legal protections such as the ADA arent universal. In many older cities around the world, accessibility standards are inconsistent, and the push to retrofit historic areas is often delayed or deprioritized in favor of architectural preservation. Thorleifssons work is beginning to change this. The goal of Ramp Up Reykjavík was to install 100 ramps within a year; the project finished it in half the time and under budget. Following the success of the trial project, Thorleifsson expanded the initiative to cities across Iceland, with a new target goal of building 1,000 ramps in five years. They ended up building more than 1,700 ramps and again came in under budget. [Photo: Ramp Up Reykjavík] Building a better ramp Each ramp is built for the location, and is integrated into the environment with designers working with the city and municipalities to try and match existing materials when possible. In many cases, passersby wouldnt even notice modifications to the historic buildings because the ramps are intentional design choices built into the urban environment. The role of a designer is to make something simple and beautiful to use, for as many people as possible,” says Thorleifsson. “So when I look at how some things are made, I can’t help but wonder how easy it would have been, with small tweaks, to make it usable by more people without losing any of the beauty. The biggest challenge in the beginning was making people believe that this was possible, Thorleifsson says. “These problems have been discussed for decades, often with very little progress. So the approach was really to give people no excuses. We fund, design, build, and get all the permits; it’s all free for the shop owner or the person who owns the building. Once people start seeing success, where before there was none, all the arguments go away and doors open. Thorleifsson initially funded the project with dividends made through the sale of his digital design agency Ueno to Twitter in 2021. He joined the company as a senior director of product design but was abruptly terminated in 2022 along with some 200 others when Elon Musk took over Twitterwhich led to a Twitter exchange with Musk that made international headlines. The sale of Thorleifssons company helped get the Ramp Up Reykjavík initiative off the ground, but the project has been a collaborative venture between Thorleifsson and local businesses, government agencies, and city officials. I had some money, and I was able to quickly raise more. Once the snowball was rolling, everyone jumped on board very quickly, he says. Now he is looking to make quick improvements at the international level. Ukraine has a lot of peope coming back from the war that need access. So the urgency is there, Thorleifsson explains of where the initiative will head next. I’m not a very patient person. I don’t think there is any excuse to move slowly on fixing a human rights issue. So I sometimes have to push hard for change to happen. When asked what lessons hes learned that other cities should consider when trying to improve accessibility, Thorleifsson says, It’s easy. It’s cheap. There’s no excuse. Just do it. We can help. Call me.
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E-Commerce
While Teslas stock has seen a sharp decline in recent weeks, Elon Musk has quietly been working to expand his influence in a different area of tech: AI supercomputing. Recent reports have revealed that Musks AI startup, xAI, has been quietly building a new data center in Atlanta. The facility will house around 12,000 Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs), crucial chips that power AI computation. While the Atlanta data center is modest compared to Musk’s supercomputer project in Memphis, nicknamed Colossus, which boasts 100,000 GPUs, its construction is part of a broader trend in the tech world that has been advancing largely under the radar. Last December, Meta announced its plans to build a $10 billion data center in Richland Parish, Louisiana. In February, OpenAI began constructing a facility in Abilene, Texas, while scoping out potential sites in 16 other states, as they seek to invest $500 billion in AI infrastructure over the next four years under the Trump Administrations Stargate project. While megaprojects like Colossus and Stargate have captured national attentionespecially as Musk trumpeted his goal of creating the most powerful AI supercomputer in the worldthis broader wave of data center construction has largely proceeded under the radar, with minimal public oversight, particularly from the communities that will host these centers. This silent expansion underscores an important issue: We cannot allow Big Tech to have unchecked control over the development of AI infrastructure, especially when there is a lack of transparency and limited public scrutiny. The problem with unchecked AI expansion is multifaceted. While tech companies promise their data centers will rejuvenate local economies with jobs and tax revenue, it is not entirely clear that the risks outweigh the rewards. First, the AI industry is an environmental crisis waiting to happen. Data centers typically consume an immense amount of resources, particularly water. Liquid-based cooling systems are essential to prevent overheating in the massive networks of servers that power these centers, and this process requires vast quantities of water. The Colossus project in Memphis alone is estimated to consume one million gallons of water a day, according to public utilities companies in the city. And its not just Memphiswith an estimated 50% of the worlds population projected to live in water-stressed areas by 2025, the growing demand for water in AI data centers presents a real threat to local communities. In Memphis, activists are already sounding the alarm about the impact on local water supplies, especially in a region with a history of arsenic contamination in drinking water. xAI has reached an agreement with the City of Memphis to build a recycled wastewater facility for the data centers cooling needs, aimed at alleviating some pressure on local water sources. However, the company has not been transparent with the local community regarding its plans for the facility, which is expected to reduce the strain on the Memphis Sand aquifer by only 9%even as xAI announced plans to expand its supercomputing operation to one million GPUs more than 10 times its current capacity. The environmental impact extends beyond water usage. The supercomputing industry is highly carbon-intensive. According to a report by Morgan Stanley, data centers worldwide are projected to emit 2.5 billion tons of CO2 by 2030. Many of these data centers are being built in the U.S. South, a region already vulnerable to rising temperatures. The carbon emissions from these projects will only worsen the heat risks in areas that are already hot. The effects of extreme heat are not felt equally. In Atlanta, for instance, where some neighborhoods were redlined in the 20th century, residents in predominantly Black communitieswho ofte lack access to air-conditioning and shaded green spacesare already disproportionately at risk for heat-related illness and death. The continued expansion of data centers and the heat generated by their carbon emissions will only make these inequities worse. While Musks xAI may tout its role in advancing AI innovation, these environmental tolls cannot be ignored. Moreover, its not even clear that we need this kind of computing power. Earlier this year, the launch of DeepSeek, a more resource-efficient AI model developed in China, shocked the tech industry. DeepSeeks breakthrough suggested that the future of AI could be far less resource-hungry than what Musk and others are pushing. Since DeepSeeks success, tech giants like Microsoft have canceled data center leases in the U.S., signaling that perhaps the need for supercomputing power is not as pressing as Musks ambitions would have us believe. This raises the question: Are these massive data centers even necessary, or are they just part of a generative AI hype bubble? And will the communities hosting these data centers be left to foot the bill once the bubble bursts? Of course, many will argue that the global AI race is too important to let these concerns get in the way. But we cannot allow Silicon Valleys “move fast and break things” mentality to dictate how our cities evolve and how resources are allocated. Urban leaders must step up to demand oversight and accountability in the development of these data centers. AI is undeniably vital to the future of human progress, but its too important to be left in the hands of unaccountable tech oligarchs. Atlanta, Memphis, and other cities across the country need to assert control over the expansion of data centers and insist on transparent, responsible development.
