TWC lesson 7

Summary

Today’s lesson started with a recap of what is technology and how the vast majority of organisms are made out of the same building blocks. Breakthroughs in Biotechnology is usually incorporated in the Biomedical field first, then BioAgriculture and lastly Biotechnology field. The biotechnology is classified under red, blue, green and white areas. We are going through the blue, green and white areas this lesson.

We are becoming increasingly urbanized. Urban population is going to continue to increase as more people shift towards urban environments. When people shift from rural to urban environments, your consumption pattern changes. Your demands as well as your consumptions will increase. There are many benefits but there are also flipsides. Examples are overcrowding and an increased exposure to diseases. With this trend, more and more people are leaving their farms and moving into cities. Interestingly, food productivity has increased almost 10 times despite the fact that there are less people working in the fields.

The next part of the lesson moved into discussing about key biobusiness opportunity areas for the white, blue and green BioTechnology areas. Some interesting areas are organic food and GM food. The next slide brought us back to the valley summit diagram again. Currently many of the smaller scale farms are producing goods that are valley opportunities. One of the methods to answer the second part of Yali’s question is to come out with methods to lift such valley opportunities to summit opportunities. We then watched a video on Biotechnology regarding the application of enzymes in industrial products. Prof then talked about an interesting topic on food security. And that everyone has the right to adequate food and to be free from 

hunger.

Some of our food development is moving into the wrong direction. Many food that are developed out there are not helping with the situation of lack of food. Money is spent on developing food like fast food to increase its appeal and taste. These funds are being wasted and not used on researching for more productive and nutritional food production methods.

Interesting key points and observation

For the issue about GM food labelling, I believe we should label it as it should be a right for people to choose what they want to consume. Genes of interest are being extracted from many different organisms and inserted into the cultivated plants and animals. Hence it creates some issues that if the GM food is not labelled, what if that particular GM food has genes which I am trying to avoid eating or that I am allergic to? For example, if a growth hormone gene from a pig is being extracted and inserted into potatoes, most people wouldn’t mind the difference but vegetarians and Muslims would definitely want to know. We should label GM food so that people can choose what they want and avoid what they do not want to consume.

It is interesting to note that farmlands are more productive if they are grown on a large scale with machineries. Traditional farming methods where many farmers work on different small plots of land are unproductive as their process is slow and their knowledge of BioArgiculture is minimal. As urbanisation occurs, more people shift towards urban areas and farmlands are sold to others. This allowed people to buy over large plots of land to carry out Mechanisation to greatly increase productivity. Mechanisation in farming could be the use of large scale irrigation systems to water plants or the use of Combine Harvesters to increase productivity in cultivating the fruits and vegetation. It is imperative for farmlands to employ such technology as our population is growing, yet our farmlands are shrinking. There is a need for productivity to increase in order to meet the needs of the growing population.

Regarding JingHui’s presentation, I believe that there are really many complications in solving world hunger. Although there is definitely no doubt that there is enough food for everyone in the world, complications like politics and personal interest. It’s a real pity that we have enough food to end world hunger, yet there is no means to distribute this food in a fair and proper manner. The production of larger amounts of food does not mean that world hunger can be solved. The more important factor is how we can allocate these excess food that we do not need to the people that need it more. Personally, I have seen huge amounts of food being wasted during my army days. Pots and pots of rice and food are thrown away in the food house in army bases. I have seen my men throw away untouched boxes of ration given to them just because they did not feel like eating it. The key to solving world hunger, in my opinion, is to come out with effective means to allocate food in a fair and proper manner.

Key takeaways

We are going to see 2Billion more people joining our population by 2050, a huge percentage of the lower income population is going to move up to the middle income levels by 2050 as well. Both of these trends would greatly increase the demand for food, energy and many other products. This would mean that we will have to increase our production of goods to cater to the new demands from these movements. The summit opportunities for the near future could be methods that solves these problems.

Issues for further discussion

I was wondering about how efficient/effective these BioTechnology really are. I’ve read some articles regarding the implications of farming sugar cane as a form of energy, and how these reduced arable farmland for agriculture. Some discussion about the limitations of the technology discussed would provide a broader perspective of the issue.

