Session 11

This week’s lesson is about technology assessment and forecasting and developing a framework for the future. People need to think and plan for the future to ensure sustainability so that people will know what to do in the future. Prof started the class with a very good video of Siemens on megatrend. It basically talked about Siemens creating different ideas and solutions to cater to the changing demographics, globalization, water, mobile, security, sustainable infrastructure. Firstly, they tried to create technologies that ensure constant supply of water and purifying it as there is a growing demand of water with the higher amount of population. They took advantage of the situation to create a supply to meet the demand. Another technology that they created was an Intelligence control system to control the traffic as more cars are on the road and reduce congestions and smooth road traffic. They also created a system of security and protection that will be provided by safety systems and cameras being installed and spot terrorism and fire hazards. An electronic system is also being created to increase the productivity for providing healthcare and patients’ information can be saved electronically and cut cost.

The Future technologies megatrend that will appear in the next 50 years are cybergeneration, virtual reality, Virtual-Commerce, Augmented Reality, Education, Work Environment, Exponential Revolution, Cloud Computing, Geo Base Location Services, Low Cost RFID, Interactive Mind Gear, GPS, Bionic, Robotics, DNA, Nano-robots and Brain Research, Energy, Environment-Exoplanet. However, as we have limited resources in the world, we have to choose which to invest and consider the implications, benefits and costs to the society, and the time taken to be realized into reality.

Prof showed us another video on the key trends in the future which consists of fast and frugal, urban, tribal, Universal, Radical change, Ethical Economic insecurities, skills insecurities, managing volatility and trend about power diffusion and rising power. Most of the time people would innovate and think of ways to improve the current technology. However, sometimes people need to innovate without thinking about the past as it will be a constraint to how human think about things and come up with solutions that would have a better feature or usage purpose.

Therefore, we also have to do foresight exercises and analyze future potential of technologies, supporting policy and strategy development. Human also has to do priority setting and have more public engagement as we will retrieve a lot of benefits and feedback to see if their methods will work or not.

For the individual presentations this week, they were all very interesting and they talked about technology assessment, forecasting and the shaping of future, and the effects of the customer relationship management.

Technology Assessment

For technology assessment, it is used to track evolution of technology, systematic study and effects on society. It is implemented in global or specific areas to create impact assessment and forecasting. There are many forms of technology assessment which consists of pure analysis, development activity. The key messages of the technology assessment are that technology-society interactions cannot describe the future with certainty but only reduce future uncertainties, incorporate life cycle analysis, sustainable development.

The way to measure a technology is also being discussed by using TV is one technology that has the Biggest impact on our story telling ability. She also explained how to spot what is a trend or a fad, which is through story-telling, as the Evolution of Storytelling has undergone dramatic changes from ancient personal telling to Magazines, TV, internet, computer and even using iPhones. The key takeaway messages are that the things people care about are consistent and storytelling is the thing to differentiate a trend and a fad. However, storytelling may only used by a small section of people and it is not very effective to spot the trend as compared to other technologies. We have to compare and see if the technology can be assessed as different technology has different technology assessment strategies. So after being assessed, if the benefits outweigh the costs of implementing the technology, then we should go ahead and invest in it.

Forecasting and shaping of future

Predicting and shaping the future is also not an easy task as people need to take into a lot of consideration to make an accurate judgement. The Task is not to predict the future but designing a future. Hence, we should use technology to aid us in shaping the world that we want it to be, and not what it would become that affect our activities. To achieve that, we need to develop a sustainable and acceptable world and living at peace with all of nature.

Achieving sustainable development is not just based on technologies, but also based on human’s desire to own a sustainable development. Hence, the more determined human is to achieve a sustainable environment, the easier it would be to make it happen.

For this week’s session I would grade it a 9/10 as it is very interesting knowing that the future and technology is so fascinating that I would have never imagined. However, probably most of the students are very busy. We missed out abit of discussion for the readings and it may be a pity as some of the articles are actually very interesting. Next week will be the beginning of the presentations and we would be able to take a look at different projects and beautiful webpages.