Since last week was the last lesson rounding up the past 10 weeks of intensive drilling of technology and world change, we have entered this week with anticipation of watching different groups presenting on their web pages. It is fascinating for to watch and learn the different ways of presentation people use to bring across certain idea to the floor. The groups that presented touched on cryonics, music, health and physically challenged.
All the presented topics were eye openers as they touched on issues that are fascinating especially the cryonics. It brought medical science and technology to another level where people dream of prolonging their life. Definitely, this topic is controversial juxtaposed to that of cloning. People always believe that immortality is only achievable once the person is enlightened and ascend to be a god. Hence, several people will definitely object to this idea and most probably this idea will only be feasible to the rich. Come to think of it, it will be very funny to wake up and realize ones is in the generation of his grandchildren while his children were all dead. Waking up in bewilderment and finding yourselves alive with all your relatives and friends dead is so lonely and sad. With technology advances rapidly, things will certainly be different 15 years from now. Hence, it will pose as a problem to adapt to the changes.
Another group talks about the floating HDB flats or the evolution of the way buildings are built in the future. These ideas astonish me. It is so amazing to think of yourselves staying in a floating mechanical platform that brings you all around the world. Furthermore, it uses renewable energy to generate electricity and transport wise i would suppose are vehicles that we have never seen before. It could just be like those cars that can suspend in the air or robots that could walk on water.
The world is changing with people starting to treat scenes in the movie as feasible plans. Robots and technological advancement have allowed humans to think beyond their own capabilities now. However, people way of living will change as there could be robot and human marriage in the future. People could start walking around kissing their ipad as shown in this YouTube link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdhqAu__8nc&feature=share. It depicts a guy who is so obsessed over his virtual girl that he has to bring it along with him anywhere he goes. In the end, he was living in the virtual world and avoided making friends of the opposite sex in the real world. This is totally unhealthy way of behaviour as technology is supposed to help us with networking and aid us in the different chores we are doing rather than destroying our normal behaviour.
I would rate today class 7/10 because i have learnt quite abit from my classmates and seeing their efforts pay off. The next lesson would be an exciting one because my group will be presenting.
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Week 11--Session 10 Technology Assessment and Forecasting.
This is the final topic for the entire module and it is also a round up of what we have learnt throughout this 10 weeks in Prof Shahi class. This session has taught us to identify possible key opportunities so as to develop them for the future.
The class started off with a quote stating "Tomorrow Belongs to the people who prepare for it today" Inevitably, what we do presently will determine what the future will be. It reminds us that our actions today, will definitely contribute to a enormous changes to what the future will be like for our younger generation. Take for example, if we were to continue cutting down trees and driving wildlife to extinction, we will be depriving the chance of our children from seeing them. Some people seeing the way we are advancing would feel that the future is bleak because of the adverse changing conditions of the weather in recent years such as the recent Merapi volcano eruption and earthquakes. It reported to be the most ferocious volcano eruption in the century. Despite the advancement in civilisation, mother nature is still able to destroy us no matter how develop our societies are. However, since we are unable to defeat mother nature, we should just use the resources that mother nature has bestowed to us and use them to the fullest extend.
By the year 2050, the world will be heading towards a incredible population size of close to 9 billions and the horrifying news is that more than half of that population will be old people. With better medical facilities and health care services, life expectancy of an average person has increased resulting in ageing population. The younger generation does not bother about having kids anymore as they want to fulfil their materialistic mentality. Most people aim to have a stable career before engaging and setting up families.
With the progess our world is moving towards right now, we can be optimistic that our energy reserves are sustainable. Government and companies and investing heavily into renewable energy where we have witnessed breakthrough in term of biotechnology such as algae as hydrocarbon resources, inculcating greener technology into building such as installation of more solar panels, the better understanding of nuclear energy that could offer the best alternative choice to fossil fuel. In the future, it is no doubt that the reliance on fossil fuel will be reduced greatly and this could in return help to save our world.
