Health, - freeCodeCamp.org

Stress and Mental Health in Tech – What I learned from Dr. Jennifer Akullian's freeCodeCamp Tech Talk

Jessica Wilkins — Thu, 18 Nov 2021 17:54:34 +0000

People in the tech industry face mental health issues like depression and anxiety every day, all around the world. But what can we do about it?

In this article, I will talk about what I learned from Dr. Jennifer Akullian's freeCodeCamp Tech Talk and share her tips for reducing your stress and improving your mental health at work.

Mental Health Research for Tech Workers is Limited

One great resource that Dr. Akullian mentioned in her tech talk is the Open Sourcing Mental Illness non profit organization. OSMI is dedicated to raising awareness surrounding mental health in tech.

OSMI conducts a yearly Mental Health in Tech Survey, where tech individuals around the world can anonymously answer questions concerning their mental health in their workplace.

While this research is valuable to the industry, unfortunately it does have its limitations.

For one, this data only represents those who volunteered to take the survey. Since individuals cannot be forced to disclose their mental health issues, we are unfortunately not getting a full picture of what is going on in the tech industry.

Even in the past few years, the number of survey participants has gone down. In 2014 and 2016, there were over 1200 responses.

But from 2017-2020, it went from 756 to 180 survey responses. Unfortunately, there has been a huge decline in the number of participants which affects the research.

Mental health has always been a sensitive subject and there is a lot of stigma surrounding it. So, it doesn't surprise me that people don't feel safe participating in these types of surveys.

As Dr. Jennifer Akullian points out in her tech talk, there are a lot of serious physical health risks that accompany high stress jobs. If left unaddressed, these issues can lead to dire consequences.

Hopefully, we can get to a place in the future where we feel safe to discuss these issues and contribute to the ongoing research.

To learn more about OSMI, please visit their website.

How We Can Combat Stress in the Workplace

Dr. Jennifer Akullian provides four ways that you can de-stress at work and become a healthier, more productive worker.

SLEEP!

We all need to sleep. Sleep allows our bodies and minds to rest and recharge for the next day.

You might be in a situation where you have important deadlines coming up or annoying bugs in the application that you haven't solved yet.

But staying up and worrying about it isn't going to help the situation. You will probably be less productive in your job running on fumes all the time.

In her tech talk, Dr. Jennifer Akullian urges people to find out why they are not sleeping and seek professional medical help if necessary.

I have personally dealt with sleep issues over the years and figured I could just power through it. But over the past year, I have now learned that is not the healthy way to live and work.

Please take care of your body and mind. You need that time to rest and be ready to go the next day.

Stretch

Sometimes it is easy to stare at your computer and sit at your desk for long periods of time. But that is contributing to the stress and mental health issues facing people in the tech industry.

In her talk, Dr. Jennifer Akullian says,

stretching distributes oxygen to where it is needed, which is to your brain.

You don't need to do hardcore-style stretches. Just do some simple stretches throughout the day.

Get up out of your chair and stretch your back, neck and shoulders. Stand up and hang down over your toes for a little bit.

Make a conscious effort to get up and move a little every so often. Place Post-it notes on your monitor to remind you.

When you take the time to stretch, you will notice that you become a more productive and healthier you.

Take breaks

Taking breaks throughout the day is not a distraction and it doesn't make you a lazy employee.

Dr. Jennifer Akullian considers breaks as,

refocusing your attention on something else to restore your brain.

We have all been in situations where we have been working on a problem and there doesn't seem to be a solution yet. If you keep attacking the problem without breaks then you are not giving your brain the time it needs to restore.

There have been plenty of times in my work, where I will walk away from a challenge for a little bit and be able to rest and come back with a solution.

Breaks are healthy and allow you to be more productive at work.

PLEASE TAKE BREAKS.

Breathe

If you are under a lot of stress at work, take a moment and just breathe.

Dr. Jennifer Akullian says,

if you are paying attention to your breath, you are not attending to the growing list of tasks not being completed.

It is easy for a lot of people to always focus on the laundry list of things to do at their job. Sometimes it feels like there is not enough time in the day to accomplish all of the tasks.

Taking a moment to focus on your breath will bring down your stress and anxiety levels. This will lead to a healthier more productive work day.

Dr. Jennifer Akullian advises you to

take a couple of deep breaths and observe the inhale and exhale. Let's get the oxygen redirected from your muscles back into your brain.

This is a simple task that you can do throughout your work day. But you have to remember to do it.

If you need to set reminders on your phone or computer, then do it.

Remember that your health is important and you want to take the steps to better it.

I would highly advise you to watch the entire 19 minute tech talk given by Dr. Jennifer Akullian on the freeCodeCamp Tech Talks YouTube channel.

If you enjoyed that video, then please subscribe to the channel for more high quality tech content.

Healthy Habits – How to Become a Better Developer and Live a Happier Life

freeCodeCamp — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 21:05:33 +0000

By Jean-Marc Möckel

Being a great developer is not just about writing great code. There are certain habits I’ve discovered that are beneficial to your work and your life as well.

Habits are basically the parts of our lives that make up our daily routines. Once established, they are the most powerful tools we have to change our lives.

In this article I share the five essential habits that I believe will most benefit your work as a developer. But these habits won't just help your coding skills – they will also improve your life and make you happier and healthier.

At the end there's an extra tip for you as a little nugget. So make sure to read to the end.

Habit #1 – Eat Healthy Food

_Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@danielcgold?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Dan Gold on What is healthy food?

But what does it actually mean to eat “healthier”? I’ve learned a lot about good nutrition over the last two years, and I've tried out many methods myself. When I started eating right, I felt a huge improvement in my life and my work as a programmer.

I’m not a nutritionist, but you can consider the following advice as tips from my own experience and knowledge.

Decrease your sugar intake
Drink water instead of soda
Eat just a small amount of sweets per day
When eating fruits, focus more on low-sugar fruits like berries, kiwi, apricot or coconut (and many more)
Take sweetener alternatives like Erythrit
Follow a balanced diet
Eat whole grains like brown rice, buckwheat, quinoa, bulgur, millet and oats (complex carbohydrates)
Get plenty of legumes like lentils, kidney beans, green peas, chickpeas and soybeans
Go for healthy nuts like almonds, pistachios, walnuts, cashews and peanuts
Eat lots of vegetables (preferably cruciferous vegetables) like broccoli, brussels sprouts, kale, cabbage, cauliflower and turnips
Eat seeds like chia seeds, hemp seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds (they're great on top of your dishes)
Get your “healthy” fats from fish, algae, and the nuts/seeds mentioned above
Minimize your meat intake to around 70g per day (I’d suggest to do your own further research on it because I don’t eat meat)
Eat the most carbohydrates in the morning
Your lightest meal should be at least three hours before you go to sleep

There are many different diets out there and most of them are completely useless in my opinion, since they just seem to try to pull money out of your pocket.

You don’t have to turn vegan like I did, but from my research and talks to doctors, following a mediterranean diet is what’s recommended most of the time. You can read more about it in this article.

If you really want to get serious about it, I’d suggest that you book an appointment with a nutritionist or any other professional in that field. They can help you set up your meal plans and advise you on how to make healthy choices.

Habit #2 – Do Plenty of Physical Activity and Stretching

_Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@aloragriffiths?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Alora Griffiths on Why is physical activity important?

Being physically active is one of the most important factors that helps me perform on a high level as a programmer. It helps relieve stress, clears my mind, and strengthens my body.

Physical activity also helps protect you against many chronic diseases and improves your brain function – which is of course very important as a programmer.

Another great benefit is that it can help you control your weight. So when following a healthier diet and being physically active on a regular basis, you less likely to worry about your weight.

I love to run in the morning on an empty stomach because it gets my blood running and sets my energy for the day. It can be hard, especially when I don’t feel like it – but once I'm done, I know that I’ve already conquered the hardest part of the day right at the beginning.

This forms a strong mindset and loads me with energy. It’s also very beneficial because your body takes the energy it needs from your fat reserves which leads to fat burning.

Why stretching matters, too

Doing regular physical activity is great, but it's only half of the picture. The other half is all about stretching your body.

Stretching helps you improve your flexibility and posture. It also helps ease your pain after sitting all day in front of a computer. Varying your working position from sitting to standing is also a great way to move your body in different ways.

Stretching can also be very beneficial to other areas of your life. It releases tension and therefore reduces your stress levels. It also helps you calm your mind and increase your energy.

Don’t skip the stretching in the morning or in the evening. Your body and your mind will thank you. This video used to help me out a lot.

Habit #3 – Develop Proper Stress Management Techniques

_Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@oneshotespresso?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Hans Vivek on Good stress vs bad stress

But is stress bad in general? Basically it’s a warning system which produces the fight-or-flight response. There are both beneficial and harmful parts about it.

In small doses, stress can help you meet daily challenges and motivate yourself to reach your goals. It can also boost your memory and can help you to accomplish tasks more efficiently.

