Nicole Bradford: The insistence that the digital world and the physical world are separate, that some people are still clinging to, is keeping us from designing the physical world properly into the digital world. It's overweighting the digital world. So when people are sort of like resistant to technology or resistant to games or resistant to the metaverse or all these things that they feel overwhelmed or coming, it's sort of like it's it's really sort of like this resistance to what is and that it's already blended.
Dr Rupy: Welcome to the Doctor's Kitchen podcast. The show about food, lifestyle, medicine and how to improve your health today. I'm Dr Rupy, your host. I'm a medical doctor, I study nutrition and I'm a firm believer in the power of food and lifestyle as medicine. Join me and my expert guests where we discuss the multiple determinants of what allows you to lead your best life.
Dr Rupy: Technology, the pace of change in our lives is immense. And during my relatively short span as a medic, I've witnessed vast changes in how we use technology in medicine, from the books that are now apps to the large machines that are now handheld devices. In addition to genomic sequencing and the promise of personalised medicine. And talking with me today about this whole field of transformative tech is Nicole Bradford, CEO and founder of the Willow Group and the executive director and co-founder of the Transformative Technology Lab. She co-founded and built transformativetech.org, which is a global ecosystem dedicated to educating, gathering and activating wellbeing tech founders, investors and innovators. And she helps founders leverage exponential tech for mental and emotional wellbeing, social and emotional wellness and human potential. These sound like pretty grand topics and they should be because this is really at the forefront of where we should be focusing our technology rather than just another social media platform which drives users to engage with the premise of monetising solely. Now, I'm not trying to say that technology itself is inherently bad and this podcast episode is essentially all about why technology can be a good thing in many environments as well. She's also a lecturer at Stanford University, has an MBA from Wharton School of Business and attended Singularity University's Global Solutions program. But what's even more impressive about Nicole is that she held executive positions at a number of gaming companies, including Activision, Blizzard and Disney. And as it turns out, there is a lot that we in the wellness industry can learn from those industries too. We talk about Nicole's journey to gaming, her experience working in Asia and what transformative tech actually entails, the health insights that technology can provide us and the emerging technologies that excite Nicole the most. And as always, I'm doing the thing which is the podcast recipe of the week, a recipe that reflects the topic of conversation on the pod. And this week's recipe is my easy lemon and ginger Thai curry, which you can find right now on the app. The link is in the bio. iPhone users only, I'm really sorry. Android, we are working really hard on it. You can download the app for free and it will be on the newsletter, which is also free at thedoctorskitchen.com. And I also give you something to read, listen to or watch every single week that will help you lead a healthier and happier life. I really hope you enjoy this episode. It's full of lots of insights, particularly for those who are interested in emerging technologies as I am, which is essentially why I started an app, because I know that our digital environment is just as important as our physical environment as we move toward a meta-like existence. Enjoy the podcast and right at the end, I'm going to give you some of my top tips of emerging technologies to look out for too.
Dr Rupy: Nicole, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. I am fascinated by your history as well in terms of where you came to wellbeing from. And I wonder if you can share with the audience your experience in gaming and and that sort of high-level executive world and how you got to meditation and and the work that you're doing now.
Nicole Bradford: Oh, great. Thank you for asking and thank you for having me. You know, it's um, it's a, on the surface when people think about wellbeing and think about gaming, they don't really see a strong connection, but I do. And um, I'll share with that, share that with you at the end of my story. But what was happening is that I was living in China and I was operating a game called World of Warcraft. And at the time, um, you know, this was in, you know, for six years from starting in 08. Um, and so, World of Warcraft was incredibly popular in the world still, but also at that point incredibly popular in China. And so, um, I led operations for what was essentially the largest branch of the largest stub of one of the largest games in the world. And, um, and so I did that and and I, you know, was was loving it and, you know, I was living in Shanghai and Shanghai in 08 onwards, like when the rest of the world was melting down, Shanghai was exploding in sort of like vitality and socially and, you know, so I had a really, you know, I had a pretty epic social life and I had a pretty epic job in a country where, you know, it's like when you would tell people that you worked for Blizzard, um, you know, people would just be like, oh, you know, they loved it so much as a brand. Um, you know, it's one of those things. There was just a lot of respect for the company, uh, because it actually World of Warcraft had been one of the earliest foreign games, Western games there. Um, so it was sort of like universally loved. Um, so it was just a really, you know, it was a great time in that sense. Um, but I, you know, I was, um, I had two things going on, um, that many people wouldn't know about. One, I, um, um, I thought all the time. Like all the time, nonstop. Nonstop, I just thought all the time. Um, and, um, and I had this sense that it was wearing me out. And and it felt like it was wearing me out, but I also had this sense that it was wearing me out, like ball bearings getting too much movement. And, um, and so, you know, like I would, you know, I would make a decision and then I would repeat my logic for the decision, even if I had no intention of changing my mind, I would repeat the logic for my decision over and over and over again. Like I never stopped thinking. Um, and and I think a lot of type As, you know, a lot of successful people, it's really common how much people think. Um, so that was one part. And then the other part that, um, I was pretty