This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. Why we should all hack medicine
From giving birth, to running for a bus, from learning to dancing - if you haven't drunk enough water your body and brain will protest. Lina Colucci is a Doctoral researcher at MIT, she's working on the design, development, and deployment of a portable device that will measure people's hydration levels. Finding out whether we've got enough water on board using a simple and non-invasive technology would go a long way towards saving lives and improving health outcomes all over the world.
Her area is health sciences and technology - a field that integrates an intimidating range of different disciplines. In effect you've got to be outstanding in bio-medical engineering, mechanical engineering, medicine, design, and bio-mechanics in order to get to where Lina is now. She spent a year working on tissue engineering in an orthopaedic bio-engineering lab and before that was working in India for four months doing research about the effects of internal migration on poverty in urban slums. While in Sweden she did research into touch experiences and how people associate the texture of a material with its properties and performance.
In between all this she found time to intern at Nike, using some inventive video analysis techniques to find out how men and women land differently when running - oh, and in her spare time there she developed a social media platform for them. Her time at Nike helped refine a long-cherished project; the redesign of the ballet pointe shoe. Colucci worked with folks from IDEO and Nike to come up with the DANZA shoe - the first update to the pointe shoe in 200 years. Of course she's a dancer and musician as well, working with the Harvard Ballet Company and the New England Conservatory. In essence, Lina has a broad range of accomplishments we thought TEDx Brussels would be incomplete without her.
About TEDx, x = independently organized event In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)
