>> here goes nothing. >> we are finding it, we are testing it, we are there as they build it. we are on a quest to show you the most cutting-edge companies on the brink of the future. >> tonight, i will head to mexico to swim with the fish in a giant, mobile floating fish farm called an aqua pod. >> lunchtime? >> lunchtime for the fish. >> i will check into palomar medical center, the hospital of the future. >> this is a living lab. >> we will take a road trip to volkswagen's super car green factory in america's heartland. >> we are next to a car manufacturer, right? >> that's right. >> "bloomberg brink." ♪ companies that break the mold,

conventions, boundaries. and the future of technology, design, and industry. ♪ >> so far in our quest to find innovative companies and people, i have gotten to go to chicago and nashua, new hampshire. you just went to mexico. what were you doing there? >> i was snorkeling around a three-story fish farm called an aquapod. >> first, what is an aquapod, and second, i thought fish farms have a bad rep? >> some of them do, because they are close to shore and they produce a lot of pollution. aquapods are moving fish farming offshore into open ocean and producing fish in a more sustainable way. >> the oceans are already in

trouble. i think we have to think about restoring the ocean, improving the condition of the wild stocks of fish. we can do that by growing them in farms in the open ocean. ocean farm technologies is leading the advancement of the technology to make open ocean fish farming sustainable, affordable, and profitable. i think this is going to open up vast new territories. this is going to revolutionize aquaculture. ♪ >> this is baja.

>> rachel, we are about to see one of our cages being raised. all right, here it comes. the fish farming system of the future. >> definitely looks like it is from the future. how many aquapods are at the site right now? >> right now we have four aquapods at the site. it is designed for 10 altogether. >> there are many types of fish farms out there like this open net one behind us. what is the advantage of using the aquapod? >> i liken it to the difference between erecting a tent and building a house. this is like a tent, it is flexible fabric, it won't hold up to a hurricane or really rough weather conditions. the aquapod is a structure. it is totally enclosed. it has metal mesh on it and an entire framework behind it. what we are doing and demonstrating with these open ocean fish farms is developing a profitable, sustainable, environmentally-sensitive system. we can change the way people are growing fish, produce high-quality protein for human consumption.

fish farming developed over the last 40 years in sheltered bays and close to shore. there are advantages to being in the open ocean. there is much more real estate out there. as fish farming grows, there won't be enough places close to shore. my background is this type of traditional fish farming. the idea of the aquapod came to me when i said we really can't sustain this in a safe and environmentally-sustainable way. >> can we get a closer look at the aquapod? >> let's go see it. >> what are they doing right now? they are cleaning it at the moment, correct? >> that is right -- every farmer has to keep the barn clean, and a fish farm is no different. anything you put in the ocean gets algae very quickly. we developed this pen that can be brought to the surface, and because of the spherical shape, it can be rotated. any part of it can be washed on the surface. that makes it unique among any

net pens in the world. clean pens and healthy fish. >> you are going to give me an up close personal view of the aquapod? >> yes, you will be on top of the aquapod. you go first. >> okay. it is like rock climbing. >> yep. almost there. >> this is amazing! what is the impact of the aquapod on the surrounding ecosystem? >> we have seen a very positive impact on the ecosystem. the aquapods are fish-aggregating devices. every time we dive, we see schools and schools of native fish swimming around. >> this mesh here -- it prevents predators from coming in but it also allows for the waste to be drawn out. the waste produced by fish farms is one of the challenges of fish farming. >> for us being offshore with high currents, the currents take away any remains that stay on

the cage if necessary. >> lunchtime? >> lunchtime for the fish, that is correct, hatch open -- look at the clarity of the water. >> it is so clear and calm. >> the next stage is just to have an automated feeding system that will feed the 10 cages we plan to have out here. it is remote controlled on a feeding barge. every cage gets what is needs everyday. >> let's feed these suckers. all right. >> custom-made feed. >> there you go. cooked it myself. can i jump in there? here goes nothing. what are the greatest challenges on selling clients on the technology? >> we really have two types of clients. the new people who want to get into aquaculture, and that is a