lonely. Um, you know, people think that often think that loneliness is a, uh, you know, a result of being alone. It's not true. There are people who are alone who are not lonely and there are people who are surrounded by people who are lonely. It's really a result of connection. is really what it's about. And, um, so I was, you know, so I I was lonely and and I thought too much and, um, I had this one month break between roles. I was moving from China to Hong Kong to do a regional role and I had a month off. And I decided to have a bit of adventure. And so I signed up for three things. One, um, I went to Bhutan, um, because I thought, when am I ever going to come back to Bhutan? Uh, two, I wanted to learn how to scuba dive, so I went to, uh, Koh Samui and, um, you know, and and signed up for a scuba diving lesson and then, I mean a scuba diving course. And then my third thing was I was going to go on one of these, you know, silent meditation retreats. And I had done, you know, um, I had done some meditation like on Insight Timer and a couple of other things, but it was like, you know, it was more like relaxation on pillow versus like true meditation. And so I went to Japan for this, uh, Goenka style Vipassana retreat. And I think it was really the right, the absolute right medicine for me, um, because, uh, Goenka style Vipassana, um, is very body-based. It's a very kinesthetic meditation technique in that you take your consciousness through the body. And the and you know, and for and for type As who like goals, it's like you are like success or do doing it right means taking your mind, you know, bit by bit through your body, bit by bit by bit by bit. And I think the counterpoint to thinking, you know, being like forced into my body on such a deep level for 10 days straight, 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. And then also, you know, when you're, I mean, have you been on a deep retreat?
Dr Rupy: I haven't been on a retreat where we do one form of meditation throughout. I've I've been on some where we do multiple. Like, uh, one of my earliest experiences of meditation outside of what my parents taught me when I was a teenager was actually when I went to Thailand and I spent some time in a monastery, um, with some with some Buddhist monks. And we would do sweeping, uh, a lot, and then we would do different forms of meditation as well. Um, usually transcendental, so, you know, mantra, repeating it in your head, that that kind of stuff. Um, but not one where the focus of the retreat is is literally just doing one thing at a time. It was usually quite broken up and for a shorter period of time.
Nicole Bradford: Okay, well, you're, uh, so one, that's amazing. Um, and, you know, and different meditation techniques really work for different people. Like they're really, they're so, they're so different. Um, you know, we can talk a little bit later. I, I helped develop a, a program called the Finders course, which helps people, um, identify which techniques really work for them. Um, and so, you know, as a result, it just sort of like covered a lot of ground. But, you know, one of the things that does happen for everybody out there, um, when you do a lot of meditation is that, um, you start, you also meditate while you're asleep. It starts to like, you know, when you're on retreat, it starts to go the entire time. Um, and so, you know, I think what happened for me is, you know, these two parts came together, mind and body. And when that happened, I had, um, I had this, um, I had an extraordinary psychological shift. You know, it was like really tough and then it's a 10-day retreat and like starting on day six is when it kicked in, is when it happened. Um, I felt absolute pure bliss. I felt like I was mainlining the universe, truly. Um, but the most important thing is that I felt connected. You know, like I felt, um, unlonely. You know, and, um, and really truly for the first time of my life, because even when I was a little kid, I felt lonely, you know. Um, and so it just was sort of thing, it just sort of like touched me so much that, you know, within a year, I had moved back to the US, I had gotten out of gaming. You know, people thought I was absolutely wacko and insane to have left a, you know, a career trajectory like that. Um, but I also, because I had had such a, you know, a strong background in gaming and such a love of technology, um, my conclusion wasn't to like start a monastery or something like that. It was that, um, technology and, you know, human, you know, health, growth and potential could be combined, that they that they could go into the same place. And at that point, like, you know, back then, you know, the only meditation app that was out there was Insight Timer. Calm hadn't actually been, I think Calm was founded that year. Um, and so it was a radical idea. And I was introduced by a mutual friend to someone else who had had that radical idea, uh, Jeffrey Martin, who is more focused on enlightenment and technology. Um, you know, and for me, I'm interested in that part too, but, you know, there's 8 billion people on the planet and, you know, we're at a very, um, we're at a unique point in history. You know, and every generation thinks that, you know, they're at a unique point in history, but we really are because we possess the, you know, we're we're at that point, we possess the ability to destroy ourselves in a way that we didn't before. You know, uh, and and destroy ourselves completely. Um, you know, and we're at this inflection point where, um, you know, we have, you know, to describe it polarly, we have two really clear possibilities. One looks more like Hunger Games and one looks more like Starfleet. And we're right here right now, like this next decade is about that. And, you know, and so, you know, rightly or wrongly, I mean, the age of extraction, which we're coming out of, for all of its flaws, um, there are also, you know, more people getting, you know, nutrition than ever before. I mean, people point to the opposite and they say, oh, there's more obese people, but it's like, if you actually like zoom out, there's more people getting, you know, enough nutrition every day than ever before in the history of mankind. There's more girls in school than ever before in the history of mankind. There's more electricity, you know, than ever before in the history of mankind. So there's there's a lot of things that when you zoom out, it's extraordinary. And so now we have to make that flip from the age of extraction to sort of like the age of freedom. The thing that I think is really the the key is the human mindset, human psychology, human consciousness, human connection. You know, it's