Monthly Archives: February 2021

Its been suggested that an advance party of robots will be needed if humans are ever to settle on other planets. Sent ahead to create conditions favorable for humankind, these robots will need to be tough, adaptable and recyclable if theyre to survive within the inhospitable cosmic climates that await them.

Collaborating with roboticists and computer scientists, my team and I have been working on just such a set of robots. Produced via 3D printer and assembled autonomously, the robots were creating continually evolve in order to rapidly optimize for the conditions they find themselves in.

Our work represents the latest progress towards the kind of autonomous robot ecosystems that could help build humanitys future homes, far away from Earth and far away from human oversight.

Robots have come a long way since our first clumsy forays into artificial movement many decades ago. Today, companies such as Boston Dynamics produce ultra-efficient robots which load trucks, build pallets, and move boxes around factories, undertaking tasks you might think only humans could perform.

Despite these advances, designing robots to work in unknown or inhospitable environments, like exoplanets or deep ocean trenches, still poses a considerable challenge for scientists and engineers. Out in the cosmos, what shape and size should the ideal robot be? Should it crawl or walk? What tools will it need to manipulate its environment, and how will it survive extremes of pressure, temperature and chemical corrosion?

An impossible brainteaser for humans, nature has already solved this problem. Darwinian evolution has resulted in millions of species that are perfectly adapted to their environment. Although biological evolution takes millions of years, artificial evolutionmodeling evolutionary processes inside a computercan take place in hours, or even minutes. Computer scientists have been harnessing its power for decades, resulting in gas nozzles to satellite antennas that are ideally suited to their function, for instance.

But current artificial evolution of moving physical objects still requires a great deal of human oversight, requiring a tight feedback loop between robot and human. If artificial evolution is to design a useful robot for exoplanetary exploration, well need to remove the human from the loop. In essence, evolved robot designs must manufacture, assemble, and test themselves autonomously, untethered from human oversight.

Any evolved robots will need to be capable of sensing their environment and have diverse means of movingfor example using wheels, jointed legs, or even mixtures of the two. And to address the inevitable reality gap that occurs when transferring a design from software to hardware, it is also desirable for at least some evolution to take place in hardware, within an ecosystem of robots that evolve in real time and real space.

The Autonomous Robot Evolution (ARE) project addresses exactly this, bringing together scientists and engineers from four universities in an ambitious four-year project to develop this radical new technology.

As depicted above, robots will be born through the use of 3D manufacturing. We use a new kind of hybrid hardware-software evolutionary architecture for design. That means that every physical robot has a digital clone. Physical robots are performance-tested in real-world environments, while their digital clones enter a software program, where they undergo rapid simulated evolution. This hybrid system introduces a novel type of evolution: new generations can be produced from a union of the most successful traits from a virtual mother and a physical father.

As well as being rendered in our simulator, child robots produced via our hybrid evolution are also 3D printed and introduced into a real-world, creche-like environment. The most successful individuals within this physical training center make their genetic code available for reproduction and for the improvement of future generations, while less fit robots can simply be hoisted away and recycled into new ones as part of an ongoing evolutionary cycle.

Two years into the project, significant advances have been made. From a scientific perspective, we have designed new artificial evolutionary algorithms that have produced a diverse set of robots that drive or crawl, and can learn to navigate through complex mazes. These algorithms evolve both the body-plan and brain of the robot.

The brain contains a controller that determines how the robot moves, interpreting sensory information from the environment and translating this into motor controls. Once the robot is built, a learning algorithm quickly refines the child brain to account for any potential mismatch between its new body and its inherited brain.

From an engineering perspective, we have designed the RoboFab to fully automate manufacturing. This robotic arm attaches wires, sensors, and other organs chosen by evolution to the robots 3D printed chassis. We designed these components to facilitate swift assembly, giving the RoboFab access to a big toolbox of robot limbs and organs.

The first major use case we plan to address is deploying this technology to design robots to undertake clean-up of legacy waste in a nuclear reactor, like that seen in the TV miniseries Chernobyl. Using humans for this task is both dangerous and expensive, and necessary robotic solutions remain to be developed.

Looking forward, the long-term vision is to develop the technology sufficiently to enable the evolution of entire autonomous robotic ecosystems that live and work for long periods in challenging and dynamic environments without the need for direct human oversight.

