In today's lesson, we learnt more about the BioBusiness in the world, focusing especially on the healthcare and biomedical sciences. Other aspects of BioBusiness include the agricultural and environmental aspects, which will be covered in the following week's lesson.
Unknown to many, myself included, BioBusiness actually makes up a big share (25%) of the world's GDP. Furthermore, BioBusiness' market size in most countries, is larger than 30%, and almost 50% in south asia! of which a lot of the business is excluded because of controversy, such as the beauty aspect and sex traits aspect.
As usual, we started off the class by watching a really interesting video titled 'Health Future Vision' which is about Microsoft's vision of Health Care in the future. The video showed how Health Care can be made much more convenient and efficient through the use of existing and some non-existing technology such as 3-way video-calling, wireless connections, multi-purpose card which scans the user's thumbprint and allows you to choose the card you need electronically.
I'm the video must have been interesting to many but the question that Prof raised, which I also wondered about, is whether this could be possible within the next 10 years? Personally, I am unable to see this happening so soon as it requires everyone to be using the same system in order for this health care system to benefit everyone in the same way. As different people are used to different operating systems, it is a potential obstacle to get everyone to synchronise to one unified system. Also, if all the data required in the health care system is stored in an electronic database, the risk of the system crashing must be kept at the lowest as a large amount of important information are at stake. Hence, there will be a lot of testing and maintenance of the systems required to be done. Therefore, I feel that what is featured in the video seems achievable, however, it will require more than at least 10 years od research and development before it can become reality.
We were also showed another video, which is the trailer for the movie "Sicko" by Michael Moore. This video left a significant impression on me as I was not aware that America's health care/welfare is so poor relative to the wealth they possess. In the video, it was made known that for the richest country in the world, laughter isn't the best medicine, it is the only medicine. It is sad to know that the world's most affluent country is ranked 37th in terms of health care. I sometimes feel that it is ironic for politicians to take such a fat salary, I mean, isn't it their primary objective to look after the citizen's welfare? Why are they bringing hundreds of thousands of dollars home annually while there are people who can't make ends meet to have one proper meal a day? If you can't help these people directly, perhaps providing better health care and welfare for them would be a good way to contribute instead of bring all that money home to build fanciful homes! Then again, the NKF incident has shown that sometimes even if you want to help, there will be some culprits behind the scenes trying to mishandle the money. Eventually, even if a facade is put up to show us that they are helping the poor and hungry, we'll never know where the money went.
As we are discussing the topid of BioBusiness, the first guest speaker this week, Gail Chia shared on Prosthetics and Sports, featuring Oscar Pistorius, a man who became a double amputee at a very young age, aspiring to take part in the Olympics. His application to take part in the 2008 Oylmpics was rejected and he is currently applying to participate in the 2012 Olympics. The reason for the rejection was that his prosthetic legs had springs which deemed it unfair for other runners who had no additional assistance other than their own body. I feel that it is not a matter of fairness but the matter of what they are competing for. Like Prof said, if it is a race between normal people running with their own legs, then only normal people should be allowed to participate in the race. If there is a category for people with prosthetic legs, then only people with prosthetic legs are allowed to take part - this is what Paralympics was set up for, an avenue for people with disabilities to be able to compete in sports among themselves too. Hence, I feel that Oscar Pistorius should not be allowed to compete with able bodied athletes, as that defeats the purpose of having Paralympics and erodes the meaning of Olympics as more and more disabled people would want to compete in the Olympics.
The second speaker, Gavin Low talked about Electronic Skin which is a new form of technology aimed at reducing the need for bulky electronic devices by attaching a skin-like and super thin device to your body. For example, when placed near the throat or heart, it can measure the heart beat and monitor the heart and brain functions, etc. We discussed some disadvantages of electronic skin such as radiation, health concerns, and privacy. I am slightly disturbed by the idea of having something electronic attached to my skin as it feels a little intrusive. However, this may be a good idea for making devices that only require a short amount of contact time. For example, an electronic passport so that travel/immigration process can be made more efficient.
