Session 12!

Last session already ): still can remember the first day, when I started off with almost no twc knowledge. I have learnt quite a bit in this short period of time!

Group presentations part II today!

Interesting Observations and Ideas:

I enjoyed Group 3’s presentation on crowd platform because even though the technology is not new (use of internet and document sharing websites), the idea was very fresh. People could share their business ideas to true investors by reaching out to them through the network set up.

This definitely gives people more voice to sound out their opinions! Usually media coverage is only given to significant causes or large groups of people who have caught the media’s attention. However, now with this network set up, independent persons can reach out to large corporations.

Possibly this could be further used in feedback forms to companies? If I were a company, I would make full use of this network and set up one of my own to garner people’s response. However, unlike conventional feedback forms, this new system would encourage people to come up with solutions to the inadequacies they have identified. This would allow the company to know better what consumers want to be changed. In return, the company may pay the consumers for any good ideas that the company used.

Key take-away points:

1.   Give a conclusion for the site after discussions! That would allow people to know more about what the group feels about the issue.

2. To have an effective speech, you must 1. Tell people what you want them to know 2. Repeat what you want them to know and 3. Repeat what you told them.

Issues for further discussion:

Our group was the first to present and we presented on epidemic management. During the discussion period, there was an issue that there are many human emotions involved in epidemic management. For example, who to give the cures to?

Even though our group proposed the solutions like web media and game theory, there were further issues if humans should rely on technologies to solve such human problems. Why should our lives depend on some cold formulas? Would people accept such an explanation as to why they did not receive the vaccination?

Definitely, whenever it comes to human related issues, it becomes very tricky. My group concluded that in the event that human emotions cloud the ability to respond well to the epidemic, technologies and mathematical formulas should be utilized.

To add on, there must be reasons and rationales behind how the formula works, since the game theory includes human decisions in it before coming to a conclusion. Hence, if technology or game theory is ever used to determine who should receive the vaccine, the leaders who used such methods must provide explanations why such a method is preferred or will work better than humans alone deciding. The debate over whether we should use technologies to make human decisions is never-ending but we should not give up any opportunity to explain how such techniques may be advantageous.

Personal Ratings for Session: 9.5/10

Session 11!

Group presentations today!

Interesting Observations and Ideas:

It was interesting to note that no matter how different the technologies the groups were doing on, these technologies could be used together for a better future.

For example, the designer babies (group 1) and space travel (group 3). Group 3 proposed that space travel could bring more humans to other planets as a form of holiday or permanent change of place to live. Group 1 suggested that babies that could be modified genetically to adapt to different environments.

Hence, humans may grow accustomed or be able to live under the different environments in the various planets.

This shows how vastly different technologies may be used together. Then, seeing the world today, it dawned upon me that even today; humans have not been fully utilizing the different technologies to produce desirable results.

Hence, the focus for humans to move forward in the present could be that we should not place so much hope in future technologies to solve our problems. Instead, use existing technologies more efficiently.

Key take-away points:

1.   Include references for pictures/videos!

2.   Good to include comment and poll system in blog to encourage more discussions about the issue.

3.   Give clear introduction in the site so that other people visiting the blog will understand what the entire website is talking about. (for example, a simple introduction to the project)

Issues for further discussion:

Currently, most of the technologies that the four groups have presented upon are exclusive to the rich. Hence, they were touted to increase the income gap, increasing the number of ‘have’s and ‘have not’s.

However, could there be a possibility for them to become cheaper? After all, don’t all technologies become cheap in the long run, especially after the patent period? For example, there could be mass production of that technology that drives down the price significantly.

Another question is if the nanomedicine that is suggested by group two can be used to detect the cause of the illness. My group currently is doing on management of epidemics and every time a pandemic strikes, time is key.

Currently, group two only postulates the ability of nanomedicine to cure chronic diseases. But since the micro robots are able to travel within a human’s body to fight or remove the cells that cause the disease, is it possible for them to synthesize the harmful cells for us to come up with a cure faster?

Personal Ratings for Session: 9/10

Session 10!

Creating your own future. Are you pregnant with the future?

Interesting Observations and Ideas:

We have to differentiate between working back from the future and forward from the present. Mind messing? Not quite after I understood what was the difference!

