Advancing Technology Feed

On April 27, 2018, North Korea and South Korea signed the Panmunjom Declaration for Peace, Prosperity and Unification of the Korean Peninsula. Two electronic versions—one in English and one in Korean—have been stored on the Ethereum blockchain. The energy industry alone has invested $1 billion in blockchain. 

And four of the world’s largest automakers want to put blockchain technology in your car.

“Blockchain is right up there with the invention of the Internet,” said Damian Chung, Sr. Director of Cybersecurity Engineering and Development at Dignity Health. Chung thinks blockchain has the potential to revolutionize healthcare, empower businesses to bypass the middle man and even safeguard democracy. “We can apply it infinitely, so it’s here to stay,” Chung said.

Blockchain may lead to unprecedented business agility and help companies save time and money, but few people know how to harness the power of this emerging technology. According to TechCrunch, 14 blockchain job openings exist for every one blockchain developer.

The talent shortage prompted Chung to develop and teach a blockchain course at the University of Advancing Technology, where he is an adjunct professor in the cyber security department.

Students who take Chung’s Summer 2018 blockchain class will be able to:

• Explain the benefits of blockchain and how it differs from cryptocurrencies
• Understand blockchain architecture
• Present use cases to CEOs, devs and non-technical folks
• Design smart contracts
• Produce an architectural proposal for a real-world blockchain application

The 15-week course will cover blockchain transactions, keys, miners, distributed ledgers, blockchain wallets, hash functions, pseudonymity, Solidity, Go, private blockchain on Ethereum, Hyperledger Composer and MultiChain. Even though the class will incorporate some coding, students do not need to be strong programmers to do well.

Chung recommends starting with Blockchain Revolution by Don and Alex Tapscott and watching some YouTube videos.

Students should also capitalize on the power of the magic words, “I am a college student, and I need help.” Reach out to professionals who are already doing cool things with blockchain. Tweet to SEMs who tweet about blockchain. Ask questions on blog posts. Utilize LinkedIn. Create your own internship.

Search for and join Meetups such as Desert Blockchain. Professionals go to Meetups because they want to connect with other innovators, give back to their communities and meet and mentor (and possibly hire!) curious students.

Learning how to develop blockchain solutions will prepare students for careers as disruptors. Studying how blockchain is transforming industries such as banking and real estate will also help students to forecast, visualize and implement change in other industries such as energy, gaming, HR and cosmetics.

Interested in collaborating on a blockchain project with UAT or hosting a blockchain event on campus? Reach out to Ashley: amurry@uat.edu.

UAT Student Brett Butler’s experiences at Disney theme parks, resorts and cruises inspired him to join the maker movement. His dream job? “Working at Disney as an Imagineer!” The term Imagineer combines imagination and engineer. Brett definitely fits that description.

Brett likes to make stuff, which makes him a perfect fit for the Digital Maker and Fabrication (DMF) program here at UAT. Since he arrived on campus in the fall of 2017, Brett has spent hours tinkering away in the UAT Maker Lab. He loves playing with the laser cutter and Formlabs high resolution stereolithography (SLA) 3D printer.

Brett has been playing around with animatronics for years. He is currently building an animatronic elephant that can talk, blink and move its trunk. When Brett was in high school, he participated in the Technology Student Association’s animatronics national championship. His team created a fully animatronic bird that they 3D printed at school. “It had feathers, moved and completely worked,” Brett exclaimed.

Brett’s friends have been pestering him to make another awesome creation using one of the 3D printers at UAT. He accepted their challenge and 3D-printed a working ukulele! Then his girlfriend told him that she wanted a violin.

“I started off with a 3D-modeled violin that I used a photo reference for. From there, I printed it, checked it, printed, checked, and kept repeating until it worked,” Brett explained. “I’m actually going to have to reprint this once because it’s still not exactly perfect,” he added.

Brett turns to his fellow Digital Maker and Fabrication peers and his favorite professor, Joseph Horen, for inspiration and collaboration. “I think DMF is one of the coolest programs here. You can create something and have it in front of you. You can hold it. I think that’s amazing,” he said.