very steep learning curve. the other challenge is the existing fish farmers who are using surface pens. they have a multitude of questions. there is skepticism from the general public in terms of how fish farms work. there is skepticism from the traditional existing commercial fish farms that this can be done in the open ocean. we have got a lot to prove. >> how much does a fish farmer have to invest into this technology? >> the initial investment is high. we are talking about tens of millions of dollars. it is a farming system that is probably not suitable for small aquaculturies, but yes for a medium-sized company. >> we acknowledge the fact that setting up an open-ocean fish farm is going to be challenging. this is precedent setting, and precedence doesn't happen quickly. we have investors who realize that what we are doing is cutting edge, it is new. at the same time, we're very

confident that by the end of this year we will be profitable. >> we think we can achieve profitability between 10 to 15 aqua pods. >> how many fish does that mean? >> about 40,000 per aquapod. >> a lot of fish. >> a lot of fish. >> what is the future of the expansion of the aquapod system? >> it is a huge future. we are looking at worldwide expansion. we have aquapods in asia, in latin america. definitely our market is global. >> we are going to change the perception not only of the industry, but also public perception, which has largely been negative about fish farming because there are so many conflicts near shore. >> we see farming going offshore where the conditions are so much better for environmental sustainability. people really getting tuned in that we need to produce fish but we need to do it sustainable to feed ourselves, to feed future generations, and to do it much better than we have been doing it in the past.

>> i have spent some time in hospitals. i can tell you they don't usually look like this. >> this is a living lab. ♪

>> rachel, i went to see palomar medical center, which bills itself as the hospital of the future. when i got there, it was weird. it did not feel like a hospital. that is partly because they have rethought the entire building, and they have built it from the ground up. it incorporates all of the new thinking and technologies that are trying to address inefficiencies in healthcare. >> that is great for palomar that they have been able to start from the ground up, but what about the established hospitals out there that are not starting from scratch? what can they take and learn from palomar? >> palomar thinks of itself as a laboratory for healthcare technology. many of the innovations that they are pioneering right now might well be rolled out to older, established hospitals in the future. >> we are headed to this new

hospital. it is brand-new. they basically started with a clean sheet on how to design a hospital and the equipment they have within it. the hope is to create something more efficient, better for patients, and able to handle a lot of the stresses the healthcare system is going to encounter in the future. >> how do you build today that allows you to go into that future? whatever we were going to build needed to be very patient centric, flexible. the challenge for us is -- how do we take two steps for every 10 that we take today? technology can help us get there. >> i would imagine that in a lot of hospitals and institutions in general, there is a resistance to innovation. >> this is a living lab in its own way. if you have an idea and you want to test it out, we are willing to take a look at that and help make you better in that process. >> hi, i am sam. >> hi, sam, welcome to san diego. >> i have spent some time in hospitals. i can tell you they don't

usually look like this. >> that is our objective. >> you have succeeded. it seems more like a hotel. >> definitely not medical. you'll get that feel as you explore this building. this is the result of a healthcare bond that was passed in california, the largest healthcare bond in california history. >> how much did this whole operation cost? >> this hospital is about $1 billion. >> excellent. >> the first thing you do when you come in is you get registered. >> which usually means a clipboard and about 38 pages of paper. >> that's right, but we don't do that here. >> please come closer to the camera. we have finished taking pictures of your eye. >> that was it. >> can move my head now? >> yes, you can. >> you are done, you are now registered. in a hospital when tests are ordered for you, we can accurately identify all of that information and associate it with you to make sure that all of the records are stored in one place.

>> you guys are not only rethinking registration, but all aspects of the hospital experience with things like monitoring vital signs. when i think of the times i have been in the hospital, vital signs have been exceedingly annoying. >> we have jim moon with us today from sotera wireless company. this is the old way of doing spot-check monitoring. we are the first hospital in the world to implement this next generation physiological monitoring platform. >> the device itself is a small, wrist-worn device that goes on the patient's arm. very lightweight. all of the vital sign data flows wirelessly from the patient to our system and into the electronic medical record. that frees nurses up to do what nurses should be doing, which is caring for patients rather than keeping records. >> i am here with melissa. >> hi. >> what can you tell me you are doing here? >> i am hooking up electrodes to you so we can start getting your heart rate, your skin temperature. >> this way?