The Millennium Goals set by world leader are still far from achieving them in spite of only 5 more years left to go. Eradicating poverty could still pose any the most difficult problem to solve. A fund of $40 billion is being injected into this plan hoping to save the lives of 16 million women adn children over hte next five years as part of efforts to reduce global povert, hunger and disease. However, the question still lies upon whether the plan will work or not? Does it really mean that if more money are being given to these people, they can get out of poverty? I suppose the answer still lies on who and how will the money be disseminated and used. It is almost certain that investment in building technological infrastructure which allows the kids in the third world country to use internet in school will promote literacy. This is the crucial part as with proper education, the people will be able to change and start to fight against corruption through garnering support from their own people. Food supplies and resources would be able to be distributed evenly and the people will be able to voice their own opinions. Women and men disparity will slowly dissolve and seeing more women taking up the role of the men to find job and work. Technology will bring about an enormous change to the people.
The question asked by Yali on why are the white has more cargo than the native has gotten the answer. Due to the geographical disadvantages compare to the white, the people were restricted to the limited resources they have. Hence, people developed differently all around the world as they adapt to the surrounding and progress from there. No one is born superior than the other but it is mainly where ones is born that determine the future. However, the future still lies in the hand of the people in the present. Every moves we are taking now, is craving the path for the what the future will be like.
I would rate this week lesson 8/10 because it has provided a in depth round up of the whole module.
The class started off with a quote stating "Tomorrow Belongs to the people who prepare for it today" Inevitably, what we do presently will determine what the future will be. It reminds us that our actions today, will definitely contribute to a enormous changes to what the future will be like for our younger generation. Take for example, if we were to continue cutting down trees and driving wildlife to extinction, we will be depriving the chance of our children from seeing them. Some people seeing the way we are advancing would feel that the future is bleak because of the adverse changing conditions of the weather in recent years such as the recent Merapi volcano eruption and earthquakes. It reported to be the most ferocious volcano eruption in the century. Despite the advancement in civilisation, mother nature is still able to destroy us no matter how develop our societies are. However, since we are unable to defeat mother nature, we should just use the resources that mother nature has bestowed to us and use them to the fullest extend.
By the year 2050, the world will be heading towards a incredible population size of close to 9 billions and the horrifying news is that more than half of that population will be old people. With better medical facilities and health care services, life expectancy of an average person has increased resulting in ageing population. The younger generation does not bother about having kids anymore as they want to fulfil their materialistic mentality. Most people aim to have a stable career before engaging and setting up families.
With the progess our world is moving towards right now, we can be optimistic that our energy reserves are sustainable. Government and companies and investing heavily into renewable energy where we have witnessed breakthrough in term of biotechnology such as algae as hydrocarbon resources, inculcating greener technology into building such as installation of more solar panels, the better understanding of nuclear energy that could offer the best alternative choice to fossil fuel. In the future, it is no doubt that the reliance on fossil fuel will be reduced greatly and this could in return help to save our world.
The Millennium Goals set by world leader are still far from achieving them in spite of only 5 more years left to go. Eradicating poverty could still pose any the most difficult problem to solve. A fund of $40 billion is being injected into this plan hoping to save the lives of 16 million women adn children over hte next five years as part of efforts to reduce global povert, hunger and disease. However, the question still lies upon whether the plan will work or not? Does it really mean that if more money are being given to these people, they can get out of poverty? I suppose the answer still lies on who and how will the money be disseminated and used. It is almost certain that investment in building technological infrastructure which allows the kids in the third world country to use internet in school will promote literacy. This is the crucial part as with proper education, the people will be able to change and start to fight against corruption through garnering support from their own people. Food supplies and resources would be able to be distributed evenly and the people will be able to voice their own opinions. Women and men disparity will slowly dissolve and seeing more women taking up the role of the men to find job and work. Technology will bring about an enormous change to the people.
The question asked by Yali on why are the white has more cargo than the native has gotten the answer. Due to the geographical disadvantages compare to the white, the people were restricted to the limited resources they have. Hence, people developed differently all around the world as they adapt to the surrounding and progress from there. No one is born superior than the other but it is mainly where ones is born that determine the future. However, the future still lies in the hand of the people in the present. Every moves we are taking now, is craving the path for the what the future will be like.
I would rate this week lesson 8/10 because it has provided a in depth round up of the whole module.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
week 10-- session 9 Technology and World Change
Today, we were introduced to the different types of technology such as surveillance technologies, biometric technologies,artificial intelligence technologies and many more. Quote from Steve job: " Innovation distinguishes the leader from the follower", This once again emphasis on the need for someone to lead a change rather than to stay put and accept what we have currently. Ideas and products in present world are mostly created out from fantasy and imagination just like what Albert Einstein had said in the past, "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand while imagination embraces the entire world and all there ever will be to know and understand." Items such as smartphone and 3D visual presentation were thought to be ridiculous in the past. It is this special ability in us to imagine and moving away from the status quo which lead us to more inventions of products.