In this radical new paradigm, robots are conceived and born rather than designed and manufactured. Such robots will fundamentally change the concept of machines, showcasing a new breed that can change their form and behavior over timejust like us.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image Credit: NASA

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We're Teaching Robots to Evolve AutonomouslySo They Can Adapt to Life Alone on Distant Planets - Singularity Hub

Completion of the Australian-led astronomy project sheds light on the evolution of the Universe.

The complex mechanics determining how galaxies spin, grow, cluster and die have been revealed following the release of all the data gathered during a massive seven-year Australian-led astronomy research project.

The scientists observed 13 galaxies at a time, building to a total of 3068, using a custom-built instrument called the Sydney-AAO Multi-Object Integral-Field Spectrograph (SAMI), connected to the 4-meter Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) at Siding Spring Observatory in New South Wales. The telescope is operated by the Australian National University.

Overseen by the ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), the project used bundles of optical fibers to capture and analyze bands of colors, or spectra, at multiple points in each galaxy.

The results allowed astronomers from around the world to explore how these galaxies interacted with each other, and how they grew, sped up, or slowed down over time.

The SAMI instrument inside the Anglo Australian Telescope being readied for action. Credit: ngel R. Lpez-Snchez (AAO-MQ)

No two galaxies are alike. They have different bulges, haloes, disks, and rings. Some are forming new generations of stars, while others havent done so for billions of years. And there are powerful feedback loops in them fuelled by supermassive black holes.

The SAMI survey lets us see the actual internal structures of galaxies, and the results have been surprising, said lead author Professor Scott Croom from ASTRO 3D and the University of Sydney.

The sheer size of the SAMI Survey lets us identify similarities as well as differences, so we can move closer to understanding the forces that affect the fortunes of galaxies over their very long lives.

The survey, which began in 2013, has already formed the basis of dozens of astronomy papers, with several more in preparation. A paper describing the final data release including, for the first time, details of 888 galaxies within galaxy clusters was published today (February 2, 2021) in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The nature of galaxies depends both on how massive they are and their environment, said Professor Croom.

For example, they can be lonely in voids, or crowded into the dense heart of galactic clusters, or anywhere in between. The SAMI Survey shows how the internal structure of galaxies is related to their mass and environment at the same time, so we can understand how these things influence each other.

Research arising from the survey has already revealed several unexpected outcomes.

One group of astronomers showed that the direction of a galaxys spin depends on the other galaxies around it, and changes depending on the galaxys size. Another group showed that the amount of rotation a galaxy has is primarily determined by its mass, with little influence from the surrounding environment. A third looked at galaxies that were winding down star-making, and found that for many the process began only a billion years after they drifted into the dense inner-city regions of clusters.

A/Prof Julia Bryant from the University of Sydney inside the SAMI instrument at the top end of the Anglo Australian Telescope. Credit: Scott Croom/University of Sydney

The SAMI Survey was set up to help us answer some really broad top-level questions about galaxy evolution, said co-author Dr Matt Owers from Macquarie University in Australia.

The detailed information weve gathered will help us to understand fundamental questions such as: Why do galaxies look different depending on where they live in the Universe? What processes stop galaxies forming new stars and, conversely, what processes drive the formation of new stars? Why do the stars in some galaxies move in a highly ordered rotating disk, while in other galaxies their orbits are randomly oriented?

Professor Croom added, The survey is finished now, but by making it all public we hope that the data will continue to bear fruit from many, many years to come.

Co-author Associate Professor Julia Bryant from ASTRO 3D and the University of Sydney said: The next steps in this research will make use of a new Australian instrument which weve called Hector that will start operation in 2021, increasing the detail and number of galaxies that can be observed.

When fully installed in the AAT, Hector will survey 15,000 galaxies.

