Technology and World Change Lesson 6

This week, lesson was on the health industry which was part of bio-business. We learnt about how the Valley and Summit model could be applied to this industry as well as the different sectors of the industry. Moreover, we were exposed to revolutionary technology in this industry such as bionic arms which could be the future of mind control prosthetics. We also looked at how developing technology could be used to reach out to the developing countries and bring medical care to remote areas, improving their quality of life.

Interesting Observations and Ideas
One interesting series of ideas that was brought up during the lesson was through the video that Prof showed us which was on the future of the hospital and clinics of the world. The projection which was made by Microsoft brought up a number of ideas about the developments that could be made to the health industry in the video which I found visionary.

One idea that I particularly liked was a table where you could put your medicine that was digitally enhanced. This meant that when you had taken your medicine and replaced the bottle on the table, the digitally coloured ring around the bottle that was lighted on the table would turn from green to red. This would indicated which medicine had been taken and which had not. There would also be a description box that would light up on the table indicating the times which you had to take the medicine, the composition of the medicine and the purpose of the medicine among other important information.

I found that this would be useful for the elderly who may forget which medicine they had taken and how much medicine to take. This would reduce the need for a nurse to come in every time they had to take their medicine or even the need for someone to be there consistently, freeing up the time for nurses to engage in recuperative work such as helping the patient with their physiotherapy rather than having to make sure that they had taken their medicine. Also, it would be useful for people who had to take their medicine on a regular basis such as diabetics. This reminder could also be virtually tracked by the nurse virtually saving her time from walking to and fro and instead accessing it quickly on her handheld device.

In the future, this device could be used in other industries such as in childcare centres, reminding childcare givers of the time that they had to prepare milk and feed the child or taking care of your pet at home which would remind you to prepare their food at a certain time.

However, there was an idea of having a digital wallet which I did not find myself agreeing with. Although it would definitely be a much safer option than bringing a wallet around as it is fingerprint coded and a much lighter option as well as the card information would all be stored in a single card which you could switch virtually, I did not like the feeling of bringing around a single card. I guess there is just a part of me that likes thumbing through my notes or fanning out my cards and whipping it dramatically out of my pocket like the girl in Shopaholic. It is the tactile feeling of having your money in your hand that appeals to me.

That made me realise that even though technology may advance very quickly, there are still certain aspects of technology that perhaps the population may not subscribe to as they enjoy the tactile feeling of the item or have grown to the physical use of the item. In the future however, there could be a shift as technology continues to develop and future generations may see these items such as the digital wallet as something normal and something that is used all the time because they know of nothing else.

Another interesting idea that was brought up was that of telemedicine. Telemedicine is using a virtual platform such as Skype to have consultations with your doctor. This is a rather novel idea because it saves both you from having to travel to the clinic and the waiting time. Also it can be used by patients that have injuries and are undergoing physiotherapy. It will allow the doctor to be able to check up on the patient more regularly. Singapore has recently passed legislation that allows doctors to charge

However, this made me wonder that if this was now catching on as a trend, why was the telephone not popular as a form of telemedicine. Perhaps this is due to the inability of the doctors to see the patients countenance and have the patient do certain simple actions such as raising their arm for patients with shoulder injuries for example which is necessary to make a diagnosis. This would be most useful for developing countries as villagers in remote areas could have access to a doctor without the doctor have to travel to see them.

Key Takeaway Points

One of my main takeaway points this lesson was that of a new measure of global health called the Global Burden of disease. The Global Burden of Disease is calculated based on the Disability-Adjusted Life Year (DALY) which is a measure that is based on years of life lost from premature death and years of life that is lived in less than full health.

I found that this was a unique health measure because it measured the health of the country in terms of the opportunity costs that were suffered by the citizens of the country in terms of their life. This is rather accurate as sometimes, disease may not cause death but it causes less than optimum health which affects our quality of life. I think that this measurement can be incorporated into our Human Development Index in the future as it will be able to give a more accurate picture of our standard of living and quality of life.


I learnt that the difference between epidemic and pandemic was that an epidemic was a localised outbreak of a disease whereas a pandemic was a global outbreak of a disease.

A third takeaway from the lesson was that obesity is measured differently across countries. In the US, a BMI of 25-30 is overweight while a BMI of over 30 is obese. On the other hand, in Asia, a BMI of 23.5-27.5 is overweight whereas a BMI of over 27.5 is obese. This is based on the level at which people suffer weight related problems.

