Lesson 7: BioBusiness revolution 2: Environmental Life Sciences and Industrial Biotechnology (Past, Present and Future)

This week's lesson is on part 2 of BioBusiness with the emphasis on environmental life sciences and industrial biotechnology. You might actually question the purpose of the picture shown above? Well, it is actually inline with Prof Gurinder's quote of the week. His quote of the week is


"When we are able to grow the resources we need, we will finally be on the road to sustainability."




The picture above actually depicts the various means that we are using to move towards sustainability and the branches stopped at certain point and the missing links are actually the resources we need to drive all the activities shown in the picture. Once we are able to find the missing links, we would have actually complete the whole picture and i believe that we are already on our way to find the missing links.

Environmental life sciences and industrial biotechnology are the 2 main types of technology driven by biobusiness and according to the statistics in 2001, it accounts for over US$ 9.7 trillion of the world's GDP and i strongly believe that the figures could have reached as much as US$15 trillion today especially with the high emphasis on sustainable development.

One surprising fact brought by Dr Gurinder this week is that we are still suffering from rural overcrowding. I believe that this is probably due to the high cost of living in the urban area and also the natives in those area are rather conservative, hence resistant to changes. This has actually caused some concerns as it has led to poor and dirty living environment. Since those people are living at rural areas, their income tends to be lower and result in poverty. 1 of the MDGs is to actually reduces poverty in developing countries and i think the root of the problem is rural overcrowding and once this issue has been solved. Poverty rate can actually be reduced. Next interesting fact would actually be about the presentation that one of our peers had presented about Monsanto.

I have heard about Monsanto but i am surprise that how they resort to bribery in an attempt to get their products approved by  the legislation. In addition, they have employed the so call "GM police" to keep track of what the farmers have done and arrest those farmers that are suspected of keeping the GM seeds.  I am sure the reason is because of their high pricing policy. The seeds itself constitute nearly 20% of the farmers income, excluding the cost of maintaining the crops. This is actually one of the examples of the down side of having BioBusiness, increasing the disparity between the rich and the poor; The rich who are able to afford it gets richer and the poor who are struggling for their basic needs get poorer.

Some key takeaways for this week lessons is actually so far the technology that we have created is linear, i.e. to say the advancement that mankind has made to technology is only to improve mankind and not beneficial to both mankind and environment. The rise of BioBusiness might be the way to change the linear function of the trend and improve the environment and at the same time, benefit mankind. Thus creating a win-win situtation. Nature has responded to us by increasing the number of natural disasters and creating global warming to warn us to change the linear relationship. Next would be with regards to the issue of genetic engineering. People are actually afraid of genetic engineering due to the modifications made and perhaps some ethical issue. However, i have to emphasise that whatever modifications we have made so far is nothing compared to the natural derivation of genetic modification. We have to accept it in a more open approach and so that we are able to reap the benefits of GM products. In the beginning stage, people might be skeptical about the benefits it can bring about but i believe once people start to see the improvement, it will also serves as a driver for them to work towards that improvement.

I would rate this week's lesson at 8/10. It has actually widen up my knowledge in the BioBusiness industry. However, i wish we could have more time for discussion with regards to the topic of the term flash pyrrosis ( i hope i did not spell it wrongly!) and for this time i would not look forward to the next lesson! Reason is simply that means recess week ended -.-

I shall end this week's entry with this quote.

"We wake up everyday with a list of wishes, and maybe we spend our lives trying to make those wishes come true. But just because we want them, doesn’t mean that we need them to be happy."


                                                                                  NED, PUSHING DAISIES

Lesson 6:The BioBusiness Revolution 1: Healthcare and the Biomedical Sciences: Past, Present, Future

This week's focus on BioBusiness Revoultion and the market we are looking for is the healthcare and the biomedical science. The quote of the week by our Dr Gurinder is

"The Biobusiness has the potential to will transform our lives and economies"


Dr Gurinder has categorized lives to 5 main categories; Health,energy source, food, clothes and others. In our world today, biobusiness plays an important role in our society today as it has already constitute over 25% of global GDP and it employs some 40% of the world's labor force. In addition, it may be our best hope for achieving sustainable development.

