Technology & Identity

The cyber world is a free space. It is flexible beyond measure and virtually anyone has access to it. When I am in the cyber world, I am allowed to be anyone I want to be, after all what is true hardly will matter to the person viewing my profile, if there was even a way to find the truth out at all. I can be everything I dont want to be in the real world, or want to be in the real world but am not. Wait, which is the real world?

Technology has brought the rise to such identity crises. Many dont know who they really are anymore. You could say "Nah thats not me your'e talking about" But think carefully. How much of an impression do other people form of you from your facebook profile alone? Now compare it to the impression you give them on a face to face meeting. Im guessing many of us form impressions of other people from their facebook page alone. What they comment on, what they "like", the photos that they have, the songs they listen to…I can find out so much of a person, just by looking at his online profile. But how much of it actually is true? The person himself, probably does not even know the answer to that question.

Lets take this analogy. There are many Starbucks outlets in China. Along every street, in every mall, its not hard to find one. There was a case of a conman, that replicated to precise accuracy, a Starbucks outlet. It sold the same products, displayed the same famous logo, and no one could tell it was not an actual authorized Starbucks. It was impossible to tell, and any Starbucks patronizer would walk in unknowingly to buy a coffee. It finally took someone in the Starbucks top management team to enter that fake outlet and realize that he had never started a Starbucks in that location for it to be shut down. 

China, due to its size and vastness, was the right place for the conman to carry out his plot. If the physical presence of something as big as a Starbucks outlet could be so blatantly faked, how much more the identity of a web user. Furthermore, a web user can hide behind a screen, he does not need to face or answer to anybody. I can, like in the case of this fake Starbucks, assume another's identity and no one would know. Think about how many companies outsource the management of their online presence. You might be talking to someone that is not the person you think you are talking to. Such is the danger technology has brought with the internet.

Well this is just my point of view…wait… Who am I? Am I necessarily the person that attends the TWC class every week? You'll just have to trust I am. And in turn, I have to trust the identity of the reader. A time where robots will take over the human race? Wait no more. We might already be losing a lot of who we are to technology.

Technology & Sports

There was a presentation today on sports & technology. I have always been an avid sports fan, and I find it inspiring when I see athletes push themselves to the limits, striving for excellence with every movement of their bodies. Technology has allowed these limits to be taken to a higher level. Athletes have to do less to achieve higher efficiency. Some might argue that this has taken away the true virtues of sports, or has undermined the value of hard training and passion for the game.

In the most recent Olympics games, an amazing technology was introduced in the swimming events. Speedo created a swimsuit that could reduce resistance and improve buoyancy. As a swimmer myself, these are the two aspects that can dramatically affect performance. In a sport where milliseconds are measured and could mean the difference between a gold medal and last place, you could say technology broke the 23 out of 25 world swimming records made that Olympics. Yet would you take away the medals from the athletes, who put in countless hours of training? The issue is, you wouldn’t know whether they deserve it more than the other, when they are not playing on the exact same playing field.

This is only one such example of the part technology has to play in sports. It varies widely from the shoes we wear (lighter? More cushioning?) to the tennis racket we use.  Technology, like it or not, has infiltrated the sports arena. It can make you swim faster, run further, jump higher… This is not to mention performance-enhancing supplements. These supplements are part and parcel of endurance events. In biking events, would lance Armstrong have achieved his success without a state of the art bike? Can you compare a tennis player that takes a power supplement before an event to the swimmer who wears the swimsuit in the example mentioned earlier?

The team that presented classified technology in sports as primary (game day) and secondary influence. However to me, it is hard to draw the line. There is no difference between an athlete who uses a lighter golf club to the swimmer who wears a high-tech swim suit, or even a body builder who takes a high efficient protein supplement before he starts training. The hard truth is that we are all playing on unequal playing fields today. And unless you want sports man to run naked, you cannot ban such technology in sports, unless it breaks the actual rules of the game. In the recent youth Olympics, there were 2 swimmers from the African continent that had never swam in a proper swimming pool before in their lives. Yet their presence in the games was surely appreciated, and it was heart warming to see them participating in the games competing with the other athletes who have trained in proper swimming pools their whole lives.