Issues for Discussion
One issue that I thought could be discussed more in depth would be that of the issue of drug companies who exploit intellectual property rights. This is a pressing problem in developing countries as they are not able to get access to vital drugs as drug companies have intellectual property rights on them and hence are able to charge exorbitant fees for them.

Another issue that I thought could be discussed more in depth would be that of how we would be able to make technology such as telemedicine available to developing countries.

Responses to the presentations
Siddarth brought up a question in his presentation which I thought was rather thought provoking. He questioned whether ethics delay particular innovations or prevent them which was then expanded in his second question when he asked how we could stop it from going overboard and becoming destructive.

I feel that ethics are an important measure to assess whether a particular technology is out of hand is destructive rather than beneficial. I feel that more than being an barrier, ethics should be used as a measure of the destructiveness that technology could cause and if it does contravene ethical considerations, the technology needs to be adapted to be in line with ethical considerations before releasing to the market.

Personal rating for the session
I found this week's lesson particularly eye-opening because the bio business is not an an area I commonly come across or am familiar with. I found that the direction that the health industry is moving towards to be very exciting and am keen to follow future developments of the health industry as it has large implications on the accessibility of healthcare for developing countries which I would like to help.

I would rate this session a 7/10.

Next week we will be continuing with bio business part 2 and I am interested to see the other developments in the bio business industry from an agricultural perspective.

One of the issues that I am particularly concerned about is world hunger and learning about how the bio-business operates would be useful in helping me better think about how to work with the industry to figure out how there can be a more equitable distribution of food.

Cheers,
Amanda Tan

Technology and World Change Lesson 5

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" said Arthur C. Clarke.

I feel that this was particularly interesting quote because it analyses the shift in advancement of technology not through the tangible advances but through the perception of what we believe is possible.
For example, we can now have smart homes where everything in your house is automated and suited to your preference without you having to lift a finger. This does indeed seem somewhat like magic. Similarly, now with the Web 3.0 and the Siri voice function of the iPhone and other voice controlled applications of smart devices, we can talk to our devices and they will know exactly what we want. This is definitely magical.

Interesting Observations and Ideas
This week, Prof talked about the idea of Web 3.0. Web 3.0 gives the idea of having a completely automated system of being. I particularly like this idea because in the future it would be cool to have everything done for you without you having to do anything yourself. This could be beneficial for the old and the disabled as they would not be as mobile and hence the web 3.0 could facilitate their daily needs.

Daniel raised the idea of a DOS attack. Having never heard of such an attack before, I went to research on it. This denial of service attack is particularly relevant to the destruction of the current internet which Daniel brought up. The idea of the internet being completely destroyed and this large amounts of data being completely lost is truly hard to imagine but it is something that we need to consider in light of our increased reliance on the internet. Particularly, we need to think about what we would do if there was one day the Internet was destroyed and if we should come up with a second Internet and how we would go about doing it.

Prof also talked about knowledge management and I raised the idea of business analytics in a firm called Qlikview where they have a principle known as the Green Grey and White. Green is the colour of your question and white is the colour of the information that answers your question. Grey on the other hand, is the colour of the questions that you did not ask but that the computer expects that you are likely to ask. This is what I think is the future of business analytics and it will become an important field in the coming days.


Key Takeaway Points

Two key takeaway point that were raised in class that I would be looking into include

1. How ICT can bridge the education and poverty gap such as through avenues of virtual reality

2. The idea of Crowd sourcing

I also suggested the idea that now there is increasing privacy and protection on information that is stored on the web as it is under a secured site which is locked by a password rather than being saved on a laptop which would cause the information to be made vulnerable in the event that the hardware was lost. However, prof suggested that while this was possible occurrence, there was a high likelihood of the information being just as threatened due to cyber criminals becoming better at hacking passwords rather than having to obtain the whole device.

This I felt put the spotlight on human behaviour, as no matter how much you try and prevent crime from happening and even as our technology develops to increase the level of privacy and safeguard our information, the criminals are working just as fast to develop ways to overcome these measures. Hence looking back at Alistair's question from the previous lesson as to whether technology is more beneficial than harmful, it really depends on how humans choose to use their technology and manage it such that it will be used for good.

Issues for discussion
1. Negative implications of Web 3.0 and how to deal with it.

