Oh boy, this gonna be a long one (serves Loubear right for inviting me here! 😛)
So here goes…
Howdy! 👋
My name is Javed Ahmed, and I am a Wildlife Biologist, based out of India, Mumbai.
I am deeply passionate about wildlife research, conservation, and education - the latter two being particularly close to my heart since, to quote the legendary Senegalese conservationist Baba Dioum, “In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we are taught.”
Conservation, and conservation education are particularly important, right now, because few people realise that by conserving nature, we also ensure our own survival. It’s as simple as that. Everything that we use in our day to day lives, essentials we do not even think about, like the water quenching our thirst, the air filling our lungs, to the delicious food and drink we enjoy - all have their source in nature - in the forests and other great ecosystems of our planet Earth - the ultimate gene bank of everything.
To this effect - because we will only conserve what we know, I discover new lifeforms, and bring them to light, kinda like a Pokémon master of sorts, reminding everyone that our planet is home to countless fascinating species, many of which still remain undiscovered, even as we speed into a golden age of scientific, and technological progress.
And all these species serve to improve our quality of life, every single day, one way or another - from butterflies, and bees which pollinate every second mouthful of food we eat, the trees which purify the air we breathe, to harmless, and largely misunderstood creatures like spiders, and bats, which provide us free pest control services. We need wildlife to survive. More than they need us.
Some of my most famous wildlife discoveries (and there are several, but I promise not to bore you talking about all of them) include a new species of spider I named after the city of Mumbai (Dictis mumbaiensis), the place I call home, and one which is very near and dear to my heart (that’s right! Mumbai has a species named after her! Bet you did not know that!), and the ‘Harry Potter’ franchise inspired Sorting Hat Spider (Eriovoxia gryffindori), which not only earned me a shout out from J. K. Rowling herself (see for yourself - but also got me a place in TIME (https://time.com/4598911/sorting-hat-spider-harry-potter-jk-rowling/), National Geographic (https://natgeotraveller.in/new-spider-species-in-karnataka-resembles-sorting-hat-from-harry-potter/), and the BBC (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38325099), including BBC Radio (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04lgdl4).
My most recent wildlife discovery was an owlet moth (Bastilla simillima), which was not only a new record for the city of Mumbai, but also a first for state of Maharashtra (Times of India’s ‘Mumbai Mirror’ carried the news of this important discovery, which you can read here: https://m.timesofindia.com/in-a-first-for-maharashtra-rare-owlet-moth-discovered-near-chembur/articleshow/89537421.cms).
But what makes my most recent discovery particularly interesting is the fact that it was made right inside my house, when the moth I ‘discovered’ flew indoors, attracted to artificial lights , as insects are often prone to, late last year, in August 2021, as a pandemic weary Mumbai slowly emerged from the grips of the dreaded second wave of the Delta plus variant of COVID-19.
After I photographed the moth and released it outside, I proceeded to identify it, and soon realised that I was staring yet another wildlife discovery in the face.
There are however, two things to note here:
The first is the fact that this chance discovery made in the heart of a large, and populated apartment complex grid, shows how wildlife still manages to survive in our great cities – in our parks, gardens and other urban green spaces, and more importantly, how much of it still remains to be discovered!
Exciting wildlife discoveries are not only made in exotic, remote locations - your own backyard, or garden is probably filled with wildlife you did not even know existed.
All it takes is a little curiosity to explore this secret world, should you want to, hidden in plain sight, yet so often overlooked, as we go about our lives, uncaring, and unaware.
Second, the moth in question was photographed using a mobile device camera.
I wanted a quick shot, hopefully before the creature could take off again. And had it, I would have likely never seen it again.
Could a DSLR have taken a better picture? Absolutely! Could I have pulled one out in time, to photograph the critter? Maybe?
Did I bother finding out? Hell no!
I grabbed my mobile device (which also happened to have a really good camera, and not incidentally either - this is something actively I look for when buying a mobile device), and got my shot.
The moth was released outside the window, where it flew into the night (hopefully to make more moths!).
And just like that, two very different worlds which I am deeply passionate about, had intersected.
Which brings me to why am here, and why I think Carl Pei’s latest pipe dream holds great potential.
Look, am an 80s kid. I grew up in the bad acid trip of a pop-cultural mismatch that was the 90s. I have seen most modern technology spring out of thin air, and went from living in a largely ‘analog’ world, to one filled futuristic marvels dreamt only of in the realms of science fiction (which am a huge fan of, by the way, to no one’s surprise).
