Lesson 7

This session we discussed about bio-business in the agriculture (agribiology), environmental life sciences and industrial life sciences.

Biotech in Agriculture and Food Processing

Man has long been engineering or modifying the food we consume. From selective breeding to get better crops or meat to the more recent genetic modification (GM) to get crops that are resistance to diseases, higher yields and use less resources.

There are many who are resistant to GM food. However there are many food products that we consume daily that are GM. Examples are tomato ketchup and culture milks such as Yakult. Scientists are just doing it in a more accurate manner. GM is the next green revolution that will feed our growing world population, the same way machines and pesticides have increased yields in the previous green revolution to feed everyone. With limited arable land, we have to find a solution that can dramatically increase yields.

GM can promise to deliver crops that can produce more in a single harvest and can produce crops that will have shorter harvest cycles.

The use of pesticides have caused many environmental problems such as causing imbalance to the ecosystem, contaminating water sources and causing algae blooms and dead zones in lakes and seas. GM crops will drastically reduce and probably eliminate the need pesticides as corps can be modified to be resistance to diseases and pests. 

Next, governments should encourage farmers to consolidate their farms and pool together to have a bigger farm so that it would be economical for the poor farmers to get machines and use GM seeds. Developed countries have very high yields with a very small agriculture workforce. In developing nations, it is common to see big families farming on a small plot of land and being dependent on the harvest from that small land. This means that a large portion of the harvest goes to feeding and sustaining the family with little or no excess to improve their farm. Government has to encourage more people to move to more urban towns. While this may lead to overcrowding and slums and diseases in cities, after a painful transition and proper government policies to educate, manage housing and more, most people will see increased incomes.  

There definitely cases where certain GM seeds may not grow in certain areas or might wipe out the local species affect other farmers who are did not buy those GM seeds. International institutions are now set up to regulate and look in to such concerns. This will help ensure that such problems can resolved.

Just because there are problems, that does not mean that solution is wrong. We should recognise the opportunities and work to find ways to make things work. We have to recognise that feeding 10 billion people cannot be solved by our current methods especially we when we have dwindling arable land.

Biopharming is an interesting area where drugs can be given to patients especially chronic patients of diseases such as diabetes. This can help increase absorption of drugs and reduce rejection.

Environmental Life Sciences

Biodiesel, bioenergy through waste materials and algae cleaning the environment and providing biofuel are some interesting biotech.

Algae that feed on waste like sewage and grow at very rapid rate is starting to show promise to be a major solution. This is a renewable source of energy and the algae helps to treat wastes as well. This technology can be easily applied in developing nations, allowing them to have cheaper and more diversified energy sources. Developing nations can even use grow excess and sell to other nations. With the integration of the smart grid, developing nations can move up the value chain and sell energy to nations who need it. This biofuel eliminates the problem of replacing food crops that biofuel such as corn, sugarcane and palm poses.

Rating

Overall I give this lesson an 8 out of 10. I have learnt quite a few new things and the presentations were good.

Lesson 6

Biomedical and Healthcare

This we discussed about biomedical and healthcare. We looked at the rising costs of healthcare and the management of health and the biomedical business.

Healthcare

According to the healthcare ranking by World Health Organisation (WHO), the 1^st is France, 6^th is Singapore and the Unites States (US) is a dismal 37^th. Most rich European nations tend to rank higher as they have socialised healthcare.(http://www.who.int/whr/en/)

This underscores the inequality of healthcare in the US. The US has one of the most advanced medical treatments in the world with it high investments of Research and Development (R&D). However, many treatments are only within reach to the few rich people in US, the majority of the population has very little access to good healthcare. The history of big medical lawsuits and the medical insurance system in the US have drove up healthcare costs putting reasonably good healthcare out of the reach of majority Americans.

Huge frivolous medical lawsuits have made doctor very cautious in their diagnosis. Doctors order a myriad of different tests even though 1 test would be sufficient in most cases. MRI scans and such are very expensive, the proliferation of the use of diagnostics drove up the cost of insurance premiums and medical bills(for those without insurance too).