I think that an issue that could have been further discussed was on how to deal with the negative implications that extends from Web 3.0. The negative implications include having a lack of privacy as the computer has knowledge of all your actions and there are hence accessible records that could be used for undesirable means. There is also the possibility of the complete destruction of the system.

If we were one day to move into Web 3.0, we have the potential to become so reliant on the automated system that in the event of the failure of the system, many of our processes which we have decided to automate on Web 3.0 would no longer work, leading to the breakdown of many operations in our society. This would be disastrous especially if Web 3.0 controls healthcare services such as dispensing medicine. It is true that all these process having once been done manually could be done manually again should a breakdown occur but if a proper emergency plan had not been set in place, to move from automated operation to manual operation could prove to be quite a challenge.

Hence, I feel that it is necessary to come up with a contingency plan should such a breakdown of the Web 3.0 occur in the future such that we will not have our lives all come to a sudden standstill.

2. The good and bad of social media

Another issue that I think could be further discussed would be that of whether social media is beneficial or harmful to our society and how it should be managed.

A harm that was raised in class which particularly resonated with me was that of social media being able to mine your personal information and they do so with your consent. This is achieved through putting a clause in their Terms and Conditions which people accept as they want to use social media such as Facebook and not accepting will prevent them from using it.

Prof also suggested that only about 14 percent of people trust advertisements from companies but peer-to-peer recommendation convinces about 90 percent of people. This means that on social media when one is recommended something in an advertisement that says these people who are your friend have 'liked' this product, you should like this product as well, a large number of people would be inclined to try that product when in fact it may not be that their friends actually found the product but instead happened to try it and this data was mined by the social media and used to advertise the product to their friends.

I feel that this should be managed and social media should not be able to obtain information about every single webpage that we have visited on their website and spread exaggerated ideas of the value of the products just from the number of visits to that webpage. Social media should only be allowed to promote the value of products that people actually demonstrate interest in such as purchasing it off the website and there should be certain limits to privacy which may be hard to determine.

Responses to the presentations
I felt that Olanda's presentation on how augmented reality can be used to facilitate the blogshop business was rather interesting and enjoying shopping myself, I can see this as a viable way forward for all types of retail outlets especially furniture shops such as IKEA who have already gone in such a direction.

Personal ratings for the session
I enjoyed this week's session because it talked about communication technology not just in the context of the proliferation of social media and handphones but about how we communicate the technology to the people around us as well as factors that improve the effectiveness of communication technology such as knowledge management.

Also, communication technology was analysed from several different contexts such as its effect on poverty, education and the digital divide which I felt gave more insight into the workings of communication technology when we looked at its direct impact on world issues.

I would give this session a rating of 8/10.

I am intrigued by the next lesson of the biobusiness revolution and how technology has affected healthcare as this is an aspect where technology is developing very quickly not just in terms of healthcare directly but also in the administrative processes surrounding healthcare and I am excited to discuss this with my classmates.

Looking forward to the next lesson!

Cheers,
Amanda Tan

Technology and World Change Lesson 4

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Be the change that you want to see in the world.”.

I feel that this quote is particularly apt this week as we moved towards looking at the drivers of change today and realizing that it is not just major factors such as technological development or economic activity that is changing things today but how each and everyone of us reacts to these happenings that is causing change in the world.

This week, prof talked about the major factors that were causing world change and how to adapt to the change. We discussed about changing our attitudes and mindsets to one that did not just accept the status quo but looked towards change. We then looked at various models such as the pessimism time-curve and talked about the importance of change leadership.

Interesting Observations and Ideas 
Prof revealed this rather shocking statistic which was that "If everyone consumed as much energy as the average Singaporean and U.S. resident, the world's oil reserves would be depleted in 9 years."

This was indeed a very surprising thought as we often think of Singapore as small and as such having a less substantial influence on world issues. However, as we can see from this statistic, the rate of energy consumption in Singapore is so high that it is actually a major contributor to rapid energy depletion in our world today.

As such we should no longer recognise that environmental degradation is a world problem. With Singapore's advanced technological know-how, we can develop new environmentally friendly methods of living and we can share these ideas with the world. As global citizens, we need to take the initiative to support local environmental efforts such as this attempt to convert drink packets from NDP into usable items.

