TWC Session 6: BioBusiness, Healthcare and Biomedical

This week's lesson on the healthcare and biomedical industry was really informative looking into various interesting technologies in the industry. The lesson covered the disparity in terms of healthcare utilisation between South Asia and the USA. We also talked about the main areas of biobusiness opportunities with some really interesting topics such as biotechnology. With the change in demographics around the world, consumer demands have also changed. This has also caused different health problems.

One area that interest me was the types of diseases that changes with the world demographics. With the advancement of medical services, diseases in developed countries changed from infectious diseases to chronic diseases. For example, obesity is increasing at such an alarming rate in developed countries, and this in turn causes many other health problems such as high blood pressure, heart diseases etc. Comparing this to the developing countries, where people are dying of common flu, minor infections everyday, I feel that there really isn't a best of both worlds.

While we have managed to find vaccines for diseases that caused epidemics in the past, new diseases are constantly appearing. Every time there is a cure for a disease, a mutation in the strains of these virus occurs and we are back to square one. So this actually made me think of a rather pessimistic future, "will there be a day when we can no longer find a cure to this mutated super viruses?"

The idea of the digital wallet with all the relevant cards inside was extremely appealing to me. The fact that you can keep all your cards as softcopies inside an electronic device certainly can cause me alot of convenience. People may argue that if i happen to lose it, i will lose all my credit cards, atm cards, etc etc. But with so many important documents in one device, will you still be so careless with your digital wallet? I guess not. Further improvements can also be made to make it even more compact and useful. The smartphone functions can be fused with this digital wallet, maybe it can be configured to your home and your car, and i am sure there are endless possibilities to this. To relate this the topic of biomedicine, this device can have a "sos" button such that when it is pressed, important health information about the individual can be shown such as allergies, blood type, health conditions, past health history. This could in turn be vital especially for first aid.

DNA genetic engineering and stem cells is an area of constant controversy around the world. I, however, feel that this is an area of great potential and possibilities. Like what we have seen so far, every technology comes with limitations.and any new technology will be exploited in the wrong way by some human beings. Thus it is important to weight these pros and cons and determine if the technology can bring more good to our lifes.

TWC Session 5: ICT & World Change

ICT stands for Information & Communications Technology and includes so many aspects of our lives from our Internet to our mobile phones. ICT is such an integral part of our life that i believe many of us would not be able to survive without it. There are various aspects of ICT, some are already widely used in our daily lives, some are still growing. Nonetheless, ICT has great potential to make our lives even more efficient, more desirable and thus should be embraced with open arms.

One major aspect of ICT is mass media. So how has the mass media changed the world? Mass media is basically any form of relaying of information to a large audience. Over the years, mass media has evolved from passive to more engaging forms. The earliest forms of mass media, such as smoke signals, are mostly uni directional. Means spreading information from one person to many others, and there is no avenue to provide feedback. However as technology advances with the creation of Internet, people are now able to share their views on the internet and this can be really beneficial as views from every individual can now be heard, and this can help companies to gather feedback much easily. 

However with every new piece of technology comes the cons. Due to the ease of disemmminating information using mass media, ideas and thoughs can be propagated easily to large amount of audience. The problem arises when people use these channels for the wrong agendas. Like how extremists and terrorist uses mass media to spread their believes to try and rope in more people for their cause. 

Another huge component of ICT is the World Wide Web. As we evolved form Web 1.0 to Web 2.0, and are now currently looking at possiblities of Web 3.0, there is great potential is this area. Web 3.0 basically focuses on "internet of things" & "internet of services". In the near future, all our devices will be linked to each other and have the ability to communicate with each other. It will become so inteliigent and so wide spread that it will be omnipresent in our lives. Computers that knows yourself better than you do. Computers that knows what you like and what you don't. I would say the first step has already been taken in many sectors, such as the aerospace sector as explained by my classmate Sam. In the automobile sector, i understand that there are few technologies in place that enables cars to "communicate" with one and another. For new models of Mercedes Benz cars, there is this technology called the Distronic Plus, which can sense the environment around it and helps to keep the car in lane. When it senses the car is too close to the car in front, it will automatically slow down. This is definitely a great start and perhaps in the near future we will have self driven cars.