Reference: The SAMI Galaxy Survey: the third and final data release by Scott M Croom, Matt S Owers, Nicholas Scott, Henry Poetrodjojo, Brent Groves, Jesse van de Sande, Tania M Barone, Luca Cortese, Francesco DEugenio, Joss Bland-Hawthorn, Julia Bryant, Sree Oh, Sarah Brough, James Agostino, Sarah Casura, Barbara Catinella, Matthew Colless, Gerald Cecil, Roger L Davies, Michael J Drinkwater, Simon P Driver, Ignacio Ferreras, Caroline Foster, Amelia Fraser-McKelvie, Jon Lawrence, Sarah K Leslie, Jochen Liske, ngel R Lpez-Snchez, Nuria P F Lorente, Rebecca McElroy, Anne M Medling, Danail Obreschkow, Samuel N Richards, Rob Sharp, Sarah M Sweet, Dan S Taranu, Edward N Taylor, Edoardo Tescari, Adam D Thomas, James Tocknell and Sam P Vaughan, 1 February 2021, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stab229

The final data release paper has 41 authors, drawn from Australia, Belgium, the US, Germany, Britain, Spain and The Netherlands.

The full data set is available online through Australian Astronomical Optics (AAO)Data Central.

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Complex Mechanics of the Evolution of the Universe: The Secrets of 3000 Galaxies Laid Bare - SciTechDaily

By Nishtha Grover, Delhi

PUBLISHED ON FEB 06, 2021 01:41 PM IST

One of the upcoming fashionistas in Bollywood is Nora Fatehi and there is no denying that. The Saki-Saki girl has a dreamy wardrobe that is full of swoon-worthy attires, designer bags and highest of the heels. Whenever the acclaimed dancer steps out, she always makes headlines. Be it her airport looks or red carpet attires, everything that she dons is immensely loved by her fans.

Today, Nora turned 29 years old and in order to celebrate the stunner, we will go down the memory lane and have a look at some of her most fabulous sartorial moments.

The Moroccon-Canadian star danced her way into our hearts when she grooved to the song Dilbar in John Abraham starrer Satyameva Jayate which released in 2018. Then there was no turning back, she made a mark for herself in the film industry with that number.

Before that, Nora had made appearances in films like Roar: Tigers Of Sundarbans, Baahubali: The Beginning, Kick 2 (Telugu) and Rocky Handsome. Since then, Nora has been a part of a few big-budget films like Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif starrer Bharat. She was also seen in Street Dancer 3D that had Varun Dhawan and Shraddha Kapoor in the lead roles.

That is not all, Nora Fatehi also has a notable presence on TV. The actor has been a participant in season 9 of Bigg Boss. She has co-judged various dance reality shows and has also been a part of various music videos. The first one being Arijit Singhs Pachtaoge opposite Vicky Kaushal.

She was also seen grooving with Guru Randhawa in his track Naach Meri Rani that released in 2020. She was even a part of the recently released song Chhor Denge that was by Parampara Tandon. Noras upcoming projects include the Ajay Devgn, Sanjay Dutt and Sonakshi Sinha starrer, Bhuj: The Pride Of India.

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Happy birthday Nora Fatehi: Style evolution of the actor over years, in pics - Hindustan Times

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U of A researchers start bug fight club to study weapon evolution - AZFamily

In 2011, Travis Kelce wasnt really Travis Kelce yetat least not as a football player. He was a junior at the University of Cincinnati, getting his first real playing time as a tight end. He barely played his freshman and sophomore seasons at UC and was a quarterback in high school. At 6-foot-5 and 255 pounds, he had obvious athleticism and a good mind for the mechanics of an offense, but he lacked a clear purpose on the field. There had to be more he could offer than a few blocks here and there and 13 catches over the course of that season.

That year was also Rob Gronkowskis second NFL season, when Gronk became a household name. He had 1,327 receiving yards and 17 touchdowns in 2011, both single-season records for a tight end. He seemed unstoppable because of the mismatches he created: He was too fast for linebackers and too big and strong for safeties. He was still an excellent in-line blockerthe traditional role of the Y tight endbut could line up in multiple spots in any formation. New England had been successful for years using slot receivers like Wes Welker to manipulate the middle of the field. Eventually, it started experimenting by lining up a bigger playeroften Gronkowskiin the same space. There was little he couldnt do.

When Kelce watched Gronkowski that season, he saw a prototype for how to unleash an exceptional tight end all over the field. He saw a role that looked as satisfying and impactful as his dual-threat quarterbacking days in high school.