Working back from the future= postulating the future and formulating ways to work towards that goal.

Working forward from the present= working with what you have into the future.

I think the winning formula that is present for people who work back from the future is that they are more open to new ideas and concepts and that they are not bound by their old ideas or mindsets.

For example, people who did not see that Apple would succeed were bound by their old mindsets of what laptops should be like or what mp3s should be like. Whereas, Apple could see what people wanted in the future and work towards that.

So a question to pose to all of us, are you ready for the future yet? Are you creating your own future yet?

Key take-away points:

In order to plan ahead for the future, we have to be aware of the mega trends.

What are mega trends: major changes or shifts in our lives.

For example: growing world population, evolving technology, urbanization, globalization and need for green technology

I loved the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWXG-TsDAqc because it brought many great insights. The video showed that we need a sense of where things are going to be able to respond to the needs of the future. This is because in the present, we all have the same amount of information. Hence, what sets us apart is how we perceive and create the future we want to be in.

Though the video was rather brain washing (suddenly felt Siemens was such a wonderful company haha) I think it showed to us that technology has a role to play in the future. No matter how human the problem was (like mobility and healthcare), there seemed to be a form of technology that shapes how people operate in those various aspects.

However, it does not stop at thinking about the future but planning for it. If people can be split into thinkers and doers, I feel that the people who will success in the future would be those who are both thinkers and doers. That is, formulating the future they want to see and working towards it. In my opinion, I think that working towards the future is the most difficult because there are tricky wild cards in the future as mentioned in class that may jeopardize all plans made before. However, if a person believes strongly in carrying out his plans regardless how absurd it sounds today (as mentioned in session 9), the plans will eventually gel into reality in the future.

Issues for further discussion:

Enjoyed Siewlin’s sharing on the 5 ways people view the future; extrapolators, pattern analysts, goal analysts, counter punchers and intuitors. Probably we could have talked more about which we should aim to be in the future, on top of what we have discussed (which would be better in a specific company Apple in that industry). That’d have been interesting (:

Personal Ratings for Session: 9.5/10

Day's rant!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15426529

I have been following the flood situation in Thailand recently because I’m going to Thailand this December ): hope it’ll be fine by the time I reach there!

Somehow, after TWC lessons, I started looking at things from a ‘how does technology and people interact’ perspective. And after session 10, I realized how important it was to be forward looking especially for natural disasters so that harm to people will be minimized.

It seems like technology for natural disaster management is often inadequate and technology is always playing a catch up to deal with the situation. For example, there were large amounts of mismanaged dam waters, which contributed to the flood.

Then, it came to my mind: who is responsible for dealing with such crises or implementation of preventive measures? In my opinion, the government should be largely responsible for preventive measures like building proper drainage systems and dams to prevent a flood from occurring in the first place. This is because a government has to take care of the welfare of the people and national security should be reinforced with proper facilities.

However, the tricky part is who should deal with the aftermath of the disaster? Should companies that have benefited from the country (using it’s resources, etc) contribute to the recovering of the country? Definitely, the government has to step in because again, it is responsible for the general welfare of the country. In the case of companies, there might be moral problems and hidden motives for aiding a country in need after a natural disaster. However, I believe that any help will be beneficial to the country at least in the desperate periods during and just after the floods.

After the floods, the government and companies that have the technological expertise should invest into technology and build better dams, warning systems and the like. Technology is definitely underutilized and it is upsetting that people are getting hurt because the government or companies do not make full use of the available technology to reduce the damage from natural disasters.

Session 9!

1800’s: Do you have the machineries?

Late 1900's: Do you have the information?

2000’s: Looking into the future. Do you have the guts to do so?

Interesting Observations and Ideas:

George Bernard Shaw said, “You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’”

This quote seems too true. People tend to see the world as it is and judge new ideas using their current mindsets. Hence, new technologies tend to be hard to be widely accepted. This becomes one of the largest deterrence for people to aim further and become rising stars.

The situation of people wanting to move forward but are restricted by their own fixed or rigid mentalities is an irony.

For example, Ken Olsen, Found of Digital Equipment quipped that there was no need for a computer in the home in 1977. Olsen was most probably stuck to the idea that computers are for more scientific or military purposes in the past and unable to look into the future of computers to be widely used by households.