We also learnt about a book called Crossing the Chasm.
A main idea in Crossing the Chasm is the Technology Adoption Life Cycle.

 www.readwrite.com

I found this particularly enlightening because it actually made the categories between the different types of consumers very clear. I personally fall under the pragmatists as I often like to make sure that the product is stable and has good reviews before I would be willing to purchase it.

However, this actually made me consider the possibility about being able to target different forms of advertising to different buyers. Also, I realised why certain advertising may be more relevant to me than other types of advertising because they speak to me as a pragmatist and the criteria that I look for in a product. This has helped me have a better idea of how to market things to people in the future.

Another interesting idea shared was about change leadership was that there is just as much importance in being the first follower as being the leader which was illustrated in the video that Prof showed in class.

  

This video was rather revolutionary because there were two ideas raised. The first was that the leader was only as important as his first follower because the follower showed that the leader was not a lone nut. The second thing was that it was important for the leader to treat his first follower as an equal and welcome him in joining the movement.

What I really found educational about this was the idea that it did not have to be two people trying to do something very visionary or revolutionary. It just had to be one person with an idea and one person willing to support him to do something rather simple and in the end the following that they managed to get was quite extensive.

Hence, if we are looking towards change, we should not try and start out big but rather convincing the people around us to believe in our ideas and perhaps from there we can start a movement. I did some research and found that some of the key components of change leadership that was suggested included moral purpose and relationship building as well as coherence making. I agree strongly and feel that in leadership, it is not just setting out a vision but convincing each and every person you know to believe in your vision and agree to work together to achieve your vision before any movement can succeed.

As Margaret Mead said correctly, "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Key Takeaways points 
1. We talked about the difference between a manager and a leader. A leader is someone who sets out the vision of the company while the manager works with the people to achieve the leader's vision.

2. The need to move from the traditional model where a company would chart their progress every 5 years or so to the current modern model where the company would have continuous renewal and assessment which I find is a good model to move to wards with the emphasis on the concept of singularity in our world today.

Issues for discussion
1. One issue that I felt could have been discussed further was the idea about how to be the best first follower. I think that often much is said about being the leader, about how you have to be visionary and have people share in a common vision with you. Much less on the other hand has been explored about how to be a good first follower. We could have talked about not only how to make people want to follow the movement that you are supporting but also how to spot movements that are worth supporting.

 2. Another issue that I felt could have been discussed further was the idea that Alister raised in his presentation about whether flight technology was a boon or a bane to human society. I feel that this question could be further expanded to look at whether technology as a whole was a boon or a bane to human society. Often it is said that it is not the technology that is harmful but how humans use it that makes it harmful and I felt that we could discuss on how we can manage technology such that it is not used for harmful purposes.

Responses to the presentations
One of the rather revolutionary ideas raised during the presentation was that of wiki cells. This was a form of skin that could be wrapped around food instead of the usual plastic wrappers that are used to wrap food like burgers and fries. The skin could be peeled off or could be washed and eaten together with the food.

I felt that this was a really good idea because it could really reduce the large amount of waste that is caused by disposal of the wrappers especially in fast food restaurants. However, I was worried that there may be health implications and adverse effects on the taste of the food. Some research that I did revealed that there are no such known concerns to date.

That said, these wrappers are still more biodegradable than those currently being used and I think that people should use these wrappers as even if they choose not to eat them, they are still much more environmentally friendly than the current wrappers used. These wrappers should first be introduced in fast-food restaurants as these are the food outlets that use the most wrappers and it would be the easiest to introduce as it will most likely be in line with their corporate social responsibility agenda and as fast-food has a mostly inelastic demand curve, the introduction of such wrappers will not affect their business too adversely and they are most likely to be willing to introduce the use of such wrappers.

Personal ratings for the session
I felt that in this session all the presenters put in a lot of hard work to make it visually interesting and interactive for the audience. I also particularly enjoyed the idea of Crossing the Chasm because its something that I have often noticed about technology adoption but I have not been able to come up with distinct categories to categorise my observations which is why I was pleased to know that I am not the only person to think this way and to see how other people articulated these same ideas.

I am glad that Prof pushes us to think critically about the questions and encourages to read widely and share outside information whether in class or on our class facebook wall because it gives me the feeling of being in an intellectual community where I can share my ideas freely and I enjoy it very much.

I would rate this session an 8/10!