i never know. >> you are at a 106 heart rate right now. if i wanted to, i could touch that heart rate there and actually see your rhythm. >> i've got rhythm. >> your oxygen is 96 right now. >> all of this displayed on this device and it is also going somewhere else, right? >> we invented our own applications. >> $.99? >> well, hopefully a little more than that. physicians can have this device at home, so if they get a call here from the floor, they can see all of the waveform information coming from the monitor. they can have this device at home. >> they can be providing care and assistance on the go, whether they are in the building or not. that is more efficient, lower cost for you. >> it is all about anytime, anywhere access. sequoia will be selling that to other hospitals. >> very, very cool. orlando, where are you? >> i am using this vgo robot. we have several of these around

the hospital. >> the benefit here is that not only can you have virtual presence, but you are able to move around. can we take a little walk? >> let's do that. >> i'm assuming doctors and nurses are able to go visit patients -- is that how this works? >> yeah. we encourage family members that are not in san diego, family members really from around the world, they can control these robots and visit with patients. we have found that they love it. >> you are sitting at a laptop? >> yes. i am just sitting at a laptop and using the software that we make available, and that is it. it is very easy to use. it is a great tool. >> and it is a lot cheaper than airfare. >> exactly. >> i see that we are in what appears to be a standard issue hospital room. i cannot help but notice whatever this is. do not touch or lean on -- well, i have already now done that. i am sorry. >> this is a robotic room disinfection machine. >> that is the scariest thing i've heard in weeks. >> this machine uses very high intensity light.

if we turned this on while we are in here, you would get a really bad sunburn. what this light does is attack the dna of the pathogens and prevents the pathogens from replicating. in 5 to 10 minutes, this device is going to sterilize all the surfaces in this room. >> howard hughes would have loved one of these. is this machine new to hospitals? >> there are very few -- we were the first on the west coast. this is an added safety measure to go way beyond what other hospitals are doing. >> have you noticed since using the xenex any change in terms of people getting infected? >> our own internal research shows a dramatic decrease. this thing really is a superbug killer. it really does work as advertised. >> we don't know what the next 10 years will produce, but based on the infrastructure, what we have created here allows us to respond to any of those needs, 10 and 15 years from now. wherever you go in this

building, you have a sense of what the future could be, not just what today is. >> look at all those robots working together. it is like a choreographed ballet. ♪

>> usually when i am thinking about green cars, i am thinking about the prius and the tesla. what i'm not thinking about is where they are made. as it turns out, volkswagen has put a lot of thought into this and has created a new auto plant that is one of the world's greenest. >> auto plants and sustainability do not usually go hand-in-hand. what specifically is volkswagen doing? >> vw built the first leed platinum plant -- leed stands for leadership in energy and environmental design. platinum is the highest level you could possibly get. our colleague matt miller went down to chattanooga to check it out.

>> i am headed to the volkswagen factory in chattanooga, tennessee. it is a big one -- they produce more than 150,000 passats per year. the factory is really environmentally friendly. think blue -- that is their big slogan here. >> think blue means sustainability. not just the vehicle, also the factory itself. when we designed the factory, we took the leed program checklist to set up a platinum facility. whether it is assembling parts, paint job, body shop -- >> bob, what do you do here? >> i am the welding specialist for the body shop. >> that is a pretty big deal. welding is a big part of the body shop. >> a lot of responsibility. here what makes us different, it is called adaptive weld control that monitors the welding current and reacts in real time

to only input the exact amount of energy needed to make a good weld. normally, you will see a lot of expulsions of metal flying. >> i like it when you see that. >> most people like the expulsions, but it is actually not a good thing. >> look at all those robots working together. it is like a choreographed ballet. ♪ >> this roof is sloped to collect the rainwater. we collected almost one million gallons of water last year. it is sent to the body shop and cools the welding tips of the robot. we have over 400 robots in the body shop. they heat up. we needed a way to cool them off in a natural way. we use natural resources to do that. what we are looking at right

here is one of three rain collection tanks that we have at the facility. >> these are 3000 gallons of water right now. >> capacity, yes. >> and i know that you guys collect rainwater in other parts of the plant, you use rainwater to drive 700,000 toilet flushes a year? >> absolutely. >> it must save you guys a ton of water every year. >> it does. equal to about three olympic-sized swimming pools. >> our whole team has always referred to sustainability. for example, starting with the dry scrubber technology we use in the paint shop. this is quite a lower number of energy we use, this is quite less water we lose. >> down here we will see some paint robots. the most innovative thing about this booth is the dry scrubber. the unique thing about our dry scrubber is in a traditional wet scrubber system, you have to remove the paint from the water and that paint sludge is then