A YouTube video on Claytronic was shown in class which had intrigued me. It will be so amazing to be able to have such technology at our doorstep.Changing the colour of our car depending whenever we want, demonstrating live structures instantly such as creating a prototype instantly and modifying them whenever we have to. All these allow us to cut down on the wastage of time to source for resources and providing a more realistic model to the people. One of the presenters today presented on virtual reality immersion which i feel might be the next trend where people will venture into. To be able to use this technology and enter any world we want, allow those who are depressed to be able to stay cheerful and curing boredom.
However, i still feel that future technologies would definitely arise problems in the future which are showing currently. People will tend to be addicted to these awesome gadgets such that they might start to fall into the virtual world and forgetting that everything is faked. Hence, they will choose to stay at home resulting in smaller social networking, obesity as they tend to avoid exercising and worst of all, they might not want to work. Alot of social issues and health problems will start appearing. Taking a look at the presentation on iphone morph into "iwallet". Beside the security issues, there might be sight of increasing number of people going into debt because it has made spending so much more convenient. Children and students nowadays all have handphone with them thus they will be tempted to buy anything they can. Furthermore, phones have shorter battery lifespan now thus it will be a headache when the battery goes flat.
I forsee that in the future there will be alot of tremendous changes not only in our surrounding but the way human behaves. People will demand for more work to be done within a shorter span of time with the faster network we have. Stress level in our society will definitely increase too and many people will inevitably become more impatient when it comes to submission of work if the system is slower abit. The reliance on technology will be more significant as it is integrated into our life.
I will rate this week lesson a 8/10 because we have several good presenters today who provide good insight to the topics discussed today. Future aspect of technology will be an interesting issue to talk about as anything could be possible now. I look forward to seeing the changes that we will experience in future.
A YouTube video on Claytronic was shown in class which had intrigued me. It will be so amazing to be able to have such technology at our doorstep.Changing the colour of our car depending whenever we want, demonstrating live structures instantly such as creating a prototype instantly and modifying them whenever we have to. All these allow us to cut down on the wastage of time to source for resources and providing a more realistic model to the people. One of the presenters today presented on virtual reality immersion which i feel might be the next trend where people will venture into. To be able to use this technology and enter any world we want, allow those who are depressed to be able to stay cheerful and curing boredom.
However, i still feel that future technologies would definitely arise problems in the future which are showing currently. People will tend to be addicted to these awesome gadgets such that they might start to fall into the virtual world and forgetting that everything is faked. Hence, they will choose to stay at home resulting in smaller social networking, obesity as they tend to avoid exercising and worst of all, they might not want to work. Alot of social issues and health problems will start appearing. Taking a look at the presentation on iphone morph into "iwallet". Beside the security issues, there might be sight of increasing number of people going into debt because it has made spending so much more convenient. Children and students nowadays all have handphone with them thus they will be tempted to buy anything they can. Furthermore, phones have shorter battery lifespan now thus it will be a headache when the battery goes flat.
I forsee that in the future there will be alot of tremendous changes not only in our surrounding but the way human behaves. People will demand for more work to be done within a shorter span of time with the faster network we have. Stress level in our society will definitely increase too and many people will inevitably become more impatient when it comes to submission of work if the system is slower abit. The reliance on technology will be more significant as it is integrated into our life.
I will rate this week lesson a 8/10 because we have several good presenters today who provide good insight to the topics discussed today. Future aspect of technology will be an interesting issue to talk about as anything could be possible now. I look forward to seeing the changes that we will experience in future.
Monday, October 18, 2010
Week 9-- Energy and World Change
There are several types of energy which we can tap on to provide us alternatives to the over reliant on fossil fuel. They comprise of hydroelectric power, solar power, geothermal energy, wind energy, bio fuel and lastly, nuclear energy. All the above energy are believe to allow humans to shift towards more renewable form as fossil fuel are limited and at the rate we are using them, it will be a few decades down the road where it will be completely depleted.