Too much stress, on the other hand, can cause serious health issues. It can weaken your immune system and can cause high blood pressure, depression, and anxiety.

Some of the most important signals of too much stress are an inability to concentrate, body aches, headaches, appetite changes and getting sick more often. Another very common signal is if you can’t sleep properly anymore and can't turn your mind off.

In my opinion, this bad stress isn’t something you have, it’s something you create for yourself. It’s always a sign that you are thinking about the future and feel anxious about it. Maybe you can’t meet a deadline or you’re thinking about what your boss will do when you’re doing a “bad” job. You feel your heart beating and it begins to take over you.

How to manage your stress

Breathing exercises are one of the best ways to calm your mind, to relieve stress, and help you to be more aware of yourself.

In stressful situations we begin to breath faster which will cause stress in our body. There’s also a thing called screen apnea which means we tend to stop breathing when looking at our screens. You can imagine that this can't be healthy at all!

With breathing exercises you can train yourself to breathe slowly even in stressful situations. Compare it with a cup of tea. Every day you’re filling up the cup with stressful or hectic situations. With relaxing breathing exercises like meditation, tai-chi, qi-gong or diaphragmatic breathing you empty the cup again.

Imagine what happens with the cup and with yourself when you don’t empty it every day and pour more and more tea into it.

If you don’t have any experience with meditation and the like, I can highly recommend that you start with an app like “headspace” or “calm”. They offer guided meditations that are very friendly for beginners. You can also visit a tai-chi group in your area or join a meditation group.

These practices don’t only help you relieve stress, they also train you to be more in the moment and to control your thoughts. You will learn to let the thoughts come and go. And it'll feel like 500 pounds has fallen off your shoulders. You'll also improve your ability to concentrate even better at your job.

Habit #4 – Maintain a Beginner’s Mindset

_Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@brett_jordan?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Brett Jordan on Think back to the beginning

I can still remember how I felt and what it did to me when I discovered coding. It was like tapping into a top secret. Computer Science and especially programming was like magic for me. Those people who were able to write code were like superheroes from my perspective.

Once I took my first steps in writing code myself, I remember feeling like “Holy crap, this will be my thing”. I wanted to learn it all, even though I knew that wasn't possible.

I knew that I was still at the beginning of my journey and I was really open to learning a lot of different things. It was okay for me to not be good at it, but I knew the more I sat down and learned, the better I would become.

I accepted my beginner level and the more I learned, the more I recognized how much I wanted to learn.

Be a beginner again

That’s what I consider to be a beginner's mindset. Looking through the eyes of a beginner who seeks out new stuff to learn and accepts that there is still a ton out there to learn. They still have this excitement to explore more and more.

Maintaining this mindset and recognizing that mistakes are opportunities to learn new skills is key to progress as a developer. Don’t shy away from new challenges, even if you have twenty years of experience.

Habit #5 – Get Enough Sleep and Take Breaks

_Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@adigold1?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Adi Goldstein on The negative effects of not enough sleep

There are many negative effects on our bodies when we don’t sleep enough. It can lead to memory issues because during sleep our brain forms connections that help us process and remember new information.

One of our most important skills is also in danger when we don't sleep enough. We can develop trouble thinking and concentrating. When we don’t get enough rest our problem-solving skills and concentration are negatively affected. So pulling all-nighter after all-nighter might seem efficient first, but can really damage your long term programming skills.

There are many other negative effects like mood changes, weakened immunity, high blood pressure, risk for diabetes, weight gain, risk of heart disease and a low sex drive. Sleep is as essential as water and air for our bodies.

How much sleep is enough?

But what exactly does enough sleep mean? There are different opinions about that topic and I’d suggest finding your own sweet spot. You can test different amounts like six, seven, or eight hours and track your energy levels during your day.

My own sweet spot is in between seven and eight hours. Sleeping less than seven hours sometimes is okay for me but over a longer time I feel that my energy levels go down. On the other side when I sleep more than eight hours it’s also not beneficial for my energy levels after some time.

There are some tricks to help you establish a healthy sleep routine, like avoiding daytime naps, not drinking caffeine a few hours prior to bedtime, going to bed and waking up at the same time (even on weekends!), doing relaxing activities an hour before going to bed like mediations, and not using electronic devices before sleep.

Why taking breaks is important

The same goes for taking breaks during your work time. I normally take a quick break once I get the feeling that I can’t concentrate properly anymore.

The break doesn’t have to be huge. Throwing some darts on my dart board, going for a quick walk with the dog, running for 30 minutes or just standing up, having a good stretch, and making new coffee or tea are some chances to get a little break.

Most of the time I find the solutions for problems I was thinking about for one hour straight during those breaks. Taking me out of that “black hole” does wonders.

Some productivity systems like the pomodoro technique can also help you to establish a routine of taking breaks. You can set a timer for twenty minutes where you’re doing concentrated work, and after that you take a five minute break. That’s one pomodoro. After three or four pomodoros you take a longer break of thirty minutes.

But you can just set up a timer to remind you every hour to take a break of around ten minutes, for example. As always, try different things out and stick to what works best for you.

How to Form Habits

_Photo by [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/@iaman_upadhyay?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText">Aman Upadhyay on Habit forming law #1 – Make it obvious

The first law is to make it obvious. Point out triggers that remind or force you to do the new habit.

For example if you want to work out in the morning, pack your bag the evening before and place it along with your outfit at your door. The first thing that you see in the morning is your stuff for working out.

Habit forming law #2 – Make it attractive

The second law is to make it attractive. Combine a habit you HAVE to do (your new habit, like running) with a habit that you LIKE to do (an already existing habit, like listening to your favorite music).

Another way is to search for an environment where your new habit is normal. This could be a local running club for example.

Habit forming law #3 – Make it easy

The third law is to make it easy. We often tend to expect too much of ourselves, especially at the beginning. There is no such thing as an overnight sensation when building habits – they are all formed over time.

The first 60 days are the most important when you're trying to form a habit, and it is established by doing it consistently. So, make it as easy as possible for you.

Cut all the obstacles that may get in your way of doing the habit. For example, if you want to cook your own healthy food, make sure that your kitchen is clean. Because cleaning it up before cooking your food can get in your way, drain your motivation, and lead to you not cooking at all.

A key factor for making it as easy as possible is to follow the two-minute-rule. Do actions that don’t take longer than two minutes.

For example you want to read more and your ultimate goal is to read one book a week, start with one page a day. Remember to first establish the habit and then optimize it. This is essential for getting used to the new habit.

Habit forming law #4 – Make it rewarding

The fourth law is about making it rewarding. After you’ve done your new habit, reward and cheer yourself on. A very common practice is to have a list or calendar and every time you’ve done the thing, you cross another day off.

You can also transfer this process into a habit tracker where you really can see your progress. You won't want to end the streak of consistently doing it. Like in law #3, remember to focus on consistency over quality. What’s been rewarded will be repeated and what’s punished will be avoided.

How to get rid of bad habits

If you want to get rid of bad habits, you can reverse those laws. Let’s say you want to cut down your time watching TV. Make it harder for yourself to turn it on by unplugging it, hiding your remote control in your basement, or by putting the tv completely away.

Or when you slip up and perform a bad habit, burn $50 or anything else that really punishes you.

Are there any habits you definitely have to get better at? Or are there habits I forgot to mention?

Just message me on my instagram account @jeanmarc.dev._ I’m very excited to receive your answers!

How a (telehealth) app a day just might keep the doctor away

freeCodeCamp — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 22:14:56 +0000

By James Hsu

Why insurance carriers, Silicon Valley, and society at large are gung ho about telehealth apps and health-monitoring wearables.

As the public ogles foldable displays, augmented reality applications, and other mobile technology trends, tech giants around the world are busily…

What the new Apple Watch’s EKG means for the future of consumer wearables and healthcare

freeCodeCamp — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 17:47:19 +0000

By James Hsu

When Apple announced this September that its newest Series 4 Apple Watch includes EKG functionality, I imagined millions of hearts worldwide fluttering with delight.

The news was significant for several reasons. The chief reason is it is the first time a mainstream consumer wearable device will perform a sophisticated medical procedure. This same procedure we need to see the doctor for today.

To understand the significance, you need first to set aside the fact that health and fitness are already key reasons why consumers currently use wearables. Fitness trackers have had heart rate sensors for many years now.

(Heart rate sensors are convenient for fitness purposes, to be sure. But, they’re also primitive. Anyone with a finger can feel for a pulse and calculate a heart rate if necessary.)

An EKG (or ECG/electrocardiogram) is different than a heart rate measurement. For one, because an EKG looks at the heart’s electrical impulses to monitor for and identify specific heart anomalies. These anomalies are the immediate precursor to serious medical conditions. Conditions like strokes or heart attacks.

The technology can and will save lives.