The medical insurance system in US also encourages people to go for unnecessary treatments or checks. The ‘kiasu’ mentality, that is to get more mileage out of their insurance, Americans sought more expensive treatments or opt for unnecessary surgeries or stay in the hospital longer than necessary. Therefore, driving up insurance premiums too.

Singapore has been very successful in balancing costs and good healthcare coverage. Various measures such as co-payment insurance and government subsidy has keep healthcare affordable for majority of the population. For those who are poor, the government would have counsellors to help the patient and his or her family to find financial support to help with the medical bills. Which means that the no Singaporean should have not have access to healthcare. However, there are other aspects to healthcare that Singapore does not do so well in. Singapore has excels in critical medical care. However, it has long waiting periods for its non-critical medical cases. Wait time for diagnostics scans and consultation in such cases usually take a few months and in some cases 6 months of waiting. This may be the reason why Singapore is only rank 6^th by WHO. The government’s reason for this is that the hospital needs to balance cost and service. Unlike countries like France (13.7% GDP) and the US (16% og GDP), the Singapore government only spends $2.5 billion on subsidising its population for healthcare or about 4% GDP on healthcare. (http://www.singhealth.com.sg/AboutSingHealth/CorporateOverview/Newsroom/NewsArticles/2008/Pages/Spendingonhealthcare'boundtogoup'.aspx)

(http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/35/42/43925776.pdf)

Singapore has the most ‘bang for the buck’ compared to the countries on the raking by WHO. (http://takingnote.tcf.org/2008/07/health-care-in.html) Singapore has recognised to shortage problem and has 2 new hospitals in line, Jurong General Hospital JGH) and Khoo Teck Phuat Hospital (KTPH), though KTPH is replaces the current Alexandra Hospital. This will help to lessen the waiting time. In addition, the new Medicine course at NTU will help increase the supply of doctors in Singapore. Other measures such as step-down care to medical centres and nursing homes will help improve the situation as Singapore expects more people to require rehab, physiotherapy and non-critical care by a nurse due to aging population. The Singapore government has also done well to recognise that improving wellness can keep the people from falling ill in the first. The government have taken steps to encourage people to eat well and exercise through media and providing sports facilities and parks. Continuing in this direction to encourage health lifestyle will certainly help.

However, Singapore can do a lot more to improve in patient’s waiting time. Singapore’s hospitals have to restructured to operate under 2 management companies, Singhealth and National Health Group (NHG) to improve competition. Improving sharing of information is one major area. Currently, many reports and scan results are not being shared among all the hospitals in both parent companies, it is only shared within the hospitals under its parent company. This creates duplication and addition waiting times.

Singapore has only recently begun to computerise patient’s records. Hospitals can improve their IT systems to tap into next generation technology such as Sematic Web to make reduce patients’ visits to hospitals, reminding patients of appointment times, sharing for reports and consultation through video conferencing will help reduce waiting times, especially for those with chronic conditions. Currently, Singapore government has improve its Internet network by upgrading its cables islandwide, but this upgrade is 1 generation behind the state of the art which has been used by countries like South Korea for a few years. Thus, the Singapore government should leapfrog to the state of the art network data transmission cables than upgrading over time.

In addition, Singapore can go 1 step further than Preventive Medicine into Pre-emptive Medicine, to look at risk factors in health and try to manage the risk even before the disease happens. The most obvious benefit is in Oncology where early detection is most critical to treating the disease.

Healthcare in 3^rd World Countries

Bringing in some things related to IT, which was discussed last week. Using cheap technology like radio, doctors can provide medical advice to people to improve primary healthcare to the poor as hospitals are far and few in 3^rd world nations. In short, this measure can help improve access. In addition hospitals can straight away leapfrog to use electronic patient management systems which can drastically improve waiting time, sharing of patients’ information and reduce errors. Such software is widely available little or no cost and a small investment in hardware can make a big difference in healthcare and reduce costs or treating patients whose condition have worsen from the poor access or long wait for treatment.

