Session 11: Our Ideas Part 1

This was the week of the group presentations. This was an opportunity for us to get together with our peers and develop a website on any topic of our choice, that would be relevant to what we've learnt over the many weeks in class. It was interesting because each group worked for weeks and hours and nights to make sure their presentation was up to the mark. Impressing prof, indeed, is a tough job! 

The first three presentations included my group's presentation as well. I'm going to begin with an analysis of my own presentation. We presented on the topic: Towards A Greener Singapore. Our agenda was to show how Singapore can move towards sustainability. In current times, the world's resources are depleting faster than the growth of our finger nails. As such, there is a need to move towards renewable resources to ensure there is enough for the future generations to come as well. So we decided to do case studies of about 12 sustainable technologies around the world, followed by a comparison of them with Singapore, including how they can be incorporated in our country today. We had several examples. A few of them were The Rotating Tower, Dice House and Soft House etc. Through our project, we emphasized how the sun is one of the most valuable resources for Singapore. If utilized well, it could help development in leaps and bounties. Although, prof had some valuable insights about our website and our approach, and we're planning to go back and redo our bit.

The other presentations included one on Stealth and one on Cloud Computing. Both these presentations were extremely interesting, but personally I feel that the topic of stealth had a slight edge over the other. This is completely a personal opinion and maybe because being an IS student, I've heard a lot about Cloud Computing, so for me Stealth was a completely new topic. The thing I wanted to mention about this technology is that it could be a potential threat to the world as well. With terrorism on its rise, these new technological developments could actually aid in these activities. This means that we need to move towards developing and adopting new technologies. As much as it can help, we cannot avoid the harmful effects either.

Overall, my rating of the class: 9/10 :)

Session 10: Being Futuristic

Unbelievable. Week 11 of school is over. The term is nearing an end. Everyone is running around, looking for an internship. Thankfully, my run is over and I did manage to find an internship. Unfortunately, I couldn't attend class this week as I had to finalize some formalities. Going through the slides, I wished I hadn't missed class. These last two sessions' topics were really interesting and from the start of the semester I was looking forward to the discussions on these topics. Anyway, what's done is done. For this blog post, I guess I'll have to just put down my thoughts. 

As I mentioned in my post earlier, there is a need to develop newer technologies. As these new technologies are being developed, there is a need to see what the future benefits and hazards of these would be. A single new invention can cause a lot of changes in terms of economic, social, ethical etc. We cannot just blindly do rampant development of these new technologies. The timing has to be correct, in the sense that in times of war you cannot be investing in R&D for these technologies right?! This topic reminds me of a very famous and popularly used quote: 

"Change is the only constant!"

Frankly, the slides on how to foresee and the need to foresee .. well they didn't really make sense to me. These graphs kind of confuse me. The graph on the uses for foresight uses was indeed very interesting. It gives a nice overview, categorizing the usefulness according to the continents. 

Having started my internship on a part time basis, I didn't even get the time to go through the readings. However, I'll be doing the same this week, so I look to update this post after I've gone through the many!! :)

I can't rate the class, however, I can rate the content: 8/10 :)

Session 9: What's In Store?

Just a few days back, I was traveling in the MRT when I saw this kid, about 3 years old, on a pram with a Samsung Galaxy II in his hand. As I observed, I was amazed to see how the kid was using the phone with so much ease, playing games. I know for a fact that today if I asked my grandmother to use the phone, although she's over 70, she won't be able to use it with such ease. When I was a kid, my toy used to be my barbie doll or my Lego blocks. Today's kids have an iPad or an Xbox as their toy. Technology has indeed become "child's play"! With the passing day, there are new and emerging technologies. It's exciting and scaring to see what the future holds.

An interesting thought here is why do we need these new technologies? Again, there are several factors. Firstly, the needs of society are increasing. For instance, people used to feel too hot, so the AC was invented. Then people started feeling too cold, so the heater was invented. Basically, humans want to make their life easier and simpler. In a sense, everyone wants to be spoon fed. Every individual wants all the possible luxuries. This leads to an increased demand which needs to be satisfied by increased supply, which is achieved by inventing new technologies. Moreover, people are increasingly wanting to make their imaginations a reality. This is what is driving the emergence of new technologies and inventions. Another important point Prof mentioned in class was, supply creating demand. Nobody was interested in the iPhone till Apple created it. The supply of the iPhone created a demand for it. Same withe the tablets that people use today.

Essentially:

Smart people + smart ideas + smart money + smart partnership = New and emerging technologies.

We saw interesting videos regarding these new technologies. The perfect woman, which my friend says is "a myth" (I beg to differ!). The perfect woman is actually a result of our efforts to make our imagination a reality. Every man wishes for a perfect woman, and there it is. Again, an interesting thing discussed in class was augmented reality. What is it? Well it's the world as seen virtually. And it looks exactly the same as that in reality. In the literal sense it's modified reality. The other day I saw the movie "The Prestige" which showed  Nikola Tesla's model of wireless electricity. Although it is fiction, but it's interesting to see how long it will remain fiction. Just a few years ago, electric cars were fiction. Not anymore. In fact, wireless electricity is already making it's way to becoming reality.

