Final Session...

 The African proverb, “Tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today” is really relevant to our generation! Future projections which we may be forecasted by us today could very different of what the reality may be. Thus, forecasting and at the same time taking precaution to wisely use current and upcoming technologies, should be on par. But firstly, why bother with foresight? Prof Shahi posed a question to us asking if we should work from the past or work backwards from the future. Working backwards from the future, is where we paint a scene where we see what we want the future to be, and use that as a final goal, destination, or motivation even to bring an organisation forward. This seems very uncertain and risky as projecting the future could be very different from what it might shape up to be. However, just one example had me change my mind immediately and that was Steve Jobs. He had a vision to create the Mac and its profound features, lo and behold, his vision has survived and thrived well.

There have been a lot of upcoming innovations and inventions, but truth be told, many are completely redundant which  are not useful for the betterment of societies as a whole but only specific in their benefits to a small groups. Thus, much of the current resources especially monetary resources are carefully being channelled to support or invest in the “right” kind of technology. This is very relevant to developing countries where the resources are already pretty much scarce. However, if everything was to be taken with so much precaution and new technologies would have been discarded, who knows, it could have been something would revolutionise the future. Nobody will know which technology ought to be encouraged or not, a difficult decisions that, managers or CEOs have to take.

Wen Cong’s presentation was truly supportive of the session’s content on future forecasting. He spoke on the 6 rules of effective forecasting technology that was valuable in providing us with an insight on importance of prediction. However, yet again, there are limitations to this where forecasting cannot be the answer to our future. Only with checks and balances in place and stringently following a procedure will forecasting bring benefits and shape a stable future.

With interesting ideas that were mentioned in the session, I would rate this class an 8/10!

Future Technology

This week’s session could be described as surreal or just pure wild imagination. It was an extrapolation of what the future might hold in terms of our progress in technology. Decades back geographical boundaries were thought to be insurmountable yet now we have communication giants such as Facebook or travel modes such as airplanes. So much has progressed and thus the possibilities and opportunities in the coming years cannot be doubted as anything can be possible.  

One very interesting technology that could be a norm is plastic technology where high-tech plastic could be embedded in anything we can imagine such as contact lens, clothes, curtains which may change the dynamics how things work in our day-to-day lives.

A throng of innovations are being introduced into the market continuously. Most die out while some become a huge success. The prof has mentioned again that the success of the product is determined whether it is market-driven or technology -driven. If there is a need for the technology, it would be widely accepted. Innovation does have its perks where, constant modification alters the application of a technology which can be used in a simpler way deeming it to be more convenient for people to use. Motion sensors in gaming is not limited to just video gaming but is applied in different sectors such as the medical field.

The prof posed a question of the difference between sales and marketing. Seems similar yet it has very stark difference in its strategies, where sales has a push force on the public while marketing has a pull force. This is really interesting where it comes back to the whether a product is market driven or technology driven. If the product is a need in society, it pulls their attraction when the product is marketed. One Singaporean company mentioned was Creative Technology where it is seeing losses due to not being able to keep up with the market needs which other companies such as Apple is able to provide.

Other two most-discussed future technologies are robotics and augmented reality. These were further analysed through the presentations. The first presentation covered the concept of trans-humanization where individuals could replace their body parts with machineries work and appear as a human hand but are of course, made to do things more efficiently, faster and go through tougher jobs and brain transplant could have us think faster. However, why not have robots or machineries that are not incorporated into our bodies, to do the jobs separately? Would we want to go beyond our human capabilities and as prof posed, at which point would we seize to be human as we adopt cyber technology with artificial intelligence.

The second presentation was on Future of aviation technology by Gideon. The presentation covered the futuristic feel on flights and their uses to be more efficient as a transportation and entertainment mode where the public could enjoy flight cruises. Most of my classmates do believe that in 40 years, such a concept will be possible. However, I feel that possible or not, it is not our priority looking at the dire needs of the world that have not been tended to yet.

The next presentation by Daryl was on the pervasiveness of robots where there has been a major shift in the industry. Would robots taking over every job of men and women while people reap their benefits? This is something I would like to see for myself in the future.

The last presentation by Michelle who spoke on augmented reality and its pervasiveness. Would information on everything be so readily available to us that accessing sites such as Google or Facebook become moot? This technology can be used in any field, education, medical, aviation to provide a better and richer experience for patrons. Again the crime of infringement of privacy crops up if one had the access to a person’s bio-data just by looking at them. However, with modifications of this technology this one will be really pervasive and prevalent in society and I would like to experience that for myself.