We’d expect people in the field to understand the intricacies of the industry such as where the industry is heading. However, from the case of Ken Olsen (who was part of the digital industry), it can be seen that knowledge is not all for progress to be made. People with the know-how but without foresight may miss the whole point altogether. A quote by Albert Einstein goes “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”

I believe this serves to explain part of Yali’s question of “why do white men have more cargo?” Yes, the aboriginals may know how to use their natural resources well (like build make shift tents using bamboo and other resources they can find). However, with the same types of resources, if they are unable to look forward and assign better uses to the resources, they cannot progress.

Key take-away points:

Future technologies highlight to us the directions humans set for themselves. It is not just about the advancement of technology but achieving human goals.

For example, Japan has been investing and developing it’s robotics sector of the technological industry. This is to create robots to help do things to make up for the declining population of the country. There are also robots that created as companions. This is to keep lonely people company in Japan, as they have fewer children (aging population).

By analyzing the solution (the various technologies), we can identify the problems people are facing currently. We can also understand that technology is a very human tool. It is related with inequalities (technology that is exclusive like expensive medical treatments), entertainment (videos, internet), employment (using computers from home) and so on.

A new movie “In Time” suggests that people can buy time. The movie brings up more human problems from the technology of being able to sell and buy time. The rich get more time to live and the poor die young. The sin is not of wasting time but of giving it away.

As technology advances, the more humans’ lives are related to technology and the less able are humans to detach themselves from technology.

Issues for further discussion:

There was discussion about virtual reality and the blurring between the reality and the virtual world. However, I was worried about situations where people fail to make the distinction between what is real and what is not.

This worry was not unfounded; there was a case of a group of teenagers who tempted to commit suicide after they were obsessed over the idea that they had to “go to the nether world as fighters to save the world”, an idea that was hatched and developed in their young minds from a computer game (that was not simulated game).

If there will be simulated games that mimic the reality, will there be measures to ensure that children and adolescents are still able to distinguish the real from unreal? What about other equally vulnerable individuals like the weak minded or mentally unstable people?

Personal Ratings for Session: 9.5/10

Session 8!

Brief Summary:

How to achieve sustainability while continuing energy consumption?

Interesting Observations and Ideas:

Singapore was being lumped with U.S. to show high-energy consumption in the quote “If everyone consumed as much energy as the average Singapore and U.S. resident, the world’s oil reserves would be depleted in 9 years”!

That came as a shock to me because in terms of size, Singapore is much smaller than any other countries. If we are to be compared to the usual energy guzzling U.S., we must be consuming more energy than we should!

Then I went to check online, http://www.lowcarbonsg.com/2009/05/14/overview-of-the-energy-situation-in-singapore/, it is true that Singapore is inefficient in its energy consumption, as the website states, energy intensity indicates efficiency of energy consumption.

How do we reduce our energy inefficiency?

From http://www.siew.sg/siew-news/singapores-champions-energy-efficiency, it is mentioned that there is an additional $22.8million for the Grant for Energy Efficient Technologies (GREET) scheme, to assist companies buying technology that would help them use energy efficiently. However, from what I see, if we only encourage people to “buy” technology, we will only become “managers”. Instead, the government should encourage the “research” of technology so we can become “leaders” in the field.

So far, I’ve only heard of Singapore aspiring to be a “business hub”, “biomedical hub”, “medical hub” but not “energy hub”. Furthermore, Singapore has plenty of sunlight (which is an energy source that has not been fully utilized), which other place better to try to harness the energy from the Sun?

Key take-away points:

The sun provides more energy to the Earth in one hour than humankind currently uses in an entire year.

We watched a video in class on solar panels, which brought me to think if we use more of solar panels in Singapore, we’d definitely be able to make better use of solar energy!!

For example, solar panels can replace bus stop shelters or other forms of shelters. Buildings can also be covered with solar panels. Furthermore, the top of cars can be solar panels too and the energy generated can be stored in a portable battery to be put in the car. This is to maximize the usage of current technology – solar panel.