Among all these renewable energy, solar energy is the most feasible. Since this form of energy is being obtain from the sun, there are abundant of them shining onto earth everyday day. It was estimated that the earth receives about 274 million gigawatt-years of solar energy, which translates to an astonishing 8.2 million “quads” of Btu energy per year.The entire human race currently uses about 400 quads of energy (in all forms) per year. Put another way, the solar energy hitting the earth exceeds the total energy consumed by humanity by a factor of over 20,000 times. Therefore, this source of energy is allow to provide us with the the amount of energy we require forever. However, the problem lies in how are we going to convert all this solar energy into usable energy in a cost efficient manner. Prof Shahi had mentioned in his lecture specifically that biotechnology will also be another field where new breakthrough would lead us to the discovery of more renewable source of energy. One example is the algae project that focus on using algae to produce hydrocarbon that could be a substitute to fossil fuel.
In one of the video, it shows that reducing the usage of fossil fuel would decrease the depletion of the forest and also reduce the slavery in the world. Furthermore, another video shows about how Germany is taking a huge step towards promoting renewable energy. The government uses the cash incentives method to entice companies or people to use solar energy through purchasing solar panels. For every kilowatt they provide for the electrical plant, they would get 50 cents and for the charge for electricity per kilowatt is 20 cents. This meant that there will be a profit of 30 cents earn. Hence, this method not only allow the country to reduce the usage of fossil fuel but also generating income for their people.
Currently, electricity and water supply are all by the government. We do not have a choice in what kind of sources we want to use. I do not agree with what the government actually mentions. Looking and using renewable energy is different from conserving energy. We can definitely still conserve energy while using energy from wind, water or the sun. It does not make any sense when we have so many other better options available to us and we still choose to stick with the burning of petroleum to provide us with electricity. One of my classmates introduced the osmosis system which i find it very applicable in Singapore. Not only does it provide an alternative source of energy, it is quite useful in our region where there are abundant pressence of salt water.
I would rate this lesson 9/10 because i have witnessed and gain immerse knowledge on the possible substitution ideas for fossil fuel which makes me feel that there is still hope for us to save the earth. To allow our next generation to enjoy what we have now, building a sustainable environment and world for them to live in .
Among all these renewable energy, solar energy is the most feasible. Since this form of energy is being obtain from the sun, there are abundant of them shining onto earth everyday day. It was estimated that the earth receives about 274 million gigawatt-years of solar energy, which translates to an astonishing 8.2 million “quads” of Btu energy per year.The entire human race currently uses about 400 quads of energy (in all forms) per year. Put another way, the solar energy hitting the earth exceeds the total energy consumed by humanity by a factor of over 20,000 times. Therefore, this source of energy is allow to provide us with the the amount of energy we require forever. However, the problem lies in how are we going to convert all this solar energy into usable energy in a cost efficient manner. Prof Shahi had mentioned in his lecture specifically that biotechnology will also be another field where new breakthrough would lead us to the discovery of more renewable source of energy. One example is the algae project that focus on using algae to produce hydrocarbon that could be a substitute to fossil fuel.
In one of the video, it shows that reducing the usage of fossil fuel would decrease the depletion of the forest and also reduce the slavery in the world. Furthermore, another video shows about how Germany is taking a huge step towards promoting renewable energy. The government uses the cash incentives method to entice companies or people to use solar energy through purchasing solar panels. For every kilowatt they provide for the electrical plant, they would get 50 cents and for the charge for electricity per kilowatt is 20 cents. This meant that there will be a profit of 30 cents earn. Hence, this method not only allow the country to reduce the usage of fossil fuel but also generating income for their people.
Throughout the lesson, there was this hot topic which was raise up that is " Why Singapore government does not want to encourage singaporeans to change to cleaner technologies and also providing them to households?" Many arguments were stating that Singapore does not have the space to build infrastructure for renewable energies, the demand was not there for the government to provide and many others. However, i went to check out on this issue and realize that in actual fact Singapore government is not in favour of subsidies. This is a code by Mr David Tan, Deputy Chief Executive of the energy market authority: "
We do not subsidise energy. We believe in the right pricing of energy because by pricing energy correctly, that would drive certain behaviour in consumers. As a result of that behaviour, we believe consumers will learn to conserve energy. The government has no plans to implement feed-in tariffs."
I would rate this lesson 9/10 because i have witnessed and gain immerse knowledge on the possible substitution ideas for fossil fuel which makes me feel that there is still hope for us to save the earth. To allow our next generation to enjoy what we have now, building a sustainable environment and world for them to live in .