I am excited about studying communication technology especially social media in the next lesson :)

Cheers,
Amanda Tan

Individual Topical Review Paper Outline

Topic: Underwater Cities

Executive Summary

This paper seeks to understand the need for construction of underwater cities, the feasibility of such construction and the viability of adoption of this alternative underwater living method in the future with the aim of looking at this as an solution to worsening global warming levels. To explore these three issues, this paper will look at the purposes of underwater cities, the historical development of these cities and how they have come to the level that they are today. It will also argue the case for Singapore to have underwater living as an alternative to living above ground to deal with the future problem of global warming which is particularly dangerous for Singapore as we are an island. Lastly, it will examine the future considerations that we have to take into account if we eventually stay in underwater cities and how to target any problems that underwater cities may pose.

Why I chose this topic

I chose this topic because I was interested in looking at how underwater living could be an emergency solution for countries in low lying areas such as Holland and Venice.  With global warming and sea levels rising, there may be a significant need to learn how to adapt to living underwater which while may not be an idea that will be fully implemented across countries, it should be a emergency precaution used to help human populations to survive should global warming continue to worsen beyond repair.For Singapore in particular, it is an island surrounded by sea and I wondered if there was the possibility of adopting the alternative solution of living underwater.

Background

1. What is an underwater city?
2.  Why is there a need for underwater cities?
3. Other purposes that underwater cities have been used for.

Historical perspective

1.  The famous underwater cities in the world that have been built and are successfully hosting human inhabitants.
2. How these underwater cities effective were they in serving their purpose which can be applied to the future development of such cities and what limitations they faced which should be avoided or targeted.
3.  How we have moved from underwater transport (submarines) to underwater living.
4. How technological development has helped people to refine the development of the infrastructure of underwater cities and target any problems that there might be.

Current situation

1.  Prevalence of underwater cities
2. Observations about the distribution of underwater cities both where they are constructed and where they are being located.
3. Reasons behind the increase in number of underwater cities.
4. Whether Singapore can have its own underwater city

Future Considerations

1.  Advantages and disadvantages of such underwater cities

§  Advantages

·         Do not need to reclaim land

·         Alternative form of sustainable living in a country that faces space constraints

·         New form of tourism for the wealthy and the introduction of more extreme deep sea sports making for better recreational activities.

·         May be used as a form of emergency evacuation strategy or an alternative way of living should the environmental problems above ground become too inhabitable for humans

§  Disadvantages

·         Lack of sunlight which is necessary for human health

·         Higher cost of living under water. This may later become the preserve of the rich and the poor would have no choice but to live above ground and suffer from the increasing levels of pollution

·         Inability of certain types of people to stay in such accommodation such as the disabled and the elderly until better and more convenient methods of deep sea transportation are constructed

·         Ability of criminals capitalize on vulnerabilities such as there being only one source  of food, water or air, they could attack that in acts of terrorism.

·         Possible inconsistency of pressurization. If the pressure of the underwater city is not maintained at a constant level, 1 atm, the level of Earth’s atmospheric pressure, people may suffer from deep sea sickness. Also if it is not constant with the water pressure of the water body, then the whole structure could be crushed by the external pressure of the sea.

·         Risk of natural disasters such as that of floods and tsunamis.

In 2004, the Indian Ocean tsunami destroyed many houses near the shore. If a tsunami of similar magnitude occurs, the underwater homes would be beached and crushed with the force of the wave washing it upon the shore.

2. Evaluation of the feasibility of these cities especially in the Singapore context

Possible

Ø  The government is the one that controls the use of the sea

Ø  Singapore is also a research and development hub and we are likely to have the technological know-how or be able to develop it such that underwater living is achievable. Already, the Hilton Maldives Undersea Restaurant on Rangali Island was built entirely offsite in Singapore.

Not Possible

Ø  Territorial considerations may be raised as each country is allowed ownership over 200 nautical miles from its shores. In countries that share the same water body such as the River Mekong that crosses six countries including China and Vietnam, this could lead to territorial disputes.

Ø  There is a limited amount of underwater space

Ø  Provision and distribution of food and water

Ø  Sources of electricity and energy.

Ø  Removal of human waste

Ø  Environmental and ecological impact especially on the marine life

Ø  Increase the likelihood of natural disasters of the sea and the ocean

Ø  High cost of construction

Ø  Government and government agencies coordination over the usage of the underwater space

3.       Suggested prototype for an underwater city in Singapore

4. Assessment of what can be done to improve the infrastructure such that underwater cities can be viable in Singapore.

Conclusion

Overall assessment of the viability and adoption of underwater cities.