For the pure fun and imagination that this class brought up, I would rate this 10/10.

Energy: Past, Present and Future

The crux of this week’s topic is energy consumption. It never fails to surprise me that the magnitude at which I see people in Singapore or the States or any city consume in such magnitude and the world still seem to be operating continuously. I could be referring to food resources or electricity used daily. This goes to show just how much the Earth has in store for man’s disposal. However, this may not go on for long. Yet, some credit must be given to humans who have and are still stretching, unscrupulously rummaging for the remnants of sources of energy. Wind and solar energy which were available alternatives decades ago are becoming major components in contributing to future energy sources.

Wind energy has its limitations where it could be only harvested with the presence of wind. However, one question which stumps me and even Prof Shahi is why solar energy is under-cultivated. Is potential energy is triple times all the other sources of energy combined together. Yet, we do not see a widespread usage of this source. Harnessing this energy could supply us with unlimited energy that could sustain, maybe forever till the sun perishes. There has been a visible push to capture solar energy. However, from http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/19/markets/global_energy_use/index.htm, it can be seen that the projected world energy mix, contains only 14% of renewables. This is mainly due to the expenses that the country incurs investing in this type of energy. Every technology, when first introduced into the market is costly due to lack of competitors. However, organizations are still not ready to invest in this technology and thus costs will still be high and this vicious cycle may not be broken at least in the coming few decades.

Also the global energy consumption is expected to rise by 53% largely driven by demand from India and China. China currently uses 25% in a global scale. Energy is also a source of income and how energy is harvested and is used in each country is influenced by the clout of politics. The more hardworking government would pass in laws that may implement greener technologies. However, some are plain corrupt where people from the grass roots level work to produce energy for the state do not even get their income. Suresh has kindly put up a very intriguing article on Nigeria and its impoverishment due its corruption.

The presentations were intriguing; especially Avijit’s topic on the consequence is governments are not cautious with their usage of their energy which evokes a sense of foreboding. Suresh also spoke of reserve power plants which will not add to the energy consumption but will be used in case of emergency. Maybe this stored energy could be the answer to future consumption in place of others perishable resources.

For an insightful class, I would date this 9/10.

Agriculture - BioBusiness

This session brought us through agricultural-biology, environment and its past present and future. Prof Shahi has mentioned the quote ‘When we are able to grow the resources we need, we will finally be on the road to sustainability. He did explain the quote, that is, sustainability can be only attainable when we know how to renew our resources and while we are consuming them. He also mentioned that Singapore takes on a different angle in this, that is, sustainability is attainable if we use less of what we have in hand. Both have their stand in defining the word sustainability. However, as much as it sounds compelling that we start to grow our resources, it sounds too drastic and unrealistic. It might be true in the case of agriculture where we could plant and re-plant as long as the land remains fertile. Even the land runs out of its fertility and that’s when resources are put in to make the better out of the land. We are not able to grow new land but work on what we have. As much as we should embrace opportunities to grow our resources, our current path to sustainability is reducing our use.

A very interesting concept which Prof mentioned was the introduction of ‘farmists’ as opposed to farmers. Farmers are known to have a rigorous and brainless job since the start of agriculture. However, turning the job role into a smarter one, which increases the farmer’s productivity, seems like a more lucrative business in farming. This has been discussed in class and it has been mentioned the challenge is in changing and teaching these farmers to adopt a new business style. Looking at India, 60% of the land is agricultural land, which shows the magnitude of number of farmers. And going through training programs for them seems like a huge hurdle. However, this idea should not be shunned as a gradual movement into turning farmers into ‘farmists’ might just be possible and may turn the agricultural business.

Moving on to the presentations, most of them have touched the agro-biology on GM food. Many pros and cons of GM food have been discussed. I feel that we are already in the era where most of our foods are genetically modified and even if they are not direct products of genetic modification, they initial ingredient could have been tampered with. As for labeling, companies should provide information about the contents of the product. More detailed information about the process of manufacturing of the food product could be updated on the company’s website. However, even then, the truth and credibility of the information given is doubtful. As agreed by some of my class mates, what you do not know does not hurt you. And I think many of us are living by this example, where they usually ignore given labels, and even if we might chance upon the labels, we do not take the extra step to understand what our food contains. Guess we all are still leaving it upon the government and food industries to decide what is good for us and what is not.

Topic on agriculture was not my favourite one, yet this class induced and evoked so many intriguing questions. I would rate this 10/10!