Friday, October 1, 2010
Week 7--Biobusiness Revolution 2
This is week 7 of the course and we have finally been halfway through the term. It has definitely been a big change from junior college to university with a two years break due to army, the transition from basically regurgitating what we had been taught in class to making our own decision with the aids of knowledge being pass on to us by the profs. It took me a few weeks to settle down and to get use to my next phase of life but i have undeniably, learn alot of precious knowledge throughout this short span of time.
The video that prof Shahi had shown to us was quite interesting regarding human being parasites that destroy the world and killing anything that comes by. The idea was expressed in an appealing manner with the animation of the earth turning black due to the cause of pollution. It is amazing to see that what we are enjoying now, are at the expense of destroying the world with the way we deplete the natural resources. With the second video showing us on usage of biotechnology to feed the increasing population of the world which is also an area that prof has put great emphasis on. This is linked to the "wheat genome breakthrough" idea that i had presented during this week. The idea of decoding the wheat genome will not only allow scientist to create different varieties of wheat to allow more food supply in the future. This could also allow scientists in the medical field to tap on the idea and use it to decode other organisms genome which could let us to understand them better. In addition, with better understanding, new vaccine or cures could be created to cure different virus strains or tackling other ailments. This is one example how biotechnology can contribute to other fields just like the discovery of using algae as an alternative energy source to petroleum.
With the world population believe to be hitting 9.4 billion by the year 2015 and people shifting from the rural area to the urban region, all these will definitely add pressure on the amount of food needed to support us. Hence, there is an urgent need for humans to come out with ideas to support this gargantuan population and to provide helps to this people who just move into the urban region. In class, we also talk about having an occupation as farmist in the future that aims to research on the amount of farming and passing the knowledge on to the farmers for them to produce better crops in the future. Something that the prof kept my mind thinking was the failure of how we deal with waste basically only digging a big hole and dump them in plus incineration of the rubbish. Large amount of land space was used to conduct this and why is the government always emphasizing on the need to fully utilise the land space we have when there is an obvious sight of inefficiency we are facing now. With materials like plastic being non-biodegradable and burning of it will only emit harmful gases into the atmosphere, we are only creating more problems we are facing now instead of solving them. In addition to that, even material or items that are biodegradable also takes millions of year before it can fully break down. Therefore, there is an urgent need for the usage of renewable item. Newater concept has actually proven to us that we can make anything possible now. It uses the concept of recycling and help of advance technology to treat the used water and turning it into drinkable ones. Therefore, maybe in the near future we might be able to witness a waste convertible machine that uses waste to generate electricity through the breaking down of the different part in them. This could in return give us a cleaner environment as everyone would try not to litter now.
On my way home, i wondered on how are all the skyscrapers being built and are they contributing to any form of pollution be it during construction or after that. Coincidentally, i realize one of the article in the twc book was talking about it. I find this very interesting and astonishing knowing that skyscrapers or building in the world consumes up to forty per cent of the world's energy. Admiring the high beams being shoot out in the dark sky by the marina bay sands resort and the bright new york city at night which seems to be in the day, we are actually consuming lots and lots of energy and damaging the ecosystem. Animals are believed to have been disrupted by all the lightings and thus developing weird habits which detriment to their survival. Hence, huge emphasis are being placed in the design of the buildings, such as 30 Mary St Axe(The Gherkin), London, Hearst Tower in New York, Bank Of America Tower in New york just to name some. The design for Gherkin breaks away from the traditional use of rectangular shape to maximize both the natural light and ventilation and hearst tower with its diamond shape was able to reduce on the construction material such as a decrease of 20 per cent of the steel required and 80 per cent of reycled steel were used. All these are fantastic example to show us how the world has been moving towards greener environment and how we as the people leeching on the resources of the world should play a part too through our daily lives mainly by reduce, reuse ,recycle. Basically, a simple gesture of using lesser paper would allow lesser trees to be chopped of or turning to wards recycled ones. Government is nonethless the best source to implement change or policies to promote the go-green habit. They could increase the taxation on paper and reduce that of recycled paper thus demand will be shifted towards recycling paper with companies using the economic of scale to increase production at a cheaper cost. Hence, not only do the consumer enjoy cheaper and better goods, the environment will have time to replenish what has been lost.