usually sent to waste or to landfill. >> you don't have to use all the water that you would typically use to deal with the over spraying. >> yes. >> and you don't have to clean out all that water. and you do not have that much contamination afterwards. >> correct. >> hundreds of thousands of gallons of water saved, which saves you money. and then saves me money when i buy a passat. >> yes. >> i lived in germany for a long time and i know that germans are seriously concerned with the environment. and yet you choose chattanooga, tennessee to install a cutting-edge plant. why choose here to do what would seem to fit really well in germany? >> when you see the particular history of chattanooga, it was named to be one of the dirtiest cities in the u.s. at a certain point. and see which path the city of chattanooga has taken. it fits very well together with

our dedication to environmental cleanliness. chattanooga worked really hard to improve their situation. >> we are next to a car manufacturer, right? >> that is right. >> i am used to detroit. >> this particular solar field is the largest single field in the state of tennessee. >> what kind of power is it generating? >> we produce about 7.6 megawatts of ac. >> the amazing thing is that you have this massive solar park here next to a wetland. >> putting in the solar park helped our situation with the wetlands because before it was just an area that drained into it. if it wasn't maintained well, it could damage some of the

wetlands. even though we did a massive construction project that actually in a way helped the wetlands by protecting them. >> it improves the whole ecosystem, it doesn't take away from it. the geese don't mind the glare. >> no. >> we are literally 300 yards away from an automotive manufacturer. we could sit down here and go hunting. it's fantastic. >> whatever we install here, i am 100% convinced, all in all, in terms of the energy consumption we have, in terms of water consumption we have, it is already paying off. >> why doesn't everybody do this? >> it is a lot easier to do it at the beginning like we did. we are beyond green now we're thinking blue. >> it does not just help the environment, it keeps your bills cheaper. as far as i understand it, this factory is kind of the blueprint for how to build other factories around the world. >> right now, four other factories in china are being built up according to the design of our plant here.

on the factory side and the product side, we really try to push forward. the commitment until 2018 that will reduce our energy by 25% on all factories. we are convinced that we have to take care of our blue planet. it is really executing responsibility, we feel. ♪

>> we are finding it, we are testing it, we are there as they build it. we are on a quest to show you the most cutting-edge companies on the brink of the future. tonight, we dedicate the entire episode to a brand-new city, built green from the ground up. >> right in the heart of the most oil-rich region in the world. >> who knows energy more than us? >> we will take you inside masdar, a multibillion-dollar experiment in the future of energy. >> it's 300 football fields of solar panels. >> "bloomberg brink." companies that break the mold, conventions, boundaries, and the

future of technology, design and industry. ♪ >> rachel, we often sit here and talk about innovative companies, innovative people, but you've done something extraordinary. you have actually gone to see an entire city dedicated to innovation. >> i did. i went to abu dhabi, to masdar city. what they are trying to do there is create the greenest city in the world. >> you said you went to abu dhabi, which makes me think big oil-producing place. but you also said greenest city in the world. what does abu dhabi care about being green? >> abu dhabi does sit on some of the world's largest oil reserves, but they are trying to think more broadly about energy now. masdar is their first step in that direction.

>> masdar is a strategic, holistic, comprehensive approach to renewable energy, to seriously and in a meaningful way contribute to the advancement of clean technologies. we believe that this is a logical step for a major oil-producing nation to venture into. who knows energy more than us? we are trying to create the home for renewable energy, which is masdar city. >> we are about to get to masdar, the world's biggest experiment in sustainability. this entire thing is supposed to be all of masdar city. it looks like an oasis in the middle of the desert. this is architectural eye candy. >> there has never been a single attempt by anybody in the whole

world to do anything as aggressive and as ambitious as masdar city. >> this is definitely a place of superlatives. >> yes, we go big. we do not do things small. when abu dhabi decides to do something, they go all in. we are in a very hot, uncomfortable, humid place. how did people adapt before there was air-conditioning? one of the things we do at masdar is try to blend architecture as well as maintaining the sustainability standards. >> everything here has a purpose. these doors are designed to direct wind into the courtyard. the tiles are cool no matter how hot it is outside. the exteriors of the building are designed to maximize shade. >> we put the buildings close together. we are using the buildings to shade each other. we are showing people how things can be done in the desert, in a very harsh climate, how we can significantly reduce the amount of energy we are using, and how you can be outdoors more often. >> you may say it's about 10 to 12 degrees cooler inside the city than it is outside. you definitely feel that.