Rating

I would give this lesson a 9/10 as we had sufficient time to discuss issues in class. The issue of BioBusiness was sufficiently discussed and informative data was provided.

TWC lesson 6

Brief summary of the lesson

The lesson started off with an introduction to the biomedical and healthcare revolution. BioBusiness is the commercial activity based on an understanding of life sciences and life science processes. Prof then talked about the individual sectors of biobusiness. And that despite beauty and sex trade being taken off the list, the market size of the business was still very huge. It is evident that this market will only continue to grow bigger as more people move up the income ladder, leading to an increase in demand for healthcare. The discussion then moved on to key BioBusiness opportunity areas and that BioInnovation has a huge potential in revolutionizing the BioBusiness landscape. The lesson then moved into global burden of disease. It was interesting to note that as a country develops, infectious diseases decrease while chronic diseases increases. Afterwards,we discussed about how important ICT was in the development of Biomedical science, in which Prof quoted the example of the genetic makeup of Insulin. That scientist nowadays can easily compare and share data through ICT technologies, and that can lead to easier sharing of knowledge which in time leads to greater innovation. It was interesting how ICT technologies can interact with healthcare technologies to form new technologies like telehealthcare. We are in the middle of two revolutions. Healthcare revolutions and biomedical science revolution.  Basically everything we talked about above are subsets of the two. These two are summits opportunities. The last part of the lesson talked about specific areas of innovations like prosthetics, nanomedicine and stemcells. 

Interesting observation and ideas

Firstly, Telemedicine is a field with a large amount of potential. It basically means that patients do not have to physically travel down to the clinic all the time and instead use social media like Skype to facilitate a consultation. If daily consults can take place through skype. It will make a big difference. Especially for old people who have mobility issues, they will not have to waste time travelling nor waste time queuing up for a consultation. They could just carry on with their lives at home and wait for a call from the doctor/nurse when they are ready. This could lead to massive savings on healthcare as unnecessary trips to the clinics are reduced. There’ll be less crowd at the hospitals and patients who really need the healthcare can get it in a shorter time frame. The benefits are numerous, and this could potentially revolutionize the way we consume healthcare.There were many areas which I found very interesting in this lesson as I took biology in JC and this lesson helped apply many areas of what I learnt into practical usage.

Another issue is on Obesity. Obesity has recently taken the world by storm, and is one major problem in the developed worlds these days. In my opinion, prevention is always better than cure. But are governments around the world doing enough in preventing obesity? When tobacco was proven to be carcinogenic, governments around the world took steps to curb down on the advertisements and did extensive campaigns to educate the public on the risk involved with smoking. Cigarettes were taken out of the television screen, any commercials of tobacco were banned, and taxes were heavily implemented on tobacco. My question is why these measures are not implemented in today’s society in regards to obesity. Obesity is a disease, it stems from a bad habit that is hard to kick and that it has heavy health risk associated with it. Shouldn’t the government be curbing fast food commercials, taxing food with bad nutritional content to reduce the demand for these unhealthy, obesity inducing food products? 

Finally, I would like to talk about stem cells and its potential in BioBusiness. My individual report would be on therapeutic cloning, which is simply creating stem cells in the lab and using those stem cells to treat disease. The potential of this industry is massive, and it will definitely be a huge part of BioBusiness one day. However, right now there are a lot of ethical and social concerns surrounding this science. Since therapeutic cloning and reproductive cloning(which is the cloning of a whole human being) are very similar in the processes, there are many concerns that if therapeutic cloning was allowed to develop unrestricted, reproductive cloning will inevitably be mastered in the process. Due to these social and ethical issues there are no public funding for these research and a lot of restrictions are placed on their resources, leading to the slow growth and innovation in the field of therapeutic cloning. I feel that it’s a pity that such a technology with such potential is being held back by ethics and morality. 