Students in the DMF program graduate with hands-on experience in produce design, product development, industrial design, digital fabrication, 3D modeling and embedded systems programming. Brett appreciates the project-based curriculum and capitalizes on Professor Horen’s offers to explore a topic or problem and then develop a project or solution and well, make it. “Joseph is always helping me figure out problems that I am having, and he’s helped me with some of the electronic components of the elephant,” Brett said.

Big dreams push Brett to keep creating. “UAT is a cool place where I can make just about anything.” Brett will undoubtedly continue to make cool stuff throughout his time at UAT.

Follow UAT on social media to keep up with Brett’s current projects and other cool tech on campus. We’re on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Voice recognition is a prominent technology that is being used in more and more places today. There is voice recognition for recognizing the speaker. This type of voice recognition is used for security (physical access and access to files in computer network).

 This is also evolving to give specific instructions/information to the speaker as well.

There is voice recognition for translation, as well. This allows for written transcripts of audio events. The benefits are not limited to ADA compliance but useful for translating into other languages and to have a searchable transcript of an event.

In both cases, artificial intelligence (AI) is utilized to have the computer learn and improve on its success of voice recognition.

While everyone has heard of Siri or Alexa for voice recognition, there are innovative uses far beyond the home or smartphone. One recent example is in forensics. A voiceprint can be created in less than two minutes of speech. Crime experts are now using voiceprints for identity of voices from wire taps. This application is unique in that it uses the sound of one’s voice rather than the shape or pattern. That means that a voice match can be found regardless of the language or accent of the person.

At UAT, we implement both of these types of voice recognition in our classes, such as AI, machine learning, and deep learning. Some of the examples of what our students have done are:

• Coding by Voice – This allows visually impaired or those driving to speak their code. The cool part is that when you write a line a code then you can say “check” and it will make sure your syntax is correct or make suggestions on corrections.
• Speech Analysis for Intent – When you send an email, write a blog, or read a news article, the content can be analyzed for intent – positive or negative. This could be used to find only positive new stories. This way, you could filter out the negative stories or blog posts. It could also be used in emailing your boss about a problem. This is important because in the written word, some meaning is lost without the actual interaction and this would help to insure that the message you want to convey has the proper intent.

Voice recognition is just one of the technologies that UAT students master – because we excel at implementing new technology as it occurs. UAT is truly a University of Advancing Technology.

In both your professional and personal life you will need to develop your emotional intelligence IQ which is usually referred to as your (EQ).

Communication is key to success in any relationship so it is very important to hone this skill of understanding the emotional state around the person that you are interacting with. An example of this is seeing someone that you want to communicate with is sad, you will naturally change your approach in how you open your conversation with them because you can visibly see they’re sad. The same would go for any other emotional state as you want to have the most pleasant experience when interacting with another person. This is the most basic way of looking at this skill set but this understanding can go much deeper along with being useful.

The understanding of emotions and the best way to manage them is a great way to ensure that you will always have a constructive interaction with anyone you meet. Keep in mind you need to be aware of your own emotions and manage them as well. Knowing your own personal tendencies with emotions will allow you to manage them to be a more effective communicator.

Having these skills allows you to effectively understand the best way to approach and communicate with another individual in any situation. This can be a very important tool if you are ever in leadership or managing people as you need to have a grasp on the best way to approach your employees. It can also be very good at diffusing tension between individuals or uplifting people that may be down.

Overall, emotional intelligence is an understanding of how people feel and work, which allows you to be a more effective communicator, motivator or leader.

UAT Robotics students took a road trip to participate in the VEX U Robotics Tournament last weekend at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona. While this is not a qualifier for VEX Worlds Championship, it does earn points for qualifying for Worlds.

This is the first year that UAT has competed in the early season competition. All of the teams from our league were invited. Early competition gives us the advantage of practicing against real opponents and seeing what the most successful teams are doing as we have time to iterate and improve before the State tournament in February.

UAT's team placed 7th overall out of 12 teams. Getting the robot up and running the day before the competition gave the programmers enough time to develop some great autonomous functionality. The team learned a lot and have some great ideas for improving the robot before the state tournament in February.