so, this plant here generates all of the power for masdar city? >> actually, that and more. here we have a 10-megawatt pv plant. this was installed and operational back in april 2009. at that time none of the city was built. we connected this directly to the grid and have been providing clean energy to abu dhabi since then. >> it is also powering all of the construction at the moment? >> everything is powered by the pv and also we have rooftop solar installed on the buildings themselves. those provide 30% of the power. that is about 11, 12 megawatts now, and we use about three in the city for all the activities we have. we are very much energy positive. >> can you tell me about this pilot program behind us? >> absolutely. this is one of over 100 pilot projects we have been working on the last 5 or 6 years. this pilot is looking at solar chilling.

here we are benchmarking three different systems. a mirror system here, then a panel system here, and further on we have a parabola system. we are taking the energy from the sun to generate warmth which runs a chiller in the background. this chiller has been operational and cooling some of the offices in the background here. >> this is a good example of trying to diversify the technologies you are developing, not just in the region but around the globe. >> exactly. we look at the scale outside of this. we are not looking for just a niche application right here for the backyard. we want to make sure that there is a market gap and that somehow masdar and its network can accelerate through that market gap. we position ourselves as a commercial accelerator. if we can prove something out, together with our partners, and get it a year earlier to market that is a huge value for a global company which has a large portfolio. one has to consider masdar city is not even our largest business unit. we do global renewable energy. we have global capital funds. >> shams 1 is today the largest

csp plant in any term you can think of, power or size. we are at full capacity. as of today, we are producing a full 100 megawatts into the grid. >> this is an extraordinary moment for us. today, this is the first massive footstep that has been taken on renewable energy in this region. >> it is 300 football fields, put together, of solar panels. how do you feel today with shams 1 being unveiled to the world? >> i am very proud, it is really a big achievement. >> we are at a tipping point in terms of how people think about energy for the future. worldwide, but especially in the middle east, it just does not make economic sense anymore for them to use their own fossil fuel reserves domestically. the cost of generating electricity is basically the cost of a barrel of oil. every barrel of oil that saudi arabia uses to generate cheap electricity at home means about

$90 about in opportunity cost that is lost. if you displace that with renewable energy, it already makes economic sense without doing anything more. >> this algae is becoming fuel for jet planes, for trucks and for cars. ♪

>> rachel, i will grant you that masdar looks like it is chock-full of innovation. but i feel like i have seen this house of tomorrow stuff before. how does masdar not just become the epcot center of the 21st-century? >> i, too, was skeptical when i went there. but after i spent time in masdar, it is really not a showpiece. they are conducting all of this groundbreaking green research. even the labs themselves are sustainable. >> it is a proven model all over the world. for it to always start with establishing a research and education hub. it is always around your ability to attract brains, technology, and people. >> one of the core ideas of masdar institute is we are building programs that are flat, where people collaborate in very group-like efforts. that is the core.

it is not about the facilities. it is about the people and the programs. a lot of people have a misconception about science. they think it is a crazy guy in a garage with a eureka moment, and all of a sudden some magic happens. what typically tends to happen in science, somebody picks one small aspect of the world and they try to understand it very completely. then they communicate it to the people around them. those people find links to what they are working on. before you know, we have gained momentum in a certain direction and we pushed the ball a little bit farther down the road. masdar institute is designed to make that collaboration and that alignment happen faster than typical universities. >> what is all this green stuff behind you? >> this is algae out of the environment. >> all this algae behind us, you have gone and found it in the middle of the desert? >> we have. the algae from the desert, we are really interested in fuels. we want to grow it in large quantities.