it's the whole inner landscape. You know, where, you know, we attended to a long time ago in actually in our agrarian societies, but there was a, you know, there's a there was a it was a lot wrong with those societies too. You know, it's like I I'm I think probably because I'm a African-American female, I don't have a lot of nostalgia. You know, like I don't have a lot of nostalgia, uh, you know, or this idea that the that there was this perfect golden age where we were all awesome to each other. That's BS. We were like, we've never had that. We've had pockets of awesome, but we've never had like, you know, universal awesome. We've had pockets of awesome for some people. But walk 100 miles in a direction outside of your pocket of awesome and it can quickly go to non-awesome for you. Um, and so, you know, the the net of my work really, whether it's, um, my interest in, you know, technology to help with depression and PTSD and or technology to support, uh, preparation and integration for psychedelics or, you know, technology to do remote neurological monitoring, uh, for, you know, patients with issues or, you know, um, or the metaverse, you know, which is like, you know, the the the digital layers that will be added to our physical layers, which is sort of where gaming comes in and and how does it support the development of our inner nature? Um, you know, in a in a healthy and positive way. Um, all of that is sort of like a part of the next chapter. Um, and and a part of like one of the the core ingredients for us being able to make this jump from the age of extraction to the age of freedom and this next decade which will decide is it Starfleet or is it Hunger Games?
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah. And I guess this kind of comes down to your central thinking around how tech has the ability to scale both novel learnings that we we have as well as the wisdom of of ancient medicine and meditation, all the other features of connection that are so central to human beings, um, like compassion, for example. And and I do want to talk about the founder's course because I think it's it's fascinating that we haven't really thought about suiting, uh, which meditation technique or which mindfulness technique is better for certain people. I mean, I personally enjoy the breadth of different mindfulness techniques, whether it be breathing, whether it be, uh, TM, um, whether it be some techniques that my my parents, whose heritage comes from India, taught me when I was was a kid. Um, but before we get to that, you touched on something about loneliness when you were a child. And I'm also fascinated about how you got into gaming itself. Was that something that stemmed from from childhood as well?
Nicole Bradford: Yeah, you know, uh, what it was was I, um, you know, I, um, so, you know, I grew up in Houston, Texas in the 80s and, um, you know, believe it back like like like I didn't date anyone until I got to college because there was no interracial dating. And I grew up in a white neighborhood. So there was no interracial dating in Texas in 80s and 90s. Like that just didn't happen, you know. It was like such a big deal like when Dominique Devereaux showed up on Dynasty. Like, oh my God.
Dr Rupy: We we got Dynasty over here in the UK a little bit later. So I I remember vividly my parents watching, uh, when I was a kid and we were like addicted to the program. Anyone who's listening who doesn't know what Dynasty was, like this amazing soap, uh, that came from the US. It was, and that was, yeah, it was a pivotal moment.
Nicole Bradford: It was a pivotal moment. And so, um, and so I used to watch Star Trek. And when Star Trek was on, you couldn't get me to do anything. You couldn't talk to me, you couldn't get me, like, you couldn't, you couldn't even speak to me. And so for me, what it really was was like seeing a, you know, seeing a representation of the future where humanity had for the most part decided that they were on the same team. You know, and not only were there, um, not only, you know, was it a, you know, a meritocratic society, uh, but there were brown people there. You know, which is how like I knew that, you know, I make it, you make it. You know. So there were brown people there. It was a meritocratic society. Um, humanity had decided it was on the same page and technology was a really big part of their lives. You know, and and it just like it just bloomed in my mind. Uh, so that was one part. Then the second part was, um, so I was always pro technology, always interested in technology, always like, you know, getting the first thing, you know, um, and then also, um, you know, I'm a writer, you know, um, and I'm a creative. Um, and so, you know, I had this sense that, um, I was really interested in how humanity tells its stories. You know, because that's how we understand who we are and what we're doing are the stories that we tell ourselves. And then, you know, as you get deeper and deeper into psychology, then you really understand how, you know, story takes on a different definition, but it really is and, you know, if you think sort of like to Yuval Harari's work where he talks about, you know, what is the difference between us and the intelligence of the natural world. Um, part of it is our, you know, our OS is our language that allows us to tell stories, that allows us to cross genetic lines. Um, you know, in ways that even supremely intelligent other species don't. You know, um, and so, you know, really it's like that's a, that's that's a key part of it. And so for me, games when I was in business school and I was trying to figure out which direction to go into, something that really resonated with me and felt, you know, felt truly, truly, you know, resonant with my heart, uh, is that it was like clear to me even then that games were the next evolution in human storytelling. You know, that these that this these digital layers were going to arrive, um, and that it could be a place where we could, um, grow and evolve in addition to what we do in the real. I mean, I think one of the places where where I'm at, like, um, and this is a little, you know, this is a viewpoint that not many people share yet. Um, but it's basically that, you know, for me, I think that the digital and the physical layer are already one. Like it's already one. So if you were to, if you were to, um, get a visualization on all the Bluetooth devices in your house that are already talking to each other, um, you know, when you walk past someone else's cell phone, um, they all ping each other and your cell phone says no. No, no, no, no, no, no, until it says yes. So there there actually is like a, you know, if you could