“Of Klout and Cliffs: The View from Precipice Edge”

Dr. Kim Solez presents “Of Klout and Cliffs: The View from Precipice Edge” in the Technology and Future of Medicine course on January 14, 2014 at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. He has many talents and interests as you can read in his bio below and is a great storyteller able to pull many analogies from life, medical practice and cultural experiences. The presentation is worth a look.

Kim Solez, M.D., FRCPC is Professor of Pathology at the University of Alberta, and President and CEO of Transpath Inc., is one of the world’s foremost kidney pathologists and medical Internet leaders. Kim has also created many educational videos for the Lifeboat Foundation. 
 
He is a popular blogger on internetevolution.com, and directs NKF cyberNephrology, a joint venture of the National Kidney Foundation (U.S.) and the University of Alberta. He is the father of the Banff classification which sets standards worldwide for how biopsies from kidney and other solid organ transplants are interpreted, and started the post earthquake disaster relief task force of the International Society of Nephrology.
 
Having held leadership roles in medicine and technology for over 20 years and directed major music and arts events, Kim is convinced that very useful cross fertilization can come from mixing these disciplines.
 
Kim coedited Solid Organ Transplant Rejection: Mechanisms, Pathology, and Diagnosis, and coauthored International standardization of criteria for the histologic diagnosis of renal allograft rejection: The Banif working classification of kidney transplant pathology, Costimulation Blockade with Belatacept in Renal Transplantation, Banff 2003 Meeting Report: New Diagnostic Insights and Standards, Telomere Shortening in Kidneys with Age,IFN-γ Alters the Pathology of Graft Rejection: Protection from Early Necrosis, and Prevention of chronic kidney and vascular disease: Toward global health equity — The Bellagio 2004 Declaration. 
 
His forthcoming book Digitality is expected to hit the shelves in 2011.Digitality combines humorous autobiographical vignettes with techno-futuristic vision to anticipate what kinds of technology related experiences are yet to come as we and machines co-evolve.
 
As we plunge headlong into an increasingly intimate embrace with technology, and “merge” more and more with our electronic devices, understanding the relationship between ourselves and machines becomes more important. Can this ever closer association possibly be a good thing? Digitality presents a worldview in which this coming together of humans and machine will be a fun and surprising experience, replete with meaningful life experiences that we wouldn’t have thought possible without technology. Digitalitypresents a future where technology augments our most human features and reveals surprising things about the human psyche.
 
Digitality is different from other technology books in that while the subject matter is quite metallic, the medium is very humanistic, as is the overall outlook. Kim presents a worldview in which the artificial and real are intertwined with one another, and rarely as discrete as many assume. Technology, he argues, is in many ways making us more human. No other popular books take quite as optimistic a position on the matters of human being-technology relations, or in as creative a way.
 
The Canadian iconic poet/singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen called Kim a “great master of the surreal” juxtaposing things others would never think of juxtaposing. Kim hopes that by putting things together in new ways he can stimulate people to think about the future and our increasing association with machines and devices in a new more positive way.
 
Read his LinkedIn Profile. Follow his Twitter feed. Watch SolezAwardand PAHSNepalFundRaiserSolez. Read We Need to Study Human-Web ‘Co-Evolution’.