Overall, I rate the lesson 9/10 as I feel that I have learnt a lot more about BioBusiness that I previously did not know and there are actually many interesting insights that I spent time to research about (:
Monday, 26 September 2011
Tuesday, 20 September 2011
Individual Topical Review Paper Outline
Technology and its Effects on Communication between People
Specific innovation
Instant Messaging & 3G
· Since the times of Pigeon Post, we used candlestick telephones, rotary dial telephones, and as technology became more advanced, we had push-button telephones, portable mobiles phones, and now smartphones, which provides so much more functions than a basic phone does (email, camera, social media, music player, internet surfing, photography)
· Not only did the mediums used changed, the methods which mass media and people pass information through are also being constantly upgraded or replaced
· What used to popular among our parents’ generation like writing letters and postcards has been eroded and evolved into instant messaging through phones and on the internet
· In the past, when people wanted information, they read newspapers. Then came radio, but as technology started to progress, people started to rely on the Internet – they used 3G on their phones to Google for information, to get directions to a destination, to check where are the best restaurants etc.
Rationale for selecting this innovation
How did it change the world?
· Communication between people today is more convenient and efficient; instant messaging allows a messages to be sent across quickly
· However, communication between people nowadays has lost its physical and emotional touch, hence causing people to be inept at face-to-face communication, public speaking, presentations, or any sort of real life communication
· People are also starting to be over-dependent on these communication technology that they no longer refer to newspapers, maps or even libraries for information, they simply refer to Google on their smartphones
Proposed Approach to Development of Paper – Gist of arguments and key points
Main points of discussion:
o How has these technology-induced changes in communication and communication mediums impacted our lives?
o Are these changes positive or negative?
o What are some of the emerging technologies that are predictable and how would they possible impact us?
Key points and relevant arguments
Positive impact:
· Convenience and efficiency of communication
o One clear benefit of technology’s influence on communication is that it has allowed us to communicate more conveniently and get messages across more efficiently
o This is done by constantly expanding the number of ways that people can communicate through, and improving on the speed of delivering messages across through these new mediums
· Overseas communication made easier
o Applications like Whatsapp make communication across countries much easier than in the past
o High roaming charges limited people to make short and succinct calls and texts to their family and friends who are overseas
o Now, with instant messaging applications, all you require is a 3G connection on your mobile phone in your own country, you can chat live with anyone at any part of the world
· Constantly-updated and easily accessible news allows people to be more informed about current affairs (double-edged sword)
o In the past, access to current news were only made available through newspapers, radio and magazines
o Now, almost everything is made accessible from the internet and hence having a smartphone makes understanding the current affairs a lot more convenient and easy for people
o However, it also swings the negative way because this increased accessibility makes people ‘lazy’
o Instead of making an effort to purchase a copy of newspapers to read, people simply ‘google’ for the related articles that they are interested in
o Instead of doing research and going to the library to source for books, people rely on Wikipedia – resulting in a waste of resources because everything’s on the ‘net’ nowadays
Negative impact:
· Loss of emotional touch through communication
o Instead of face-to-face communication, letters, or phone calls, most people, tempted by the convenience of the technology, communicate via text, instant messaging mediums, emails, or even Facebook messages.
o Most of these new mediums encourage short and concise messages which causes the loss of a personal touch to the message
o As a result, people are more estranged to each other because of the lack of in-depth communication
· Over-reliance on technology
o Today, we rely heavily on technology to get messages across to one another – SMS, Whatsapp, BBM, MSN etc
o It has become so exaggerated that children below the age of 12 are getting their hands on iPhones and iPads, when some people of my age or even older do not even own one
o These days, some do not even know what are the procedures required to post a letter
o Will the practice of mailing letters face extinction in face of the threat of technology in the future generations to come?
Emerging technologies
· Online lectures (already existing but not prevalent yet)
· Internet TV (Sony)
Monday, 19 September 2011
Lesson 5
The focus of week five's lesson was information and communications technology and its correlation with world change. Some of the aspects that we talked about were mass media, telecommunications and the Internet.
One interesting take away from this lesson - the existence of web 1.0, 2.0 and the introduction of web 3.0. I am ashamed to say that I was completely unaware of these despite being a SIS student. So according to Prof, Web 1.0 refers to static Internet, web 2.0 refers to the interactive Internet which is actually created by the users ourselves by providing information and exchanging ideas across the web. Some very good examples of such will be Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and Youtube. Last but not least, web 3.0 refers to the all-knowing, omnipresent Internet, which is not visible and physical but hidden in appliances that you use from day-to-day, like a smart form of Internet.