The beauty of sports in essence is that we are unequal beings; sport celebrates this diversity. If sports were fair in any sense, we should get robots to compete against each other. Technology is just an aid, which has definitely helped improve entertainment and enjoyment in sports. More importantly, it helps athletes do it in a healthier way. Technology in sports should be embraced; it already has too many effects on sportsman indirectly, to be controlled or strictly regulated.

Technology Forecasting

Today summed up an interesting ten weeks of learning about technology and change. It was an appropriate ending to this journey, as the topic was about forecasting the future. In essence, that was what the course was about; to channel our mindsets to the future, training us to be always forward looking. The purpose of us looking through how we have progressed through the various topics of technology was precisely so we could think of the exciting opportunities ahead. We have transformed from merely wanting to spectate to be  ourselves the change leaders of tomorrow, or rather today.

Prof enlightened us on a concept that was particularly interesting. It was the 'back from the future' framework of planning. It speaks of how we usually think of the limitations and resources we have and work our way around these challenges to achieve what we can best make out of it. The 'back from the future' mindset argues that we should first start by envisioning the end product- what we would like to see, whatever crazy places our imagination can take us, and then work backwards from that, striving to change whatever policies in the present that would prevent us from reaching that goal. Instead of thinking of change after its boundaries, we think of change first, then we manipulate the boundaries. Basically, we gotta think the way a child thinks, or the way we used to think, before we got a better understanding of reality and constraints. A kid would dream of flying around in space making the moon and the stars his playground, and to them, its possible. We as the change leaders of today, should never lose that child-like enthusiasm. All the 'grown-up' knowledge that we have, should not be used to limit us or tie us down, but it should be used to enhance our 'unrealistic' goals with the proper frameworks and helping work around the boundaries and issues that would arise. Dream like a child, think and put into action these dreams like an adult.

However, this concept contradicts another mindset brought up in class. This mindset was that limitations is one of the primary guiding tools to progress. An illustration was brought up about a teacher giving the students a piece of paper to write anything they wanted. The students would not know what to write down without the teacher providing them with some guidelines and rules. Put into this context, the previous concept illustrated would be the students drawing whatever they wanted, folding up the paper, tearing up the paper, and whatever they wished to do with it. The teacher would then give them the guidelines and rules. The key would be how the students were to convince the teacher to change the rules or to work their way around the rules so that they could get a pass grade for their assignment. Unfortunately, many of such 'students' in the world today, end up getting a failed grade. However, the future belongs to those who dare.

Boundaries are only there because we set them there. Some are positive and some are negative. Some have become to much of a norm that we do not even challenge them or evaluate their value.
"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out"- Decca rejecting the Beatles in 1962
Well we all know how well their prediction turned out. Prediction may be the very restricting factor to innovation. Imagination and invention is what allows it and propels it. Like mentioned in class "The best way to predict the future is to invent it"

In the story of "Who moved my cheese?", haw makes a crucial discovery that he might eventually die if he never left the empty room to search for his moved piece of cheese. "If you dont change, you can become extinct" Forecasting the future is about sniffing the potential cheese in the maze and smelling the cheese you hold presently. Smell the cheese often, you would know when it is getting old.

Imagining myself enjoying new cheese even before i find it, Leads me to it.

Class rating: 8

Emerging & future technologies

I always thought movies over exaggerated the future and the advances in technology it may bring. When we see movies like Star Wars we dismiss it as mere fantasy, but its a frightening thought that these movies could be a directors actual prediction of the future. They've been pretty accurate so far; I remember watching the movie 'minority report' about 10 years ago. In the show the characters played with an interactive computer screen and demonstrated possibilities in biometrics and many other fields of science. I remember being absolutely fascinated with these scenes thinking how creative the director was in coming up with such 'crazy inventions that would never happen'. But fast forward to today, these technologies have indeed become something not so fascinating and surreal anymore. At present, these things are already the norm and were looking ahead to even more exciting possibilities. That was how I felt 10 years back, what would I be looking back on 10 years, 50 years from now?