Gaming technologies is one aspect that i did not know too well before this lesson. I learnt that such technologies are deployed to help train surgeons using simulations. This provides the surgeons with better training and definitely makes training more effective. Harnessing this technology is important in other aspects as well, such as in the military. Huge amounts of military expenses can be saved by using these tehcnologies. Soldiers can now practice shooting and other scenarios in a safe, controlled environment. Pilots can also save huge amounts of money by training in simulators instead of flying a real plane up into the sky, wasting much resources in the process.

However all forms of technologies are always double edged swords. With every benefit comes a detriment. The issue of privacy is one key consideration of the Internet dominated world of today. Online personal information can be easily stolen by hackers and put our privacy at stake. Cases of online banking fraud has also been on the rise in recent years. This are several issues that comes as a package together with greater connectivity, easier communications, and influx of information in our daily lives.

There are really very engaging and interesting videos in this lesson and i really enjoyed this lesson. The pace of the lesson was alot better, giving us more time for discussions. Thus i give this lesson a rating of 9/10

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TWC Session 4: Drivers of World change/Change Manage, Change Leadership

Prof started the session educating us on the importance of critical reading. Though we were taught this skill ever since Secondary School, we still tend to be blinded by chunks of evidences and statistics the articles provide such that we fail to question to credibility of the article. The article and agenda of the writer could be to sway your thoughts in his/her direction and thus i learnt that extreme caution is needed so as not to read blindly. I think one important way to do this is to cross reference sources to other sources. If a few sources present the same information, then the information is probably correct.

Next we were posted with a question of who is the biggest driver for world change, and also who drives companies to adopt more sustainable ways of industrialisation. While many of us are pointing our fingers at each other, we always fail to look at our own mistakes. Everyone has a part to play and playing a small part is still better than doing nothing at all. So whose responsibility is it to push this concept of sustainability? Government, individual, or companies. Though a three pronged approach would be the dream outcome, the one who plays the largest part probably depends on the context of the country in question. In a country with high consumerism and great political freedom such as the United States, consumers definitely can play a huge part in pushing for this greener ways of life. If they can hold their stand firm, the companies will be obliged to change their ways, the government will also be pressured to make necessary policies so that they can continue to reign in the next elections. However in a country with little political freedom, standing up against the government is just plain pointless. Nothing is going to get changed, and thus in such a case, the party in the best position to adopt green policies will be the government.

We also talked about adaptability through a quote from Charles Darwin: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one that is most adaptable to change." It is thus important for companies to be able to always adapt, to innovate, and to always challenge themselves. Without being able to adapt, the other more adaptable companies will definitely take over. This is especially true in this rapidly developing world, where things change so quickly day in day out. The inability of companies to adapt to new demands will just make them obsolete. However i feel that being adaptable is only a baseline for companies to survive. In order to succeed, one has to see the change before the change sets in. Companies need to expect this changes and be at the forefront when the change happens.

One video that caught my attention was the video on the guy dancing and thus influencing many others to join him. This taught me several lessons. Firstly, i learnt that in order to succeed, first thing and the hardest thing is the first step. The boy in the video took the first step and starting dancing crazily to the music. Secondly, perseverance is definitely important as well. As shown in the video, the boy was dancing alone for the first half a minute. If he told himself, "no one is going to follow, i am just going to give up", he would have stopped there, and he would not have succeeded in gathering everyone for a dance. Thirdly, one must know what he wants and go for it no matter how other ridicule you, because when you succeed, those who you ridiculed you will become the joke themselves!

In conclusion, this lesson gave me a new perspective on the various drivers of change and also made me realise how everyone can make a difference. Thus i give the lesson a rating of 8/10.

Individual Review Paper outline

Summary

This review papers aims at looking at the evolution of automobiles in our world and the negative impact it made. We look at future possible innovations for cleaner cars to preserve our world for the next generation. I will also examine the various challenges that may arise.

Introduction

Since the era of industrialization, cars have taken a irreplaceable role in our society. It brings about great convenience and made many tasks possible. The increase in the market for cars greatly increased with the decreased production costs over the years. With compact cars such as TATA nano hitting the markets. With such wide spread in the usage of cars, it is thus important that these cars are efficient on our resources and also cause as little pollution as possible to our surroundings.