Key takeaways

As prof said over and over again, we are living in exciting times! The BioBusiness is evolving rapidly to cope with the huge increase in demand from healthcare and we will be seeing some huge changes in the BioBusiness industry. Innovations like using robots to replace nurses and the evolution of Nutraceutical science are just some of the examples of how the future of healthcare might very possibly look like. In such fluctuating times we must learn to adapt and predict such changes in order to acheive a rising star position. 

Issues for further discussion

I thought the idea of nutraceutical science was a really interesting topic. Imagine eating an apple with properties that can lower blood pressure! Would be interesting if we could have a detailed discussion regarding the possible implications of this science.

Personal rating

I would give this lesson a 9/10 as the area of BioBusiness was particularly interesting to me. The ideas and concepts taught in this lesson really broadens my perspective and increases my general knowledge. Really looking forward to part 2 of BioBusiness next lesson!

TWC Lesson 5

Brief summary of the lesson

This lesson was about Information communication technology and world change. The past, present and future. We went on to have an in-depth discussion about the various areas of interest in ICT . The lesson then moved on to whether we have made use of the potential of ICT to change the world into a better place. Some notable examples like alleviating poverty and dealing with the digital divide are some of the examples of how ICT might change the world. We were then informed that we are currently experiencing the start of a knowledge revolution, and that our productivity has the potential to increase a further 20x if the trends of previous revolutions follow. Potential risk/dangers associated with ICT were then discussed. Lastly, we went through the required readings which were related to ICT.

Interesting observation and ideas

Firstly, I agree with prof that gaming has great potential in changing the world. I believe educational gaming has an added advantage of fun over conventional educational programs. The "fun" factor promotes interest in the subject and can lead to a greater length of interaction with the program. Imagine a game that is able to accurately educate people on how to do CPR. This game could be easily spread all over the world through the internet and educate millions on the know-hows of CPR with minimal resources required. Imagine how many lives could be saved just from that one software. SMU has also been using an educational game called "Human Invasion Project" that is an interactive role-playing game that teaches grammar. I believe that in the near future, gaming would constitute a considerable part in education around the world.

I found it interesting that in this age of time, we are both consumers and producers of ICT products. When we use a product, for example YouTube to source for information we require, we are consuming their service of providing the video to us and in turn they earn advertisement fees from us visiting their websites. However, the intriguing point is that as we consume their services, the system records down our video history and generates a basic genre of what we are interested in. After a few more visits, the videos recommended to us becomes videos that the system believe we are interested in. In other words, when we consume You tube’s services, we are actually producing the services that will be available to us during our next visit. It’s fascinating how this technology might develop over the next few years and I believe that such occurrences will occur more and more as we advance over to Web 3.0.

With such a huge array of information available on the mass media, we got to see the big picture with these information. We need to manage our knowledge and analyse data we come across on the mass media today. Data on its own is useless if you cannot make sense of it. Managing data is a crucial skill that we must develop this this time of knowledge revolution. There is an excess of information and we should try to effectively filter out the information we need. 

Lastly, I would like to talk about Daniel's question on whether we should make access to the internet a human right. What really amazed me in the discussion is how the access to the internet is made a human right in Finland. The internet started out as a privilege for the affluent in the initial stages of its production. Now, due to the enormous benefits it could have on an individual, Finland has made access to the internet a human right. I couldn't help but wonder what next could be made a human right? If healthcare progressed enough, could healthcare be made a human right next? It just amazes me how much humanity is progressing, to the extent where our basic human rights are actually increasing.

Key Takeaways

The world of Information and Communication technology is changing rapidly. With these changes, the information we are exposed to increases exponentially as well. We need to learn how to manage all this information we are exposed to, on differentiating the good ones from the bad and develop the ability to make sense out of all these knowledge to help us in our decision making.

With the advances in social networks and our progression towards Web 3.0, we are both knowingly and unknowingly giving out our personal information to these software and platforms. This gives rise to privacy and security concerns as so much about us can actually be discovered through these technologies. We should take extra care in how we deal and use such ICT technologies and not expose ourselves to unnecessary dangers that could be present. 