Today's lesson probably covered one of the more interesting topics we had so far. The topic had no boundaries, because in fact, the future always holds no boundaries. I was particularly interested in certain developments in several fields of technology. One of it was the concept of augmented reality. In Mike Adams report on the 10 most important emerging technologies, augmented reality was listed as one of them. Mike focused on augmented reality used in education. I was particularly interested because I have never been an advocate the typical lecture settings, classrooms, lecture notes. Sadly this is the main form of education we have in the world this day. But will it be for long? I've always felt experience is the best learning method. Experience that involves not only seeing and hearing, but other things like movement, touch and emotions. The idea of education through augmented reality is about projecting learning unto the environment around us. Students will be able to learn about anatomy by walking through the human body and interacting with it. All they might have to do is don a pair of see-through glasses. It is an exciting prospect for providing the next generation better quality education.

Imagine taking it outside the classroom. If you saw something you were not sure off, what if all you needed to do to find out about it was to put on your pair of glasses? You could start reading up and watching videos on the subject instantly. This makes learning immediate and on-the-go. The world becomes your textbook and learning playground. People will keep their eyes and ears open for things around them, instead of staring at their notes with their earphones plugged in. I can imagine technology that can allow us to simply look at something, and a search engine picks up the visual image and scans through massive databases which can allow you to view information in any form or language. When I look at google, when I look at the iPhone, the more I think that this innovation could become a reality sooner than we think.

Another interesting technology topic that always comes up when we talk about the future is the concept of practical robots. Smart robots that do more than what they are programmed to do, but can respond and adapt to changes. The technology has already penetrated our households with appliances like washing machines being 'smart' enough to judge a pile of laundry by itself. Robots may make life very much easier for us humans, eliminating the daily hassles of life, but will it slowly suck the will out of a human beings? What will happen the virtue of hardwork, or the essentials of physical training? Doing things that seem redundant may not be so redundant, it gives you time to reflect, and the hard things are what make the easier things so much more enjoyable.

I may one day come to except a robot doing my household chores, and maybe even my homework for me. As absorb as I feel it is, I may grow to slowly lose my resistance towards it. But the concept of robot companions (even as friends, not to mention lovers) is something I will never succumb to. Robot companions are gaining popularity as they do not have flaws living beings are born with. AIBO, Japan's robotic dog, is already owned by 50,000 people. You may be able to channel a robot to have fake feelings, however, you can never program a soul. Love and friendship are not only based on positive character traits but it is about accepting each others imperfections as well. Imperfections and diversity are part of the beauty of life. Humans should not strive to eliminate the human touch in relationships. If we do so, or rather, if our present attempts succeed in doing so, everything will soon become meaningless. If we one day touch the sun, but we lose our souls, what profit do we make?

Class Rating: 9

Energy and World Change

Today’s lesson opened my eyes to the many ways of retrieving and storing energy that our natural resources produce. It got me thinking; energy is one of the few products that can be generated from “free” and abundant natural resources such as wind and sunlight, yet in the last century producing it has been a major cause of pollution and harm to the environment. Renewable resources generate only 13% of global energy consumption. The reason why we are not tapping on the full potential of renewable resources is because corporations do not see it as profitable economically as using fossil fuels. But it is precisely the fact that no one dares to risk this investment that makes it all the less economically viable. With the integration of efforts and the pulling together of resources by corporations around the globe, surely methods and solutions to churn out this positive form of energy in a more efficient and cost effective way can be realized. However is it true to say, no one, or no few rather, have been willing to step up to be the leaders of change in this area? In class we heard of projects like the Sahara project and some interesting innovations researchers believe in like gathering wind energy with kites. We can see that there are leaders of change present, but like in every big change, people are providing the resistance. If governments do not do something about the flawed pricing system of energy sources, which does not take into account its environmental impact, we will never see the potential of green and sustainable energy.   