if you could only see in data and signal, you would see a web covering the world. Plus the internet, plus the hard lines. So it already exists. You know, the short of it is that the insistence that the digital and the physical layer are separate is keeping us from designing the physical world properly into the digital world. It's overweighting the digital world. So when people are sort of like resistant to technology or resistant to games or resistant to the metaverse or all these things that they feel overwhelmed or coming, it's sort of like it's it's really sort of like this resistance to what is and that it's already blended. If we said it was, you know, if they're already one world and we developed some design principles that include things that might include things like, you know, anything that you create needs to have a human in the loop. Anything that you create digitally needs to have someone go outside as a part of it. You know, um, we could we could design it to, you know, to be inclusive, uh, but because we say, oh no, this is over here and that's over there, you have the physical designers who are not truly benefiting from the digital space and you have the digital designers that are not truly benefiting from the physical space. And and ultimately, you know, I think where we need to get is, you know, everything according to its best use. So, you know, we should use the digital world and the immersive world to do things that defy the laws of physics. We should use the augmented world to to add to our senses. You know, right now when people think of augmentation, you know, a lot of times the the the the creativity is limited to this idea of like Facebook on your face. Like I go to a party or LinkedIn on your face. So like I go to a party or an event and I can like scan your profile and see if I want to network with you. You know, that's like, that's such a lack of imagination. More so, you know, what would be amazing is, um, you know, I walk through the forest and I can hear the mycelial network. And it sounds like music to me. Or I go to a Beyonce concert and I can because I've got my smart shirt on, you know, I can feel 100,000 heartbeats on my skin. You know, and we're like absolutely able to go into a state together because, you know, we can already do that around a fire. You know, from the ancient. So, you know, using technology to help us do that together. Um, like that's that's interesting augmentation. Um, and then the the last part would be, you know, for me, all of these technology tools, the point of them is so that, you know, the moment that I actually get into the same room with you, that I'm really ready for the moment. You know, that I'm like, I'm able to be connected, I'm able to be vulnerable, I'm able to, you know, articulate my wants and needs. I know what I'm feeling. You know, so that when I get the opportunity to sit across the table from you and to have a coffee with you or a tea or like sit in your garden, that I'm really truly like, you know, able to be there fully. And the technology should allow, should be helping us get to that point so that we can be truly deeply human together. And to me, that's how it all works together.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. And and I think this is why it's so interesting talking to you specifically about it because I feel that your experience in gaming, um, and and now transforming into wellbeing, wellness and and what you do with transformative technology is giving you, uh, an edge, um, an unfair advantage if you like, because you understand, uh, creativity, you understand gaming, you understand lateral thinking and thinking outside the box. And I and I feel, particularly obviously during the pandemic, we're having a moment here where remote solutions are super important. We're reliant on that. Um, we have avatars, um, gaming is massive as is esports. Memes appear to be the native language of the internet where we can communicate such vivid ideas through simple imagery, um, that people share and and it, you know, can be used for both good and bad, but but certainly there's the positive element to it as well. Do you feel that? Do you feel like you've had like almost like a, a step up because of your experience in gaming and and and the fact that you're an author as well?
Nicole Bradford: You know, I mean it's been, um, you know, it's one of those things, it's been interesting. It's like, you know, being early is the same as being wrong. So I've had moments over the last seven years where I was like, what did I do? Like, what have I done? Um, and so, you know, 2020 was the year that, um, you know, I guess 2020 was the year that that I became right. You know, and it's interesting too is it's like, you know, the the process of being early, um, and then, you know, I also used the time to do a lot of meditation and a bunch of other things and, you know, and and sort of like the painful process of being early, um, scraped off like, you know, scraped off like a whole lot of ego of any kind. You know what I mean? It just really is sort of like, you know, it's it's interesting. I have a friend who has a whole course on, um, entrepreneurship as a spiritual path.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Nicole Bradford: And it really is when you build something, you know, uh, if if you allow it to be, like some people approach the building of something as, um, it's very, um, well, let me put it like this. It's sort of like, if you, if you allow it to be, the building of something can be your greatest spiritual endeavor. Um, because, you know, when you create and build something and put it before the the crowds and put it before the market and put it before, um, employees and put it before all of this things, you know, if you, if you allow it to scrape off the shale, you know, the the you that's on the other side of that because it's so, you know, there's like endless stories about, you know, founder depression, founder psychology, founder, all of those things. It can be the greatest spiritual path that that's out there. Um, and so, you know, in my years of being early, um, I got to a place where, you know, though I am now right, it doesn't really matter to me. I just want to make good stuff and help people make good stuff.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. Well that well that's a nice segue into transformative technology and and what that is actually, um, because I'm fascinated by the different areas in which you, um, you review and you analyze, uh, because those are certainly areas that I'm absolutely fascinated by. But why don't we start by talking about what transformative technology actually is?