There is another technology that I think solar panels can be used with – satellite technology. Currently, we use satellites mainly for communication purposes. However, they orbit the Earth and there will be some periods of time it “experiences” daylight! Furthermore, the satellites are not restricted by the amount of land available to install the solar panels.

The only problem may arise is how do we extract the energy collected from the solar-satellites? The energy may possibly be stored in a battery and we can try to make the satellite or the battery itself travel back to Earth.

Issues for further discussion:

How should a system of charging the use of energy be allocated to goods and services? Currently the goods and services’ prices in the world are often unreflective of the environmental damage to the planet. It is only fair that we are charged for the harm caused (like amount of carbon emitted from production of the item) so we do not waste resources and we can understand the relationship between consumption and energy usage or environmental degradation. Should all countries place the same amount of charges? Who will decide the amount of charges to place to each goods and services?

Personal Ratings for Session: 8/10!

Session 7!

It's all in our hands.

Brief Summary:

How we should achieve sustainability in the midst of using the resources available to us, considering that such resources are usually finite and are being used up at a rapid rate.

Interesting Observations and Ideas:

I found the quote that Prof brought up very intriguing – achieving sustainability by growing own resources. While it is always the easier way out of the problem to find alternative resources that are renewable by nature, growing our own resources brings new prospects to solving the problem of insufficient resources.

By finding ways to grow our own resources, we would be able to tailor the solution to fit the problem. This is as compared with the renewable resources available to us like harnessing energy from the wind, which is not a viable option for countries with little wind or little space to place the wind turbines.

On the other hand, I thought that sustainability could be achieved not only by growing but storing. This allows resources that may be considered as “wastages” of today to become “assets” of tomorrow.

For example, this storing idea can be applied to food for better preservation of food. There may be vaults that can store food at a specific temperature whereby the food is frozen to the extent that it does not rot. Then, when people require the food in the future, even 100 years down the road, they can take it out for consumption.

Key take-away points:

1. Helping one sector of the society indirectly benefits the rest of the country or world

From the video that we watched on how we can sustain increasingly fragile ecosystems, agricultural biotechnology is shown to be able to help farmers grow crops efficiently. A more salient point that I picked up from the video was that this may potentially (1) increases farmers’ pay, (2) increases feed for animals and (3) increases food for human population.

This made me feel that there is an increasing responsibility on the countries that have better economic powers to help the developing countries in various ways, for the collective progress forward of mankind. However, there is still responsibility on the developing countries to want to move forward, lest they would undo all the good done by the developed countries.

For example, the developed countries may provide developing countries with the means to properly dispose of harmful wastes – providing them with the equipment and know-how. This would reduce pollution of the globe in general, benefiting people from all over the world.

2. Greed makes the food distribution uneven

It’s all about the need not greed, and everyone will get food. Therefore I feel that finding ways to make more food lessens the problem of insufficient food but doesn’t solve the root problem – greed.

I feel that the problem of greed might be solved by technological means if the greed is not fuelled by human emotions. For example, lack of knowledge of daily consumption can be tracked using devices to weigh and keep note of each type of food. However, if greed is fuelled by human emotions like apathy to contribute to reducing food wastage, non-technological means like education may be a better way to solve the problem.

Issues for further discussion:

There was a fleeting point of food made in laboratories and I found that interesting. Is it possible to make cooked food directly in laboratories? (E.g. directly make a fried egg without the raw egg) Is it possible that most kitchens in the future will be laboratories? There are just so many possibilities!

Personal Ratings for Session:

9/10 – This session made me think about how the norm that we are used to may actually be harmful. Being used to it only makes us less willing to change – away from what we already have. However, it is crucial that we look at the bigger picture and understand that we have to change and there are feasible methods to make the change.

Session 6!

Brief Summary:

How the current healthcare and biomedical sciences field constitute important roles in our lives yet most of the healthcare provided is inadequate (in terms of cost, efficiency, etc.) due to ineffective systems that humans have put in place to manage healthcare or the biomedical sciences field.

Interesting Observations and Ideas:

I enjoyed this video very much! It brought up many creative uses of technology to improve on medical technologies and allowing people to gain better health more efficiently.

