Reflections

Having completed all the lessons intended for us, i felt like i have learned more than what i have expected to learn when i first came to class. Technology and world change on its own sounds dull, and i thought we were going to learn about technical things about technology such as its history and such. However, this class has proven me wrong.

Twc turned out to be an enriching module. That make me look forward to seeing how the future will be like with the aid of technology. And will these leaders of technologies today still be leaders 10 years down the road. Furthermore, with all the different drivers of change that we see today, we are able to expect more new and upcoming inventions. Things that we thought would only appear in movies, will now enter our everyday lives. 

In the past, many things were thought of as god given, and not many people will dare to go against the will of nature. However, as technologies evolves, mindsets of people change. And more people learn to embrace technologies in their daily lives, not solely for convenience sake, but also because they seek improvements and have raising expectations for their lives. Although i was born into the era of technologies, i tend to take them for granted and have never thought of how they can be improved. Through this module, i tend to look at a closer look at the technologies around me, and try to imagine what they will be like in future.

Week11- Technology Assessment and forecasting

Overview of the lesson

 We started off today's lesson watching a siemens video. This video talked about some problems that we are facing today and some solutions that siemens came up with. This video brought up a few main problems that we are facing today, such as increasing population, increasing number of people moving to the urban areas, depleting of natural resources and increasing importance in healthcare. Many of these are those that we have mentioned and brought up in class. However, siemens brought up new and innovative solutions to counter these problems. Such as building sustainable infrastructure. This video shows that siemens are actually forecasting their actions based on the problems that are happening today. However, one concern would be, by the time these actions have taken place, would these problems have changed or worsen?

We also discussed about the quote "Empires of the future are the empires of the mine". This probably means if you can think of it, you can make it happen. This quote is definitely applicable, since so many things around us are objects of fantasies of the past. However, they are just necessity to us now. In a reading last week, 5years ago people says that in future, everyone will be carrying a portable computer everywhere. Not only are we carrying computers, we also have internet within our grasp at all times. 

What i found interesting


The most interesting part of this lesson is the discussion that we had regarding innovation and planning. When we plan, we plan for the future, without working from the past. This means that we do not plan from what we have now, but we look forward and plan how we get there and make changes along the way. Together with planning, comes innovation. When we start to innovate, we have to remember 2 things, when innovating, the difference is not inventing it, but making people want to use it. Second, understanding the implications and issues of this innovations.


Most important take away


Most important take away in today's session will be from the microsoft video. This video shows many new technologies that seems like what we are using or already own. However, they managed to make them look spectacular and integrated many functions into one application. Most importantly, as they work towards innovating such products, they took into consideration our earth. They quoted at the end of their video "We do not save trees, we live in them". This shows that their aim is not solely to innovate new and interesting technologies, but also encourage people to save the earth. What we have seen in the video may not happen in near future, however, quoting the quote i have mentioned above, "Empires of future are empires of mind", i believe this will take place in no time.  


 How would i like to further this discussion


I would like to further the discussion by discussing more about forecasting and how we can differentiate between inventing something for people or inventing something that people will not use.

Rate this session

I would rate this session 9/10. I have gained many great insights and have seen great videos that have provided a great vision of what our world look like in future. And i am looking forward to seeing it happen. And maybe be part of it.

Week10- Emerging and future technologies

Overview of the lesson

 We started off today's lesson talking about the drivers for the development of emerging technologies. Besides having new technologies that allow the improvements and progression of new technologies, unmet market opportunities and needs are also drivers of emerging technologies. As long as these new technologies are able to meet the unmet demands or needs, there will be market for these products, and would also motivate people to come up with these products. Further more, with the help of mass media and advertising, we have changed our perceptions of needs. We no longer only need things that can fulfill our basic needs, but we also need other technologies which we may not deem as necessity in the past. 

Furthermore, supply can create demand. When new technologies emerge, people will come to realize that they need them, or would be able to do better with them.

What i found interesting


The most interesting part of this lesson is our discussion of the quote, "Innovation distinguishes the leader from the follower". If one is able to innovate and come up with something new, something that not many would have thought of, one would be the leader in that specific arena. However, a follower would not dare to innovate and to do something out of the box. But would stay back and observe, before taking a step into exploring other areas. Just as Steve Jobs stated in this quote, innovation distinguishes the leader from the follower, he himself is a leader. He came up with a revolutionized handphone, which many of us would not have dared, or thought of innovating. 


Most important take away


Most important take away in today's session will be "if you can imagine it, make it happen". So many things may seem impossible in the past, however we are seeing and using them today. We have many visions of how our future technologies will look like, and i believe in near future we will be able to see them happen. Just like what the quote suggest, if you can imagine it, make it happen. Because others may not be thinking of the same thing. 


 How would i like to further this discussion


I would like to further the discussion by looking into other emerging technologies. Our presentations in class focused a lot on emerging bio technologies, however i would like to hear about emerging technologies from other areas.