Lastly, I would like to share this photo I saw online. Not everything on the internet is credible. Take everything with a pinch of salt!

Issues for further discussion

I believe there are still much to discuss in how we can protect the internet. Our lives revolves around the internet, the life we know would collapse without the internet. So how can we really protect the internet?

Personal rating

I would give this class an 8/10 as the issues covered are very comprehensive and it gave me a good understanding of how ICT is changing the world.

TWC lesson 4

Brief overview/summary

Before the lesson started, prof mentioned that contrary to what we discussed on facebook the other day regarding who should be responsible for sustainability, we as the consumers should be more responsible in creating a sustainable environment as compared to the government and the businesses. We elected our governments, our purchase pattern and demand determines what businesses will be created. Basically, we are actually subconsciously choosing the type of government and businesses we want. Once again, I’m enlightened.

The lesson started out with the learning of different drivers of world change like environmental and competition factors. Drivers for world change are factors that can bring about a direct change to the world. Prof then went on to explain the differences between revolutionary and evolutionary change. Afterwards, we went through the required readings and discussed the Chasm graph.

The second part of the lesson was about change management and change leadership. The differences between a leader and a manager was then discussed. Prof talked about the 3 types of mind sets of companies, the dodo the eagle and the ostrich. Two videos was showed to us that illustrates power forms of leadership. The last part of the lesson talked about the two models of responding to changing realities. First one being the traditional freeze-unfreeze-freeze model and the second being the modern continuous monitoring and renewal model.

Interesting observation and ideas

It is interesting how environmental factors have shaped our societies. Due to the effects of global warming, society has started to think about sustainability. On how we can obtain energy without compromising our environment so that future generations will not be deprived of the resources we enjoy now.

Disruptive change is a new term to me as well. It represents change that causes a irreversible change on our future. I would think that the invention of using fossil fuels to obtain energy would be a disruptive change as it has greatly changed the way we live and do things. In my opinion, i believe upcoming technology such as nanotechnology, 3D printing, augmented reality or therapeutic cloning will be the upcoming disruptive change that we will experience.

The two videos regarding leadership that prof showed us was really insightful and provided an alternative look at leadership

I was particularly fascinated by the video where there was a lone guy dancing. It showed that leadership is sometimes over-glorified. It was the courage of the first follower to join him that made him a leader. Without the first follower the lone guy would still be a nut dancing alone. However, when the mob formed everyone was cheering for the leader of the dance, but there was no particular honouring of the first follower. This could probably suggest that followers play an important part in a leader-follower relationship as well. And that a good leader cannot function without good followers.

The second video was about a kid who stood out to try to push a fallen tree out of the way, and that inspired others to join in to remove the fallen tree. I interpreted this as that anyone can be a leader. The courage to step forward when no one dares and lead the way might possibly be the only thing separating a follower from a leader. 

Key takeaways

The rising/falling star model has stood true throughout centuries. The rising star attitude has proven time and time again that if you're hungry for success and willing to adapt and change to different needs, you will stand a higher chance to succeed. The key here is to always adopt the rising star mentality in life.

DoDo,Ostrich,Eagle. It is important to identify which one of the attitudes you/your organization is adopting and strive towards changing into the Eagle's mentality.

Issues for further discussion

Regarding the Wikicells(A food packing method that eliminates the need for plastic by making the layer edible), does this technology really eliminates the need for plastics? Most fast food companies in Singapore are already using paper or biodegradable material to wrap their burgers. Also, it gives rise to the hygienic issue when the external layer of the food is eaten.

Personal rating

I would give the lesson an 8/10 as our time were used efficiently and discussions where on track, leading to informative exchange of information among the class.

Individual paper brief outline

Executive summary

This paper hopes to explore the potential of organ cloning and how it could greatly extend the longevity of the human race. The paper will analyse the potential applications to medicine, ethical/social concerns and the setbacks pertaining to organ cloning.

Why I chose this topic

Man have always strived to delay death and diseases that is caused by failures or malfunction of certain organs or tissues is a major setback for this quest of immortality. People with diseases like kidney failure have to go through an organ transplant, and there are two major problems faced by these people.

