3rd TWC Lesson!!

Today is 3^rd TWC lesson! It’s on a Saturday as a replacement for Hari Raya. K

Anyway, today’s topic is on (A)Techonology and Industrial Development: Towards Sustainability and (B)Technology and Innovation Management.

For part A, towards sustainability is the key. Our lesson started off with a video showing us from past to present, we have been moving linearly which means we're using up raw materials which are finite. Finite stuffs are, of course, unsustainable. The video talked about moving from a linear equation to a cycle which can be started off by reducing usage, re-using and recycling. 

A message brought through the video which caught my attention is we(human population) used 1/3 of the whole planet's resources in the past decade alone! US makes up 5% of the world population but makes up 30% of the world's resource usage. If our whole world use resources at the same rate, we'll need 3-5 planets to sustain but we only have one. This is indeed a huge problem and worse still is the usage is increasing exponentially due to economies expanding rapidly. This brings us to a next problem of Economic Growth VS Environmental Growth.

Sadly, Economic Growth and Environmental Growth are conflicting issues. Most companies are profit-driven and would oppose to slower economic growth as shown in the recent case in US. However, the underlying issue is can we achieve both?

I believe we can, we just need stricter rules and regulations. Economic Growth and Environmental growth are conflicting yet not inversely proportionate. They can be achieved together. Companies just need to be efficient in both in order to achieve it. If a government regulates it in a more stringent way, we could well be moving to a sustainable development.

From what I see, embarking on economic growth along with environmental growth is sustainable in the long run whereas focusing on economic growth is only a short run benefit and unsustainable in the long run.

We also talked about an interesting point "advantages of backwardness" as projected in reading article 2 - Industrialization as an Engine for Growth in Developing Countries. Adam Szirmai. Interesting concept: “advantages of backwardness”.

The advantages of backwardness is the reduced cost and risk that R&D encompasses. "Backwards" country and just buy, copy, reverse engineer products that are available from leading countries. As long as a country is open to new ideas and has an open market, the country will be able to grow exponentially with new product knowledge coming in.

For part B of the class, we talked about innovation management. 

First I would like to express the difference between creativity and innovation because they are often confused as being the same. Creativity is just interesting ideas but innovation is an extension of an interesting idea. Innovation include the execution part which includes processes to bring the interesting idea into the market in the form of goods and services.

This can be seen in the pyramid of Innovation as shown in class where creativity is at the base of the pyramid.

After reading the first reading material: U.S. Technology and Innovation Policies: Lessons for Climate Change, in general I believe the government plays an important role in innovation in areas where there are external externalities. Because these are external externalities, because companies are profit motivated, the government will have to intervene. Some of the methods government can adopt is they can provide R&D credits or production subsidies or set regulations.

Another takeaway from today's class is the categorization of the different type of innovations, namely Valley, Summit and Cloud opportunities. 

I believe this is a very clear and rational way of putting the different type of innovations which is how people are operating. This is a very interesting point and i believe is worth mentioning here.

Overall, I rate this session 8/10 as I've been exposed to new ideas and learnt quite a few things today - disregarding the fact that my Saturday was burnt of course. :)