Nicole Bradford: Okay, well, let me give you a really great example that I think would be, um, interesting to your audience. Um, you know, one company that I I love a lot is Viome. And, um, you know, and so right now, they do things like, I mean, the core of it is they sequence your gut biome to help you, uh, know what's really good for you to eat. Because it's actually really complex out there. It's really hard to figure out what's right for you. There actually is insignificant data. You know, like, like, like actual data across populations. And the reality is that it's like, you know, we don't really know as much as we do about other sort of sciences. And, um, and then, you know, for example, in the US, um, you know, the two entities that touch food at all, um, their stakeholders are not consumers. One is the Department of Ag, which agriculture, which was set up to support farmers. And when it was set up, it was to support individual farmers because that was the reality when that department was developed and now they're mostly corporate farms. So they are advocates for corporate farms, uh, which isn't necessarily about nutrition. Um, you know, and then there's the, you know, and then there's there's a couple of other agencies that are just about like, you know, labels and stuff like that. But not one of them has consumers or eaters as their in their mission as to who they, uh, you know, as to who they serve. And so in the US, there's only, there's only one funded, maybe there's two. There's either one or two, um, funded chairs on nutrition at universities in the entire country.
Dr Rupy: Wow.
Nicole Bradford: Uh, I don't know what the UK is like, but the the bottom line is that we don't actually know. And so what Viome does that's really interesting is one, they they help you figure out because like, you know, one of the things that Naveen likes to say, it's like, you know, everybody says spinach is good for you. But spinach could actually be bad for someone in particular. And he found out that spinach was actually bad for him in his quest to get younger.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. We we had him, we had him and Momo on the pod, uh, a couple of weeks ago talking about that story actually about how he found out it was it was spinach and I think it was broccoli that he found out were universally bad for him according to the test results.
Nicole Bradford: Yeah, yeah. And and but what I love is the vision that they express that, you know, at some one day, you should be able to, like like their, one of the things that they're working towards is being able to treat depression in the grocery store. You know, they don't talk as much about that. I don't know if they talked about that, but they don't talk as much about that because, you know, they're being very deliberate about their science, which is the way to go. Um, they're taking it step by step by step. They're slowly accumulating the largest database of poo. You know, that's out there and then matching that to psychological state. You know, like one of the things people, people on your podcast probably heard that, you know, with almost a 99% um, exactness, you can identify someone with schizophrenia from their from their stool. So if you can identify that in the stool, there's probably other things in this giant, you know, mixed in this giant bag of chemicals and neurotransmitters and that connection between the brain and the body for all of the different states, including depression. Right now, you know, we have so many people on SSRIs. Um, there's some really interesting links, um, that are not causation yet, it's more correlation between the level of inflammation in the body and depression. Um, and so, you know, if these guys are able to figure out or able to see like a tie between the gut biome and and inflammation and inflammation and, you know, um, documented psychological state, then how interesting would it be to be able to, you know, take half the people who are on SSRIs and just put them on a diet instead. Maybe it's just an inflammation problem. Now, this isn't everybody, this is not science yet. But, you know, all science begins with a thesis and then developing a test and then testing that hypothesis. So, so that's the the potential thesis and that's really powerful. And to me, that's a, you know, that takes someone where it's like you would look at Viome and you would be like, how is that a transformative tech? Well, it's like if they can transform the human mind through the gut, then to me, it's solidly a transformative tech. Or I have another friend who's working on something, which is, I don't know if you've heard about this, but it's crazy. Um, the, um, basically the stress hormones in, um, food.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Nicole Bradford: So, uh, transfer into the body.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Nicole Bradford: And and I heard this from, uh, Jun Yoon, who is just like an amazing person. We should get him on your podcast actually.
Dr Rupy: Okay. Uh-huh.