One interesting facts i have learnt during this session is that actually we share 99% genetic similarity with Chimpanzee and also 88% with mice and this fact actually encourage scientist to try out more bio products as they can obtain the results from mice for analysis before releasing the products to the market. Another interesting fact is that healthcare and biomedical science are the 2 revolutions covered side by side and the improvement of healthcare is largely due to the advancement of biomedical science. For instance, there's a device invented specifically to measure your sugar level and who knows that in the near future, daily measurement of your sugar level will be sent to the doctor and if it is not at the optimal level, the doctor will alert you and inform you to reduce your sugar intake. As the saying goes, prevention is better that cure and if we are able to detect this small little thing before it snowballs to a big problem, the chances of contracting certain disease can be minimized.

The presentation that attracted my attention is the Human Genome project and it involves the focus on the study of the DNA structure. It is good to know how our DNA functions so we can delve deeper into the structure, study on it and improve it. One key takeaway message for this lesson to take away is that as knowledge advances, we need to redefine our understanding of knowledge so it does not obsolete. With so many information created n changed everyday, it is essential to manage it properly so humans do not abuse it. Technology itself is neutral but when rights are given to humans. We tend to abuse it. The next interesting fact is how the market mechanism has played a big role in making some vaccines expensive. The cost of production maybe cheap but it is due to the interaction between the consumers' demands and supplier' supply of the goods that determine the equilibrium price. Just like the case of insurance that one of our peers has covered.

The question i think we can have more time to discussion on is the application of the results obtained from the human genome project. The main concern of the application of the project is ethical issues. Some people might feel that we are defying nature and change what god has created. So, how we can eradicate this issue is another discussion we can discuss and focus on if we had more time.

I would rate this week's lesson as 8/10 and i feel that the flow of the presentation and teaching is just right. not many of them exceed the time limit.I hope next week we will have a better understanding of the topic when prof starts part 2 of biobusiness!  

Lesson 5: ICT and world change.

This week's lesson is about ICT( Information and communication technologies) and world change. Prof started off with introduction to the topic and the various forms of ICT. He also touch on the issues involved ICT over the years and whether ICT is a driver of world change. We had a series of interesting presentations on the related topics of ICT and discussions about those topics. The quote of the week by Dr Gurinder is


ICT is the catalyst the facilitates the knowledge revolution


so what does the above message means to me?

The keyword above is CATALYST. In Chemistry, it means that a substance used to increase the rate of a chemical reaction without itself being affected. In this context, the sentence means is that we are using ICT as the tool to increase the process of knowledge revolution and the term ICT only serves as the purpose the expedite the process of knowledge revolution. So this leads us to the question that whether ICT is the driver of change and how can we capture the potential of ICT to combat issue such as poverty.

Some interesting issue that brought up during lesson was the idea of cloud computing and how much reading has progress since the past. I was not aware of the term of cloud computing prior to this lesson and the video that Dr Gurinder shared actually gives me an idea of how cloud computing work. It actually involves running of a shared data system and everybody will benefit on the changes; Once the system is upgraded and improved, it will be uploaded to the common network and shared with everybody. In the past, information are pass down verbally and in the ever changing world today, informations are passed via various form of media and mainly the internet. Hence, that's a need for cloud computing. The reason is with so much knowledge being pass down, those information has to make sense and being integrated with the information and coming our solutions to those problems. This is actually in line with the quote Dr Gurinder shared with us. In this case, Cloud computing is used as the catalyst for knowledge revolution.

Next interesting point is actually the topic covered by Daniel about the debate of reading online. He talked about the rationale behind reading and reading has shifted from the books era to the modern era, which is make use of internet to do reading. I find his topic particularly interesting because for me, i do not read books very often as I feel that I lack the motivation to read after awhile. However, with the pervasive use of internet, it has actually motivate more people to read since they are online and they can read on information of what they are interested in in just a few seconds. Though as what people might argue is that it cause a lot of distraction, but as what Prof has mentioned, sometimes we need a little distraction before we can really focus on the things we need to do.

