An exciting new zero carbon building material with high compressive strength (25 MPa) and made mostly from soil has just come to market. We were impressed by this environmentally friendly material that makes use of a waste product - in line with the circular economy principles.

A quick shout-out for the new book "A Garden of Hope" which beautifully chronicles the inspiring and 'contentious' community garden Kebun-Kebun Bangsar (KKB). At IEN, we were involved from the early days and up through the difficult red notice eviction times until the Kuala Lumpur city council eventually embraced the project thanks to wide public support and declared KKB a role model for community gardening. The book is currently for sale at the Bangsar Village 1 counter and on the KKB website.

We invited Stephanie Bacon to tell us about the beginning of computers, as she was one of the very first people to work with this technology back in the UK in 1960, when she was only 18 years old. And she continued working with computers for the next 36 years. And what a journey it was in terms of technological development. Watch her 40-minute talk including the Q&A session. Highlights included her take on artificial intelligence (AI) and the top 3 computer developments in her lifetime.