By adding new and substantial medical features, Apple (and others) could be paving the way to a future in which wearables serve as the frontline for the diagnosis, treatment, and even prevention of serious medical conditions.

Hold your finger on the crown of the Series 4 Apple Watch, and you’ll get an EKG reading on the spot.

The Apple Watch is a class II medical device.

Adding an EKG to the Apple Watch wasn’t just an engineering task.

It also required the attention and cooperation of the notoriously finicky Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FD has cleared Apple’s use of two medical-grade features in the new Apple Watch: 1) the EKG, and 2) the Apple Watch’s ability to identify and notify users of an irregular heart rhythm.

It’s important to note that, with the FDA, “clearing” a device is not the same as “approving” one. The latter is much harder to do and requires much significant collaboration and testing to mitigate potential risks. Clearing the Apple watch took just one month from application to decision. Class II devices like the new Apple Watch don’t require FDA approval because the associated health risks aren’t deemed great enough to warrant a more rigorous vetting process.

It’s also important to understand that the FDA clearance letters came with language stating that the cleared features are not intended for users under the age of 22, and are “not intended to replace traditional methods of diagnosis or treatment.”

Regarding the latter, what this means is that after your Apple Watch tells you it has detected a mild heart arrhythmia, you’ll probably want to follow up with your doctor to get a proper diagnosis.

On the other hand, if your Apple Watch tells you you’ve just had a heart attack, immediate urgency (and common sense) dictates that you’re going to go straight to the ER or call an ambulance, skipping the “traditional method of diagnosis” referenced in the FDA’s letter.

A beachhead for new medical functionality

With the regulatory precedent established, Apple product managers are undoubtedly considering more medical functionality, to double down on this growing notion of the Apple Watch as a medical device.

If so, what might we see from Apple down the road?

Well, as it turns out, Apple has for years been working on developing a blood glucose tracker that ties to the Apple Watch. Such a tracker could help with diagnosis, treatment, and perhaps even prevention of type 2 diabetes.

Diabetes currently affects an estimated 30 million people in the United States alone. The challenge has been creating noninvasive technology that doesn’t require permeating the skin you to get a reading, as current glucose trackers must do. According to a CNBC report last year, Apple has assembled a new team to pursue this “holy grail” breakthrough.

Here’s Apple CEO Tim Cook on the opportunity with glucose trackers:

“It’s mentally anguishing to stick yourself many times a day to check your blood sugar. There is lots of hope out there that if someone has constant knowledge of what they’re eating, they can instantly know what causes the response… and that they can adjust well before they become diabetic.”

Apple CEO Tim Cook appears to be gung-ho about enabling the Apple Watch as a medical device, with CNBC reporting last year that he was personally testing a blood glucose tracker for the Apple Watch.

Impact on healthcare practices and insurance costs

Cook’s predecessor, the legendary visionary Steve Jobs, reportedly first envisioned the popularization of consumer wearables that could provide blood glucose readings and other health vitals.

If Jobs’ vision of a versatile wearable health tracker comes to fruition, what effect might this have on the time-tested practice of the “annual physical?” For one, we might very well see formal doctor checkups give way to daily or even hourly automated testing through wearables like the Apple Watch.

And if this happens, what implication might widespread use of the device have beyond users’ health, for instance, on healthcare costs and the healthcare system itself? North American healthcare provider United Healthcare is an example of one insurance provider that is already offering financial incentives to customers that use wearable fitness trackers to meet daily fitness goals.

When customers get ahold of devices that also address the medical component of wellness and longevity, I’d certainly expect to see such financial incentives increase and healthcare premiums decrease.

Wearable medical technology is not a one-horse race

FitBit, the other big player in health and fitness wearables, has had a blood oxygen sensor built into its Ionic watch for more than a year. The sensor can be used to detect common breathing related disorders such as asthma, sleep apnea, and even heart arrhythmia conditions such as atrial fibrillation.

There’s a problem, though. At the time of this story’s publication, Fitbit has not yet publicly released software that makes use of the hardware sensor.

Samsung is another company that has demonstrated a commitment to adapting its wearable technologies to support medical use cases.

For instance, Samsung’s Gear VR headset is used by California-based IrisVision to allow legally blind users to see clearly in all aspects of life. Using custom IrisVision software, the IrisVision headset uses proprietary visual acuity algorithms to amplify any remaining useful vision a user still has. The result is clear vision and, for many users, the restoration of independence in their daily lives. IrisVision has the financial support of the National Institute of Health (NIH) and was developed by leading vision experts from Johns Hopkins University, UC Berkeley, Stanford, and UCLA.

Medical wearables will empower clinical researchers

Beyond consumer healthcare, clinical researchers stand to benefit from these recent developments in wearables, too. When doing any sort of clinical research, getting reliable data can be an enormous challenge, especially when a study depends on self-reported data or recollections.

Even for clinical studies that do use lab results, gathering data collection can be a challenge — costly, impractical, or even impossible.

In clinical testing and research, data collection can be a considerable challenge without sophisticated wearables.

But, if these measurements can be taken automatically by a wearable device, that largely addresses the issue, providing rich, reliable, and (perhaps) actionable data to researchers whose work depends on the availability of data they can trust.

Case in point, Johns Hopkins University has for the past three years been conducting a clinical study that allows participants to use their Apple Watches and the university’s EpiWatch app to provide clinical data (heart rate and accelerometer data) to further their understanding of epilepsy.

And, just last September, the NIH granted $2.5M to BioSensics to develop wearable sensors to monitor the symptoms of Huntington’s disease. A pilot study in collaboration with The University of Rochester is now underway.

Wearables provide the sensors and hardware, but user experience is paramount.

The hardware engineering associated with integrating medical sensors into small wearables is just one aspect of the challenge.

Another aspect of the challenge is inventing non-invasive or otherwise “user-friendly” sensors that can provide readings equivalent to what we, for example, currently need to draw blood to obtain. Frankly speaking, consumers will not buy a device that causes them pain or even startles them on a regular basis.

The regulatory hurdles (à la FDA) are another aspect of challenge, albeit one that seems promising based on the recent Apple clearances.

The final challenge is the software and user experience, which bring meaning to the data collected by the sensors. Sure, you can have an EKG provide readings — a line graph of electrical impulses — but how do you deliver that to your end user in a way that is not just useful, but is also intuitive and even enjoyable?

According to CitrusBits CEO, Harry Lee, apps are often the biggest competitive differentiator for wearables companies.

“In the wearables space, the hardware aspect is already somewhat commoditized. Everyone, more or less, has access to the same sensors, microprocessors, and chips. Where companies like Apple, Fitbit, and CitrusBits stand apart is in their ability to design intuitive and robust apps for smartwatches and other devices, given inherent screen-size and control constraints. This is absolutely key to adoption, and we’ve already seen once-promising wearables companies such as Pebble forced to shut down in recent years, in part due to weak app offerings.”

Looking ahead, the realization of Steve Jobs’ vision is clearly upon us: a future in which medical wearables will play a big role, perhaps even reducing the strain on existing healthcare systems.

It just may very well depend on a harmonious blend of computing hardware, non-invasive medical sensors, progressive regulatory oversight, and thoughtfully-crafted applications.

How I’ve absorbed as much as I’m able on my Outreachy Journey

freeCodeCamp — Sat, 11 Aug 2018 21:50:28 +0000

By Toni Shortsleeve

I can’t believe this will be the last month of my internship at LibreHealth! ?

Just when it was starting to all come together. But I still have a few more weeks to finish my projects, and I’m thankful for the time to work on them.

For those of you just joining me on my journey, I am an Outreachy Intern at LibreHealth for this summer. I was accepted on April 23 this year to begin my internship on May 23, lasting until August 14. You can read more about how it started here.

Since my last article, I have learned so much. The two documents that I’ve been working on, the LibreHealth EHR Provider Orders and the LibreHealth EHR Encounters, were approved by my mentors and are now on the LibreHealth wiki.

Note: Patient and staff names or any data you may see inside my documents are completely fictional.

My Outreachy LibreHealth Internship so far

In the Provider Orders document, we covered everything from the patient’s visit to referring the patient to an outside lab, and then transcribing the order.

Medical Transcription was a new concept for me. When I first read the word “transcriptionist”, I imagined it being the court reporter being asked to read back notes from the previous witness. ?

It actually involves two documents being compared to each other, and then the Provider Order information is placed into the Referral Order form.

Sometimes the terms were similar, such as Referral Date…

… and Order Date

Others were not quite so obvious.

For instance, the Reason on the Referral Form

… is the same as the Clinical History from the Procedure Order.

When I design web pages, I am very spoiled with my coding. With HTML and CSS, I have the freedom to design my containers, image borders, and padding to keep space as needed. However, the wiki format doesn’t allow that.

A <;p&gt; or
had no affect at all. Thanks to my intern-mate Adele for sharing with me that I needed
without the front slash. A totally different concept! I kept having to remind myself to break the habit of adding that front slash.

