This occurred to me when an Ateneo professor sent me the following e-mail: "We have a team working on oil from algae.

"Our approach is to use a photo-bioreactor using solid state lighting. The lighting can actually come from solar panels, as our first prototype system has demonstrated. Two 200 W solar panels can charge several batteries (typically 4) to near full charge.

"The power is used to drive solid state lighting - in our case, cheap LED arrays of different colors that expose algae to light. By matching the wave length of the light to the particular absorption bands of the algae, one can grow certain species at an enhanced rate. Presumably, we can find the right parameters that optimize the production of oil.

"In the next few months we will be proposing this research to the SEE Forum, composed of researchers in Japan and the Asean countries. We will propose that we lead this effort for the Forum (Ateneo, UP and De La Salle being a Philippine consortium).

"So we will be using our initial experiments at the Ateneo (come and see the results at our Interlinks) as the basis for ERDT work. Then we will use this as our ‘matching’ contribution for the SEE Forum. The SEE Forum has MS and PhD Fellowships throughout Asia for students.

"There is a lot of interest in oil from algae."

Of course there is a lot of interest in oil from algae or from wherever else oil can be produced.

The SEE Forum is Asia-Pacific Academic Network for sustainable energy and environment (SEE) that brings forward the dialogue on global issues of common concern.

My point here is that our students are better off concerning themselves with stuff such as these instead of listening to the likes of J. Lo and Dan M. and other denizens of the dark who come up for air every now and then.

Imagine if these students can produce a method for growing algae for oil or other substances so that the algae can have other uses other than being just fish food? Wouldn’t that be something?

And, even if they never find any real use for algae, the fact that they are using modern research methods to discover what they can is already a plus for the country.

We are so taken up by our politics that we forget to attend to a lot of other things that are actually more important such as training our children to become world-beaters. Politics in this country is populated by scoundrels and ne’er-do-wells. Keep our good kids away from there.

***

The professor at the Ateneo who is doing this is Gregory Tangonan who, in accepting an award from the school last year, talked about himself:

"For over 32 years after graduating from the Ateneo and Cal Tech, I worked at Hughes Research Laboratory. I got paid for generating ideas. I loved inventing radically new products and systems, being first to publish, patent, and see a product develop. This was very exciting and rewarding work. I really got interested in the commercialization of new technology. I grew restless to try something new.

"Before I retired from HRL as director of research, I asked Fr. Dan McNamara if he could use my help in doing research. The essence of his response was: I talked to Toby Dayrit. We need you, get over here now. It was good to hear his words of encouragement. It made saying goodbye to my staff at HRL a lot easier, knowing I was embarking on something exciting and new. My wife, Lory, and my daughter, Cristina, encouraged me by saying: Do it, this could be a lot of fun. Plus you are going to get bored, if you do not do something like this.

"In the four years or so I have been part-time, I heard faculty members say similar words of encouragement: Yes, we should do the thesis defense in a less confrontational way, we should encourage students to take risks. Yes, we should teach Physical Electronics because the students need to learn how transistors really work. Yes, start a class on Innovation and Technology because it could become a distinguishing feature of their Ateneo education.

"You know that Student Centered Learning is real when your colleagues consistently encourage change in teaching approach for the betterment of student learning. Here I really need to thank my colleagues in the ECCE Department for embracing Innovations in Teaching.

"Let me tell you what we do in the Innovation and Technology class. Students study how companies like Excite, YouTube, Google, and Apple got their start. They focused on technology, perfecting their technology till it was world class and highly marketable. Making money, lots of it, came much later when they focused on the market. We study how the forces that flattened our world can be used to the advantage of the Philippines. They learn from the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, Fortune, EE Times and IEEE Spectrum: the Future of TV and Advertising in the Internet era, how the Content is King and how Apple creates its series of Innovative products. In short, they study how great ideas make great companies.

"Sounds really ambitious, no? But let me tell you our students respond extremely well to this approach to teaching innovation and the best news is they are innovating. No Guico, Cat Ramos and I, who have taught the class, have been really shocked how insightful and entertaining their talks are on a wide variety of topics. They prefer to get in the critical path of something really big and exciting than to do an incremental thesis. They want to patent their ideas. They devise ways we can charge pacemakers from the outside of the body. They exploit the Wii controllers to build realistic physics based game or demonstrate a new stroke rehabilitation therapy. Recently they wowed the visitors to the ECCE Conference with their Wii inventions. They measure tropical rain in really novel ways, and, as a result we may have new disaster warning systems operating based on their work.

"When you realize that this is undergraduate research, you understand that something truly significant is happening. When you realize the best at innovation is not the student with the best GPA, you know our students share a fundamental trait of Geekdom – the passionate triumph in the end.

"Over time I realized the Innovation and Technology Class has the unique character of Ateneo’s core education. When we design a new delivery of personal medical database for village care, we know having the best technology matters. So we invent new technical solutions like using cell phones for urinalysis and compressing ECG’s for transmission at low cost. But Ateneans understand that profound changes in people’s lives happen, when new technologies are introduced with a deep understanding of the social dynamics of change. So to get the people’s buy-in, we work with micro-ventures people to provide a social context for change. We help ourselves most, when we understand ourselves best.

"Thank you, Ateneo, for being a great place for this Part Time Teacher to make a full time commitment to excellence in teaching."

Greg is married to my youngest sister, Lory.