Journal for Session 11

This session is for group presentations.

Dr. Shahi’s final comment is really impressive. He said that most of the groups cannot make good use of the medium provided---the webpage. He said that if we had made better use of the medium, for example, by adding videos, can make our presentation better and more vivid.

It’s true that most of the presentations did not look very different from slides presentations. There were four presentations, so that we could compare with each other and learnt from each other as well.

I learnt to how to create a web page in this session. I have never tried  this before.

I rate this session 8 because it is a really new and fulfilling experience for me.

Journal for Session 10

Technology Assessment and Forecasting;
Developing a Framework for Understanding What Comes Next

In this session, we talk about technology assessment and forecasting. Some techniques for technology assessment are introduced, such as Delphi, scenarios, brainstorming, SWOT analysis, road-mapping and gaming and so on.

We also talk about some approaches of technology assessment, such as participative TA, constructive TA and so on.

There are a lot of aspects needed to be assessed, such as economic, ethical, environmental, social influence and so on.

Traditional technology assessment is technocratic, but nowadays, participative technology assessment has been developed and many stakeholders are engaged in the technology assessment. Such a participative method not only provides more comprehensive understanding of certain technology, but also promotes consensus and the implementation of related policies.

However, participative technology assessment should be complemented by technology literacy, especially in developing countries. If someone knows little or nothing about technology, how can he make good judgment of it? To promote technology literacy, another problem to be solved is the availability of technology. If someone has never used modern technology, how can he understand it?

Just as other democratic issues, the implementation of participatory technology assessment approach needs not only participation. It also needs education and availability of technology.

My personal rating for this session is 8. It’s always good that we can watch videos and participate in discussions. According to one of our readings of last session, learning can be made more effective by using immersion, engage multiple channels of experience and interaction. I think our professor has done this very well.

Emerging and future technologies---Journal for Session 9

In this session, we were mainly talking about emerging and future technologies, such as nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, computer\human interface systems and so on.

However, just as the author of one of our readings said, technology is not the full answer to life. We need a lot more other things to develop better life. We need philosophy, arts, ethics, wisdom and other things to make a better life. We also need these things to wield the power that technologies offer to us.

One most interesting thing that attracts me is the placebo effect, which relies on the spiritual effect from a patient’s mind to help cure diseases or injuries. Although placebo effect is proved by a lot of experiments, it is still not widely accepted as a way of cure in the western medicine. Maybe more researches can be done in the future to provide more undeniable proof for such a low-cost and high effective cure.

There are so many fascinating technologies emerging today, giving us hope to solve a lot of problems, but there is also potential that these technologies will be abused by people with malicious wills or people without enough wisdom. I really wonder what our future will be like.

Energy-Journal of Session 8

In this session, we concentrate on energy and technology. Some drivers for energy technology are the high price, the running out of easily accessible storage and the harmful environmental impact of traditional energy resources, such as oil and coal.

There are a lot that can be done to achieve energy sustainability. For the supply, we can explore more new sources to provide energy, such as fusion, algae, osmosis and so on. And for energy conversion, there are a lot of chemical, biochemical or thermal technologies that can be used. For consumption, we can design better machines to increasing efficiency. To make the optimum model for both energy production and consumption, there is a need and synergy for multi-field collaboration. Such fields include biology, chemistry, physics, engineering, and so on.

And such collaboration and development need the encouragement and guidance from government policies. Three main considerations for energy policies are energy security, energy equity and environmental impact mitigation. To achieve energy sustainability, governments need to promote renewable energy supply, manage demand by increasing the efficiency of energy consumption, encourage private investment for new energy technologies and make cross-cutting policies to involve all stakeholders in order to ensure the effect and sustainability of energy policies.

To encourage private investment for emerging energy technologies, governments need to reduce the risk of investment by reducing uncertainty through leveraging long-term and strong policies to provide a more stable and predictable investment environment.

Another thing that is also important is education related to energy sustainability. Here, education is not limited to raising awareness, but also developing human capital for energy sustainability, such as all-round experts.

To achieve the optimum of energy sustainability, there are also a need for the collaboration of different countries and regions. Different countries and regions have different advantages in resources endowment. Such resources include natural resources, human capital resources (i.e. knowledge and technologies) and capital resources. International collaboration makes sure that all the resources are used more efficiently and in the meantime, every participant benefits.

Session 6 Journal

In this session, we talked about what improvements technologies can bring to the field of healthcare, including diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, treatments and so on.