the market is huge. you are talking jet plane fuel, which is one of the most expensive commodities out there, biodiesel for trucks and cars. what we're trying to do with these is look at under which conditions it grows the best. after some growth you can see that it grows better in some than others. we could almost train them to do what we want to, just by changing the conditions in which they grow. >> those conditions are the salinity and the carbon dioxide? >> salinity, carbon dioxide, temperature allows it then to mimic certain qualities. people who want to go into industry are very interested. >> what is the advantage of being here in masdar city and conducting this research versus someplace else in the world? >> the big part of being here, what is exciting to me, is being in the desert. the conditions in the desert are such that the things that live out there are very strong. this is probably one of the coolest places in the world to look for organisms like that. >> if an organism can live under these conditions, it can pretty much live anywhere. you said that it uses co2 to

grow. what are the environmental implications? >> we have an economy that depends on fossil fuels. the idea is that the co2 that is made, we can maybe bubble in big ponds of algae. we can use that co2 for the algae to grow, so we are kind of killing two birds with one stone. >> nanotechnology is simply a way of thinking about how you're going to build something or how something works. this is the first time a facility like this has been done in the middle east. what you will notice is they look different colors. that is because of the spacing. butterflies have different colors on their wings, right? >> right. >> you know that is not because it is different colors. it is because they have little spikes on their wings, and the distance they are apart is what makes the colors. so butterflies use nanotechnology. >> how much does it cost to make something like this? >> $40 million. >> you gotta use all the equipment to achieve that?

>> you have to have the kitchen before you can make even a peanut butter sandwich. this is only part of what actually is required to make the operation work. this is the flashy part. >> is this flashy? >> in the back we have all of the support equipment. the fact of the matter is, we spend more money on the support, on the behind the scenes stuff to make the equipment work. at the start of this whole process i made a long list of all the chemicals i wanted to use. about a third of them had never been in the country before. as a developing country, they had never developed a policy for how it needed to be disposed of. we probably could have gotten away dumping some of this stuff down the drain. what we wanted to do was to provide an example or a template of how a facility like this should be set up. we have a huge amount of electricity that is coming into that room. if we were trying to get all of that heat out of the room with air conditioning, there would be a gale-force wind in there. what we do is pump cold water through all of the tools to take

that heat away. we have a whole special system here for pumping what we call processed, chilled water through the tools. this system right here uses a solid catalyst, sort of like a powder, but it is activated, so it has chemicals on the outside. it is tailored so that when we pump certain molecules in, they react and they stay there. it turns into a sand that is not reactive anymore. we can just throw it away into a landfill and it is not going to react with anything else or poison the groundwater. when we have acid vapors and solvent vapors, rather than just pumping those in the atmosphere, we flow the air through, and the droplets capture the vapors, and then they come down into a tank in the bottom. we test the chemistry, and pump in other chemistry to neutralize that. >> it is a very sophisticated system. >> it is. you start to realize this is much larger and more elaborate than some of the tools. >> you guys are really developing the technology that everybody in the future will

hopefully be relying on. probably masdar and abu dhabi will be profiting from that, correct? >> there is always a certain aspect of business that you can make money in business, but you can also do business right. one of the reasons that i came here was masdar is a commercial venture, but it is not just about making money. it is also about doing good things. >> i didn't even do anything and it is moving. >> you don't need to drive it. it can run 24 hours a day. ♪

>> so, rachel, we have seen some interesting research and some cool things. let's not lose sight of the fact that this is supposed to be a functioning city, right? >> and when it is built up there will be tens of thousands of people living there. >> right, tens of thousands of people. how do you move them around in a sustainable way? >> even the transportation system reflects their spirit of sustainability. they are creating the prt system, which is the personal rapid transit system. these are driverless cars. it is certainly the most futuristic transportation system i have ever seen. you can't drive into the city. you have to park your car on the outskirts and then take the prt in. the whole idea is to have the city be carless. parking my car like the average masdar citizen. this is not your average terminal.

at least in new york, our subway does not look this clean and beautiful. how are they powered? can you tell me about their energy source? >> they are powered by lithium-ion batteries. when necessary, we charge in the stations. in every berth there is a charge bed. we can drive without charging around four hours. >> this is exciting! oh, wow! is it ok if i touch the screen? >> you can get some information, what is the prt. >> i did not do anything and it is moving. it is like magic. >> you don't need to drive it. it can run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year without a driver. >> so all of the city is above us? >> the design for masdar is that all transportation is underneath. everything is above that. all the service things on this level.