History of cars (Past)

- Evolution of cars from the first car, and the changes in impact on the environment.

- The trends of evolution and how it culmilated to the trend today.

Current (Present)

- Increasing issues of pollution

- Depleting of conventional energy source (fossil fuel)

- Carbon emission scheme

- Shift in focus to more fuel efficient cars (turbo charged cars, low fuel consumption, low CO2 emission without affecting the horsepower of the car)

- Emergence of hybrid cars (Low emissions)

- Emergence of electric cars (No emissions, however runs on electricity, meaning there is still pollution from power plants)

Problems (Present)

- Still not entirely clean, still pollutive

- People reluctance to change to cleaner cars due to high barriers to entry

- No infrastructure for clean cars

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 Future Tech and considerations

- Possible Hydrogen powered cars and solar powered cars (No emissions)

- More funding from government to build up infrastructure

- Increase awareness for protection of environment, create a bigger market for automobile companies to innovate, invest in R & D

 Conclusion

- Important how everyone plays a part. Look at economic, social and environmental factors.

TWC Session 3: Technology & Industrial Development/Technology & Innovation Management

For the large part of TWC lesson this week, the highlight was on industrialisation, and most importantly sustainability of industrialisation. From the records of history, industrialisation is a pathway for countries to develop. Most of the developed countries today had went through industrialisation at one point or another. Why is the effect of industrialisation so important? Briefly speaking, industrialisation helps to provide employment, helps to attract foreign investments, helps to increase the country's GDP and therefore this can help to improve the infrastructure of the country. This is in fact the catalyst for development in any country. Thus to answer Yali's, can we tell him to just move into industrialisation?

This leads us to the next segment of the lesson. We talked about the effects of industrial development and the effects on the world. Just by industrialisation, it is not enough. Imagine all the African nations moving into industrialisation, imagine all of them industrialising as heavily as China, the world will probably become a very harsh environment to live in. As such, we need to innovate and come up with sustainable industrialisation. In other words, development that is responsible to the environment.

Traditionally, countries industrialise through the linear approach. This means that raw materials are extracted, the product is being manufactured, lastly the waste is dumped. So in all stages of this approach, sustainability is never on the companies' agenda. The effect of environmental degradation seems to be non of their business.

Every single step in this linear approach leads to disaster, right from the start. Through extraction of raw materials, the area of the forest around the world is declining at a staggering rate, destroying natural habitats for millions of wildlife. Increase in food demand is also causing over-fishing in many parts of the world. The raw materials are then transported to factories for processing. These factories create tons and tons of harmful waste into our environment daily, polluting our air and our water sources. After the consumption of the products, dumping occurs. Hectares and hectares of landfills are being fed with continuous supply of non biodegradable materials, causing serious land pollution. Therefore this form of industrialisation is definitely not the right way to go.

Al Gore's movie, "The Inconvenient Truth", highlights how these industrial activities can lead to severe consequences. The Earth's homeostatic reactions can be seen clearly nowadays and this is a strong signal to us–our Earth is ill, we have to change our ways.

Another interesting part of the lesson is no doubt the video on "Story of Stuff". As quoted from the video, "if everyone consumes like the United States, we will need 4 to 5 planets". As developing countries are beginning to industrialise, this is a phenomenon that we need to avoid. The video also talked about the issue of corporations against the government. More often than not, the governments are more interested in pacifying corporations for economic benefits, sometimes at the expense of environmental degradation. Though everyone plays a part in conservation of environment and embracing sustainability, the government definitely has more influence to make changes and thus i feel the leaders should take the lead for a sustainable future.

As more people see the need to move from a linear approach to a cyclical approach, more and more countries are moving towards sustainable industrialisation. However, this shift towards sustainability requires intensive R & D which requires heavy funding. This is a problem for developing countries because some countries struggle to even fill the stomachs of their citizens, where do they get the funds to develop sustainability? Therefore it is not sufficient that the developed countries embrace sustainable development, it is important they bring this technologies to less developed countries. This is one clear message brought out by the first article regarding European Union and their fight for sustainability. 

I feel that this lesson is very closely related to my personal review paper and thus found it very interesting. I would give it a rating of 9/10.