Week 10

This week's topic is on Emerging Technology and World Change. The major distinction for this week's lesson is that it is one where scope is wider than usual and the presenters can virtually choose an article on any emerging technology. The discussion that we had today were on multiple emerging and seemingly inconceivable technologies to a lay person.

Reading 4 covers 10 technologies that can signicantly impact the world. What interests me in reading 4 is the point that technology is just 1 discipline in leading a more rewarding life. We have to holistically consider other disciplines such as psychology, spirituality and religion, which tends to be overlooked. Another point that the author brought is that each technology holds both a potential for beneficial  and also for abuse. One very good example is nuclear energy.

A quote by George Bernard Shaw:

“ You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’” I guess such an attitude is not commonly inherent in most people. This is why there are more followers than innovators.

We also discussed the drivers of the development of emerging and future and technologies. I learnt that there it can be either market driven or technology driven. The former referring to unmet market opporunity and need and the latter referring to new insights and discoveries leading to previously unimagined needs. Another key driver is the mass media and advertising where the perceptions of need is influenced. An interested idea that was introduced to us by Prof Shahi is the confluence of the 4 "smarts" in order to make an emerging technology sucesssful. The 4 "smarts" refer to people, ideas, money and alliances. A combination of all these 4 factors is necessary to make an innovation work. The concept of marketing vs sales was also brought up where marketing is a "pull" strategy to make people want the product and sales is a "push" strategy to bring the product to the consumers.

The bulk of the lesson was mainly on the different kinds of emerging technologies and what kinds of possibilities it present. Technologies such as claytronics(mutating matter), plastics replacing silicon in electronics and wireless energy transmission almost seem magical and inconceivable. However the fact is that these technologies are currently being developed and have shown to work. Ultimately, change management and the implementation process is the determinant in the feasibility of such a technology.

A key takeaway from this lesson would be derived from a quote by Kahli Gibran: "There is a space between man's imagination and man's attainment that may only be traversed by his longing." What that means to me is that anything is possible, as long as one dares to dream and has the desire and thirst to achieve his dream. Many of the technologies we use in our everyday lives would seem impossible if we brought it back in time. And those those that we see now as impossible such as time travelling could very well be possible one day.

Personal rating for the session - 8/10 for its interesting content.

-ZhiShu of G22