Overall, i would rate the lesson 8/10 as definitely biobusiness is something for us to look forward to but i still do hope that more recent discoveries and breakthrough can be discussed in class especially recent case on the research on keeping tissues and use them in the need of emergency which is close to heart. I do look forward to the next lesson after the short break.
The video that prof Shahi had shown to us was quite interesting regarding human being parasites that destroy the world and killing anything that comes by. The idea was expressed in an appealing manner with the animation of the earth turning black due to the cause of pollution. It is amazing to see that what we are enjoying now, are at the expense of destroying the world with the way we deplete the natural resources. With the second video showing us on usage of biotechnology to feed the increasing population of the world which is also an area that prof has put great emphasis on. This is linked to the "wheat genome breakthrough" idea that i had presented during this week. The idea of decoding the wheat genome will not only allow scientist to create different varieties of wheat to allow more food supply in the future. This could also allow scientists in the medical field to tap on the idea and use it to decode other organisms genome which could let us to understand them better. In addition, with better understanding, new vaccine or cures could be created to cure different virus strains or tackling other ailments. This is one example how biotechnology can contribute to other fields just like the discovery of using algae as an alternative energy source to petroleum.
With the world population believe to be hitting 9.4 billion by the year 2015 and people shifting from the rural area to the urban region, all these will definitely add pressure on the amount of food needed to support us. Hence, there is an urgent need for humans to come out with ideas to support this gargantuan population and to provide helps to this people who just move into the urban region. In class, we also talk about having an occupation as farmist in the future that aims to research on the amount of farming and passing the knowledge on to the farmers for them to produce better crops in the future. Something that the prof kept my mind thinking was the failure of how we deal with waste basically only digging a big hole and dump them in plus incineration of the rubbish. Large amount of land space was used to conduct this and why is the government always emphasizing on the need to fully utilise the land space we have when there is an obvious sight of inefficiency we are facing now. With materials like plastic being non-biodegradable and burning of it will only emit harmful gases into the atmosphere, we are only creating more problems we are facing now instead of solving them. In addition to that, even material or items that are biodegradable also takes millions of year before it can fully break down. Therefore, there is an urgent need for the usage of renewable item. Newater concept has actually proven to us that we can make anything possible now. It uses the concept of recycling and help of advance technology to treat the used water and turning it into drinkable ones. Therefore, maybe in the near future we might be able to witness a waste convertible machine that uses waste to generate electricity through the breaking down of the different part in them. This could in return give us a cleaner environment as everyone would try not to litter now.
On my way home, i wondered on how are all the skyscrapers being built and are they contributing to any form of pollution be it during construction or after that. Coincidentally, i realize one of the article in the twc book was talking about it. I find this very interesting and astonishing knowing that skyscrapers or building in the world consumes up to forty per cent of the world's energy. Admiring the high beams being shoot out in the dark sky by the marina bay sands resort and the bright new york city at night which seems to be in the day, we are actually consuming lots and lots of energy and damaging the ecosystem. Animals are believed to have been disrupted by all the lightings and thus developing weird habits which detriment to their survival. Hence, huge emphasis are being placed in the design of the buildings, such as 30 Mary St Axe(The Gherkin), London, Hearst Tower in New York, Bank Of America Tower in New york just to name some. The design for Gherkin breaks away from the traditional use of rectangular shape to maximize both the natural light and ventilation and hearst tower with its diamond shape was able to reduce on the construction material such as a decrease of 20 per cent of the steel required and 80 per cent of reycled steel were used. All these are fantastic example to show us how the world has been moving towards greener environment and how we as the people leeching on the resources of the world should play a part too through our daily lives mainly by reduce, reuse ,recycle. Basically, a simple gesture of using lesser paper would allow lesser trees to be chopped of or turning to wards recycled ones. Government is nonethless the best source to implement change or policies to promote the go-green habit. They could increase the taxation on paper and reduce that of recycled paper thus demand will be shifted towards recycling paper with companies using the economic of scale to increase production at a cheaper cost. Hence, not only do the consumer enjoy cheaper and better goods, the environment will have time to replenish what has been lost.
Overall, i would rate the lesson 8/10 as definitely biobusiness is something for us to look forward to but i still do hope that more recent discoveries and breakthrough can be discussed in class especially recent case on the research on keeping tissues and use them in the need of emergency which is close to heart. I do look forward to the next lesson after the short break.