The general mindset of the common man is that energy is the problem of the big guns; the governments and the corporations that can invest billions into building mega power plants. The common man is waiting for these big guns to make these major investments, and they shall enjoy the fruits of it. This mindset will never influence healthy energy consumption habits. I strongly feel the key to any form of sustainable change would be to make energy technology in the reach of the common man. These technologies should be “domesticated” and investments and research should be made to create appliances that are easy to use and that can be available to every household. Energy needs to a consideration for every house owner. Solar panels worked in Germany, because the government took initiative to make the people take their own initiative to acquire energy, ownership was transferred to the people and energy became their problem, or opportunity rather.

I believe technological advancements in attaining and processing energy can be made even simpler than that. The simpler it is, the less resistant people will be of the change. We read in reading 4 about future bio-energy technologies. We read about fascinating concepts like catalytic liquidation, which can produce high quality energy with low processing, and of anaerobic fermentation, which can help solve sanitations issues as well. I envision the house of the future to have appliances like the energy processing toilet bowl: after taking a dump, close the lid and instead of flushing, the appliance breaks down your waste converting them into energy carriers. This energy can be used to power the water heater or the bathroom lighting, and hopefully technological breakthroughs can make it efficient enough to power the whole house. Free biomass as a resource can indeed be a viable solution to global warming if it is made this simple for the everyday energy consumer. This is just an example of ways energy technologies can be downscaled to make green initiatives something every citizen can take part in.

I felt we could have received a better understanding on how these energy conversions actually work. For example, we know the movement of wind turbines create energy but how exactly? It would be good to receive some insight on that (: 

Class rating: 6

Biobusiness Revolution: Agriculture

How do we feed the growing appetite of our planet? 3 main factors that lead to the growing demand for food; a growing population, income levels increasing and urbanization. We cannot stop these from happening, in fact, they signify progress, but how can we make sure no one gets left hungry? Certainly there are numerous that are underfed or undernourished in developing countries; this highlights the importance of technology in agriculture and how it can change the world, save the world rather.

Yields and crop intensity has to be increased. In class, we learnt of many innovative ways of harvesting crops, from almost any environmental condition. We learnt of how the study of genetics can lead to more biodiversity and more production of crops. All these are encompassed under agricultural R&D, a driving force that has led to the rise of  issues; such as genetically modified crops. GM crops; a cause for debate?

To me, we're way passed the issue. GM food are in our everyday diets. It has already penetrated into our systems long before we even knew what it was. What harmful effects it has, well we won't know till we know won't we? So is it good for man to venture into something where long-term results are yet to be known? Well, my view is that we have always been doing that since the beginning of time, and many things we have invented are not sustainable and have harmful effects we discovered long after we invented them. Well, what are the grounds we can allow ourselves to innovate. We can't fight it unless we weigh the benefits of it. GM foods can assist in meeting the predicted demand for food. We can't fight it when billions are going hungry. Its a matter of choosing between the 2 evils. This of course is not the ideal, the ideal is something sustainable, something that does not have long term harmful effects so as we have to create more technologies with harmful long-term effects to solve. Green technologies such as fuel derived from plants are sustainable and should be strongly supported.

With unpredictable climate change holding in itself high risk to the traditional methods of growing crops, and with the degradation of our ecosystems due to, you guessed it, humans with technology in their hands, we have to start being open to such ways of growing the resources we need. We have to find a solution to the problem we've created. Global warming affecting food supply? We can't point the finger at anyone else but ourselves. 

To me, I can't make a stand whether GM foods should be encouraged or not as it has already been chewed, digested and spitted out from our system. If I am not wrong, KFC chickens (notice that the C in KFC does not stand for chickens anymore) are genetically enhanced. How many people visit fast food for a meal everyday? Not only in the chickens but in our fries and our drinks too! So now here we are, and the best thing we can do is enhance what is good about GM foods, focusing on its solution to many of the risks affecting food supply. 