Though initially it felt that the ideas were very abstract, it came to mind that most revolutionary technologies seem far-fetched before such ideas are implemented and developed into real products for use. However, moving on from the ideas proposed by the video, there may be further improvements on these technologies – the possibility of these technologies to be operated without human control.

Say for instance, instead of touching the touchscreens on the devices to start a medical checkup or scan, the devices may be engineered such that it does the scans automatically without human inputs to order it to do so. This idea is extracted from the idea of devices communicating with each other from session 5, but in this scenario, the device may “communicate” with the human’s condition directly.

This may benefit especially patients with dementia to take their medicine regularly and remind them about their checkup timings. This may also aid check on the condition of a patient regularly without the patient or doctor stepping in physically. For example, checking for breathing difficulties in intervals if the patient has a record of asthma.

Key take-away points:

1. We may find ways to reward people to stay healthy

In class, Prof mentioned how the money in Singapore’s Medisave account is kept aside unlike insurance where the money that is not used will be forfeited. Furthermore, the remainder in a deceased person’s Medisave account may be passed down to family members via wills.

This is in a way, a method to encourage people to stay healthy because the money can be accumulated when they are healthy. To bring this a step further, the Singapore government may wish to reward citizens for staying healthy so more people will be conscious about their health.

For example, the government may allow Singaporeans to take out a higher percentage amount of their CPF by a certain age if they are deemed healthy then, since part of CPF is aimed at paying off medical bills. However, there should still be a limit to this higher percentage to be prepared for rainy days.

2. There is no right or wrong to patents

I used to think patents are bad because I saw things from the developing countries’ point of view, where substantial benefits may be brought to the poor but have been blocked off to them due to patents. For example, the seeds that produce more yields are patented, causing farmers in developing countries to be mired in poverty even with technological advancements that are supposed to help them.

However, the Prof mentioned that the word patent actually means ‘Opening’ – showing the new technology to the world while the companies get monopoly rights for a period of time. This encourages companies to do R&D.

Hence, alike reading 5, to reap the most benefits from technological advancements, governments or companies have to strike a balance between patents and cost of the products.

Issues for further discussion:

It was disappointing that there are systems like that of the US healthcare that compromises on the benefits that can be obtained from healthcare services due to various reasons. The many solutions discussed to revamp and improve on such healthcare or biomedical sectors are feasible and one can look forward to these improvements in the near future.

However, there are many healthcare systems like the French one that Prof mentioned and I was quite interested in how they could be so successful. We could have talked more about how some systems can be very successful if time permitted.

Personal Ratings for Session:

8.5/10 – The session was informative and covered all aspects for discussion. The facts and figures provided also made us think across time (how sectors changed or evolved with time) and across space (how the sectors constituted different proportions of the society). However, I felt that it would be interesting if we could discuss more types of healthcare into details (if we had the time).

Session 5!

Brief Summary:

How evolution of the current Information and Communications Technology (ICT) (which was revolutionary) is bringing revolutionary changes to our lives.

Interesting Observations and Ideas:

The web is becoming less and less visible:

Just as I thought the web is becoming more prevalent and prominent, the idea of the web slowly integrating into our lives was brought up. Then I thought, how true it was, that humans are becoming part of their technology!

People are forming alter egos on the Internet, posting pictures and commenting on websites, creating another of their self in the virtual world. Furthermore, people are performing very human acts like theft (identity theft), plagiarism (video, song piracy), communicating (skype, msn chats), writing diaries (blogs) and even poking each other on facebook! – all of it done in the virtual world.

Key take-away points:

1. “Ask the right question and you get the right answer”

The tool is out there but you must know how to use it. While using ICT to research, I keep having the problem of infoglut. There’s too much information out there that is irrelevant or false on the Internet and it just takes too much time to sieve out the right pieces of information.

I always thought of that as the necessary disadvantage of ICT but the prof mentioned that if you ask the right question, you get what you want. Then I realized, this is a skill that all of us in this knowledge-based world have to pick up. We have to quickly learn to navigate in this vast ocean of information to get to our destination quickly, or risk being lost.

2. There is more to ICT than social media

I used to think that ICT is mainly about communication and social media. However, this lesson proved me wrong.

For instance, simulations have been very useful to solve real world problems (like learning how to control and airplane, etc). Thinking about national security, I believe these simulations can be of good use to educate people about national security.