When I moved to tight end, he was the staple, Kelce said Monday. He was up-and-coming and had made his mark in the NFL as a young player, and his dominance fueled me to be able to have that much impact in a football game.

In 2012, in his last college season, Kelce caught 45 passes for 722 yards and eight touchdowns, all career highs by a wide margin. In 2013, Kansas City drafted him in the third round, looking for a playmaking tight end in the mold of Gronkowski and others who were succeeding in similar roles.

He transcended [the position] just in terms of being such a dominant force, a big athletic guy who can run up the seams, catch the ball, make a few guys miss, break a tackle, and take it to the house, Kelce said. You didnt see that in every offense. What that did for a guy like myself, coming into the league, was it gave coach Andy Reid an understanding of OK, we can use the tight end position a certain way if he works at his craft enough.

Kelce and Gronkowski, who came out of retirement to play in Tampa this season, are not identical playersGronkowski is the better blocker and, at his peak, was the better athletebut they are part of the same macroevolution at their position. One way of viewing Super Bowl LV is as the continuation of a cycle that began around the time Gronkowski was drafted: a new generation of tight ends, great pass catchers who could run intermediate and deep routes, not just short ones, and who could split out wide or line up in the slot, entered the league. They were different from the traditional in-line blockers, the Y tight ends who were often offensive tackles who couldnt keep enough weight on. Their emergence punctuated an equilibriumno longer did playing tight end mean performing drudgery in relative anonymity. Teams were encouraged to expand their roles to fit the spread offenses of the modern NFL. Kelce has picked up in Kansas City where Gronkowski left off in New England, setting new standards of achievement. This season, Kelce became the first tight end to record a 1,400-yard receiving season, just as Gronkowski was the first to 1,300 yards in 2011.

Theres been a tight end renaissance in the past decade. From Gronkowski and Jimmy Graham to Kelce and George Kittle, theyre putting up better numbers, earning more fame, and getting bigger contracts. By changing the view of the position from grunt work to glamour, theyve inspired a new generation of players.

Great athletes have started playing the position, Buccaneers coach Bruce Arians said Monday. Most of them werent good enough basketball players, so they turned to footballI think Tony Gonzalez was one of those guys who started it, and Antonio Gates. Really good power forwards who ... werent going to the NBA [and] went to the NFL. Thats what youre seeing.

Gronkowski was drafted as part of a two-year run on tight ends in 2009 and 2010. Twenty were taken in each of those drafts, more than any other year since the draft went to seven rounds in 1994, save for 2002, an outlier year when 24 were chosen. In addition to Gronkowski, the 2009 and 2010 drafts included Ed Dickson, Graham, Dennis Pitta, and Jared Cook, among others.

Their success piqued other teams interests and led to another run on tight ends in 2013, especially those with receiving skills. Tyler Eifert, Zach Ertz, Vance McDonald, Kelce, Jordan Reed, and Luke Willson went in the first five rounds of 2013. These players could play in space and thrived as the spread offense took over the NFL. The prevalence of spread concepts has helped offensive players in general, but it took the right player pipeline being in place for NFL tight ends to take advantage. There was no guarantee that a position named for its traditional spot tight to the end of the line was going to flourish in a system defined by spreading out wide.

The NFL, to an extent, has to take what it can get. When theres a steady supply of talent at a position, of a certain body type, or anything else, the smart teams take advantage, and the rest eventually follow suit. Its not clear why so many good tight ends came out of those 2009 and 2010 drafts, but it is possible to draw a line from those players success to other teams wanting the sameand better athletes in high school and college taking an interest in what became an increasingly high-profile and lucrative job. The more good players become available at a position, the more the NFL prioritizes it financially and schematically, and the cycle continues.

Its become a position that is more viable for young players to turn to whereas before it was kind of like playing right field in little league, said an NFL personnel executive. If you look at guys on a scale of 1 to 5, theres probably more 3s and 4s now than there ever were. Before it was some 5s and some 2s.