>> in your opinion, what is the most unique element of the prt system? >> our system is free-ranging. heathrow prt system is riding between concrete walls. >> i don't see a concrete wall here. >> we don't need it. every two meters we have a magnet in the floor. if you have a whole grid with magnets and you put all the magnets in a database, you can just draw on the computer a new route, and it just follows. that's why we navigate and can drive automatically. >> what is the reaction you normally get? >> it is an attraction here. it's a huge attraction. >> it is a weird experience just being in the vehicle and having no driver. and we are here. >> we are here. >> you have now arrived at your destination. >> all right. that was a quick ride. >> at the moment there are only two stations, this station and west. but in the future, who knows? we are hoping for more stations. >> the original plan was for there to be 3,000 prt's, and at the moment there are only nine

operational prt's. that is a big difference. >> they started with a very big plan and then the crisis went over the whole world, so they had to cut also some costs here. everything is delayed, so we don't know what the future will bring for us here. this is planned. all the prt's and many stations. if you see what is built now, that is only this part here. >> this vision was huge, and the first thing that was cut was the prt system. how does that make you feel? >> i think they're making a big mistake. there are new office buildings being built. there is an extension of the institute. all those people need transportation. they said from the beginning, no cars allowed. so what is left? >> do you think masdar city is pulling back on their vision of being sustainable by retreating from the prt system? >> i don't think they are pulling back totally, but something has changed. ♪ >> the economic slowdown that

took place in the whole world did impact the progress of masdar city. because at the end of the day we cannot do it alone. and we will not do it alone. and it was never our objective to do it alone. if anyone could do it alone, we would have seen many masdar cities across the world. >> to build a city all at once, and there weren't any tenants, then you would not have a good proposition. so the idea for us was let's take a little time to look at the experience we have had over the first five years. it was really a startup model. go fast, try everything out, fail fast, and that actually works. we learned so much from that. we noticed what the gaps and we noticed what the market timings were. so we were much more knowledgeable in phase two. >> what we are looking at behind us, that is our first commercial building. it is going to be the siemens headquarters. it is currently the most sustainable building in abu dhabi. >> how do you think it reflects on a business to choose masdar city as your headquarters? >> we think it reflects very

well, but obviously they need a business rationale for coming here. so if you look at our siemens partnership, because siemens has the building management systems in all the buildings here, and they are also doing the medium voltage electricity network, they can do simulations of how they can reduce demand. siemens is coming here because they see it as a test bed. >> what is unique about the siemens building? >> imported inside it is a lot of lessons learned from building masdar city. >> let's go check it out. >> ok. >> what are the design elements that make the building unique? >> this facade is northwest facing. when you get closer to the end of the day, the sun is going low and coming on the west side. these shading devices are designed to block out the direct sunlight, and yet maintain a view out. this is a very deep-planned building. we have introduced well-lit atria spaces because an office area that does not have contact to natural lighting has very little value. >> it is pretty cool in here, also. >> this is the natural, ambient temperature.

what this means is that all the shading devices are doing a good job at the moment. >> a very good job. masdar city is really focused on this idea of passive architecture, correct? >> that is the whole idea for designing an energy-efficient building. you want to maximize the efficiencies of the building to suit the design of the architecture itself. once we optimize the passive nature of the building, then it is just a question of using the minimum amount of energy of the a/c system to get it to the right level. >> what is going to be all out here eventually? >> each of these plots are designated for various residential and commercial use. >> what do you think the misconceptions of masdar are? >> i think one of the misconceptions is that it is a showcase. some sort of nice gift somebody is trying to present to the world. this is really a living lab. it would be unfair to look at any of these projects around the world in a cookie-cutter fashion. you are on a discovery of

innovation, commercialization, and technology research. and if you're going to go into that, you have to manage your risk along the way. you are going to obviously have some dead ends. otherwise it would not be a discovery journey. it would not be research. >> this is going to take us time. we need technologies from all over the world. we need individuals from all over the world to come and help us achieve this very aggressive and ambitious objective. always please remember there is not a single attempt that is as aggressive and as ambitious as masdar city. ♪

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