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Week 6-- Biobusiness Revolution: Health care and biomedical sciences
Entering week 6 and focusing on individual topic, we were first introduced to a video on how biotechnology is going to change our life especially in the medical field where the doctors are able to detect medical problems faster and also making it more convenient to the extent that they can examine their patients at anywhere in the world. I find this amazing and exhilarating because it has shown the immense advancement in the technology to help save more lives and also to make medical help available in everywhere we are. Seeing the animation on how the doctors actually able to detect the problems and with the aids of technology come out with the solution in a short time has made me feel excited to be able to witness this interesting and astonishing gadgets in time to come.
Our attention was brought to the white board where prof wrote down this two statements for us to think about: 1) The Biobusiness revolution will transform our lives (eg: Our health, clothes, material, food and energy) and our economies 2) Biobusiness is likely to be the means by which we achieve sustainable development. With the statistic given that biobusiness contributes to over 25 per cent of global GDP and 40 per cent of the world’s labour force, we can see that the emphasize on biobusiness is huge especially biotechnology. Although biotechnology occupied only a small portion of the market size, it plays a big role in the development of other related industries in the biobusiness in terms of the skills and knowledge past down. Take for example using of algae to produce renewable oil taking over the petroleum thus allow the plastics to be biodegradable.
Looking at the world we are all living today, I find it heartwarming to see many companies giving back to the societies in term of charity and helping those who are really in needs. Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates set up a foundation in 2000 focusing on the improvement of health, education and poverty. This foundation has a total fund of more than 22 billion dollar with Bershire Hathaway CEO, Warren Buffett who also contributed billion of dollar. These philanthropies with these large pools of fund invested heavily on research and development in the hopes of creating better ways and technologies to improve the current systems in the world. Nevertheless, they are people whom I feel all the wealthy businessmen should follow, with the understanding that corporate firms are actually acquires revenues more than the GDP of one of the top few countries in the world. Having them step up to push on the technological field to innovate, more people especially from the rural area would be able to benefit from it. Having seen several millions of people dying from virus like common flu, these people were spur on to come out with more vaccines to be distributed to the poorer people as fast as they can. There will definitely be times when the research will fail and millions of dollar could be lost due to that, but they never give up and strive on. The scope of their contribution in the society has four major stream mainly are discovering new health solutions; developing effective vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics; delivering existing interventions; and advocating for supportive global health policies and resources. Having the abilities to change the world, push on a change in the market and policy making and saving million of lives, Bill Gates and Melinda Gates Foundation would eventually reach the heart of many lives and motivate more businessmen to become philanthropies to help the needy and society to become a better place to stay in.
I do like the presentation by Elaine touching on the nanotechnology which i trigger the curiosity in me because it studies objects and particles in the atomic and molecular level. Despite having several jargon appearing and with the lack of any biology background, i was still able to understand how the nanotechnology works and its significant impact on the world. This is definitely a breakthrough in both the medical field and advancement in technology. With that we are able to better understand how certain virus strain is like and producing relevant vaccines to counter them, in addition we are also able to understand deeper in to the complexity of DNA and find ways to ensure that people are able to live healthier and stronger. This topic led to the talks on nanobots which are machines being design at the nano scale. Prof Shahi felt that it was quite scary to even imagine that having ultra small robots in the body controlling the tissues and cells in side us and with most of our cells acting on their own, he felt that it was already quite amazing as they are like the "nanobots" in us. Just like in the movie G.I.JOE with that technology appearing it could destroy the whole effel tower. Imaging the nanobots in our body and it goes berserk just like how several technologies breaking down after some time, we could all well be dead.
This week lesson i would rate 7/10 because biobusiness is very broad with many insights related to biology and tend to be dry thus there are some parts which are hard to understand. Nevertheless, prof did a great job to impart his knowledge to us in a simple way allowing us to absorb quite easily.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
WEEK 5--INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY(ICT) & World Change
This week we focus mainly on information and communication technology which comprise of wireless network, mass media, internet and many other interactive telecommunication. This topic is very interesting because it has now been all around us affecting us in one way or another. Firstly, the Mass media has changed from their traditional way of only providing news and thoughts to readers to the modern way of interaction which allows readers to be part of the reading by commenting on the issues online. Secondly, internet is now moving towards web 3.0 which is believe to be a continous from web 2.0 with more and more appliances connected to the internet and social networking. Allowing us to know our current location and even recommending the best food place around, we can see that the world is changing to allow the technology reach us even closer. Despite many points being mentioned, Prof Shahi believed that gaming is currently the one of the most influencial area of technology which is affected many other fields such as medical and the military. Take for example the using of joystick has been adopted by both fields to use to aim targets with great precision and accuracy.