Pharmaceuticals

Asia has become a big player of biomedical outsourcing, especially India. Businesses have been set up to provide clinical testing services to help pharmaceutical companies do their research. Developing nations benefit from the booming business which helps them to develop. Pharmaceutical companies benefit from the lower costs as these SMEs are more efficient and the allowance for the test subjects are lower. However many ethical issues have cropped up.

1 major area is whether these test subjects are being exploited.  Pharmaceutical companies move to developing countries to do clinical testing because costs are lower and there is lesser regulations concerning the clinical trials and then make big profits from the drugs when the drugs are approved. Thus it may seem unfair to these people in the developing countries.

Therefore, it is the governments’ role of these developing countries to have regulations to protect their people. In addition, international organisations such as the WHO can have regulations to govern this aspect of biomedical. This institution can then reject the results of the clinical trials forcing pharmaceutical companies to abide by these rules.

Overall

I give this lesson 7 out of 10 as the presentations were not very interesting. However, I find the topic very interesting though.

Lesson 5

This lesson, we discussed on Information and Communication Technology (ICT). We look at some areas of ICT: mass media, Internet, wireless technology, interactivity, info systems, dangers of ICT and the potential of ICT to drive development and the economy.


Mass Media
Newspapers have been suffering with the advent of the Internet. Having to come up with new ways to bring content to people such as having online platform. However, there are newspapers that have not been able to compete and closed. Even venerable ones such as Newsweek are in trouble.


However, ICT presents potential for news companies to grow, through the integration of technology. Currently, a flexible screen is already in development can be commercialised in the near future. Imagine carrying this flexible screen instead of many different newspapers and books. Other than revolutionising our lifestyle, this technology can have the potential to bring greater access to a lot more people. Imagine people in lesser developed countries being able to access interactive news and information about the world. Perspectives can change, motivating them to create.


Games the Engine for Technology
The military has been developing many of the technology that has been later converted for civilian use. One of the most impactful one is the Internet. However, with shrinking military budgets worldwide, many cutting edge technologies have been developed by the gaming industry. For example, the development of simulation technology is so advanced that the military is now using simulation games to train soldiers.


Gaming is a multi-billion dollar industry that has become the forefront of virtual reality and simulation. For example, Project Natal that is being developed by Microsoft is totally revolutionary. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) is able to respond appropriately to human actions and emotions and make people feel connected to the AI characters. Imagine the application of this technology from gaming to other areas. For example, having an AI nanny to mind the kids when parents are busy working. Such simulation technologies can also be applied in the medical field to train doctors to perform better surgeries.


Info Systems
Currently, we have many systems in an organisation. From customer management to office productivity suites to employee management systems. These systems are not linked up and thus do not talk to each other. In the future, these information can be more readily shared among the systems.


Cloud computing is being accepted as the future of info systems. It is cheaper as companies only pay for what they use instead of having to won their own servers. In addition, the software is easily customised and is upgraded seamlessly instead of systems such as SAP (everyone can definitely remember how troublesome SAP was).

 

Server farm

imagine a huge room filled with rows of these servers

The Chief Infomation Officer's (CIO) will tend change from trying to own and create their own systems to a more strategic role. The new CIO will be able into resources in cloud computing and look at how to better integrate the systems in the organisation and customising the systems to make it useful to the users of the organisations and only keeping relevant date instead of archiving everything.

Some people may argue that cloud computing will result in compromised security such as sensitive information being stolen or information being lost. There are many measures to deal with such security issues and firms providing the cloud computing service have taken many measures to reassure the customers. Currently, companies use a mixture, where some non-sensitive and non-essential data are outsourced, retaining direct control over the sensitive and essential data. However, in the near future, I believe that cloud computing will be the norm and companies will be comfortable with outsourcing all their info systems and data archiving.