My mentor asked me to place these comparisons next to each other instead of above and below, to make it easier to read.

This is when I learned that wiki does take some HMTL in the formatting. Imagine my delight when I found that I could format my wiki with code like this:

‘’’Referral Transaction’’’: ‘Referral Date’ = ‘’’Procedure Order’’’: ‘Order Date’

[[File:trans-refDate.jpg|500px]] [[File:trans-ordDate.jpg|500px]]

And have it look like this:

I think this looks much better. My mentor also agreed. ?

Tackling new challenges

My two areas of challenge on the Provider Orders were the Flow Board and Fee Sheets.

Flow Board: The Flow Board tracks the patient time in each segment of the visit. It updates every few seconds. It also holds on to everything that happened during the visit, including my mistakes, and automatically attempts to fix them. I was finally told how to turn that off, but by then it was too late. ?

Notice how the Appointment Time did not match the Start or End time. And the Total Time needed to be changed too. Not only that, there should only be one of each status change.

Apparently the patient Arrived three times. She went into the Exam Room twice. Well, you see what happened. That was one busy patient. ?

Also, the Total Time had to add up to the total section times.

This is where my development background, and my best friend the Chrome Inspector, came to my rescue. ?

I was able to go in and change the details, then close the Inspector and take a new snapshot. Of course, every time I forgot a specific change, I had to start over. This image took a few different tries to get right:

The Fee Sheet had similar challenges because the codes needed to be added and the codes needed to be justified.

After struggling with the actual codes, I still had to make it look good in all areas.

And on the final image, I needed to remove the extra codes. We only need one ICD10 code for one actual visit and prescription.

In the figure above,

CPT4 99203 is the code for a new patient visit and the price is $25.
CPT4 96372 is the code for an injection. There is no cost as it is inside the medical cost.
HCPCS J2800 is the code for the injection medicine.

Each of the above codes were justified with ICD10 code M54.5.

As you can see, ICD10 M54.5 is the medical billing code for Low back pain.

Initially, this took a long time for me to understand, and then to bring it all together. I am very thankful to my mentor Harley Tuck for his patience.

But finally I did it, and I was able to create the Billing Screens and Final Receipt.

The home stretch

Those were my LibreHealth EHR assignments. Now I am moving on to the LibreHealth Radiology segment and it will flow a little differently.

During my internship, I was able to take some time out to prepare to meet up with other FreeCodeCampers in New York City.

freeCodeCamp 2018 Top Contributor Award

I was totally surprised to receive the email from Quincy Larson telling me that I was chosen to be recognized for my contributions to the freeCodeCamp Medium publication. I didn’t feel like I really did anything extraordinary.

I began to hang out in the chat rooms and forums a while ago because I wanted to know an answer to a question, or to learn a new solution to a problem. Then I started answering questions that I thought I knew the answers to. Sometimes I was actually correct. ?

I like coding. It forces me to use the logical side of my mind for problem-solving, and yet my creative side can make something pretty too.

But I also love to read. I am in an Advanced Review Copies (ARC) group for a couple of fiction authors. I like their work and I can sometimes spot an error before it gets published.

I’ve been reading the weekly articles sent by Quincy Larson, as well as the Medium Digest, since I joined freeCodeCamp. I found these articles helped me a lot, especially if the article was written at the same time that I was working on a similar project or trying to understand a similar concept.

So when the call went out for volunteer editors for the freeCodeCamp Medium publication, I saw this as a great opportunity to study under some of my favorite authors. I get to read the best articles first! And I try to help fix any typos or grammar issues that occur.

We have a great editing team, and I am proud to be a part of it.

When I applied for the Documentation Internship with LibreHealth, I used everything that I had learned editing here on Medium to help me with my work.

And so, when I got that email from Quincy, I mentioned the 2018 Top Contributor Award event to my mentor. He suggested that this could be made a part of my internship. It would then be possible to receive a stipend to help pay for my trip to New York.

My Outreachy coordinator, Sage Sharp, agreed with my mentor! I will be in New York City on the 18th of August to celebrate with a bunch of other Top Contributors.

I will also have a chance to meet one of my other LibreHealth mentors in Manhattan during the day, before the freeCodeCamp event that evening.

And, of course, I also found out that some of my favorite freeCodeCamp heroes will be at the event. I’m excited!

Last Words - For Now

I would like to remind women and other under represented members in the tech industry:

The next round of Outreachy Internships starts in September 2018. That is less than a month away. If you have not already done so, and are interested in applying, Sign Up Now to receive the announcements. You’ll be notified when the process begins.

And, freeCodeCamp campers are eligible to join too! ?

Thank you for staying on this journey with me. I’ll have more when I get back from New York.

The Definitive List of Courses for Learning About the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

freeCodeCamp — Mon, 16 Jul 2018 20:15:04 +0000

By Dhawal Shah

In 2015, the United Nations came together to adopt Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development, a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) covering topics such as health, inequality, climate change, and more. Since their adoption, the SDGs have served as a platform for organizing global, national, local, and individual action.

With the help of SDG Academy, a free online education platform from the UN’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), Class Central has pulled together a giant list of courses that will teach you about the SDGs.

The SDG Academy alone has produced 20 courses on cross-cutting issues related to the SDGs — such as human rights, resilience, and environmental security. This list also includes courses sourced from various other MOOC platforms, all organized by which goal they address.

Overall, SDG Academy helped me identify more than 80 courses on sustainable development from global universities including Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, and MIT.

Whether you’re interested in poverty reduction, human rights, food security, public health, education, or any other sustainable development topic, these courses will help you join efforts to achieve prosperity for both people and planet.

SDG 1: No Poverty

End poverty in all its forms everywhere

The Challenges of Global Poverty
Massachusetts Institute of Technology via edX

This is a course for people who are interested in the challenge posed by massive and persistent world poverty. Is extreme poverty a thing of the past? What is economic life like when living under a dollar per day? Are the poor always hungry? How do we make schools work for poor citizens? How do we deal with the disease burden? Is microfinance invaluable or overrated? Learn what economists have to say about these and other questions.

From Poverty to Prosperity: Understanding Economic Development
University of Oxford via edX

How can poor societies become prosperous and overcome obstacles to do so? Professor Sir Paul Collier is one of the world’s leading scholars on this question, and in this economics course you will have the opportunity to learn from him directly.

Improving Children’s Lives: Reducing Child Poverty and Inequality Around the World
University of York via FutureLearn

Why do some countries do better than others in giving their children a good start to life? Can governments improve children’s lives by learning from the best performing countries? This course explores these questions using a combination of articles, videos, animations, articles, interactive data visualisations, discussions, and research “bites”.

SDG 2: No Hunger

End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition, and promote sustainable agriculture

Feeding a Hungry Planet: Agriculture, Nutrition, and Sustainability
SDG Academy

This course explores the key challenges to ensuring a healthy and sustainable diet for our growing world population, as well as the central role of agriculture in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Starting with a historical overview of the past 50 years of agricultural development, the course highlights key technological advancements and interventions to produce more and better quality food while simultaneously achieving social and environmental goals.

Sustainable Food Systems: A Mediterranean Perspective
SDG Academy

The Mediterranean region is one of the most biodiverse in the world, home to a complex and intricate patchwork of cultures, climates, and cuisines. This course discusses the challenges and opportunities of the agricultural sector in the Mediterranean basin. It summarizes global-to-local challenges related to achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs); outlines the history and culture of agriculture; explains agricultural data with a focus on rural development models and value creation; explores EU policy frameworks and international agreements related to food and agriculture in the Mediterranean; and highlights emerging opportunities in the sector.

Feeding the World
University of Pennsylvania via Coursera

This course explores the concepts driving current food production science (population growth, urbanization, emerging affluence, resource constraints, and underlying biological limits) with a focus on livestock production. Each of the major food animal species (dairy, swine, beef, and poultry) will be covered in terms of their universal life cycles, constraints to production, and emerging societal issues.

Global Food Security: Addressing the Challenge
Lancaster University via FutureLearn

How we will feed an extra two billion people by the middle of this century? Focusing both on UK agriculture and on food supply chains in other parts of the world, this course examines how food has shaped our environmental and social landscapes.

Systems Science and Obesity
Johns Hopkins University via Coursera

Systems science has been instrumental in breaking new scientific ground in diverse fields such as meteorology, engineering, and decision analysis. However, it is just beginning to impact public health. This course introduces basic tools in systems science to better understand the obesity epidemic in human populations. Learn how a systems approach can be applied to other non-communicable diseases both nationally and internationally.

SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being

Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

Global Public Health
SDG Academy

This course covers the basic tenets of public health and the importance of social determinants, the global burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases, and the appropriate public health responses. Learn about the importance of health systems in promoting the health of populations, and the different methods employed around the world to achieve universality in access to health services.