I have 2 major key takeaways for this week's lesson. The first key takeaway is actually there's a need for knowing the knowhow for applying technology. There is no point applying the technology for the sake of applying as it will result in more complex management rather than simplifying it. We should actually figure out the process before implementing the correct technology that will benefit us. The next key takeaway is that currently, we are still using the industrial age model of ICT and as a result, we are not about to capture the full potential of ICT and knowledge revolution. We are currently running things in the old way rather than the new way. One problem that we need to look into is actually the digital divide. The disparity will actually cause countries to use old industrial age model rather than moving towards the new model to capture the full potential of ICT. The question that I hope that we can have more time to discuss on is how we can do to actually close up the disparity and maximise the potential of ICT.

This week lesson was rather interesting for me and I would rate this week's lesson 8/10. Although this week's presentation was more and longer, I find it interesting as this week we are covering just 1 theme and hence have more time for discussions related to this week's theme. Before i end my post, i will with u this quote by Andrew Grove,

Not all problems have a technological answer, but when they do, that is the more lasting solution.

Lesson 4: Drivers of world change and change management and leadership

Our focus for this week is actually drivers of world change and change in both management and leadership. This week's discussions were both interesting and engaging especially this week's presentation. We had a series of impressive classmates presenting and touch on issues that I do not realize it till this week. Actually the first thing that i had notice is when i stepped into the class is what prof had wrote on the board:  The 3 essential ways to cope with change

1) Make it happen

2) Respond when it happens

3) Be "surprise" when it happens

I feel that this concept is useful in evaluating how things happen this way and this brings us to this week's topic for discussions.

I felt that the most interesting issue that caught my attention is actually how germs has been the drivers of world change and how it played an import role in the western civilization. Prof explanation was further elaborated by Chang-e. She shared about how globalization has brought about transmission of diseases and how the historical time line of how some plagues evolved. Next, Eunice shared with us some interesting perspective of how consumers expectation are the drivers of world change. I agree to her point as nowadays,  the world is changing base on the market expectation. For instance, if consumers decided to stop drinking coffee due to the side effects of caffeine, the demand for coffee will drop and this will actually lead to producers looking for alternatives to satisfy consumers' wants. This actually shows that how the world has shaped is actually related to the expectation of consumers.  Next is actually the interesting concept Daniel has brought up which is the model of change and how those changes have to be reported to the government. The graph below is actually what prof had shown as and related to what Eunice has presented.

Some key takeaways that i have for this lesson is that actually to ensure that all of us are involved in this drivers of world change, we need to expose ourselves with more knowledge as it enables us to have different perception towards certain issues since the world has changed according to consumers expectation. If we just sit back and content with the current knowledge that we have, when changes come, we will most likely be surprise when it happens and this is when some people that feel that "pain" that prof had mentioned have to go through. Next would be the 2 essential model that prof shared with us once a decision is made to change. I personally feels that the modern model is much more practical compared to the past. The reason is now countries are moving towards a knowledge based economy. Now the question that one will start to ask is how society can react to those who do not have the knowledge to assimilate into the knowledge based economy. To make sure our skills do not obsolete as time goes by, the modern model seems to be a better choice compared to the traditional model and this boils down to change in management and leadership.

As a whole, i will rate this week's lesson 9.5/10 as this week's lesson really expand my knowledge TWC and the issue that really caught my attention is the dark age and how germs played a part in the fall of the roman empire. What I feel that we can have more time to discuss on is actually about the consumer's expectation. The reason is simply because that drivers of world change is linked with change in management and leadership. Change in management and leadership for a better management will actually lead to a change in the factors that drive this change. This actually comes down to expectation by consumer.
I shall end this week's reflection by sharing with you this quote

"Vision without action is merely a dream,
Action without vision just passes time,
Vision with action can change the world."


-Joel Barker 

TWC session on sustainable development and innovation management

The session start off with a video sharing by Dr Grinder entitled story of stuffs and if you guys want to watch the video, you can click on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8. This week's theme is on sustainable development and innovation management. We started first half of the session with sustainable development and the second half of it on innovation management. Dr Grinder started off by giving some introduction and how industrial development has moved from linear development to circular development..He compared the old industrial model, Economic development VS  environmental well-being, against the new sustainable industrial model, Economic development AND environmental well-being. We were being introduced the IPP model for sustainable industrial development and what it comprises of. We then move on to individual oral presentation by Gerald, Hui Min and me.