In 2010, Gates became the NFLs highest-paid tight end when he signed a five-year contract extension with the Chargers worth $7.2 million per year. Last offseason, Kittle signed a five-year extension with the 49ers worth more than twice that, $15 million, in average annual value. Kittles deal largely ignored precedent at the position. I dont care about the tight end market. Im being paid to do a George Kittle deal, his agent, Jack Bechta, told NFL Network at the time. The tight end market, though, definitely cared about them. Hours after Kittles deal was complete, Kelce signed his own four-year extension worth an average of $14.3 million per year. Both deals shattered what had been the previous high-water mark: Browns tight end Austin Hoopers $10.5 million per year. In 2020, 16 tight ends made over $5 million and four made at least $10 million.

Gronkowski and his contemporaries deserve much of the credit for advancing a tight ends role in an NFL offense, but he gives Kelce and Kittle credit for showing the true value of the position in terms that matter to those who play itby getting paid.

I feel like the tight end position is on the map now. Its a position that I feel like kids want to play, Gronkowski said Monday. People want to grow up to be a tight end which is pretty, pretty awesome.

Its also possible those kids also want to grow up to be Gronk, another matter entirely and a taller task, but Gronkowski is right. In Kelces caseor for players like Houstons Darren Fells or Indianapoliss Mo Alie-Cox, who became tight ends after playing college basketballthe specialization at the position takes place during or after college. For many others, though, it starts earlier.

A promising high school athlete with a certain size and speed combination might, for instance, now prefer to play tight end over outside linebacker.

Timothy Bostard is the head football coach at Woodland Hills High School in Pittsburgh, Gronkowskis alma mater. Bostard told me he gets more students wanting to try out at tight end than there are roster spots at the position. A wider range of body types can realistically point to successful college or NFL tight ends as their inspiration.

Theyre trying to migrate to that position because of what it is now, Bostard said.

The beauty of the modern tight end position is how many things it can be. No wonder it captures players imagination. Theres a self-fulfilling element to the cycle: If there are more good players at a position, teams start finding more ways to use them. One reason there are more jobs available now is because some of these better athletes can add value on special teams by covering kicks and kick returns. Teams carry more tight ends on their rosters than they used to, and the very best of them are earning more lucrative contracts. A good receiving tight end can split out wide and function as a fourth or fifth receiver in a spread formation; a bigger one can take advantage of the middle of the field from the slot; and someone still has to block sometimes. Almost none of these players are or will be at Gronkowskis, or even Kelces, level of talent or accomplishment, but theyll follow the trail they blazed and choose to follow the footprints that suit their skill sets best. In an era of positionless football, a positionless position should be thriving.

There are so many different types of tight ends now, where you can line up out wide, you can line up to the left, you can line up in the backfield, you can line up on the line, Gronkowski said. Thats what makes the position really cool and very intriguing to kids these days. I feel like its the cool position.

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The Evolution of an NFL Tight End, From Gronk to Kelce - The Ringer

The Mardi Gras parades have been canceled. The festivities and celebrations are put on hold.

But there's one part of Mardi Gras that can't... be... stopped. The king cake!

King cakes are everywhere this time of year.

"It's the ultimate comfort food... sugar, icing, cinnamon, brioche dough," Poupart's pastry chef Isaac Fort says as he decorates a mini-cake. "It's the best."

But the king cake isn't a new idea. Its history can be traced back to the pagan celebration of Saturnalia - when Romans baked a special cake to honor the god of harvest with a bean hidden inside. Whoever found the bean became king for the day. Not a bad deal. But as with many pagan traditions, Catholics made it their own, and Europeans baked king cakes to celebrate Epiphany, marking the arrival of the wise men and kings who brought gifts to baby Jesus.

"The king cake as we in Louisiana use it, came with the French settlers," Vermilionville museum curator Anne Mahoney Fontenot explains.

The traditions evolved here in the new world.

"The folklore and the history changed so much that it really varies from region to region, even within Louisiana," Fontenot says.

The cakes have evolved, too. There's French style, New Orleans, doughnut, boudin and a very long list of fillings baked inside.

"Everyone has a different favorite flavor of filling," Mandi LaCombe, La Cuisine de Maman restaurant manager, laughs "That will cause arguments. That will cause unions. Everyone is different."

"So it's to each your own. We love every shop in town," Great Harvest owner Brian Melancon says. "It's not competition. It's friendly rivalry."

But no matter your style, you'll usually find a trinket of some kind inside - whether it's a bean, baby or a button - and the beautiful Mardi Gras colors on the outside. Green is for faith, gold for power and purple for justice.