Health and Society
Harvard University via edX

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the major social variables — social class, race, gender, poverty, income distribution, social networks/support, community cohesion, the work and neighborhood environment — that affect population health.

An Introduction to Global Health
University of Copenhagen via Coursera

This course will provide you with an overview of the most important health challenges facing the world today.

Global Health Case Studies from a Biosocial Perspective
Harvard University via edX

Four physician-anthropologists — Paul Farmer, Arthur Kleinman, Anne Becker, and Salmaan Keshavjee — draw on experience working in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Americas to investigate the field of global health, how global health problems are defined and constructed, and how global health interventions play out in both expected and unexpected ways.

Childbirth: A Global Perspective
Emory University via Coursera

This course will review challenges for maternal and newborn health in the developing world, where a great many women and babies are suffering from complications during pregnancy, childbirth, and the days following birth. Through lectures, case studies and readings, course participants will learn about delivery challenges for maternal and newborn health services and how to utilize community-based strategies to improve the health and survival of mothers and babies.

Caring for Vulnerable Children
University of Strathclyde via FutureLearn

Learn about risk and vulnerability among children, how children grow and develop, and how we can provide them with meaningful relationships and secure attachments. The knowledge you gain from this course may prompt you to explore or extend a career in child care or social work services.

SDG 4: Quality Education

Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all

The Best Start in Life: Early Childhood Development for Sustainable Development
SDG Academy

Children are the common basis for all dimensions of sustainable development. Beyond mere survival, children have a right to thrive, develop to their full potential, and live in a sustainable world. This course draws from research in neuroscience, psychology, economics, anthropology and program implementation and evaluation in order to discuss Early Childhood Development and explore its role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Education for All: Disability, Diversity, and Inclusion
University of Cape Town via FutureLearn

Millions of children around the world are excluded from access to education because of a disability — robbing them of their potential and diminishing our society. On this course you will learn about inclusive education, understanding what barriers there are to learning and how to challenge them.

The Right to Education: Breaking Down the Barriers
University of Glasgow via Future Learn

Does education for all, really mean all? What are the barriers to participating in education? How do you include “all” in the classroom? This course will answer these and other questions, and help you join the movement to get children the world over into education.

Teaching for Change: An African Philosophical Approach
Stellenbosch University via Future Learn

African philosophy of education has emerged as an educational challenge for many involved in contemporary education. In this course you’ll learn more about this philosophy, why it’s being examined, how it potentially responds to teaching and learning and what can be done to improve education in a just manner.

SDG 5: Gender Equality

Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

Human Rights, Human Wrongs: Challenging Poverty, Vulnerability, and Social Exclusion
SDG Academy

Learn about the establishment of human rights and their linkages to many other global issues in sustainable development. Learners in this course discuss and debate the complex intersection of politics, gender, social norms, economics and power that have shaped — and will continue to shape — human rights worldwide.

International Women’s Health and Human Rights
Stanford University via Coursera

This course focuses on women’s health and human rights issues from infancy through old age. Topics include education, female genital mutilation, HIV/AIDS, reproductive health, violence against women, women in war and refugee settings, women’s economic empowerment, sex work and sex trafficking, aging and end of life.

Understanding Violence Against Women: Myths and Realities
University of Strathclyde via FutureLearn

In this course you will learn about the roots of violence against women, the principles of gender inequality at its centre and most importantly, how to challenge entrenched attitudes that impact women the world over.

Confronting Gender Based Violence: Global Lessons for Healthcare Workers
Johns Hopkins University via Coursera

This course introduces participants from the healthcare sector to gender based violence (GBV), including global epidemiology of GBV; health outcomes; seminal research; and clinical best practices for GBV prevention, support, and management.

Gender-Based Violence in the Context of Migration
European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation

Drawing from expertise and examples at the global and regional level, this course provides participants with multiple perspectives and examples of practices in a field that is at the crossroads of gender, migration and human rights studies. Addressing the root causes of forced and economic migration and ensuring that the human rights of women and girls are protected throughout the migration process are essential steps towards a stronger recognition of their equal dignity.

SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation

Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all

Water in a Thirsty World
Open2Study

In this course you will take the journey of water — how it began, and its availability today in light of global warming and urbanization. Explore examples from around the world, learn about a vast range of technologies like desalination, and see what is involved in sustainable thinking and decision making about water.

Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems: the Nexus between Water, Energy and Food
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Autonomous University of Barcelona) via Coursera

In this course you will become familiar with the ideas of the water-energy-food nexus and transdisciplinary thinking. You will learn to see your community or country as a complex social-ecological system and to describe its water, energy and food metabolism in the form of a pattern, as well as to map the categories of social actors.

International Water Law
University of Geneva via Coursera

This course provides the necessary background to understand and examine the regulation applicable to transboundary freshwaters, especially rivers, lakes and aquifers. It presents the principles and legal standards that govern the use, sharing, management and protection of these resources.

Water Supply and Sanitation Policy in Developing Countries Part 1: Understanding Complex Problems
University of Manchester via Coursera

This course explores what can be done to solve the complex problem that half a billion people worldwide do not have improved water supplies and two billion do not have improved sanitation. Develop the skills you need to address this major global challenge of the 21st century.

Water Resources Management and Policy
University of Geneva via Coursera

Develop an understanding of the problems related to water management. This course looks at water management in detail through the analysis of the different types of rights and obligations.

SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy

Assure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all

Politics and Economics of International Energy
Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris via Coursera

The course discusses global trends in energy consumption and production, various available scenarios for potential developments in the coming decades, the availability of oil reserves and the evolution of the oil industry. Learn about renewable energy sources, nuclear energy and EU energy policy.

Global Energy and Climate Policy
SOAS University of London via Coursera

This course offers an introduction to the theoretical and practical understanding of how energy and climate change policies are designed, shaped, advocated and implemented. As energy markets go truly global, domestic energy policies are becoming more and more entangled with wider issues of international governance.

Our Energy Future
University of California, San Diego via Coursera

This course is designed to introduce students to the issues of energy in the 21st century — including food and fuels — which are inseparably linked — and will discuss energy production and utilization from the biology, engineering, economics, climate science, and social science perspectives.

Wind Resources for Renewable Energies
Ecole Polytechnique via Coursera

Learn about basic meteorology, the specific dynamics of turbulent boundary layers and some standard techniques to estimate wind resources regardless of the type of turbine used or the level of efficiency achieved. Get hands-on experience applying what you have learned about wind resource assessment to real data sets.

Energy Principles and Renewable Energy
University of Queensland via edX

This course provides a foundation for understanding the basics of everything related to energy and the challenges associated with transitioning to a sustainable energy future.

SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all

Macroeconomics for a Sustainable Development
SDG Academy

Unemployment. Inflation. Protectionism. Economic bubble. Debt. Fiscal deficit. These are not just terms in an economics textbook; these are real-life challenges that are dominating the media and that carry major societal implications. Explore the different macroeconomic “pathologies” at play in the modern day global economy, drawing from the lessons and experiences of the past and incorporating the significant biophysical pressures facing the planet today.

Global Trends for Business and Society
University of Pennsylvania via Coursera

Learn to analyze rapidly changing global trends, their effects on consumer and labor markets, financial systems, and geopolitical relationships among countries all over the world. Through real-world case studies, both historical and contemporary, you’ll examine how changes within one society affect others.

Global History of Capitalism
Princeton University via edX

By looking at capitalism through a global lens, this course investigates multiple types of explanations and impacts on local, national, regional and global levels. Students will examine a range of different topics deeply connected to the evolution of capitalism; including labor relations, migration, commodities, consumption, finance, war, imperialism, development, energy, and the environment.

Forced and Precarious Labor in the Global Economy: Slavery by Another Name?
University of the Witwatersrand via edX

Led by some of the world’s leading authorities in the field, this course provides an introduction to the role of forced and precarious labor in the global economy. Drawing upon examples from across the world, the course specifically focuses on supply chain work, migrant work, and sex work.

Fair Wage Strategies in a Global Economy
Global Labour University via Iversity

Billions of workers around the world have no regular income or do not even earn a wage sufficient to live a decent life. This course offers a mix of video lectures and interviews, readings, online resources and exercises to gain both knowledge and practical skills to understand the landscape of wage setting.

Economic Growth and Distributive Justice Part 1: The Role of the State
Tel Aviv University via Coursera

Economic Growth and Distributive Justice Part 2: Maximize Social Wellbeing

Tel Aviv University via Coursera

If you really care about the big questions in the economies and societies of the 21st century, such as inequality of income or wealth, and its correlation with economic growth, this set of courses is meant for you. The knowledge you gain can truly change your outlook on our world.

SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure

Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation

Becoming a Changemaker: Introduction to Social Innovation
University of Cape Town via Coursera

Whether you are already familiar with the field of social innovation or social entrepreneurship, working for an organization that wants to increase its social impact, or just starting out, this course will take you on a journey of exploring the complex problems that surround us and how to start thinking about solutions.