With the rise of GM and other technologies, we must focus also on how developing countries can adapt to this change. Poverty reduction can lead to higher supply in food, vice versa. There has to be a strong social safety net- built on the structures of sanitization, education and assistance. No matter how advanced we are in agricultural R&D, we need the right frame in developing countries to carry out this change. Other wise we have a bottleneck in countries with limited capacity to import food. Trade must be fair and competitive. Benefiting the change makers and the change followers.

One of the presenters brought up the issue about whether labeling GM food should be done. I feel it should be done. Not because it will change our dietary preferences in anyway. But labeling the products will assure consumers that the product is safe and there is nothing the manufacturer is hiding from them. So I don't see the need to holdback the labeling of GM foods if producers believe in the GM product. Or is there?

Class rating: 8

Healthcare and Biomedical Sciences

Technological advancement & new innovations have certainly revolutionized the biomedical industry. Diseases that could not be cured in the past are now easily treated. In the past, if a person were to contract diabetes, he would await his pancreas to slowly destroy his body and take away his life. Now we no longer 'contract' diabetes, we live with diabetes. It is made possible to carry on with our daily lives with such living conditions. My mom is a diabetic and dedicates her life to helping others with the same conditions. There was a time, two months before she got married, she fell into a diabetic comma. Almost to the last brink of hope, a doctor tested her for diabetes, and just in time, they were able to inject insulin into the body. Without proper treatment, diabetics, even if they were able to survive the disease, have many related complications that prevent them from leading a normal healthy life. However, my mom was still able to give birth to a pair of twins against the odds. I'm alive today largely because of the progress of healthcare technology. Need I say more about the impact of this progress?

I classify this positive impact into 3 categories. Treatment, Recreation and Outreach.
Treatment- This refers to the the breakthroughs in medical research, and how this research has saved countless of lives. A person with short sightedness would go blind if we did not innovate. Fast forward a little, now lasik is the trend, removing the whole problem instead of just treating it. We had a presentation in class on how scientists are getting down to the root of the problem of Malaria. We are cable of issuing immunizations without the side effects, that prevent diseases before we have to cure it. There also has been much progress in food & nutrition. Aside having pills for almost everything, we have organic this, organic that, things that enhance health, its not just about maintenance anymore.

Recreation- Health as a hobby, health as a lifestyle. New & better infrastructure built; pools, gyms, stadiums etc. More programs and courses for the taking. From yoga to dance, its becoming a trend to take our health seriously. Look at how many people sign up for the standard chartered marathon each year. Its a growing trend, and if you're concerned about public health, that would be good news.

Outreach- Health Education. The internet is a tool that has been a catalyst for healthcare growth. Not only is it used to store all our medical records as we learnt from one of the presentations, it is used to disseminate information about health. People can treat themselves online, people can find out more about the medicines they have to take. You don't need to travel far and wide these days to get medical advice or to purchase medicine. the availability of healthcare has become widespread.


This is the bright and idealistic side of healthcare. Like I said, there is no denying this bright side of healthcare. However, the weakness of man has once again come into play. Health like any other business in the tertiary sector is a business. It is a service, just like education or banking. However, healthcare has always been treated within some moral boundaries. Healthcare, by virtue is to provide health and care, not to feed on patients money. The large percentage of global GDP spent on healthcare can be both a good and bad thing. The question is how much of this money is being used for good, and how much of it is simply driven by greed and unessacary inflation. We create problems so we can cure them, and so we can make money out of that cure. And as much as we celebrate the progress in healthcare, the people that need the technology the most are not receiving. As an effective business, its not really working out. Healthcare cannot be measured by looking at a screen in wall street, insurance cannot be about how you're gonna get the highest return of investment. If we go down this road further, healthcare could be yet another cause for the increase in worldwide disparity and inequality.

In the movie Patch Adams, dean walcott, representing everything wrong about the healthcare system says: " Our job is to rigorously and ruthlessly train the humanity out of you and make you into something better. We're gonna make doctors out of you. " As ridiculous as it seems,  we should look into ourselves before we start pointing the finger. Are you more concerned of health or wealth? Cure or profit? People or money? Healing or Power?


Class rating: 9