One of the topics that we touched on was the exposure to corrupting influences through the Internet. Some expressed that the Internet gives a negative influence to people because it can be abused to do immoral or illegal things. However, I feel that even without technology or the Internet, people can still manipulate and make use of the resources they have to inflict harm or danger to others. Hence, I do not feel that Internet is the cause of activities like privacy invasion, security breach or other related crimes as it is the people themselves who WANT to commit these crimes. The Internet is merely the medium used to do so. Instead of condemning the Internet, we should be making use of it to prevent such crimes from happening.
I particularly like the quote by Albert Einstein, which corresponds to my views above - "It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity"
Tommy Tan Hong Sheng shared about E-learning and its pros and cons. He also cleared up the misunderstanding that E-learning means learning on the Internet. It actually stands for electronic learning - which mean you could be using any form of electronic device to seek knowledge. He alos talked about mobile-learning which involves the usage of devices like smartphones, pda, laptops, mp3 etc. The advantages of this would be the convenience that it brings, however, it would also mean a lot more distractions in the surroundings and the lack of social skills development. In my opinion, e-learning and mobile-learning can never replace schooling completely. It is impractical as there is no element of discipline and sense of urgency. People will grow to be lazy, unwilling to learn and lack the social and intellectual skills that are needed in the working world. If it is implemented in Singapore, I believe it will cause us to be backward and slow down our development when the current studying generation moves the the working industry.
I would rate this lesson a 9/10 as the topics discussed were very interesting to me and closely related to the topic for my individual review paper. Also, the discussion held were engaging and the different views shared by my classmates were an eye-opener for me.
One interesting take away from this lesson - the existence of web 1.0, 2.0 and the introduction of web 3.0. I am ashamed to say that I was completely unaware of these despite being a SIS student. So according to Prof, Web 1.0 refers to static Internet, web 2.0 refers to the interactive Internet which is actually created by the users ourselves by providing information and exchanging ideas across the web. Some very good examples of such will be Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and Youtube. Last but not least, web 3.0 refers to the all-knowing, omnipresent Internet, which is not visible and physical but hidden in appliances that you use from day-to-day, like a smart form of Internet.
One of the topics that we touched on was the exposure to corrupting influences through the Internet. Some expressed that the Internet gives a negative influence to people because it can be abused to do immoral or illegal things. However, I feel that even without technology or the Internet, people can still manipulate and make use of the resources they have to inflict harm or danger to others. Hence, I do not feel that Internet is the cause of activities like privacy invasion, security breach or other related crimes as it is the people themselves who WANT to commit these crimes. The Internet is merely the medium used to do so. Instead of condemning the Internet, we should be making use of it to prevent such crimes from happening.
I particularly like the quote by Albert Einstein, which corresponds to my views above - "It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity"
Tommy Tan Hong Sheng shared about E-learning and its pros and cons. He also cleared up the misunderstanding that E-learning means learning on the Internet. It actually stands for electronic learning - which mean you could be using any form of electronic device to seek knowledge. He alos talked about mobile-learning which involves the usage of devices like smartphones, pda, laptops, mp3 etc. The advantages of this would be the convenience that it brings, however, it would also mean a lot more distractions in the surroundings and the lack of social skills development. In my opinion, e-learning and mobile-learning can never replace schooling completely. It is impractical as there is no element of discipline and sense of urgency. People will grow to be lazy, unwilling to learn and lack the social and intellectual skills that are needed in the working world. If it is implemented in Singapore, I believe it will cause us to be backward and slow down our development when the current studying generation moves the the working industry.
I would rate this lesson a 9/10 as the topics discussed were very interesting to me and closely related to the topic for my individual review paper. Also, the discussion held were engaging and the different views shared by my classmates were an eye-opener for me.
Sunday, 11 September 2011
Lesson 4
In today's lesson we talked about Drivers of Change and Change Management and Leadership. I was particularly curious in several quotes that Prof shared:
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one that is most adaptable to change." - Charles Robert Darwin
" The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw
"It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory" - W. Edwards Deming
According to Prof's slides, there are quite a handful of drivers of world change, namely, Environmental drivers, Scientific Discovery and Technology Innovation, Social, Demographic, Cultural, Ideological Change, Commercial/Business Innovation, Competition, "Globalization", Changing Expectations and "Tastes" with Changing Times. To me, the most prominent driver of world change, is ourselves, the people. We are constantly demanding more and more from technology, pushing for innovation and change and increasing our expectations of the world. Hence, to me, all the factors mentioned above are more of ways that people use to drive for change and not the drivers of change itself.