Creativity, Innovation, and Change
Pennsylvania State University via Coursera

Creativity, innovation, and change require a unique mindset and collection of mental tools. In this course you will learn about four key variables that define and describe creative diversity, including your creative style and your creative level.

Greening the Economy: Lessons from Scandinavia
Lund University via Coursera

How can we live a good life on one planet with over seven billion people? This course explores greening the economy on four levels — individual, business, city, and nation.

How Green is that Product? An Introduction to Life Cycle Environmental Assessment
Northwestern University via Coursera

Paper or plastic? Local or imported food? Which is better for the environment? To answer these questions, one must take a holistic systems view using a quantitative approach known as life cycle assessment. The course provides an introduction to LCA methods and applications, including a hands-on modeling project.

Innovation and Design for Global Grand Challenges
Duke University via Coursera

This course will inspire you to rethink assumptions to address global challenges in conservation and development, and introduce you to new models and approaches that harness technological, behavioral, and financial innovation. Learn the tools, models, and approaches to address global grand challenges in conservation and development and to create and execute new solutions.

SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities

Reduce inequality within and among countries

Human Rights, Human Wrongs: Challenging Poverty, Vulnerability, and Social Exclusion
SDG Academy

Learn about the establishment of human rights and their linkages to many other global issues in sustainable development. The course joins legal frameworks and societal contexts to explore the barriers that prevent rights from becoming a reality. Students discuss and debate the complex intersection of politics, gender, social norms, economics and power that have shaped — and will continue to shape — human rights worldwide.

Improving Children’s Lives: Reducing Child Poverty and Inequality Around the World
University of York via FutureLearn

Global Inequality
Wellesley College via edX

This sociology course introduces core concepts of class, gender, and racial inequality, and an approach to studying complex forms of inequality called intersectionality. Featuring interviews with top scholars and discussion of the full-length award winning documentary, China Blue, which follows the life of a young seventeen-year-old worker from Sichuan province, to a Chinese jeans factory, this course will transform your perspective on yourself and others.

SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable

Sustainable Cities
SDG Academy

This course explores what Sustainable cities are about. It examines how urban sustainability can be delivered: how cities function as systems of systems; how we can increase urban productivity and reduce urban poverty and inequality, enable urban inclusion and safety; provide universal basic services, housing and infrastructure; protect the urban environment, reduce risk and vulnerability.

Cities and the Challenge of Sustainable Development
SDG Academy

This mini-series is a companion piece to the SDG Academy’s full-length Sustainable Cities course and also serves as a brief introduction to the topic of urban sustainable development and the SDGs.

Planetary Boundaries and Human Opportunities
SDG Academy

Learn concepts at the core of contemporary research and debate on global sustainability. This course will expand and update your ‘conceptual toolbox’ in matters of global sustainability.

Cities Are Back in Town: Urban Sociology for a Globalizing Urban World
Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris via Coursera

Urbanization is reaching a new peak in the contemporary world with the rise of megacities. Researchers try to make sense of these large urban areas using a variety of concepts. The class will review debates and present social science models of cities to analyse and compare contemporary developments.

Designing Cities
University of Pennsylvania via Coursera

Each module in Designing Cities focuses on a different aspect of city design including: How Today’s City Evolved; The Ideas That Shape Cities; Tools for Designing Cities; Making Cities Sustainable; Cities in the Information Age; Preserving Older Cities; Designing New Cities, Districts and Neighborhoods; The Challenges of Informal Cities and Disadvantaged Neighborhoods; and Visionary Cities.

Rethink the City: New Approaches to Global and Local Urban Challenges
Delft University via edX

Learn about today’s urban challenges focusing on developing countries, referred to as the Global South. Through a combination of short theoretical lessons, presentation of case studies, testimonies from practitioners and practical assignments you will learn how to develop a critical perspective about your own urban environment and how to translate this knowledge into analytical tools and innovative urban solutions.

SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

Natural Resources for Sustainable Development
SDG Academy

This course outlines the various complex and interrelated aspects of natural resource governance, including: understanding the governance and industry fundamentals; developing and implementing robust and transparent legal frameworks; designing fiscal regimes to capture a fair share of the revenues; managing environmental risks; engaging with communities; leveraging investments for infrastructure and business linkages; and managing revenues for economic diversification and development, among others.

Planetary Boundaries and Human Opportunities
SDG Academy

Learn concepts at the core of contemporary research and debate on global sustainability. This course will expand and update your ‘conceptual toolbox’ in matters of global sustainability.

Global Resource Politics: the Past, Present and Future of Oil, Gas and Shale
Hanyang University via FutureLearn

The goal of this free online course is to examine the numerous critical energy challenges we are facing, and the complex interaction between the economics and politics of global energy markets. You will acquire an understanding of energy security and energy policy in today’s highly politicised, volatile energy markets.

SDG 13: Climate Action

Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts

Climate Change Science and Negotiations
SDG Academy

Scientists have pointed out that a rise in mean surface temperature of 2º Celsius above pre-industrial levels will put the Earth in dangerous, uncharted territory. Yet we currently are on a path toward an increase of 4º or more this century. Fortunately, solutions exist to deeply decarbonize the global energy systems, and put the world on a 2°C pathway. During this course, you will learn about these solutions and how they can be applied in different national contexts, based on the results from the Deep Decarbonization Pathways Project (DDPP), a global initiative to show how countries can transition to a low carbon economy by 2050, and how the world can stay within the 2°C limit.

Planetary Boundaries and Human Opportunities
SDG Academy

Learn concepts at the core of contemporary research and debate on global sustainability. This course will expand and update your ‘conceptual toolbox’ in matters of global sustainability.

Climate Action: Solutions for a Changing Planet
SDG Academy

Learn the science behind reducing global greenhouse gas emission, what businesses and government can do to decarbonize the economy, the role of agriculture in reducing emissions, how satellites are being used to identify high-emissions areas, and the actions communities and individuals can take to make climate action a reality.

Climate Change Mitigation in Developing Countries
University of Cape Town via Coursera

This course challenges you to consider how one might lift societies out of poverty while also mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. This course covers topics such as facilitation process techniques, energy modeling, scenario building, innovation and policy making. You will have the opportunity to respond to these topics with ideas and reflection from your own context. Whether you are a climate change practitioner, work in development or are simply curious about how climate mitigation is understood, this course will give you insights into the complexity of how countries from the South pursue development goals while addressing climate mitigation.

Global Warming Science
Massachusetts Institute of Technology via edX

Global Warming Science teaches you about the risks and uncertainties of future climate change by examining the science behind the earth’s climate. You will be able to answer such questions as, “What is the Greenhouse Effect?” and “How and why has earth’s climate changed through geologic history?”

SDG 14: Life Below Water

Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas, and marine resources for sustainable development

One Planet-One Ocean
SDG Academy

This ten-week course presents the challenges and opportunities facing oceans today. The course brings in some of the world’s leading experts on ocean science to present the issues and potential solutions grounded in rigorous scientific research.

Planetary Boundaries and Human Opportunities
SDG Academy

Learn concepts at the core of contemporary research and debate on global sustainability. This course will expand and update your ‘conceptual toolbox’ in matters of global sustainability.

Marine and Antarctic Science
Open2Study

This course will introduce you to the fascinating world of our oceans. You will learn about marine life and key features of the ocean system. You will also explore some of the stressors on marine systems caused by human activity. Finally, this course will cover how society might sensibly approach managing those threats into the future.

Contemporary Issues in Ocean Governance
Open2Study

This course considers the nature of how the world’s oceans are regulated. It will go through how ocean governance has evolved through time and how it actually works. In addition, there will be a focus on particular issues such as piracy, maritime security and environmental protection for the oceans.

Oceanography: a key to better understand our world
University of Barcelona and Fundaciò Navagaciò Oceànica Barcelona via Coursera

In this course the student will learn about the foundations of the science of oceanography. You’ll learn about the classification and formation of the ocean floor, how current sea satellite analysis systems work, the chemistry of the oceans and the processes that led to its formation.

Exploring Our Oceans
University of Southampton via FutureLearn

Discover how you can play a part in the safe-keeping of the future of our oceansWhat lies in the half of our world covered by water more than two miles deep? How are our everyday lives connected to the ocean depths, and what challenges and opportunities does this previously hidden realm hold for our future? By taking this course, you will see how the deep ocean is no longer out of reach, and join a global debate about the future of our “blue planet”.

Tropical Coastal Ecosystems
University of Queensland via edX

Develop the skills and knowledge needed to help preserve tropical coastal ecosystems. This course will introduce you to the incredible plants and animals that create these unique ecosystems. You will go on to explore the challenges these ecosystems are facing such as overfishing, coastal pollution, ocean warming and acidification, then learn about some techniques being used to tackle these problems.