Bibliography

Technology and World Change Lesson 3

This week's lesson is best summarized by a certain Edward O. Wilson who once said, "Perhaps the time has come to cease calling it the 'environmentalist' view, as though it were a lobbying effort outside the mainstream of human activity, and to start calling it the real-world view.” 

The theme of this week's lesson was technology and industrial change and how we can move towards sustainable development. This centered around the idea of companies and countries realizing that the idea of non-sustainable industrial development was no longer tenable and moving towards the idea of industrial development based on sustainability. Also, this model could not only be limited to the developed countries who had industrialized and could afford to take the time to think about sustainability but it also had to be adopted by the less developing countries who were also moving into heavy industrialization especially because our world is a shared world and the problems are not limited but pervasive. 

So here we have two main ideas, one that sustainability should now be the real-world view and that our world is a shared world and hence we have a common responsibility to one another to be sustainable in our practices.

Then we have the problems in achieving this. These include whether it is the government's or the people's responsibility to push for the sustainable agenda and how difficult it is to implement it with the current infrastructure and mindsets that we have now.

Interesting Observations & Ideas

A talk about our mindsets
Prof conducted an experiment with our class to test how much value we put on using environmentally friendly products by posing us a question.

"If a non-environmentally friendly laptop cost $1000 and an environmentally friendly laptop with its recycled metal body and organically produced keys were to cost $1100 would you be willing to buy it?"

A quick poll of my class revealed that they would not be willing to buy it if it was $1100. In fact, we were only willing to buy it if it was $1050 which meant that the value that we placed on environmental friendliness was about 5 percent.

With this mentality, consumers would be unlikely to purchase an item that cost more due to the environmentally-friendly process used to produce it. Hence, a key idea needed to move towards more sustainability would be either be to reduce the cost of products produced using an environmentally friendly process or to better communicate to consumers the importance of being environmentally friendly.

Next, I was interested to find out why having an environmental process is more expensive in certain cases such as when we buy environmentally friendly toliet paper and why on the other hand, companies such as H&M can afford to give vouchers to encourage people to recycle their clothes.

After some research, I found out that it was because of demand and supply.As the environmentally friendly products required some research and development to come up with an environmentally friendly method of producing them, they had higher cost, which drove down demand. This meant they could not be mass produced which again pushed up cost. On the other hand, H&M were paying people to give them free raw material.

Hence, I feel that these two processes should work hand in hand and companies should set up a small fund to provide an incentive for people to provide them with recyclable material and the costs saved on purchasing raw materials could be used to defray the cost of the research and development needed to come up with environmentally friendly methods of production.

Also, in one of the presentations, Joseph raised the idea of alternative energy solutions in which he proposed that the best alternative energy source would be that of solar energy. Sylvester countered this idea because he suggested that the solar panels would require much care and would have to be constantly cleaned causing the energy production to be more costly.

However, I raised an alternative point of view which was that there could be solar energy captured by algae which would produce energy when it photosynthesized using the carbon dioxide in the air. This would require relatively low maintenance as the algae could grow and hence be self-sustaining.  I did further research in this area and found that this idea was being developed by a person called Jonathan Trent who gave a TED talk on it.

You can read the article here.

This is completely sustainable with even the plastic containers used to hold the algae made out of recyclable material and I believe that this is the way forward for Singapore. My hope is that next time, the top of every HDB block can be equipped with such an algae tank which will be able to generate electricity for the whole block.

Key Take-Away Points
I learnt about the Valley and Summit model where the Prof explained how everyone was at the valley or the summit as according to their level of success. Sometimes for example during a recession we might be at a valley or our idea might be well received and we would be on the summit. However, whether we were at a summit or a valley, the important thing was to take advantage of cloud opportunities, which were unrealised opportunities that we had to explore to develop ourselves from valley to summit or to keep ourselves at the summit.

I also learnt about the shift from the linear method of production to the cyclical method of production. Previously companies thought that production was just extraction of raw materials, manufacturing goods and then selling them without having to think about where the final product ended up. Now however, there is a paradigm shift in which the manufacturers understand that they have to take into account the disposal of their good and ensure that even if the good cannot be recycled or disposed in an environmentally friendly manner, they should take the responsibility to find a proper method of disposal of the product such that the Earth is not recklessly stripped of its resources.