The first guest speaker, James Lee, spoke about climate change and renewable energy. Some drivers of world change that he mentioned were globalization, pollution, dumping in the sea, global warming, and ultimately humans (which is what i strongly agree on!). Overall I felt that his article and presentation itself tilted a little towards the idea of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) vs being profit-driven. The first issue to take note of was - Should firms and businesses place greater emphasis on the environment than making profits? Some thoughts were that the ultimate aim of a company is always to make profit, some others thought that it is possible to practice CSR and at the same time be profitable, such as The Body Shop and Starbucks. Another issue raised was - how can 3rd world countries participate in the global initiative of saving the environment? We discussed that there was the Indonesia - Norway collaboration, and also that 1st world should lead 3rd world countries in initiatives to save the environment instead of exploiting them and further. What i feel is that it is highly difficult for 3rd world countries to participate in any global initiative as they are facing too much poverty and resource scarcity. In return for money, they would do anything. Hence, it is possible too tempting for 1st world countries not to exploit this unfortunate situation and hence even more unlikely that they will lead them in such a global initiative unless led or instructed by UN.
The second part of the lecture was about Change Management and Change Leadership. Prof shared with us a diagram that looks like this:
It is called the pessimism-time curve. He shared that in any process, it will follow this flow and I found it very true. You start with uninformed optimism be cause you're unaware of what is coming, then you slowly realise the difficulties and hence you have informed pessimism, soon after you find out what are the realistic factors and you get informed realism and then finally, completion.
The second speaker, Lin Liye, shared about Change Management and Change Leadership by using Steve Jobs as an example.The presentation was mainly about Steve Jobs' leadership and how it led Apple to its huge success. On an unrelated note, it felt like a Steve Jobs' keynote presentation. I have always admired Steve Jobs for his leadership at Apple and his ability to envision what was feasible and what people wanted, and make it a huge success. However, Steve Jobs is more of a one-man-show leader, people at Apple were compelled to follow his proposals. This leadership style may not work at every company especially SMEs. As SMEs have a small employee size, there is more interaction and the company should capitalize on this to generate a pool of ideas that could benefit the company.
Personally, I will rate this lesson an 8/10 as it was a subject that is relatable to me and the 2 articles shared were interesting to discuss.
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one that is most adaptable to change." - Charles Robert Darwin
" The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw
"It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory" - W. Edwards Deming
According to Prof's slides, there are quite a handful of drivers of world change, namely, Environmental drivers, Scientific Discovery and Technology Innovation, Social, Demographic, Cultural, Ideological Change, Commercial/Business Innovation, Competition, "Globalization", Changing Expectations and "Tastes" with Changing Times. To me, the most prominent driver of world change, is ourselves, the people. We are constantly demanding more and more from technology, pushing for innovation and change and increasing our expectations of the world. Hence, to me, all the factors mentioned above are more of ways that people use to drive for change and not the drivers of change itself.
The first guest speaker, James Lee, spoke about climate change and renewable energy. Some drivers of world change that he mentioned were globalization, pollution, dumping in the sea, global warming, and ultimately humans (which is what i strongly agree on!). Overall I felt that his article and presentation itself tilted a little towards the idea of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) vs being profit-driven. The first issue to take note of was - Should firms and businesses place greater emphasis on the environment than making profits? Some thoughts were that the ultimate aim of a company is always to make profit, some others thought that it is possible to practice CSR and at the same time be profitable, such as The Body Shop and Starbucks. Another issue raised was - how can 3rd world countries participate in the global initiative of saving the environment? We discussed that there was the Indonesia - Norway collaboration, and also that 1st world should lead 3rd world countries in initiatives to save the environment instead of exploiting them and further. What i feel is that it is highly difficult for 3rd world countries to participate in any global initiative as they are facing too much poverty and resource scarcity. In return for money, they would do anything. Hence, it is possible too tempting for 1st world countries not to exploit this unfortunate situation and hence even more unlikely that they will lead them in such a global initiative unless led or instructed by UN.
The second part of the lecture was about Change Management and Change Leadership. Prof shared with us a diagram that looks like this:
It is called the pessimism-time curve. He shared that in any process, it will follow this flow and I found it very true. You start with uninformed optimism be cause you're unaware of what is coming, then you slowly realise the difficulties and hence you have informed pessimism, soon after you find out what are the realistic factors and you get informed realism and then finally, completion.