SDG 15: Life on Land

Protect, restore, and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss

From the Ground Up: Managing and Preserving our Terrestrial Ecosystems
SDG Academy

Learn about the impacts of deforestation, climate change and more, with a particular focus on the human activities that affect these ecosystems. In studying the interplay of local communities dependent on these natural resources, you will emerge with a deep understanding of how to ensure the long-term health of our global ecosystems.

Ecosystem Services: a Method for Sustainable Development
University of Geneva via Coursera

Ecosystem services are a way of thinking about — and evaluating — the goods and services provided by nature that contribute to the well-being of humans. This course covers scientific (technical), economic, and socio-political dimensions of the concept through a mix of theory, case-studies, interviews with specialists and a serious-game.

Urban Water-Innovations for Environmental Sustainability
The University of British Columbia via edX

In this interdisciplinary course you will learn about the water-related dimensions of environmentally sustainable urbanism. The course features Vancouver, one of the world’s leading cities for green design.

Forests and Livelihoods in Developing Countries
The University of British Columbia via edX

This interdisciplinary course explores the complex interactions between poverty, rural livelihoods, and forest resources in developing countries. This course will engage you in developing a deeper understanding of the fundamental importance of forest resources in the lives and livelihoods of people in developing countries.

Global Environmental Management
Technical University of Denmark via Coursera

Learn about the best environmental technologies for a sustainable development and how they are managed in various settings around the world. This course gives you an opportunity to learn about global trends that influence our environment and the living conditions and how different management systems and approaches that are used around the world to manage the environment.

SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions

Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable, and inclusive institutions at all levels

Environmental Security and Sustaining Peace
SDG Academy

This course provides an in-depth introduction to the multiple roles that natural resources and the environment play in the onset, escalation, and resolution of, and recovery from, violent conflicts. Many of the considerations and approaches in this course are also relevant to understanding and addressing social conflicts around natural resources and the environment.

Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home
SDG Academy

Pope Francis — spiritual leader to the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics — issued an encyclical called Laudato Si’: On Care of our Common Home. This encyclical is addressed not only to Catholics, but to all people of the world. In blunt terms, it draws attention to the nature of the grave ecological crisis that humanity has created, and it issues a moral clarion call for urgent action to protect the earth and its inhabitants from ruin. This short course provides an overview of the main themes and messages of Laudato Si’.

Human Rights, Human Wrongs: Challenging Poverty, Vulnerability, and Social Exclusion
SDG Academy

SDG 17: Partnership for the Goals

Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development

Act on Climate: Steps to Individual, Community, and Political Action
University of Michigan via Coursera

Are you concerned about climate change? Would you like to learn how to address and respond to this challenge? If so, this course is for you.

Foundations of Development Policy
Massachusetts Institute of Technology via edX

In this course, we will study the different facets of human development in topics such as education, health, gender, the family, land relations, risk, informal and formal norms, public policy, and institutions. At the same time, you will discover modern empirical methods in economics. Throughout the course, we will expose you to all facets of empirical projects, from experimental design and ethical issues, to data collection and data analysis.

The Changing Global Order
Leiden University via Coursera

How are international power relations changing and how can global peace and stability be maintained? This course familiarizes you with some main theories of international relations, shows how the global order is gradually changing and discusses how selected international and regional organizations contribute to the maintenance of global peace and security. You learn what research findings tell us in terms of the capacity of international organizations and actors to help prevent or stop violent conflict, what tools are used to negotiate agreements and how foundations for sustainable peace are best created.

Global Sociology
Wellesley College via edX

In this introductory sociology course, we will explore the concerns of an interconnected global world through classic sociological concepts. Through short lectures, interviews with prominent sociologists and everyday people around the world, you will learn to see your role in the scope of global history.

Courses cross-cutting the SDGs

The Age of Sustainable Development
SDG Academy

This course provides an introduction to the interdisciplinary field of sustainable development, drawing on the most recent developments in the social, policy, and physical sciences. The course offers a broad overview of the key challenges and potential solutions to achieve sustainable development in the 21st century.

Globalization: Past and Future
SDG Academy

In this free, four-part mini-course, Professor Jeffrey Sachs takes students on a historical and anthropological tour of six distinct waves of globalization and outlines the key factors that drove innovation, technology dispersal and development during these epochs. The course tells the story of a global humanity and asks the question: What lessons can we pull from history to help understand the tumultuous changes underway today?

Transforming the World: Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals
SDG Academy

This mini-series presents and explains the 17 newly adopted Sustainable Development Goals.

Sustainable Development in the 21st Century with Ban Ki-moon
Yonsei University via Coursera

This course is for people who want to learn about the latest development agenda the international community agreed to achieve by 2030. Structured around the five pillars of Agenda 2030 — people, prosperity, planet, peace and justice, and partnership, students will learn that these pillars are interconnected and need to be integrated in practical policy-making and operational activities for development, in both developed and developing country settings.

Political Economy of Institutions and Development
University of Leiden via Coursera

What makes some countries wealthier than others? Do we face cultural diversity or fragmentation? Does the type of governance affect economic development and social change or is it the other way around? These issues and many more will be examined in this course along with a wide library of sources and a biting criticism.

The Science and Practice of Sustainable Development
University of Queensland via edX

This course introduces the origin and key concepts of sustainability and how to apply those to sustainable development practice. Learn about planetary boundaries, urbanisation and growing inequality, to show how integral sustainable development is to our everyday existence.

Insomnia: an open source app that tells you when to sleep based on sleep cycles

Quincy Larson — Mon, 01 May 2017 19:50:02 +0000

A sleep cycle is a 90-minute chunk of time where your body transitions through various phases of sleep — all the way down to deep REM sleep — then back again. Some health experts believe that these 90-minute sleep cycles are the key to restful sleep. They recommend trying to sleep exactly 7.5 hours — or even 9 hours, if you have the time.

With this in mind, Alex Epstein, a computer engineering student in Boston, built an open source desktop app called Insomnia to help you take full advantage of sleep cycles.

Based on the time you need to wake up — and assuming it will take you 15 minutes to fall asleep — Insomnia will notify you throughout the evening at specific times when you could go to sleep and maximize your number of full sleep cycles.

You can download the app directly from its GitHub page.

If you’re having trouble sleeping at night, you can also download the popular Flux desktop app, which will alter the color of your screen throughout the evening. This can reduce your brain’s tendency to mistake the glow of your monitor for daylight.

Here are three links worth your time:

JavaScript Arrays and Objects Are Just Like Books and Newspapers (5 minute read)
How to Turn a Web App Into a Desktop App, Using Chromium and PyInstaller (7 minute read)
Learn LaTeX, the mathematical notation tool, in 30 minutes (30 minute read)

Thought of the day:

“A great tester gives programmers immediate feedback on what they did right and what they did wrong. Believe it or not, one of the most valuable features of a tester is providing positive reinforcement. There is no better way to improve a programmer’s morale, happiness, and subjective sense of well-being than a La Marzocco Linea espresso machine to have dedicated testers who get frequent releases from the developers, try them out, and give negative and positive feedback.”-– Joel Spolsky

Image of the day:

Visual Basic developer Scott Spence discovered this version of PacMan that runs right in Microsoft Excel. Each pixel is an Excel cell.

Study group of the day:

freeCodeCamp Helsinki

Happy coding!

– Quincy Larson, teacher at freeCodeCamp

If you get value out of these emails, please consider supporting our nonprofit.

10 Principles I Want to Live By

freeCodeCamp — Sun, 25 Dec 2016 21:19:44 +0000

By Haseeb Qureshi

I just came home from a vow of silence at a meditation center in northern California. It’s a strange feeling coming back to city life after five days of silent meditation.

Looking around at puffing joggers, Christmas wreaths, eager couples waiting outside restaurants, the stop and start of traffic — it’s almost too much for my senses.

The last time I took a vow of silence was 5 years ago. It lasted ten days. I had just walked away from my career as a poker player then. I was lost, confused. I was angry at myself. Entering the veil of silence, I expected to come out the other side with answers.

It was probably the hardest ten days of my life. But when I got to the other side, I emerged with only more questions.

This time feels different. Despite the dark of the winter solstice, I return from my vow of silence with unexpected clarity.

I decided that after I got home, I would write a letter to myself. This is that letter.

These last two years have been a cyclone of change. I’ve pledged myself to earning-to-give, I’ve picked up my life and migrated to San Francisco, I’ve shouldered my way into the tech industry. Now I am a full-time software engineer.

I’ve been moving so fast, so much has obviously shifted. Yet internally, I still have this old image of myself. I’ve forgotten to even ask myself—what do I value now? How has it changed?

I wanted to create a document that I can look back on, to remind myself of my principles. If times are ever tough or I’m feeling stranded, that this letter can be a lodestone to guide me.

Call it a personal manifesto.