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E-Commerce
President Trump says he is eager to make America healthy again and boost economic growth. His success hinges, in large part, on the National Institutes of Health. Yet the Trump administration recently paused NIH meetings on new grant applications and proposed a cap on NIH funding for overhead costs. In response, research universities are already cutting studies and rescinding doctoral degree offers. For decades, the NIH has functioned like a giant venture capital firm operating on behalf of the American taxpayer. It makes tens of thousands of small investments in basic scientific research each year thatin the aggregateyield enormous societal returns, even though they often take decades to come to fruition. The government’s own research indicates that for each one-time $1 investment it makes in basic science research, society reaps $0.43 in recurring annual benefits from increased economic activity, improved worker productivity, and better health as a result of new medicines. Of course, the NIH doesn’tand couldn’tdo it alone. Universities, research hospitals, and the biotech industry all play their part. But it’s the NIH that essentially kickstarts this cycle of innovation.Most of the NIH’s budget goes toward grants that support university labs across the country. Between 2019 and 2023, NIH funding levels for universities, hospitals, and medical research institutions increased 23%. In fiscal 2023, the agency doled out nearly $35 billionabout 73% of its total budgetto almost 59,000 grantees at 2,500 different organizations. The average grant was less than $600,000.In these labs, scientists conduct experiments that sometimes, at first glance, seem to have little practical application. Think of past NIH-funded research featuring cocaine-addicted rats pressing levers or tiny shrimp jogging on underwater treadmills. These seemingly wasteful experiments have actually informed medical breakthroughs and saved lives. The rat research helped crack open the secrets of dopamine and addiction, paving the way for opioid abuse treatments like buprenorphinea drug proven to decrease overdose deaths by 38%. Meanwhile, the shrimp cardio workouts weren’t just crustacean CrossFit; they revealed how low oxygen affects muscle endurancewhich yielded insights for treating muscle atrophy and heart disease. What looked like government-funded lunacy to outsiders led to scientific findings that made Americans healthier, proving that curiosityeven the weird kindpays off. But when labs make a research breakthrough, that’s merely the startnot the endof the development process. Universities have neither the resources nor the desire to turn insights into real-world drugs or medical devices. Instead, universities typically license their discoveries to biotech companies, which then spend years and billions of dollars working to turn those initial findings into FDA-approved treatments. It’s a riskyand enormously expensiveprocess. About nine in 10 experimental medicines fail in clinical trials. Fortunately, the financial risk of that process mostly falls on private companies and their investors, not on taxpayers. One recent study that examined FDA-approved drugs found that for every dollar the NIH had contributed toward their development, the private sector contributed over $65. But without NIH grants, this entire cycle of innovation would never begin, because private companies could never justify funding extremely early-stage basic research with unclear commercial applications on their own. That wouldn’t merely harm public healthit’d also send shockwaves through our economy. In my home state of Illinois, research institutions received around $6 billion in NIH grants from 2019 to 2023. That sort of research yields significant scientific investmentevidenced by the fact that Illinois biotech startups raised nearly double that in venture capital from 2019-2023. These research and commercialization efforts boost our economy. Illinois’ biotech sector supported over 93,000 jobs spread across nearly 5,000 establishments in 2023. And Chicago recently ranked 10th in the nation for biopharma R&D and third for biopharma manufacturing jobs. Texas and Ohio, meanwhile, have seen around a 21% and 13% bump in bioscience employment from 2019 to 2023, respectively. In 2023, Texas boasted over 9,200 firms employing about 129,000 employees, while Ohio’s workforce added up to almost 64,000 workers across 4,800 firms. It’s important for policymakers to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent judiciously. That’s precisely why the Trump administration would be wise to fully fund and staff the NIH. Significant cuts could impede American biotech breakthroughs, compromise U.S. biotech talent, and gut the nation’s job-creating biotech hubs. The agency’s grants more than pay for themselves by kickstarting a cycle of innovation that saves American lives and grows the economy.
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E-Commerce
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