Rate this session

I would rate this session 9/10. Not only have i learned a lot from this session, it has also made me more interested in looking out for new and emerging technologies. The quotes for this session are also very insightful and i have learned a lot from them.

Week 9- Energy and world change

Overview of the lesson

 We started off today's lesson talking about the global drivers of energy change. We discussed about 3 main drivers of change which are, 1) Largest countries (India, china) are rising, hence using more energy. 2) Renewable energy sources (Hydro, wind, solar) 3) New technologies and approaches. Next, we moved on to discuss about the potential sources of energy. There are 2 areas that energy comes from, above and beneath ground. As the consumption level of energy increase, fossil fuels consumption are still the highest. Despite having many renewable sources of energy being introduced. We also found out that actually 1 hour of sunlight is sufficient to attend to all our needs, however we have not found methods or ways to capture sufficient sunlight that allows us to use as energy.

What i found interesting


The most interesting part of this lesson, video that we saw about Germany and solar panels. Germany provides price incentives for people who are willing to install solar panels in their houses. Not only does this encourage people to make use to renewable energy, the energy that are collected can also be stored and used in other ways. Price incentive is a good way of raising awareness of solar powered energy and also encourages more people to install solar panels. This is definitely a good move by Germany to play a part in conserving today's energy. Another interesting discussion we had was about installing solar panels in sahara deserts. Since sahara deserts have vast amount of sunlight, it would be the best place for installation of solar panels. However, we were not sure if this was the best thing to do. Its good because there will be more job opportunities there, and people living in the desert will be able to negotiate for lower electricity prices. However, this may not be the best move, as most of the energy collect there will be sent to middle east for usage by the people living there. Hence, building solar panels in sahara deserts may just be exploiting their resources.


Most important take away


Most important take away in today's session will be the need to conserve energy. As we all know, fossil fuels are depleting quickly, hence our energy is running out too. The need to raise awareness of renewable energy is getting more important, as not only are we dealing with the earth resources, we have no control over them. Hence, i feel that we should educate our next generation with proper knowledge on how to conserve energy and make use of renewable energy. However, in smaller countries like singapore, it will be easier for us to conserve energy than to make use of renewable sources in large scale context, due to the lack of land. 


 How would i like to further this discussion


I would like to further the discussion by bringing up the importance of education, when conserving energy. We have mentioned several ways in which things can be done in order to encourage the conservation of energy, and use of renewable energy. However, i felt that we have left out the important part about educating the next generation about this. Hence, i feel that we should discuss about ways or methods to educate or make this known to the next generation.

Rate this session

I would rate this session 7/10. I enjoyed the discussions we had for this lesson, it covers a lot of ground for conserving energy and renewable sources. However, we could have gone more in depth to discuss about the   sustainability of these renewable sources.

Week 7- BioBusiness revolution: Agribiology, Environment, life science and industrial biotechnology

Overview of the lesson

 We started today's lesson off with a quote from prof, "When we are able to grow resources we need, we will finally be on the road to sustainability". The discussion moved on, as people brought up the doubts that they have regarding this quote. How true is this? Some argued that we need more resources to grow the resources that we need, hence this means that we are compromising some resources for the sake of other resources. But then again, if we are using excess resources that we have to grow resources that we are lacking off, this may not be a bad idea after all.


What i found interesting


The most interesting part of this lesson, was the rising trends in urbanization but at the same time overcrowding in the rural areas. We are moving towards an urbanized word, where people are now exposed to better standard of living, and living habits. However, even so, there are still overcrowding in the rural areas, hectors per family is much smaller than what it used to be before. I believe, this is when agribiology will come into play. Furthermore, this is also an area in which the people in the developed countries can help the less fortunate in. By imparting the knowledge of agribiology to people in the developing countries, not only will they be able to better provide for themselves, there will also be lesser overcrowding in places with fertile soil. Also, in reading 7, one part of it mentioned that climate changes will cause soil fertility in some places to change. In other words, some soil may be more fertile in future, while some fertile soil may just become infertile. This change would not only bring about relocation of people, but also adverse effects on the people living there. 


Most important take away


Most important take away for this lesson will be the quote by Mahatma Ganghi: "There's enough on this planet for everyone's need but not for everyone's greed." I think that this is a quote that speaks a lot. This planet definitely has what we all need for survival. However due to increasing needs, wants and expectations, human races tend to use more than what we are supposed to. Tapping into what was meant for others. This may be the cause of uneven distribution of resources around the world.  


 How would i like to further this discussion


I would like to further the discussion on how changes in the world climate and technologies will have social, economic and maybe cultural effects on human races. And how will it affect people in the developing and developed countries. What can we do to minimize the effects?

Rate this session

I would rate this session 7/10. I enjoyed the discussions we had for this lesson, and the quotes really expressed fully how we feel about today's society. However, i felt that our discussions could be slightly more indepth and relate more to agribiology, environment and life sciences.