Although there are countless good news that bio-technologies can bring to us, there are also potential threatens to human beings. For example, with the wide usage of antibiotics, many kinds of microorganism have developed their resistibility to the antibiotics. If we cannot stop this, will there one day when some super-bacteria appear and we cannot find ways to protect ourselves from their attack?

From the SARS outbreak a few years ago, we know that there should be quick action and collaboration around the world to prevent such abrupt and terrible infectious diseases from totally out of our control and making huge harm. How to develop effective cure and medicine as soon as possible, and how to help control the spreading by using technologies? These need to be studied further.

I rate this session 7.5 since we mainly concentrate in bio-business and this is not enough for our topic----healthcare----a field which has such wide influence because it touches every single person of the world and a field with such close relationship to everyone.

Session 5 Journal

Brief Overview

In this session, we talk about the changes that ICT has brought to our world.

Interesting Observations and Ideas

One of the biggest differences and a cause of such kind of difference among people is the extent of access to ICT, which makes the difference of the informed and the not. As we are in an information era, information can divide the winners and the losers, the poor and the rich, and sometimes the survived and the dead.

Key Take Away Points

The development of an individual, a company and even a nation can be limited to a great extent if the person, company or nation doesn’t have access to necessary information. To develop affordable, convenient and wide access to ICT should be one of the tasks of the government.

Issues for Further Discussion

Although the access to internet has been developing at a very fast speed, one of the problems is that it cannot be develop further and deeper if some basic problems cannot be solved. Such problems include poverty, hunger and illiteracy. Unless people don’t have to face starvation every moment and that they have the ability to read, they will not be interested in and cannot benefit from the access to internet.

Another problem is that whether the development of internet will make some language and culture become dominant, while making some others extinct. Since most of the software programming and the information on the internet are in English, it’s hard for people speaking less used languages to make use of the internet if they don’t know English. Will this exacerbate the extinction of some languages and culture? Can it be solved by developing better translation software?

Personal ratings for Session

I rate this session 8 because the class discussions are inspiring.

Session 4 Journal

Brief Overview

The world is inevitably changing, but what changes will there be and what are the drivers of changes? How should we response to these changes? How do we manage change in order to gain long-term advantage?

To answer the above questions is the main concern of this session.

Interesting Observations and Ideas

Although technology has been one of the most powerful drivers of world changes, there are still a lot of crucial issues which technology can only help to a small extent. Such issues include poverty, hunger, terrorism and so on. Since the roots of the problems are not very much related to technology.

There are also a lot of issues which cannot be solved by market behaviors, since private sectors only want to go to places with least risk and best possible profits.

Key Take Away Points

The success of change management lies in the success of people management, which requires using right incentives to link individual career objectives to corporate goals.

Personal ratings for Session

I rate this session 7 because there are too much reading provided in this session and a few is not so excellent as before.

Session 3 Journal

Brief Overview
In this session, we mainly learned about the problem of sustainable development and innovation management.

The problem of sustainable development has seized the attention of many organizations and countries, especially developed countries. These organizations and countries have carried out a lot of research and plans to help solve the problem in different levels and aspects.

How to stimulate innovation and how to transfer innovation into practical use, for example, business value? This is the second problem we put our effort into in this session.

Issues for Further Discussion

A lot of developed countries have taken a lot of actions to achieve sustainable development. For example, the top 10 of the highest recycling rate countries are mainly from the EU. , and the rest are Japan and the USA.

However, a lot of developing countries are still struggling to raise the living standards of their people by developing manufacturing industries, which without serious laws, enough technologies and funds, will cause disastrous destruction of the environment. For example, it is estimated that one third of China’s emission is due to exports. For such countries, what should they do? How can they balance the economical development and environmental protection.

The environment of the earth is co-related, international collaboration is needed for the sustainable development for our human beings. But according to what we have known at the moment, such collaboration is apparently not enough among countries because of various concerns of different countries. How can we solve this problem?

Key Take Away Points

“Tragedy of the commons describes a dilemma in which multiple individuals acting individually in their own self-interest can ultimately destroy a shared resource even when even when it is clear that it is not in anyone’s long-term interest for this to happen.” (See reading 3 session a, page 36）

Interesting Observations and Ideas

Will such a thing happen or is it happening in our world on the problem of sustainable development? Are countries all acting in their own self-interest instead of sitting together to share the information and other resources needed to achieve a better home for our future generations?

How can we avoid or at least stop the “tragedy of the commons” from happening?

Personal ratings for Session

I rate this session 8.