The readings for this week were particularly interesting. One thing which came to my notice was how one article mentioned that robotics has not lived up to it's potential. This topic is very debatable according to me. While there are so many expectations pinned on to robotics, look at nanotechnology as well which has equal or more potential. However, in spite of my discussion with Prof in class, I thought over it a lot and yet I'm not convinced that robotics hasn't lived up to it's potential. I still believe that there was probably a very high expectation off robotics and that's why people are disappointed with it's progress.

The presentations in class this week were all very interesting and I could see in class how everyone was hooked on to every presentation. All in all, I feel that this week's topic was particularly interesting.

Overall, my rating of the class: 9.5/10 :)

Session 8: The Sun, The Trees, The Oil

I guess no one wanted this class to start. It meant the end of the mid term break. And the "enthusiasm" could be seen in the class. However, this week's topic was interesting, and before we knew it, the class was underway in full force. Again, this was like my Environmental Education classes in high school, except, this was a topic I actually liked. As the population of the world increases, it calls for more development. As there is more development, there is more need for energy resources. As such, the important factor that we forget is that the energy resources of the world are finite. Therefore, there is a need to move towards sustainability, newer renewable energy resources. Newer technologies are being developed to conserve energy and utilize renewable sources. 

An important point we discussed in class is that all the energy resources can be classified into two: above the ground and below the ground. All the sources above the ground are directly or indirectly affected by the sun. Some examples include, wind, water, biomass, waves etc. In short, the sun is the main source. Fossil fuels are the most prevalent energy sources across the world today. However, they are limited. This means that we need to look at other more viable options to satisfy our energy needs. This is when we need to look at renewable sources. A study showed that the renewable sources are so abundant across the world that if we utilize them efficiently then the world can become a more sustainable place. The sun alone provides SO much energy to the earth that it can independently fulfill the energy requirement of the entire planet. 

Today, the entire world is investing in future technologies. Now the race is not about who consumes more energy, but about who consumes more efficiently and sustainably. China is moving towards becoming a world power. Even in terms of investment for the future, China has overtaken the U.S. Their growth in investment is over a 100% today which is mind boggling. With the development of new technologies, wonders like the electric cars are being invented. These can be recharged and run completely on electricity. We can see the change happening. We can see the world moving in the positive direction.

Even if 10 people use energy efficiently and one person wastes energy resources, it is harmful. We gradually need to move towards making the entire world a sustainable place. So how do we further spread awareness about such issues? Some of the ways could be by starting education campaigns, provide incentives, tax exemptions, compulsory standards etc. The presentations made by my friends in class were seriously very interesting. Be it using banana peels as biofuels or electric cars of China. The most interesting observation I found was that energy efficiency could have a reverse effect. It could lead to increase in energy consumption as well. As such, we need to realize that we are treading on delicate grounds. There has to be a correct balance in what we do and how we do it or else it could have adverse impacts on the world and it's people.

Overall, my rating of the class: 9/10 :)

Session 7: Time For Revolution

Life is a rat's race. Everyone wants to finish first. Everyone wants to make it big in life. Everyone wants to find a place in the world. As peoples' ambitions get bigger, they take actions to fulfill it. More and more people move from small towns and villages to the bigger cities where they hope to make their dreams a reality. As more and more people move to the cities, new buildings are made to accommodate them, more land is encroached and more trees are cut. Urbanization has been on the rise and it has been growing almost exponentially. Like we discussed in class, the trends in urbanization have been on a rise in almost every part of the world from Asia to Latin America. The rate at which we are becoming urban has increased the prospects of biobusiness across the world.

Biobusiness covers almost all fields from medicine and healthcare to agriculture and food services. Again, with biobusiness, the main focus should be on summit opportunities, ones with less competitors and high barriers to entry. Even with the growing scope of biobusiness and environmental sciences, there are concerns which cannot be ignored. For example, is genetic modification good and morally correct? Is it important to grow food or is it important to develop energy resources? There have been lots of debates going on about these topics and many more on similar lines. Indeed the world is split into two when it comes to controversial topics like these.

The growth in urbanization has been coupled with the growth in population. As the people in the world increase, the space and food availability reduces. This leads to problems like starvation and poverty. The common aim of people around the world is food security. It is the bare minimal to provide people with food and shelter. There could be several challenges to this as well. A broad classification of these challenges would be physical, economic, sociopolitical and physiological. The solution is to try and move towards a healthier and safer world where everyone at least can live peacefully if not luxuriously. If each of us take the initiative, we could make a great change. Small things like separating degradable and non degradable waste, recycling and reusing can be extremely impact full in the long run.

Among the readings, the one that interested me the most is the last one, looking into the future to see what the world is going to become. Will the current problems prevail or will we learn from our mistakes and help make a better future where at the least food is there for all?

Overall, my rating of the class: 8/10 :)