Usually when I write blog posts, I write them for other people. This post will be an exception — I am writing this first and foremost for myself. Nevertheless, I hope that this posts inspires your reflection, and that you might consider how these principles might be useful to you too.

1. Live simply.

You already have everything you need.

Simplify. Give things away. Turn down offers for more. Know that you are complete and you don’t need more things to live a good life.

What a pleasure it is to pack up your life into a few bags and embark on a new life! Allow yourself to do that, again, and again, and again.

Of course, there’s no shame in having things. But whatever you have, consider it all borrowed — and when it must be returned, do it with joy.

2. You will always have haters. Ignore them.

If you are passionate, if you are strange, if you defy what most people assume are the rules, you will court haters.

That’s fine. Let them hate if that’s what they need. Their hate will make you more resilient.

But most of all, you should be thankful that they showed up. Because if they didn’t, it would be a sure sign what you were doing was not important.

“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

— Winston Churchill

3. Fight quietly for the things that matter.

Whether it be the people you love, or the causes that matter to you — do good work. Be humble. Fight hard, and fight with everything you’ve got.

Attention or fame can be pleasurable, sometimes even useful. But more often than not, it’s a distraction from the real work.

4. Give yourself up.

It’s not about you. It’s about something bigger than you.

Give. Contribute. Not just money, or time, but your identity. Make your life about more than just you.

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

— Mary Oliver, “The Summer Day”

5. Seek mastery.

Get better.

Work harder.

Practice, study, fumble.

Do this all your life.

Call it passion.

6. Be forever a student.

There will always be people who are better, stronger, wiser than you.

When you don’t know something, proclaim it out loud. Feverishly seek the answers. Wear out your knees with humbleness. Never let ignorance or shame deter you, because the desire to learn is always noble.

Go searching for your teachers, and don’t give up until you find them.

7. Cultivate virtue — by force, if you have to.

You are a coward. You are fearful, you are lazy, you are selfish. Only once you know this can you begin the work of cultivating virtue.

You are principally what you do. So pledge. Show up. Keep coming back. And when you are too afraid to stay, sometimes you must lock yourself in the room and throw away the key.

8. You will find your own way.

Your life, your path, your failures and successes will not look like other people’s. Though you will read many books and hear many stories, for better or for worse, their blueprints will not apply to you.

That’s fine. You’ll do great things, and in your own way. You will forge a path that no one will expect — not even you.

That’s okay. Trust that your path, strange though it will seem, is right for you.

9. Build your wings on the way down.

Be smart, be calculated, be careful. But when opportunity arises, steel your nerves and take the leap. If you don’t see any risks worth taking, you’re not paying attention.

It’s okay if you don’t know what you’re doing — trust that you’ll learn before you hit the floor. And if you crash: brush yourself off, forgive your errors, and try again. This is the only way progress has ever happened.

10. Stay hungry, stay foolish.

You are a little bit crazy. The world needs people like you — reckless, steaming, hapless dreamers.

So don’t give it up. Keep asking for too much. Hunger for the world and everything in it, and don’t slow down, no matter what people say.

Forget safety. Live where you fear to live.

Destroy your reputation. Be notorious.

— Rumi, “Bewilderment”

I’ll be writing more soon about my donations and some reflections on 2016. But for now, thanks as always for reading.

—Haseeb

FreeCodeCamp Might Help You Live Longer

freeCodeCamp — Wed, 11 Nov 2015 03:36:29 +0000

By Christopher Phillips

Since I started my web development journey with Free Code Camp, I’ve felt more awake, more alert, and able to process information at greater speeds. What I didn’t realize until recently is that coding there might actually help me live longer, too.

There have been a lot of studies into dementia and Alzheimer’s — specifically regarding keeping one’s brain active and learning other languages, to which coding contributes.

The primary term is “cognitive reserve” — the ability for your brain to functionally compensate for natural degeneration.

“ Research indicates that people who have solid stores of cognitive reserve are generally less likely to exhibit the classic signs of dementia — short-term memory loss, difficulty multitasking. “

So how could you improve cognitive reserve with coding?

Problem solving: Coding challenges your brain in different ways, forcing you to open new neural pathways. It increases efficiency, and improves your brain’s ability to work under challenging conditions. This means that if you suffer a brain injury, degenerative or otherwise, your brain is more likely to be able to function at a higher level afterwards.
Creativity: I’ve noticed a dramatic rise in my creativity and originality since I started to code. This creativity transcends my computer, too. My friends report that I’m coming up with more original ideas. This jives with a study that showed that there’s a link between “verbal creativity” and an increase in cognitive reserve.
Opening new possibilities: Coding has opened my mind to endless creative possibilities. The creative process with coding is similar to when I studied my degree in anthropology and realized that the representations of culture around the world were infinitely varied. So too are the possibilities with code. This is opening up parts of my brain that I haven’t used for a long time, and could be improving my cognitive reserve.

Bilingualism

There have been a multitude of studies showing that bilingualism can increase cognitive reserve. When processing a new language, older languages become activated to some degree in order to process new ones. This functional interaction produces more gray and white matter in the brain, leading to increased cognitive reserve. But can we assume that coding languages are the same?

A study from the University of Passau involved conducting brain scans on 17 volunteers while they read source code. They found that programming languages and natural languages activated the same parts of the brain, and in similar ways.

Increasing your cognitive reserve not only reduces risk of Alzheimer’s and dementia, it has also been shown to have an effect on incidence of vascular injury, Parkinson’s disease, traumatic brain injury, HIV, and multiple sclerosis. You’re not just stopping dementia by coding — you are having an effect on many other ailments.

Why FreeCodeCamp?

So why have I specifically referenced Free Code Camp? I feel that their open source curriculum is more independent than any other I have tried, which simply leads me to use more brain matter than others. This should increase my cognitive reserve even more.

With Free Code Camp, I’m not merely watching videos or reading tutorials — I’m creating entire projects from a blank canvas, such my recent Weather App.

Next time you’re struggling, beavering away at a second coding language, or simply learning some new grammar or syntax in your first, don’t dismay. It could save your life.

Originally published on Chris Phillips’ blog.

Health, - freeCodeCamp.org

Stress and Mental Health in Tech – What I learned from Dr. Jennifer Akullian's freeCodeCamp Tech Talk

Mental Health Research for Tech Workers is Limited

How We Can Combat Stress in the Workplace

SLEEP!

Stretch

Take breaks

Breathe

Healthy Habits – How to Become a Better Developer and Live a Happier Life

Habit #1 – Eat Healthy Food

Habit #2 – Do Plenty of Physical Activity and Stretching

Why stretching matters, too

Habit #3 – Develop Proper Stress Management Techniques

How to manage your stress

Habit #4 – Maintain a Beginner’s Mindset

Be a beginner again

Habit #5 – Get Enough Sleep and Take Breaks

How much sleep is enough?

Why taking breaks is important

How to Form Habits

Habit forming law #2 – Make it attractive

Habit forming law #3 – Make it easy

Habit forming law #4 – Make it rewarding

How to get rid of bad habits

How a (telehealth) app a day just might keep the doctor away

Why insurance carriers, Silicon Valley, and society at large are gung ho about telehealth apps and health-monitoring wearables.

What the new Apple Watch’s EKG means for the future of consumer wearables and healthcare

The Apple Watch is a class II medical device.

A beachhead for new medical functionality

Impact on healthcare practices and insurance costs

Wearable medical technology is not a one-horse race

Medical wearables will empower clinical researchers

Wearables provide the sensors and hardware, but user experience is paramount.

How I’ve absorbed as much as I’m able on my Outreachy Journey

My Outreachy LibreHealth Internship so far

Tackling new challenges

The home stretch

freeCodeCamp 2018 Top Contributor Award

Last Words - For Now

Previous Articles

The Definitive List of Courses for Learning About the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 1: No Poverty

SDG 2: No Hunger

SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being

SDG 4: Quality Education

SDG 5: Gender Equality

SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation

SDG 7: Affordable and Clean Energy

SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth

SDG 9: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure

SDG 10: Reduced Inequalities

SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

SDG 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

SDG 13: Climate Action

SDG 14: Life Below Water

SDG 15: Life on Land

SDG 16: Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions

SDG 17: Partnership for the Goals

Courses cross-cutting the SDGs

Insomnia: an open source app that tells you when to sleep based on sleep cycles

Here are three links worth your time:

Thought of the day:

Image of the day:

Study group of the day:

10 Principles I Want to Live By

1. Live simply.

2. You will always have haters. Ignore them.

3. Fight quietly for the things that matter.

4. Give yourself up.

5. Seek mastery.

6. Be forever a student.

7. Cultivate virtue — by force, if you have to.

8. You will find your own way.

9. Build your wings on the way down.

10. Stay hungry, stay foolish.

FreeCodeCamp Might Help You Live Longer

Bilingualism

Why FreeCodeCamp?