Responses to the presentations
"It is estimated that one pair of jeans requires more than 2,500 gallons of water, nearly a pound of chemicals and vast amounts of energy." was the shocking statistic that Prashant revealed to us in his presentation. This really surprised me as while I knew that there were a lot of resources that went into producing goods, I had no idea that it was to such an extent and this was a truly sobering fact.(Not to mention that I own quite a few pairs of jeans.)

This made me feel that it is really the job of the consumers to show by their power to purchase or not to purchase in indicating their support of products that a environmentally friendly rather than the government who can only control the companies to a limited extent. The economy is run by consumers and the market is fueled by consumer purchases and it is only by taking a stand against purchasing can we stop the perpetration of this unsustainable production methods.

Issues for further discussion
1. One of the issues I would have liked to discuss would be that of how we can reduce costs of the environmentally friendly production methods such that it would be more affordable for the public, increasing public adoption of such products.

2. Benedict brought up the idea of the Hitachi bulb which costs significantly more than a normal bulb but as it is energy saving and more durable, it can last for up to 10 years. However, it does not have significant adoption because people are under the impression that it is more expensive without taking into account the long term benefit of using such bulbs. Hence, another issue I would have liked to discuss would be how to better communicate the importance of sustainability in our consumeristic habits to the consumer such that he will be able to appreciate the long term effects of sustainable products.

Personal ratings for the session
I enjoyed the presentations especially Prashant's presentation on the impact of technology on fashion as each of them gave me a lot to think about. I also found the prof's overview really helped to set the world context such that we could understand the current world sustainability standards and where we should go from here.

I would give this lesson an 8/10.

Can't wait for the next lesson to listen to more interesting presentations! :)

By the way, “This book(blogpost) was written using 100% recycled words.” -Terry Pratchet, Wyrd Sisters.

Cheers,
Amanda Tan

Technology and World Change Lesson 2

"Look at the past as a jumping point for growth rather than the trajectory you want to follow."

Brief Overview/Summary

I felt that the above quote from Prof really summed up the whole lesson. This week, Prof talked to us about the concepts of innovation and invention and the idea of singularity. He reminded us of the importance of understanding historical roots such as colonialism as well as continually having a rising star mentality to look for progress. He also then went on to mention about the Human Development index and the United Nations Millenium Development Goals and how technology can be used in a sustainable manner to alleviate the problems that exist and work towards development and enabling every person to live up to his fullest potential.

The next segment of the lesson were presentations were several interesting ideas were raised including that of Eugenics, the dark side of technology and the use of technology in education.

Interesting Observations and Ideas
1)Wen Bin's presentation was on the use of technology on education. The question he posed to us was whether the role of teachers be replaced by technology in later stages of education?

I feel that the role of teachers cannot be replaced by technology even in the later stages of education. Technology can only provide us with the information and at the most be slightly interactive but we will still need teachers who are not only repositories of information but people who can react to our ideas and our views and give us skills of analysis. They will be able to respond to us and critique our answers and facilitate discussions which open our minds and these are things that technology will never be able to replicate.

2) Another interesting idea I had was during Wei Yang's presentation. He suggested that there was an app that could translate any piece of information written in a foreign language to English when passed over that piece of information. This would help to bring cultures closer together and help us to understand one another better. I thought that this was a great idea and came up with a follow-up idea that the app could be equipped with a further function of being able to voice out what you wanted to say in the foreign language of your choice if say you wanted to ask a question so that you would not have the problem of being misunderstood due to the differences in pronunciation.

Prof also had a similar idea which was to invent a earpiece that could translate what you said into the language of the person speaking to you and it would likewise translate what he said in his native tongue into a language that you could understand.

I think that there is much future and market potential in devices of this kind and I would like to invent one in the future and go out there and learn more about other cultures.

3) Eugenics
Sylvester brought up the idea of Eugenics in his presentation and how it could be used to come up with a better grade of humans, one that is more intelligent and would allow the human race to evolve for the better. I think that this was a very interesting though rather contentious issue because there are severe moral repercussions.