And voila. That's the story of the king cake.

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King Cakes in Acadiana: History and Evolution - FOX 15

LOS ANGELES Anthony Davis says hes the happiest hes ever been.

But he isnt satisfied.

In an interview with The Athletic ahead of his first Super Bowl commercial the premise of the Michelob Ultra ad, which also features Serena Williams, Peyton Manning and Brooks Koepka, centers on the slogan, Do you win because you are happy? Or are you happy because you win? Davis said his first season with the Lakers, capped by winning the 2019-20 championship in the Orlando bubble, was everything he envisioned it would be.

Im very happy, Davis said over Zoom when asked to answer the commercials proposition. This has been a fresh start (in Los Angeles). I think the answer to the question can go both ways, but I definitely won last year because I was happy.

This was what Davis had wanted when he requested a trade from New Orleans in 2019: to compete for titles with...

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Anthony Davis' evolution to winning 'multiple' Lakers titles - The Athletic

Recent archaeological digs in Africa found evidence of Middle Stone Age tools dating to just 11,000 years ago, about 20,000 years after these tools were traditionally believed to have stopped being produced. This means groups of ancient humans moved to using newer tools at different speeds, and that early human hunters lived in relative isolation from each other.

All previous archaeological and anthropological discoveries in Africa have supported the belief that humans in Africa stopped using simple points and scraper tools and developed more complex weapons, tools and craft appliances about 30,000 years ago. However, researchers from Germanys Max Planck Institute have published their new findings in the journal Scientific Reports claiming the latest evidence gathered at sites in Senegal, on the West coast of Africa, are fueling a rethink of the passage of human evolution.

The new paper suggests some ancient people living in Africa 11,000 years ago were still using simple tools, while other groups had developed more advanced technologies 20,000 years previously. This directly challenges the traditional theory that humans evolved in a linear fashion, making technological advances together, and proves humans evolved at greatly different rates around Africa, and the world.

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Why the theory of human evolution needs a tweak, once again - Genetic Literacy Project

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This year, February 7 marks Americas biggest unofficial holiday: Super Bowl Sunday. Whether you partake in this jamboree of athletics for the larger-than-life halftime shows, the seven-layer-dip tastings, or the actual football, youre probably angling to tune into the game this year. But, in our streaming era, access to cable TV is no longer a given and going to your besties annual Super Bowl party this year is not encouraged by the CDC. So, if you want to see Kansas City square off against Tampa Bay and watch The Weeknd perform from the comfort of your computer, weve got you covered with three ways you can tune into Super Bowl Sunday below. Where can I stream the Super Bowl? Treat yourself to a new subscription (or, hey, a free trial!) from CBS All Access, Hulu+, or AT&T TV for a virtual front-row seat to the game this Sunday at 6:30 p.m. (EST). CBS All Access CBS All Access has live TV subscriptions starting at $5.99 and offers a one-week free trial. Subscribers can watch any of the services 20,000 episodes, 150+ movies, original series, or live sports with limited commercial interruptions, across a variety of networks (including BET, Comedy Central, and MTV). Hulu+ With Hulus Live TV, Disney+, and ESPN+ bundle, you can watch the game and tons of other popular shows, starting at $13 a month with a one-week free trial. Whether you take the basic subscription or go for the largest package, subscribers will gain access to Disneys magical vault of movies, groundbreaking Hulu originals (Handmaids Tale, Little Fires Everywhere, etc.), and live sports with ESPN+. AT&T TV AT&T dishes out larger plans starting at $69.99. If you like the wide-range accessibility of cable but want the flexibility of live streaming, you might have just found your perfect match. Subscribe to this service to watch the Super Bowl this Sunday and, if the game gets boring, flip through the other 65+ channels and thousands of on-demand shows that come with it. At Refinery29, were here to help you navigate this overwhelming world of stuffand, while we do receive commission from Amazon, all of the goods linked to on our site are independently selected and supported by our Shopping team. Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?Stream These Emmy Nominated Shows Right NowThe Weeknd Will Perform At Super Bowl LVNew "WandaVision" Promises Utter Chaos

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The Evolution of the Super Bowl Halftime Costume - Yahoo Lifestyle

Facebook was launched in 2004. WhatsApp was introduced in 2009. These have become two of the most used applications. WhatsApp has a total of 2 billion active users around the world and is giving many companies a run for their money with free voice/video calls and messages to anyone, anywhere, at any time. Facebook goes even further with 2.7 billion users; it has become a go-to place for anyone in the world with even a modicum of digital presence.