In addition to those points, one of the reading was reviewing on cloud computing which enthralled me because the technology has advanced to the extend where we are moving away from stalling our information mainly in the desktop to stalling them online. All these informations can be retrieved and used anytime we need them while on demand. This is a new scope that has been tried out and experimented as mentioned in the article, using the case study that had been done on Europe where several small to medium range enterprises exists. The result shows that adopting the cloud computing allows companies to cut cost and also to increase the employment rates. Furthermore, it also suggests that in time of another global crisis, cloud computing could play an important role to promoting recovery and fostering growth. The commonly used of cloud technology would be stuff like google doc., spreadsheet, usage of facebook, linkedin,twitter to store informations. However, this also means that people can be able to gain access to them also such as hackers thus the question i wanted to ask is if it is considered save? Storing private informations online i would not deny that it brings us alot of convenience but it also has some risks in the invasion of our privacy by others.
In addition to those points, one of the reading was reviewing on cloud computing which enthralled me because the technology has advanced to the extend where we are moving away from stalling our information mainly in the desktop to stalling them online. All these informations can be retrieved and used anytime we need them while on demand. This is a new scope that has been tried out and experimented as mentioned in the article, using the case study that had been done on Europe where several small to medium range enterprises exists. The result shows that adopting the cloud computing allows companies to cut cost and also to increase the employment rates. Furthermore, it also suggests that in time of another global crisis, cloud computing could play an important role to promoting recovery and fostering growth. The commonly used of cloud technology would be stuff like google doc., spreadsheet, usage of facebook, linkedin,twitter to store informations. However, this also means that people can be able to gain access to them also such as hackers thus the question i wanted to ask is if it is considered save? Storing private informations online i would not deny that it brings us alot of convenience but it also has some risks in the invasion of our privacy by others.
Prof also shows us three quotes including one that he wrote on the whiteboard: ‘ Any Sufficiently Advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic’by Arthur C Clarke,‘The most exciting breakthroughs of the 21st century will not occur because of technology but because of an expanding concept of what it means to be human’ by John Naisbitt and prof shahi, 'ICT is the catalyst that facilitates the knowledge revolution' All these actually related to ICT about how technology is able to create things that are extraordinary which we will find it fasinating as this are stuffs that we thought can never happen such as the invention of robots that are able to react and talk with emotion to human being. The ability to communicate beyond boundaries such as using skype and get through to anyone around the world, would have been seen by the ancient times as dream or fantasy but now everything has come true.Moreover, ICT provides a platform for us to move ahead to the next stage of human development, changing the way we read , write and interact with people around us. It allows us to be more innovative and believing that anything can happen.
Thoughts were flashing through my mind when i watched the YouTube video on Virtual boy, Milo interacting with Claire and reading through the article. I astonished after watching the video as this could well be the next 5G technology that is hitting the world or market. Currently, with the concept of 3G being planted in many televisions sets and movies, we are able to experience the characters being close to us and making us more involved in the show. Nevertheless, with that kind of amazing technology advancement it can contribute to a major change in human life as mention in the article too. Benefiting people of all ages and walks of lives such as children would be taken care of, working personnel can use it as personal assistant and they can be a companion to the elderly. I anticipate that every households will have this technology and impacting the life of each and individual person in the world. However, there are always pros and cons to every issues and topics thus will this lead to social decay where children would be too obsess with this virtual portray of humans and forget that they are still living in a world where they still have to leave their house to mix around expanding their social cycles. Adults would be relying heavily on them to deal with matters and settle administrative things that make them even lazier thus if any breakdowns happen the consequences will be quite devastating. The main purpose of having technology is to allow humans to ease their workload and allocate their time efficiently on other areas and also to allow better accessibility to places, knowledge all around the world and better communication. Therefore, i hope that this advancement would allow people to rip off the benefits and not a bane to us.
I would rate this lesson 8/10 because there were several constructive ideas that were put across and topics being raise were worth thinking through. I learnt alot from this lesson and do look forward to the next one just like any other weeks.
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