Firstly, I disagree with the idea of Eugenics because I feel that being rational human beings and if it was found possible to extract the gene for intelligence, for good looks and perhaps that sense of humor you always wanted to pick up that cute girl at the party, then everyone would want their children to be programmed with those genes. And if we could really choose then we would all have that gene inserted and we'd all be the same. We'd be equally smart and pretty, not to mention look faintly alike and then the world would become so much boring for it. We would have a real risk in this situation of becoming almost robotic and I shudder to think about living in a world as such.

Another issue I have with Eugenics is how cruel it can be. Say we identify a really brilliant gene for intelligence, the person/ company that figured out how to extract that gene would surely want to protect its secret for the purposes of making a lot of profit for it. In that case there would be scarcity because only the rich would be able to afford such an expensive gene. The poor people would not be able to obtain the gene and would continue to be inferior. However, the rich people wanting to provide the best for their children and because the cost of obtaining that gene would be so expensive, they would have to have fewer children. The poorer people are likely to continue having more children as they currently do because they are usually not so concerned about family planning and then we're back to square one. The "retrograde" humans would continue to increase in population far more than the intelligent humans and not only will the human race not be significantly more intelligent, it would also have widened the rich-poor divide such that the poor people would be living in circumstances that would be almost impossible to bridge and there would be no social mobility.

Would we want to impose on our children a world in which their whole life depends on the parents to whom they were born?

I do agree with the use of Eugenics regarding diseases that if we were able to identify a gene that would cause a certain disease to be able to remove it. However, at the same time, if we were to allow Eugenics to be used in this manner, we will not be able to limit what the research is used for and sooner-or-later Eugenics will begin to be used to create a perfect human. This is a slippery slope we cannot and should not allow ourselves to start on.

I feel that we should not so much be concerned with trying to breed humans that are of a distinct higher quality than others but to give each and every human being on this earth a chance to live their life to the fullest and be the best that they can be. The resources used on research in Eugenics could be better channeled to focusing on reducing poverty and providing clean water, sanitation and housing for the poorest 1 percent of the population worldwide. In enabling them to be able to live their lives with dignity and have the hope of improving their current situation, we are actually become better humans ourselves in the sense that we are able to empathize and act to improve the lives of others, which in my opinion is far more important than intelligence or good looks.

Key Take Away Points
1)The difference between invention and innovation

Prof clarified that invention is the creation of an item and innovation is the translation of something that can be used in the marketplace in which innovation is a subset of invention. This was rather interesting for me because I always thought that they were the same. The reminder that all innovation still needs to be translated into the marketplace as an invention is relevant because even though we may thing that something we have thought of is brilliant it may not have applicability to a wide audience. The true test of the benefit of a innovation is how it helps those who use it so we do have to bear in mind that an good invention should always try to be a better innovation!

2)The need to reinvent yourself
Prof shared with us his model of identifying innovation leaders and dominant players.  Through the model, he explained the importance of always looking for opportunities to improve yourself and not closing your door to others. A poignant example raised was that of Kodak who invented the digital camera but kept it aside because they did not want it to interfere with their film business. Thus, they fell behind as a result of competitors inventing the digital camera as they did not look for opportunities and study the market. Hence, it is always important have the rising star mentality and to continually improve ourselves and survey the market to identify the direction in which it is heading such that we will not fall behind.

3) The concept of singularity.
The concept of singularity is that the rate of development is speeding up so exponentially that there is new knowledge formed all the time. This reminded me of the importance of learning skills such as analysis such that we are able to analyse our problems and figure out how it should be solved rather than relying on records of how previous problems were solved in order to solve a new problem.

Issues for Further Discussion

1) I would have liked to discuss more about the future of Eugenics and the possible implications of the use of such technology as I would have liked to hear if there were any views on how to ameliorate the negative moral repercussions of Eugenics.

2) I would also have liked to discuss more about the dark side of technology because I recently read up about bitcoins, a form of online currency with no regulatory authority or central bank and if it continues to get stronger, could bring down the whole economic systems. I would have liked to have raised this issue to discuss about how we could control the problems created and to hear other forms of cybercrime or ways in which technology is being used for purposes other than which it was created and how to solve them.

Personal Ratings for the session.

I would give this lesson an 8/10. I was very impressed with the ideas that the presenters brought up as they were really very interesting with a lot of room for exploration and discussion. I also enjoyed looking at the way technology affects different levels of society and being to extrapolate the problems and problem-solving strategies from the individual to the firm and to the society.

Looking forward to next week's lesson as usual! :)

Cheers,
Amanda Tan