• The small supply of organs available to the patients
• The possible rejection of the organ by your body upon receiving it, as your genetic materials differs from the genetic materials of the donated organ

Organ cloning opens up whole new possibilities as it solves both the issues above. Firstly, the organs can be cloned in a laboratory, hence solving the issue of availability. Secondly, the organs are cloned using your own genes, hence greatly reducing the possibilities of a rejection by your body. Above are the reasons I chose this topic as they could, in my opinion, greatly lengthen humanities lifespan and is the next breakthrough in medical science.

Background

• Introduction of organ cloning and therapeutic cloning
• Potentials of this science.

Historical prospective

• Highlight the milestones/timeline of organ cloning
• Successes/Achievements in the past 

Current situation

• How close are we to mastering this technology?
• The reasons behind the limited funding of organ cloning research.
• Ethical issues and social issues on the subject

Future considerations

• Evaluating the ethical and social issues on the subject so that we can better understand the problems, and come out with a solution in solving such issues
• Weighing the inevitable social/ethical issues discussed above against the benefits of organ cloning.
• Would there be abuse of such a technology? (e.g. reproductive cloning)

Conclusion

To be drawn.

TWC lesson 3

Brief overview/summary

This lesson touched a lot on sustainability and how we can acheive that. I was pretty overwhelmed by the amount of reading material we had to do before class, but it makes sense as sustainability is such a big issue nowadays and background knowledge pertaining to the area is definitely vital. The first article touched upon how Europe was the leader in sustainable technology and that it is actually profitable for their country. The advantages of backwardness was also an interesting topic regarding how countries that are lagging behind are actually advancing at a rapid rate due to the absence of need for risk and R&D cost.
The second part of the lesson touched upon technology and innovation management. We were taught about the transition of products from the innovation process to the market and the difficulties it will face. The two differences of the drives of innovation was particularly interesting

Interesting observation and ideas

The cyclical process of development seems to be the key to sustainability in the future. With countries in Europe enforcing laws and policies to curb down such linear processes, our future looks promising as development might very possibly be done without destroying our environment. However, cyclical processes of development is often expensive and the technologies are mostly out of reach to developing countries.
 Hence, this will give rise to a lot of complications in transforming this idea to a world wide scale. Developing countries nowadays are pressured to cut down on high polluting production methods and move on to less polluting, more cyclical types of production. Furthermore 20-30 years ago, the developed countries today once made full use of linear methods of development without any regards to the environment. Most of the climate problems and pollutions are caused by developed countries today like America, with their coal factories and what not from the industrial revolution. To worsen the issue, these pollutions are mainly causing major climate problems in such developing countries(evidence). So not only is developing countries suffering from the detriments of the developed county's pollution, the developed countries are pressuring them to spend millions more to bring their economies into a greener state. If i was in the shoes of these developing countries, I would definitely feel that there is a lot of injustice present. I'm not saying this whole sustainable future is bad, it is without a doubt imperative for our future. However, I believe there is much more the developed countries should be doing. In my opinion, these countries should clean up their own mess(the pollution) and aid these countries transit into a more sustainable economy for a better future of our planet.


Key Takeaways

I would agree with Prof that we should not just try to answer Yale's question, but to move further into understanding how we can solve this inequality question. There is only one earth for all 6 Billion of us and sustainable development is the only way for us to ensure that everyone has a basic standard of living. It does not make sense how USA( 5% of gloval population) is using up 30% of the earth's resources. Everyone has equal rights to live and although total equity for everyone (e.g. the venus project from jolene's presentation) is definitely not feasible(Due to the various factors we discussed in class, lack of motivation etc etc), we should at least strive to give everyone some basic form of living conditions.


Issues for further discussion

Should European countries make their sustainable technology free for developing countries? There's an obvious benefit of the world becoming more sustainable, despite profitability issues.


Personal rating

I would rate this class 9/10 as the discussions are comprehensive and our time in this lesson is managed very well.