Session 2 Journal

Brief Overview

What is human development? There is Human Development Index (HDI) to measure the different levels of human development of different countries, but surely not everyone agrees with the perspectives in HDI. However, there is no doubt that technology has played an important role in these disparities, and I think these disparities do represent some extent of development and improvement.
Since technology is so crucial, then what have made the technological difference and what can we do to apply it to better our life?
We have found our answer to the first two questions mentioned above in class and have read someone else’s answer to the third one.

Interesting Observations and Ideas

Since globalization has become inevitable, being open-minded and developing the skills at managing across national and cultural borders will be very important for one’s adaptation to the globalization trends and career success.

Another impressive thing is that investing on women's education gives the society significantly more benefit than investing on men's. I think it's true, for I find from people who I know that women usually have a stronger sense of responsibility for the family and have more patience, endurance and wisdom to excecute their responsibility or even most of the family's matters than men do.

Key Take Away Points

We answered Yali’s question in class. The answer to why some countries have more “cargos” than others is that some countries are more open-minded than others. These countries are more willing to adopt new things from outside and thus can learn more advancement from other countries to help themselves develop faster and better.
This is the key take-away point for me. I have tried to answer Yali’s question when I read Guns, Germs and Steel last week. I know that the more developed regions enjoy the fruit of the efforts of other regions instead of inventing on their own before Renaissance. But I thought that it was the geographical and natural advantages that have enable people and knowledge to be transported and dispersed easier in those regions. I never thought about the mindset of people.
But at the end of the second class, when I was enlightened and began to think about the mindset of people, I felt a little surprised why I hadn’t thought about this before.

Issues for Further Discussion

However, after class, I wonder what have made the mindset of people different? Why is the overall mindset opener to new things in some regions, while the majority of people in other regions prefers to turn its back to the outside world?

Personal ratings for Session

I rate this session a 9 because I find it’s so good to attend the class. I have learnt much more than just reading alone during the first session when I missed the class. I was inspired in a lot of aspects by the videos, the prof’s and the students’ speeches. What I have got from this session have not all been written here because I decided to put it somewhere else (e.g. my LTB Learning Journal).

So I give it a 9 for all the contributions of this session made to me.

Looking forward to next class…

Blog after Session 1

As I have missed the first class and don’t have time to join any discussions before I write this, I can only write some thoughts of my own after reading the required materials.


Summary

I started from the past by reviewing the history of human beings, and have seen different levels of technological, political, and economical developments among different regions. Then I tried to know what have made these disparities and found Jared Diamond’s answer in Guns, Germs and Steel. After knowing more about the past, I cannot help asking myself, “Where will technology lead us in the future?” Then I read the BT Technology Timeline. Surely, technology will bring us both positive and negative influences, but what will be the final outcome and what can we do to control the negative ones and magnify the positive ones?

Interesting Observations and Ideas

When reading the long history from the beginning of universe till present, a question came to my mind, “What is the definition of technology?” I would never ask such a question before because in my mind, I have get used to the concept that technology is something very complicated and that only people who have professional knowledge or adequate practical experience can make. However, when I saw “earliest stone and wooden tools”, “earliest clothing”, “earliest fire”, “earliest controlled use of fire”, etc, I wondered whether these could be called technology or not. These things have been so important for the life of our ancestors, and have been created or found out by cumulated observations or somewhat experiments, just as what modern technology means to modern people. But these things look so primitive to modern people like me. Then what is the definition of technology?

Key Take Away Points

According to Jared Diamond, plant and animal domestication meant more food, more population, easier transportation, more advanced technology, more political and economical developments, and more powerful military weapons.

Issues for Further Discussion

As I am now convinced by Jared Diamond that the way of food production has caused the disparity of people’s life in different regions, I look forward to seeing what he would say about the causes of the different means to acquire food. And I hope we can learn more about the cause of disparity from our later discussion, and see whether we can find some evidence to support or oppose Jared Diamond’s opinion. Because understanding about the past can give us guide on how to make the future better for us.

Personal Ratings for Session

Since English is my second language and I came to Singapore just a month ago, when I found that there are so many tasks for the course, I felt really stressful at first. Although my friend had suggested me to drop this course, I decided to continue because I believe that I can learn more from challenging courses and I am a little stimulated by the challenge.

I will rate this session 8.8 for a few reasons.

First, as the first session, I think it has brought an overview of technology and world change, which just suits the name of the course.

Second, as the first session, it has aroused my interest in some topics concerning this course. And I think arising students’ interest to find out more is very important as this internal promotion will encourage students to learn as much as possible.

I strongly believe that I can think deeper and broader if I have time to join the discussions and I will do so as soon as possible. Looking forward to the next class…