The next half of the session is about innovation management. Dr Grinder shared with his some interesting insights about innovation management and an inspirational phrase by Tom Peter. 


“Life is pretty simple: 
You do some stuff.
Most fails. Some works.
You do more of what works.
If it works big, others quickly copy it.
Then you do something else.  
The trick is the doing something else.”


Dr Grinder then shared with us his conceptual framework on the opportunities available when it comes to innovation management and links us back to last week lesson on the concept of rising stars and falling stars. We then started our presentation on the issue. The guests were Ruixin and Aurrick which gave us interesting insights about Wikipedia and whether is worth taking the risk for nuclear power. We then had a little discussion about that and the session ended off with our personal ratings for this week's guest.


I would say that this week's lesson is more engaging as Dr Grinder has implemented the time rule limit to each speaker which gives us more time for discussions about the topic brought up by the guests. One of the interesting insights that i have gained is actually the advantages of backwardness. Countries that industrialize later actually benefit more than those that have industrialize earlier. The 4 Asia Tigers which comprises of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan actually did not reap as much benefits as those Asia countries that industrialize later. One good example to take a look at is China and India. They entered the market much more later and yet they have actually developing at a much more faster rate than the 4 Tigers. Take China for example, currently they are the biggest economy based on the video Dr Grinder shared with us. I am sure with proper utilization of resources in the correct hands, the African nations will start to develop and hence eliminate poverty. The next interesting insight that i have gotten is actually the phrase that i have shown above shared by Tom Peter. To me, the above mentioned sentence implies that our ideas and innovations will constantly being copied once it's proved to work well and we need to constantly being innovation in order to make sure we remain competitive in the market and the gist of innovation is to constantly think of new ideas after the current ideas are being implemented. Take ipod for example, when the 1st ipod is invented and mimic the product. Apple tried to be innovative by creating the itouch and the idea of incorporating the idea of handphone and itouch to remain competitive. The last interesting fact  is Dr Grinder sharing of the valley, summit and cloud opportunity.

I like the idea of the 3 terms introduced by Dr Grinder. I also can interpret it as showing different level that one is at and it can be used as a reference for one to continue innovate. For instance, company A introduced a product  to the market. He will be at the summit but if he continue to develop and innovate. However if he chose to be complacent and be content with his product, he would definitely fall to the next category, Valley opportunities. 


I would just summarize my major key takeaways in 3 points. Firstly, i will link this 2 theme hand in hand; To attain sustainable development, one has to be innovative. If we follow traditional model of industrial development in the 1980s, i am sure half of the iceberg would have melted and there will be more natural disasters. We have to think of ways and means to maintain our current usage not at the expense of our environment. Sometimes being innovative is not a bad thing as after one has invented a better way to reduce environmental impact, one can share the technology with the others so we can minimize the effects of global warming. Next would be innovation itself is a risky business that people must take. It will bring opportunities for your ideas being implemented and accepted in the market BUT it will also create challenges for the innovators. Competitors might either copy similar products and produce it to the market with just changing the label and design. In addition, competitors too might adept the ideas and create better products using the ideas of that innovator as a foundation of the research. The last key takeaway is that according to Prof Arai's perceptive, the process between the research period and the implementation period is actually the nightmares and this nightmares can be minimized if one take the nightmare into their dreams and make sure the process will not be as painful as it initially supposed to be. 


I think the issue that we could spend more time for discussion is actually whether should innovation be technology or market driven? The reason is simply because i believe innovation on end products will definitely be different with different purposes. Next i would want to raise the question on how innovation can be made special and unique so that copies of similar products would not happened? Just like the product of champagne. It is considered as champagne if it is produced at only certain parts of france. This is the use of right branding strategy. 


In conclusion, i would rate this week's lesson as 9/10 as this week we have more time for discussion and we have more time to delve a little further on the topic by our guest speakers compared to last week. I hope i will learn more issues about technology world change next week! =D Anyway if you guys are interested in the Chernobyl accident, i have actually posted the link at our group page. Alternatively, u can click on the link to watch! this is part 1 of 6. You will be able to see the rest of the parts by clicking the appropriate video links on the right. 
The link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoEgkGNO-sQ&feature=related