Nicole Bradford: Um, you know, Jun is someone who routinely just, um, covers, um, you know, he's a, he's a very wealthy person. Um, he's had a lot of success. He's a medical doctor and he routinely puts his weight behind things that have a lot of leverage, uh, including he, you know, developed the first longevity prize. And so you can sort of like Kevin Bacon a lot of longevity progress to those that initial prize. Uh, but more broadly, the net of transformative tech is it's basically leveraging technology to support mental health, emotional wellbeing and social wellness. It's for, you know, human health, happiness and performance. And so it's like all of that inner landscape. Um, you know, and and and, um, you know, I'm interested and talk to people who are working on food things. I talk to people who are working on games. I talk to people who are working on cities, uh, future cities. Um, you know, I talk to people who are making VR. I'm a leading a panel next week where, um, you know, people are working on smell. You know, it's the only unmediated sense and can go a long way to how human beings feel. Um, and so those sorts of things.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, I I I think those areas in which you study and analyze are, um, are fascinating because it's really untapped potential. Um, from from listening and and and reading some of your work, you know, healthy spaces is something I bang on about a lot on the podcast because you can change what people eat, but if they're living in an urbanized environment and they don't have community, they don't have spaces to breathe clean air, it's it's not going to move the needle. Um, and I think, um, something else I've heard you talk about was, uh, emotion recognition. And so I I do some teaching at UCL Medical School as part of my culinary medicine program to junior doctors, um, sorry, uh, medical students who are prospective junior doctors. And one of the things I've I've, uh, recognized is that they're experiencing, um, evaluation fatigue. It's like feedback fatigue. They're constantly being asked to give feedback about how did you like this lesson or like, how did you feel about this? Where do you think it was? And if you could use some sort of technology that read people's emotional, uh, changes on their face, it would sort of give you some some feedback as to whether they are delivering value from this or they're being taught in the right way. Have you have you come across some technologies like like that?
Nicole Bradford: Absolutely. Um, probably one of the most established ones and then this isn't going to surprise you is, um, China. And, um, there's a, there's a company called VIP Kids. And, uh, they were the first to do it, but now most of them do it. And, um, what they did, what their innovation was, um, is motion recognition to understand when a Chinese student, um, doesn't understand what their teacher is saying. Um, and so, you know, the the Chinese culture and school system is not one, you know, like it's it's not to be known, be one that, you know, like, let me say it like this, it's not Montessori, right? And they don't really speak up. Um, and so VIP Kids, um, matches Chinese kids with, um, Americans who speak English well, you know, it's like they're not even teachers, but the the the they're actually they are teachers, but, um, it's really about learning conversational because it's like we all have, you know, we all have a language that we can read, but we can't speak because we don't just don't speak it. And so what VIP Kids does is, um, on the teacher's side, there's a panel that, you know, and and machine learning is very, it's like people are afraid of, you know, what's called AGI, advanced general intelligence, but there's very little AI in the world. Most of the AI in the world is actually incredibly narrow about what it can do. You know, it all depends on what the data set is and what it's been trained on. And so, um, VIP Kids has got a great data set on finding out when Chinese kids don't understand what Americans are saying. It's like really very narrow. But what it does is like as the teacher is working with the kids, um, they, um, they have like a little, uh, indicator on their side that shows confusion. You know, it's trained on Chinese kids' faces when they are confused and so it shows confusion. It doesn't show it on the kids' side, it just shows it on the teacher's side. So when the teacher can see that the kid doesn't understand, they just stay on that point. And they just stay there and they stay there and they stay there and they don't move ahead. So, you know, when you hear a lot about, you know, kids falling behind in school, it's usually, like especially with math or things like that, it's usually it's like one thing, you know, that they didn't quite understand and then it all falls apart after that. And especially it's really that way with mathematics. You know, if you miss one or two early concepts that you don't understand, mathematics completely falls apart for you.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Nicole Bradford: For me, it was, uh, it was a certain type of fraction. You know, uh, and we moved when we were learning, I moved as a kid when we were learning this type of fraction. You know, and then it just like never caught, I never caught up again, uh, to the extent that I probably could have if I had not missed that one thing. Um, and so that's what VIP Kids solves for. And in a really measurable standpoint, it's like, you know, the the Chinese, um, school system is, um, straight up Thunderdome. Like it really is like what happens in the Chinese school system that many people don't know is it's still the same school system from like the age of the emperors. It really is. Every year, you test in or you test out.
Dr Rupy: Okay.
Nicole Bradford: Every single year. And it's so intense that parents take two weeks off during the testing, the national testing. And if you test out at every age, you become unable to go to university, like the big universities. And it starts when they're little. So they test out, you test in or you test out every single year of your life until you get to university. Um, and so it's brutal. And that includes if you, you know, so like these tests are really important. And so VIP Kids with this emotion recognition, you know, measurable improvement on the English test. Measurable, speaking, you know, like measurable, measurable, you know, their success rate of like of language acquisition for English for kids who are, you know, taking English, measurable, dramatically measurable. From that as soon as that happened, you know, there's a lot of, uh, uh, fast following in China. So as soon as that happened, you know, like all the other companies did it.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can imagine. Yeah.
Nicole Bradford: Um, but that was they were the first. And so absolutely.
