Getting Simple

Nate Peters on democratizing design tools and using his design skills for good, dealing with internet junk, potential misuses of machine learning, and more. Nate Peters is a computational designer and software developer with experience in design optimization, digital fabrication, and machine learning. Nate received his Master of Design Studies in Technology from the Harvard Graduate School of Desi...

Harvard University's Andrew Witt on the power of ruminating ideas, understanding complex problems, curating signals, geometric simplicity, introspective automation, and finding time for reflection. Andrew Witt is co-founder, with Tobias Nolte, of Certain Measures, a Boston/Berlin-based office for design futures and an Associate Professor in Practice of Architecture at Harvard University. Trained a...

Scott H. Young on quickly mastering hard skills, acquiring knowledge, and becoming good at things that seem impossible to you right now. Scott H. Young is an author, entrepreneur, and ultralearner . After learning MIT's 4-year computer science curriculum in less than twelve months, Scott taught himself four new languages in a year. In his book Ultralearning , Scott shares the principles and method...

Technologist and artist Cristóbal Valenzuela on powering your creative work with artificial intelligence, co-founding RunwayML to put machine learning in the hands of creators, and his take on simple living and creativity. Cristóbal Valenzuela is a technologist, artist and software developer interested in the intersection between artificial intelligence and creative tools. He is co-founder of Runw...

Artist and illustrator Pier Gustafson on living a simple life with what makes him smile, the messy creative process behind projects, clients, and deadlines, and being an artist in the twenty-first century. Pier is an artist who presently designs maps, monograms, logos, invitations and other illustrations usually for print. His passion is drawing. Though he explores various media from simple pencil...

Panagiotis Michalatos on the luxury of choosing to be simple and the emerging trend of simplicity, the power of intuition, questioning our creative interfaces and workflows, and his love for screens. Pan Michalatos is an architect, lecturer in architecture technology at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and a Principal Research Engineer at Autodesk. Between 2006 and 2010 he worked as a comput...

Nono Martínez Alonso on forgetting who you were trying to help, the main point behind creating tools, and the case of Machina, with Jose Luis García del Castillo y López. Computer programs help us do things we couldn't do before. Often, programs provide new ways of doing what we were already able to do — faster, easier, more precisely — fostering experimentation and unleashing our creative potenti...

CEO of NuVu, Saba Ghole, on creating an innovation school & reinventing high school education; growth mindset; art and design as expressive mediums; changing places; simple life habits; technology; and more. Opportunities to talk to people like Saba Ghole and learn about how they understand life and what drives them to do what they do every day, is what moves me to continue with the Getting Si...

Tesla's Matt Jezyk on his rituals to slow down and stay afloat amongst all the things competing for your attention; embracing change and automation; techniques to be more creative; the rationale behind his ten-year life cycles; why he just transitioned from Autodesk to Tesla; and a lot more. Matt works as the Sr. Staff Software Engineer at Tesla in the group that designs and builds the "Gigaf...

Antonio García Guerra, PhD from the University of Oxford, on the importance of physical activity, social time, and information to be more creative and perform at your maximum cognitive capacity. Antonio Garcia Guerra is a recently graduated PhD student from the University of Oxford. He was born in Badajoz (Spain), but grew up by the sea in Málaga. In his own words, "The sun didn't wash the ne...

Craig Long on how life is in the moments you didn't expect, quieting your inner intensity, helping others achieve complex goals when they don't know where to start, remote working, and disconnecting from technology. Craig grew up in the mountains of Wyoming wanting to be an architect, and studied architectural engineering with an emphasis in mathematics at University of Kansas. He currently works...

Co-creator of "Processing" and founder of Fathom Information Design — Ben Fry (@ben_fry) — on the beginnings of the Processing programming environment, the use of information design and visualization to understand complicated data problems, and his approach to design, life, & work. Ben Fry is founder and principal of Fathom Information Design, a studio in Boston focused on understand...

Artist, designer, and educator Jiyoo Jye on the struggles of making art and choosing your projects; education at an innovation school as a creative; when to share your work and the role of feedback; media consumption and technology; and her approach to a simpler, greener life. Jiyoo is a visual artist, designer & educator. She works at NuVu Innovation School, where students learn within an arc...

Researcher Nathan Melenbrink on his research on simple robots, teaching, his efforts to bring news neutrality to the internet, liking new things, acquiring taste, and much more. Nathan is a Fellow in Computer Science at the Wyss Institute, where his research focuses on swarm robotics for construction. He has taught courses related to design, computation, robotics and CAD/CAM at institutions such a...

Host Nono Martínez Alonso gives a brief overview of what's new and what's coming to Getting Simple over the next months. Discover who's up next on The Getting Simple Podcast in September, October, and November 2018. This month's interview features Ian Keough — The Father of Dynamo — who shares insights on working remotely full time, getting started with a startup, the flow state, and a lot more. N...

Hypar's Ian Keough on automating the generation of the built environment to help stakeholders make better decisions faster, writing code from his garage. Ian Keough ( @ikeough ) is the founder of Hypar. He writes code from his garage to automate the generation of the built environment to help stakeholders make better decisions faster. Trained as a fine artist and architect—and known as The Father...

Saurabh Mhatre talks about the simplicity behind deployable systems, the chaos of taking pictures, mindful photography, material science, social media, productivity tools, and more. Saurabh grew up and studied architecture in Mumbai. He holds a Master in Design Studies with a focus on technology from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he currently explores ho...

Julia Hayden talks about how our actions affect the planet, ways to fight our throw-away society and minimize waste, her love for tiny houses, and a lot more. Self-defined environmental activist, Julia believes her studies at Connecticut College in Environmental Studies and Botany made the ways in which her actions affect the planet be present in her daily life. She is conscious of the lifecycle o...

Peter Boyer (@ptrbyr) talks about his efforts to run away from notifications and centralized technologies toward decentralized, encrypted-by-default alternatives; and also about self-driving cars, being in relation with nature, addictive technologies, uses of machine learning for design, and a lot more. Peter defines himself as a software engineer with experience in distributed systems, programmin...

Andrés Colubri (@codeanticode) on how he manages to do seemingly different things—such as art, computational biology, or open-source development—by connecting them around one overarching theme. Andrés grew up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he obtained his doctoral degree in mathematics at the Universidad Nacional el Sur. After living in the United States for a while, he went back to Buenos Aire...

Jacob Hamman on how virtual reality and healthy life habits can help prevent and reverse Alzheimer's disease. Jacob grew up in Phoenix Arizona. After studying architecture at the University of Southern California (USC), he worked as an architect at Gehry Partners for seven years. He holds a Master in Design Studies in Technology from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, where he developed Archiv...

Jose Luis García del Castillo on robot control accessibility, learning from open-source software, the joy of being an educator, simple living, eating healthy, and more. Jose Luis is an architect, computational designer, and educator who advocates for a future where programming and code are tools as natural to designers as paper and pencil. In his work, he explores creative opportunities at the int...

Zach Kron (@zachkron) talks with Nono about how new digital tools allow designers to work (and wether these tools make our lives simpler), and about life habits, boredom, constant connectivity and disconnection, digital clutter, and more. Zach describes his daily job as "Banging digital tools with a stick to make them break." Since 2007, Zach has been involved in the research and impleme...

Author James Melouney on the art of success, self-motivation, positive habits, and purpose. James is the author of the book The Art of Success, a book to help others lead their best life. Connect with James on Instagram , Twitter , and YouTube . Books The Art of Success by James Melouney (also available on iTunes , Barnes & Noble , and Kobo ) How To Read a Book by Mortimer J. Adler. I'd love t...