Week 6- BioBusiness Revolution: Healthcare and biomedical sciences

Overview of the lesson

In this lesson, we started off with discussing about the background of bioBusiness, which are activities based on an understanding of life sciences, life science processes and taking advantage of living systems such as bacterials, germs, virus, humans, plants etc. Next we moved on to talk about the opportunities that bioBusiness has in a bioEnterprise perspective. We acknowledged that low-value added bioBusiness that exist today are valley opportunities, whereby there are many competitors and low barriers of entry. Since bioBusiness is relatively new, and many new discoveries have yet to be made or justified, hence, these are opportunities that people are interested to explore in. Together with the good prospect that bioBusiness can offer to new discoveries and inventions/innovations, more people are now interested to be involved in this area.

We have realized that the global bioBusiness has been contributing to the market share since 2001, however it has been underestimated as we tend to leave out some of the more controversial components such as beauty and sex that are also part of bioBusinesses and they may actually account to 10% of an economy.

Moving on, we had a discussion about the changes in attitude in respect to healthcare from the past 10 to 20 years and how the healthcare and biomedical science have revolutionized. Traditionally, people only seek medical treatment when they fall sick, as for today, we tend to be more health conscious and more open to wellness and healthcare management.  


What i found interesting


The most interesting part of lesson 6 was knowing how fast our society is progressing, not only economically, but also in terms of healthcare services and technology. In the beginning of today's lesson, we watched a video called the future vision of healthcare. Which showed us how improvement in technologies have caused an advancement in healthcare services. This video were slightly geared towards being idealistic, however, it is not impossible in near future as many of these individual technologies such as touch screen and video conferences have already exist. Hence in order for the scenario in the video to happen  may not take a long time, as they only require the convergence of different existing technologies. In fact, futuristic technologies (e- prescription) have started to prevail in today's society, mainly in the western areas. However one problem is how these existing technologies are pieces together, and who is going to do it and how much cost will it incur. Furthermore, once these technologies are created, will the cost of healthcare services be raise? Making it even more unaffordable for those who are poor. This may cause poorer people to move back to traditional healthcare attitudes, whereby they will only seek help from doctors when the fall sick, or might even choose to not see the doctor even though they  are sick, so as to not incur extra cost. 


Most important take away


Most important take away for lesson 6 would be the discussion we had on the effect of rising cost of health care services as technologies improve. The cost of healthcare wold inevitably increase as we receive better services from these improved technologies. However, this would bring us back to our previous lessons whereby we discussed about the discrepancies in living conditions among the first and the third world countries.  Right now, many third world countries have yet to receive proper sanitation and much less healthcare service, but in may first world countries, many people have already started to take note of wellness and healthcare management and place large emphasis on them. If improvements in technologies continue to increase the price of healthcare services, won't it further deprive the third world countries from receiving proper healthcare? But then again, this is solely based on the argument that improved technologies will prevail in all areas and eliminate basic healthcare services.


 How would i like to further this discussion


I would like to learn more about ethical issues that arise due to bioBusinesses and the studies of bioBusiness. Ethical issues are often the grey region whereby it is very hard to differentiate between what is right and what is wrong. However, i believe many interesting points would be brought up if we have a discussion in class. 

Rate this session

I would rate this session 9/10. I really enjoyed the discussion we had on healthcare services and the improving healthcare technologies. Healthcare and biomedical science revolution that prof discussed really interest me. And the readings provided for lesson 6 are really interesting and gave me a good insight on future healthcare technologies/studies that we can expect in future.

Group project outline #1

- Executive summary/introduction (Home page)

-       - Briefly describe what telecommunication is, and how it has evolved over time.

-       - Name some social, cultural, economic impact that telecommunication has on us over the years

-        Time line on the evolving devices

-       - What insights should the reader gain after looking through this website

- Historical Perspective (First tab)

-       - Telecommunication devices used in the past (can have pictures, who invented/improvised it)

-       Social impacts they have on different groups of people (Working adults, children, people overseas, elderly, soldiers)

-       - Economic impact on different areas (Country, networks with other countries, trades)

-       - Cultural impact (maybe not so much yet?)

- Current situation (Second tab)

-       - Telecommunication devices that are most commonly used today (Mobiles, internet)

-       - How they have evolved from the past

-       - What revolutionary changes have taken place

-       - Social impacts they have on different groups of people (Working adults, children, people overseas,   elderly, soldiers)

-       - Economic impacts (able to evacuate people in time during natural disasters, preventing deaths and all)

-       - Cultural impacts (Cross border influence, how the American culture has penetrated in the Asian society)

- Future considerations (Third tab)

-       - Split into 2 different categories (Evolutionary vs revolutionary)

-       - Upcoming telecommunication devices that we find online

-       - Evolutionary (Attainable) (VoIP, 5G)

-       - Revolutionary (Idealistic) (light waves to transmit data, hologram)

-       - Probably some that we can think of ourselves

-       *** We can bring combine different devices/technologies that already exist to come up with something cool. And like say that this is what we hope to achieve in future (Thought technology)

-       Social/cultural/economic/military impacts