Dr Rupy: Well let's stick with that subject because I I think the way I learned, right, um, a large proportion of my education was rote learning. Um, particularly when I was at medical school, it was just learning lots of things that I had to remember. Whereas now we live in an age where infinite, um, information is available in our pocket. Um, and it and I feel that we won't need, uh, that drive to parrot learn things anymore. So so where do you think tech could help us become more, um, uh, productive and more, uh, a better value proposition, uh, earlier on rather than the current system that we have? Because it sounds like testing out is not really conducive to a future where tech is sort of unanimous with with everything that we do.
Nicole Bradford: Yeah, um, that's a really good point. You know, the the entire balance of, you know, human knowledge is on, like everything that human knows, humanity knows is on the internet at this point. So to, you know, to have a a corner on what can be learned or trained is to have a corner on something that makes you replaceable.
Dr Rupy: Exactly.
Nicole Bradford: Um, and and also simultaneously, one of the other things that happened during COVID that people don't notice is that automation accelerated by, you know, I would say seven to 10 years. Um, because people like lots of things people like, oh, humans are going to do that. It's like, you know, they started getting rid of it really fast. So that has sped up. And so, you know, what's happening is that you've got this rise of the software line that anything wrote goes is going to go to software. But what is non-wrote is, um, humans solving problems together, being creative, collaborating, you know, and like, you know, having sort of jazz together that creates new things. You know, technology can only really do what it can point at. Um, and so, yeah, you've heard about, you know, um, you know, AI coming up with ways to, you know, solve puzzles in ways that there's humans did not intend, but it still was in sort of like a subset of things, you know. Um, and so for, you know, until we get to AGI, which I still think is a while away, um, you know, we're at a place where, you know, what humans have an angle on is like being truly, deeply human. Um, and, you know, the skills for being, you know, you know, um, establishing trust, um, being creative, being collaborative, those are the things that we are not taught in school that we are expected to pick up from the culture. And so that is really the place where, um, you know, those are the future skills. Um, and those are the future of work skills and that's what work is shifting to, all of it. Um, collaboration and creativity and innovation. Um, that is what people will get compensated for. The people get compensated the most will be the ones who do that. Um, and, you know, so our educational system should really be about, you know, um, not knowledge but wisdom. You know, not data but insight. You know, um, and uh, those types of things. And so yes, I I do think a lot about like, well, okay, how do you apply, you know, technology in this way? Um, and so certainly there are cases that are sort of like, you know, you could see it in remote work, you can see it in sort of like remote gaming. Um, I think there's all sorts of ways to do it. Um, you know, and so I spend a lot of my time actually, I speak a lot on the future of work, um, and ways to foster innovation inside of organizations, um, that also lines up to the technology you could use to support it.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, on on that, the technology that could potentially support creativity, is there is there a way to like hack creativity and and create, um, I don't know, flow in a team environment as well as to an individual as well? Are there things on the horizon that could induce that?
Nicole Bradford: There's interesting things that I'm looking at, but you know, one of the keys for innovation, uh, is psychological safety. And psychological safety and being nice are not the same thing. Um, you know, uh, Google did a big project called Project Aristotle where they were trying to understand who were the most, uh, productive teams. Um, and there they had very clear metrics. It was sort of like level of innovation, um, and, um, and basically, you know, the the like the value, the net return on investment that particular teams, you know, delivered back to Google. Um, and so they they set out and and initially they thought that, you know, teams with like the brightest engineers would be the most innovative, you know, creating the most innovations inside the organization. Um, and ultimately what they found after years of study was that it was the teams where there was the greatest psychological safety. And what that means is the, you know, psychological safety means, um, you feel safe to take risks with this group of people. And that risk could be, nope, you're wrong. Or it could be, what about this? What about this? What about this? Because when human beings are working in groups, that's where the creativity comes from. You know, it's the way that we play off of one another. You know, um, and it would be sort of like, you know, psychological safety means I feel comfortable disagreeing with you too, because, you know, what dampens creativity is group think.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nicole Bradford: So one hand, you have to have, it has to have enough, um, you know, it has to have enough trust so that, um, you know, you can avoid group think. Um, you know, and it has to have enough trust that you can like throw out crazy ideas.
Dr Rupy: Yeah.
Nicole Bradford: And know that you're not going to be ostracized from the tribe for it. And so it's sort of like, it's like this Goldilocks zone. And and the the best, you know, the the the most productive teams were ones where leaders could create this Goldilocks zone where people felt that they could do that. Um, so it was rigorous, lots of accountability, but also, you know, you know, freedom to ideate.
Dr Rupy: Yeah, it it reminds me, it makes me think of two things. So, a, the confidence to be vulnerable in a in a group environment and not be ridiculed for coming up with some crazy idea that could actually be, you know, the next Airbnb. Uh, and the second thing, it reminds me of a book by Matthew Syed called Rebel Ideas about why diversity is so important for the evolution of ideas and, uh, the overall productivity of a team or whatever business environment or cultural environment it might be. Um, because if you don't have that, then you have what you said, group think essentially.
Nicole Bradford: Yeah.
