EP70: Professor Harald Haas - Wireless Data From Every Lightbulb

Professor Harald Haas is Chair of Mobile Communications at the University of Edinburgh, and is the initiator, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of pureLiFi Limited, as well as the Director of the LiFi Research and Development Center.

In his 2011 TED Global talk “Wireless Data from Every Light Bulb”, he first introduced and coined the term ‘Li-Fi’, a technology for wireless communication between devices using light. The talk has since been watched online more than two and a half million times.

Li-Fi was listed among the 50 best inventions in TIME Magazine and his work has since been covered in other international media such as the New York Times, BBC, MSNBC, CNN International, Wired UK, and many more.

In 2014, he was selected as one of ten RISE Leaders in the UK, in 2015 he gave a second TED Global talk, which has been viewed more than two million times, in 2016 he received the outstanding achievement award from the International Solid State Lighting Alliance, and in 2017 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

As well as countless other awards, he holds 31 patents and has more than 30 patent pending applications; he has published 400 conference and journal papers including a paper in Science, and he has published two textbooks with Cambridge University Press. His Google Scholar h-index is currently 69, and his work has been cited more than 23,000 times.

00.00 Trailer

00.12 Introduction

02.10 Reflecting on Professor Haas’ first TED talk

04.20 Professor Haas’ background and early life

05.10 The desire to move and travel

07.30 Professor Haas’ career aspirations

09.00 Professor Haas’ career path

10.30 Professor Haas’ earliest memory of LiFi

13.30 What is LiFi and how does it work?

16.30 What is this the equivalent of?

18.00 100 times faster than WiFi?

19.40 What are the main benefits of LiFi?

22.00 Dispelling limitations with LiFi

24.00 What impact could LiFi have on the world?

27.20 How challenging is it to roll this out globally, and how potentially disruptive could LiFi be?

31.00 The progress of LiFi so far

32.30 When does Professor Haas expect it will be fully available worldwide?

33.50 Biggest technological advances

35.00 Professor Haas’ views on artificial intelligence

37.00 Do we run the risk of making ourselves redundant?

41.00 Automation and universal basic income

43.30 Scotland as a technological ecosystem

44.40 What could we do better?

46.20 Views on investment in early stage companies?

47.40 How has Professor Haas evolved as a person throughout his life?

48.30 The biggest challenge Professor Haas faced

49.00 Professor Haas on purpose

50.30 Professor Haas on his own purpose

52.20 Professor Haas not being defined by LiFi

52.50 Professor Haas on his legacy

54.30 What drives Professor Haas?

56.20 Making the world a better place

57.50 Professor Haas on his worldview

59.40 Moving to Canada

1.00.20 Definition of success

1.02.40 Does Professor Haas feel successful?

1.03.30 Life goals

1.04.30 How much does Professor Haas work?

1.05.30 Best piece of advice

1.06.20 Whose advice was it to move away from Germany?

1.07.40 What would Professor Haas say to his 20 year old self?

1.08.50 Changing the world

You can find Professor Haas at:

https://purelifi.com/

https://www.facebook.com/pureLiFi

https://twitter.com/purelifi

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hhaas

https://twitter.com/dlarah15

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