Consider the advances of the modern world. Before 2000, Wi-fi, the iPod (much less the smartphone), Facebook and Google Maps had not yet entered our lives.
These are things we take for granted today that would not have been possible without scientific improvement. While each leap required intelligence, work and courage, many of them are the result of a distinct, repeatable pattern.
The real gem of Think is that it actually encourages meta-learning - an awareness of how we learn.
IBM's Think is a different kind of educational app because it explores the process of progress and submits that a pattern of Seeing, Mapping, Understanding, Believing and Acting keeps our world developing.
Think opens with a 10-minute film introducing technological innovation followed by five modules dedicated to each step of the way. Navigating the app is simple and intuitive; tapping the teardrops on the top-left corner open and close pages, swiping left or right follows the history of innovation in chronological order. That's it. The rest of the app is a media-rich collection of the history of technological innovation.
The Seeing module is like a game of Where's Wally? - finding and tapping achievements made over the centuries opens up snippets of facts on what inventions made those achievements possible. For instance, the ability to see cellular exoskeletons was made possible by the invention of the first microscope in 1665, which then allows us to see how germs invade our body today.
The Mapping module shows how we have organised information - from Herodotus' first map to Google Maps to how data points captured from text messages helped relief workers get aid to Haiti.