While the limitless potential of this brave new world had began to creep upon me as early as highschool, when I fantasised owning my own personal computer, possibly with an internet connection, which would allow me to connect with anyone, anywhere in the world - a portal, if you will, into a brave new world filled with possibilities galore, two incidents forever changed the way I precieved technology.
Once, in 2003 , while waiting for my bus, 17 year old me looked across the street, and seeing an ad for a mobile phone (not a ’smart’phone, mind you. Those were still far and few in between, and a long way from being widely available, or even used in India), instantly felt a pang of regret. As a 17 year old madly in love, I realised had I owned one of these, I could call, and speak, with the person I loved (and avoid the awkwardness of calling their home landline, and asking whoever answered, to put them on). The realisation that I could reach out to the one I loved, and deeply cared about, instantly, and privately, thanks to wireless cellular networks, turned me into a futurist.
Fast forward to 2005, and my first taste of truly mobile computing came at the age of 19 years, while holding my first real job. Downloading music, chatting with friends, accessing email, and surfing at blazing fast data speeds of 40kbps, I realised this was the future. Being able to live a connected lifestyle, without being chained to a power outlet.
But hang on a minute. What does this have to do anything with Nothing?
We are almost there (and I promise to make it quick)!
Ten years later, I bought my first ‘real’ smartphone (and while my trusty old Nokia 6630 was in theory a ’smart’phone, it was more phone, than computer, instead of being a full fat computer with the ability to make and receive calls) - a true pocket computer running Android (ver. 4.4.4 - remember KitKat and it’s snazzy ticker notifications?) in 2015. I was 29. Jaded and burned out from years of corporate skulduggery. And I had just made the ‘fun’ decision of quitting my job to pursue a lifelong dream being an explorer, of studying wildlife, and discovering cool new species. My new mobile device came packed with a 8MP camera. A camera I could care less about. I was just happy to use a real pocket computer. The future had arrived.
But not long after, while exploring the multitude of possibilities my shiny new pocket computer was capable of (and as you can probably tell, I was having way too much fun, to the point where my laptop went underused, even in the good old days of Android KitKat, and all its limitations), I decided to test that camera. Until then, photography was something which barely interested me (hard as it may be for me to imagine now). I took my first picture, and…it was not too bad. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by how great it had turned out.
Before then, photography was something I always envisioned involving bulky equipment.
And yet here I was, holding a device the size of a candy bar, which could take amazing pictures, and suddenly the possibility that I too could take amazing pictures did not seem all that unrealistic. Something new had ‘clicked’ (quite literally), and I was on my way.
Skip ⏭️ to 2021 - 6 years later, when 35 year old me, now a globally renowned wildlife biologist, with one of the most celebrated wildlife discoveries of this past decade under his belt, and a hardcore mobile computing, and imaging enthusiast to boot, photographed a moth which flew into his house during a global pandemic, using a mobile computing device, then proceeded to download a bunch of scientific literature to identity the mystery moth with, on a mobile computing device, and then, further still, upon realising the significance of his discovery, proceeded to type out a whole damn paper officially reporting that find, on a mobile computing device, which was the submitted for review, from a mobile computing device, and which in turn, got published in a peer reviewed science journal (and not just any science journal - the official science journal of the Maharashtra State Forest Department - link here for those who care: https://www.elafoundation.org/ela/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/EJFW-10-3.pdf | pages 980-982), which I then accessed, downloaded, shared, and am talking about to ya’ll - from a mobile computing device.
Which is what brings me here.
We have truly come full circle in the way we perceive, conceptualize, and use technology.
And technology, when thoughtfully crafted, has the ability to transform lives. The powerful pocket supercomputers we call smartphones, which live in our pockets and keep us connected with the world, and which we dismiss as just another fixture of our lives represent the pinnacle of modern computing - a revolution which started with the giant analog vaccum tube computers of the 30s, which then transitioned to the still huge early digital computers utilising transistor technology in the 50s, and then to the typewriter sized ‘micro’-computers of the 70s and 80s, as transistor technology shrunk still further, to the truly miniaturised modern computing miracles of today - entire system on chips which have to capability to power all our computing needs.
Whether it’s a 35 year old wildlife biologist making his one hundredth groundbreaking scientific discovery, a budding teenage influencer making an Instagram reel, a homemaker looking up recipes to shake things up in the kitchen, or grandparents experiencing the magic of their first video call (just like on ‘Star Trek’!), technology holds the power to shape, and influence our lives.
And Nothing, with its mission statement of removing barriers between technology, and people, of technology which fades into the background, and becomes nothing, has my full attention
I am onboard.
Let’s go!