Many say that Singaporeans live in their comfort zones and unprepared for any crises. However, I think it is because of lack of mass education – the videos of train bombings played in MRT stations do not seem enough to prepare Singaporeans for a terrorist attack. In this case, simulations may be effective since they are more realistic than mere videos and people can practice what to do in such an emergency, till it becomes second nature.

Issues for further discussion:

How ICT can be used to reduce or eliminate the ills it brings initially:

After thinking about the problems of ICT from security concerns to addiction, I realized that this is an aspect of ICT that we may explore, in order to maximize the benefits of ICT.

For example, after watching the video of Milo (the virtual boy), I think that it can be used to solve problems like exposure to corrupting influences and addiction.

There may be virtual humans to identify the users and if the users are children, the virtual humans can teach them how to use the Internet properly and avoid pornography sites or avoid online predators. The virtual humans can also advice users to take breaks or a rest after using an electronic device for a prolonged period of time to avoid addiction.

Personal Ratings for Session:

7.5/10 – The lesson opened new perspectives to ICT and world change to me, such as how ICT can be used to complement our lives (simulations for people to adapt to different situations). However, many of the ideas were new to me, such as use of ICT to solve poverty and close development gap. Hence, when I read the readings I found it a little difficult to understand and grasp the new ideas.

Individual Topical Review Paper Outline

Biomedical Technology and it's social impact on families.

i. Specific Innovation of Interest

In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) is an infertility treatment where the sperm is unable to reach to and fertilize the egg. The process includes extracting eggs and sperms, then fertilizing them in a laboratory dish. Up to three successfully fertilised eggs are then put back into the woman’s body and the rest are kept for later use. Hence, a couple previously unable to bear children is able to do so.

Currently, Singaporeans can receive IVF treatment in the country and even receive government subsidies if they are meet the requirements set by the government. However, gender selection via IVF is forbidden in Singapore unless it is to prevent inheritable diseases related to gender.

ii. Rationale for Selecting this Innovation

IVF, along with other assisted reproductive technologies, provides alternative-conceiving methods for previously impotent couples. Since the first IVF baby Louise Brown, over a million IVF babies have been born. Hence, technology increases the chances of these previously impotent couples to have children and set up a family. Since families are cornerstones of societies, by logical extension, IVF contributes to the formation of communities of people.

However, people have been using IVF in bid of bearing more “desirable” children, such as selection of a specific gender. Since the process of IVF includes fertilizing the egg outside the human body, selection of the egg or genetic modifications can be made before insertion of the fertilised eggs back to the human body.

Hence in the future, designer babies may result of IVF. However, this may be detrimental to the society because there will be controversies related to who should be held responsible if genetic errors are made and the child is born with defects. On the other hand, there may be elitist connotations tied to designer babies since they have no flaws, possibly creating a different class of humans – since people who engage in genetic modification for their babies should be the more economically well off as well.

iii. Proposed Approach to Development of Paper

Historical Perspective:

-       Previous notions of family – father, mother and child.

-       Children have to come about via natural processes

-       Gender biasness towards male babies

-       More children the better

Current Situation:

-       Notion of family: father, mother and child. However, possible for sperm or egg donation to produce child with the consensus of parents in the case that one of the parents are impotent.

-       Fertilisation of egg can be done outside of human body

-       Some gender biasness still exists and fuelled by means to obtain desired gender babies. On the other hand, barren couple may see that obtaining a child is so difficult through the tedious process of IVF and decide to let nature take course, accept any baby as a gift that comes their way.

-       Having fewer children at younger age is fine, since IVF is likely to solve woes of not being able to get pregnant at a slighter higher age.

Future Considerations:

-       More widespread gender selection through IVF in neighbouring countries and Singapore law has to change to provide for this increase in demand

-       Change in human ratios for example, more Chinese in Singapore if Chinese are more receptive to such technology, may cause controversies in Singapore

-       Increasing stress in Singapore to do well, seek perfect baby via IVF, might cause rift between “perfect” and “imperfect”, widen disparities between groups of people, etc.

-       IVF advancing on to producing the baby outside the human body, since already obtained the fertilised egg outside the human body.