Dr Rupy: Yeah. I I was also going to talk, I'm I'm actually creating an app myself. It's going to be like the head space for healthy eating where people can choose what they want to eat for in terms of health goals. And we've done a lot of the academic research and it's going to be a library of recipes that connect with them online supermarkets. So maybe we can we can talk about that another time.
Nicole Bradford: Great. Absolutely. And what I would love for you to add to that is, um, there's some interesting things that are coming up with, um, I would love for you to have a thing that allows for continuous glucose monitoring.
Dr Rupy: Oh yeah, yeah.
Nicole Bradford: Um, and then and then I would love for you, so I would love for you to have, um, uh, glucose monitoring with it and I would love for you to also have mood tracking and you could do it off the camera and some other things with permission because if people could get a sense of how they're, you know, like food is mood and anything that you could do to establish that as a, you know, as a science and get enough data sets so that it becomes really clear is really like that's like such an important thing that we need to do. And if that's if you make that sort of tie, then it becomes transformative tech and we can talk more about it.
Dr Rupy: Epic. Yeah, that sounds awesome.
Dr Rupy: As promised at the start of the podcast, I was going to give you some of my top tips to look out for in terms of emerging wellness technology. The first one is something that I've talked about at length before actually with a few other guests on the podcast, and that is genomic sequencing. Now, a lot of the genetic sequencing tests that you find on the internet and uh consumer facing, uh don't have A, robust technology and B, robust counselling either. So the ones that I recommend are ones that you have to go via a professional genetic counsellor/nutritionist/uh dietitian, uh because I think the interpretation of the data is super, super important. So please don't uh ever forget that, you know, it's quite hard um to to do these tests alone without adequate support. So always go for those ones. I think another area, the second area is definitely going to be the microbiota sequencing. Now, we're we're still at a point at this uh stage in the technology that is available to us where metabolomic sequencing and uh microbiome tests uh do have a degree of vagueness to them to put it lightly. So we can tell some very basic things about our microbiota, but we can't really personalize recommendations on everything that we have at this point. There are a few other companies that were mentioned on this podcast as well, uh and we've had the founders of Viome uh previously as well, where there are some insights that could be useful. However, I think overall, looking at the technology, it's still pretty early. Uh again, it's something that I recommend always having a practitioner guide you through the process because at the end of the day, I've done some of these tests and it goes well over my head as well and I could potentially bring myself um to having a restrictive diet if I'd interpreted it incorrectly, which a lot of people do, unfortunately. So that's definitely one to look out for and there are a few other companies uh bringing that technology to uh consumers with adequate uh interpretation and uh coaches uh as well in the UK. An area that I think, again, another controversial area, I think everything is pretty controversial until it becomes the the the main stay of um of how we just do things. Another area is continuous glucose monitoring, something that we did mention on the podcast. I'm actually experimenting with uh a number of different continuous glucose monitoring devices and calibrating them against the gold standard, which is a finger prick test. And um a lot of them are pretty inaccurate, I'll be honest. Uh I'm not going to name any names uh of which ones are more inaccurate than others, but there's definitely a degree of straying away from the gold standard, which is your your finger prick test, uh which which if anyone who is a type one or type two diabetic will attest to, can be quite painful if you have to keep on doing that. I think the premise of having a a continuous glucose monitor for people who do not have type one diabetes or um are type uh two or type one uh and are just looking to to have some insights around food. I think that actually does hold some value, but one of the things that I've definitely noticed is it can make people very anxious about what they eat. And I can even tell amongst in myself, having knowledge about what my sugar is doing after everything I eat or drink, um is interesting on one hand, but it is also something that can get a bit obsessive as well. So I actually think you've got to be quite careful about the degree to how much you you look into all of these wearables. And it's something I'm going to be chatting with a few guests about in the future episodes as well, including some that use continuous glucose monitors and have done for many years. Um and I'd be really interested in finding out about their insights uh to that too. The other advent is actually uh using computational methods to take in a variety of data sources because right now, we look at things through the lens of uh singular sources, um you know, whether it's your bloods or whether it's uh your your response to to uh certain diets uh based on your glucose. Actually combining all of those different data sets and interpreting that with a view to optimizing your diet is very interesting. And I think that's where the value would lie rather than looking at a singular lens. And when we get to that point where we can actually take those different sources of data to provide information to the end user, I think that will be interesting. But again, with the premise of, well, how does this change management? And there's no point in doing all this funky stuff with all this amazing bits of technology if you can't change someone's environment or give them the tools to eat well every day. And that's essentially why I started the app because I wanted to do the simplest thing first, which is to get people to cook from scratch where possible and make it easy to eat well every single day and give them the cultural experience, the variety, the excitement of eating delicious food every single day with the advantageousness of uh it being evidence-based and nice looking through all the different data sources to help people eat toward their health goals. So lots more to discuss on this topic. I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and I will be talking about a lot of this stuff over the next couple of months too. And until then, I will see you here next time.