The second speaker, Lin Liye, shared about Change Management and Change Leadership by using Steve Jobs as an example.The presentation was mainly about Steve Jobs' leadership and how it led Apple to its huge success. On an unrelated note, it felt like a Steve Jobs' keynote presentation. I have always admired Steve Jobs for his leadership at Apple and his ability to envision what was feasible and what people wanted, and make it a huge success. However, Steve Jobs is more of a one-man-show leader, people at Apple were compelled to follow his proposals. This leadership style may not work at every company especially SMEs. As SMEs have a small employee size, there is more interaction and the company should capitalize on this to generate a pool of ideas that could benefit the company.
Personally, I will rate this lesson an 8/10 as it was a subject that is relatable to me and the 2 articles shared were interesting to discuss.
Sunday, 4 September 2011
Lesson 3
Today’s lesson was about environmental sustainability and how world change has made it more and more difficult to do so. As usual, Prof Shahi started off with a video – “The Story of Stuff” with Annie Leonard. It was really interesting to watch as the entire waste handling process was magnified and scrutinized to show viewers what really happens to our ‘stuff’ behind the scenes. The video also made me realized that the world’s resources are being depleted so much more quickly than I imagined: Natural resources are exploited depleting them by 1/3 and undermining the planet’s ability for future people to live on. Another shocking fact that I learned through the video was that a whopping 80% of the planet’s original forests are gone – due to deforestation, or many other reasons to benefit humans or increase our standards of living. After watching this part of the video, I made a decision to put in more effort to “be green”, I will start with simple actions like not using disposable things especially those made of plastic, I will reduce paper waste by making sure I use up both sides of a plain piece of paper etc.
Why are all these happening then? Leonard, in the video, blames it on consumerism, and the government, who instead of helping the people, encourages them to shop. Advertising and other media platforms also brainwashes consumers into thinking that there is a constant need to buy new stuff, as illustrated by Leonard’s thin heels and thick heels analogy. As people shop more, they throw out more old stuff and more waste is generated. Not only is toxic released when manufacturing stuff, they are created when waste is being incinerated, and one such example is dioxin, a toxic substance created when incineration releases the toxic in products.
We also had 2 guest speakers today and the first was Karishma Bhatnagar who shared with us on Industrial Plants - Moving towards Sustainable Development. Regarding her article, I felt that though the process of using water to cool down the industrial plants is a terrible and selfish act as it kills marine life and organisms, it is inevitable. This process is almost cost-free and convenient and as long as the government does not impose a ban or punishment on this action, it will continue on as companies are more concerned about business profits than conserving marine life and sustaining the environment.
Karishma also mentioned it has been debated over the past 40 years if being environmentally sustainable or being profitable is more important. In my opinion, I believe there is no debate at all. Most companies definitely see being profitable as being more crucial, and the “debate” is just a façade that they consider being environmentally sustainable as a choice, which in fact they just don’t care.
Daniel Poon, the second guest speaker, shared about Electronic Cigarettes, which is quite a topic of interest to me. Personally, I abhor the act of smoking. I feel that it is both stupid and selfish – smoking harms your own health, and more of the health of the people around you, family and friends whom you love, innocent people whom you don’t know. Why would anyone want to do that? Just for a sensation that keeps you high and makes you feel good, but at the same time reliant and addicted to a chemical? I feel strongly towards this issue and smoking is just an absolutely stupid activity to me.
Hence, even though electronic cigarettes supposedly do not harm the environment as much as normal cigarettes do as it only releases water vapor when being used, it is unknown what chemicals are inside the nicotine cloud in the electronic cigarette that could potentially poison the user. Also, as discussed by the class, there is the risk of young children misusing the electronic cigarette and becoming addicted to nicotine. Furthermore, as there is no smell released by the electronic cigarette, there is a lower chance that these children can be found smoking the electronic cigarette.
All in all, I disapprove of electronic cigarettes and I support the government’s ban on it. Aside from the fact that it releases water vapor instead of polluting the air with harmful gases, it is just like a normal cigarette as the user still inhales potentially harmful chemicals and causes addiction to nicotine.
Personally, I rate this lesson a 8/10, as the lesson brought out my interests in sustainable development and the 2 articles discussed by my classmates were also intriguing.
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