These social networking applications were envisioned as platforms that could bring people together; even those who are miles apart. However, they have evolved in unexpected ways that their creators themselves might not have envisioned, especially in the last five years. Social platforms such as Facebook and WhatsApp are being heavily criticized for how they are now being used for purposes other than needed be it the borderline unethical data extraction or the spread of hatred through propaganda that benefits only a handful.

The best examples of these malicious use-cases are the daily trending Twitter hashtags and hundreds of WhatsApp forwards that work in favour of a particular ideology. The power and monopoly that certain social networking sites have created have forced companies, political parties, and businesses to take it seriously as a part of their outreach campaigns.

Of clouds and silver linings: The need to reclaim social media for positive outcomes

That said, it isnt as if social media cannot be used for driving more positive changes in society. It is giving rise to the Gig Economy by enabling content creators to earn their livelihoods. It is democratizing the concepts of outreach and accessibility traditionally confined to hallowed cloisters of a select few and leading to newer concepts such as Celebrity Influencers. Small businesses can market their products and services through social platforms, for free or at a fraction of the costs associated with traditional marketing, to a much larger base of consumers.

The lockdown, especially, has driven us to embrace social networking apps more than before. Even with the physical limitations imposed to counter the outbreak, social media apps such as WhatsApp helped us celebrate occasions by connecting us with our near and dear ones through video calls. Enterprises adopted social networking platforms such as Google, Zoom, and Skype to support internal operations and ensure business continuity in a turbulent time.

One of the major usages of WhatsApp, especially in India, has been for online education. While many students, especially those studying in metropolitan and tier-1 regions, had access to a variety of tools such as Zoom, Facebook LIVE, YouTube, and edtech platforms, there were others with limited access to the internet and smartphones. WhatsApp came to their rescue by providing a platform for learners and educators to connect, discuss, and learn without risking their physical health.

In doing so, it brought a new ray of hope to many students and teachers who would otherwise be worried about education in these times especially those in government and low-profit private schools where technology rarely knocks. WhatsApp works well for them because of its easy connectivity, low resource requirement, and cost-effectiveness. Moreover, as 80% of the Indian internet users already use WhatsApp, leveraging the application makes the most sense, whether financially or in terms of efficiency; it does not burden parents with buying a high-end smartphone, or teachers and students with learning how to use an application from scratch.

It has also strengthened the parent-teacher relationship in government schools with e-PTMs taking place on WhatsApp calls. Social media is facilitating a new and progressive conversation between the parents, teachers, and students collectively as the barrier of communication has been broken, allowing them to create their own local community. As for the parents, most of those who rarely involved themselves in their childs education, are now actively participating in daily activities and learning sessions.

Luckily, this advantage is not just one way. By entering as a source of education, social networking platforms are changing the narrative around themselves. The biggest tools for distraction have become a source of education for many children.

Leading players in the EdTech space have been using WhatsApp to reach underserved students for their education. Leveraging an application like WhatsApp for education that already has a large user base allows for enhanced visibility, as a mall would for a store set up inside it. There is also a sense of security attached to a platform that is so well known, so users dont feel hesitant or doubtful. Since you get a host of services at a single place, like in a mall, you dont have to waste your phones space by downloading another application. And the best part, if you dont know the premises, or in case of an application, how to use it, there will always be someone with the knowledge to help you find your way.

Social media can democratize education and increase the involvement of all parties required for the education of young Indians. It has already disrupted the entertainment, political, industrial, and professional world; now it can be used to its full potential for the betterment of our future our children. This is one of the most practical methods to make digital education more accessible and affordable. No credible conversation about digital education in the post-pandemic landscape can avoid discussing social media. Both social media and digital education are here to stay, and innovations will continue to combine the two to drive superior outcomes in 2021 and beyond.

Views expressed above are the author's own.

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Outlook for 2021: The evolution of social media and the role it can play in the future of education - The Times of India Blog