ICT and The Millennium Development Goals

(refer to Making ICT work for the Poor: Pursuing the Millennium Goals through ICT by Anna Badim)

In history, information was only available to the rich and powerful. Only the rich and powerful had access to education, the masses were not educated and had to work in hard labour. In modern times access to information is still remote many third world countries due to high costs to get the tools to access. However, with satellite television and the Internet, accessibility has improved.

Cheaper mobile phones and netbooks have allowed many people in third world countries to access to all the information in the world. Access to all the information and news in the Internet has changed the perspectives of these people. The exposure enables them to improve their lives and learn. In addition, they can seek help by sharing their stories to get support from others.

By providing greater access to ICT, third world countries are able to access the information and leapfrog. For example in healthcare, the third world countries do not need to spend a lot of money develop their own software in patient management, they can use software already developed and implement it in their healthcare system to help improve the management of patients' history and disease tracking. In education, teachers can tap to resources available online to teach students and enable students to experience the outside world.

Conclusion

ICT had provided many improvements to our lives. There are still many promising technologies in the near future with ICT. One may wonder if machines are able to have human personalities like those displayed in Project Natal, will humans be overrun by machines. Fortunately, Prof Michio Kaku a renowned theoretical physicist has assured that currently the smartest AI only have the intelligence of a cockroach.


Then technology advancement will make us reconsider what it means to be a human.


Overall I rate this lesson as 8 out of 10.

Lesson 4

This week, we are looking at drivers of change, change management and change leadership. The only constant in life is change which is the primary concept taught in the Chinese ancient text the Yi Jing (Book of Changes).

Organisations can stay only if they are able to adapt to changes. There area 3 ways to deal with change:
1. Proactive: To anticipate changes and drive change in the environment

2. Reactive: To respond and try to adapt to change that has happen

3. Resistant: To deny the change and remain in the status quo

Needless to say dealing with change in the 1st way is the best. However, this is often difficult for many to accomplish. There are even many that would deal with certain changes in the 3rd way. For example, cloud computing, there are many pros to it such as huge costs savings and stable software with little disruptions. In my view, it represent the future of Information Technology (IT) solutions. However there are still quite a number of organisations that do not believe in this innovation citing security concerns.

Change management

We are living in exponential times, change is happening all around us at rapid pace. Traditionally there will be 5 or 10 year plans to direct the organisation. However this is no longer feasible in the current landscape, organisations have to constantly review and revise their plans.

In addition the labour force is also changing. Organisations have to be lean to be responsive to change. Contract and temporary staff now accounts for a significant part of an organisations' employees. Employees are also being sent for training more frequently than before.

Other than having a structure that is responsive to change, an organisation needs to implement the right policies. The way the organisation manages change will greatly affect how the employees behave. The following articles gives you a good idea of what an organisation should do in change management:
http://www.solhaam.org/articles/directing.html

1. Forecast
This process is rather similar to most management strategies out there already, such as using SWAT analysis, evaluate opportunities, plan and set targets. However, organisations have to pay close attention on how the environment is changing and not just what the organisation want to see happen. Organisations have to keep an open mind to ideas so as to the organisation is able to innovate and grow. The organisation will then be able to chart out what the organisation would do in the coming new environment.

2. Implementation
This is step that is different and is the most important. If implemented wrongly there will not be people to realise and drive the change. Therefore the key is to get the people of the organisation to want to change, not just the top management.

The style of management is rather different to the hierarchical style but the management process is still similar to any management process. Managers have to get his team to own the change, by getting his team to look at what they can change to contribute to meet the direction. The teams will set targets together. Lastly as in any management process, there must be measurements to evaluate the implementation of the change.

3. Evaluation
On the overview, the top management have to set general measurements to determine the success of the change. The evaluation process like in any management process will help to review any other measures to take.

Conclusion
With more of the world moving to a knowledge based economy (KBE), organisations have to change the old management style from the Industrial Era and look to tapping talents in the team to stay dynamic. To be successful, organisations have to keep an open mind, continually challenging itself and dealing with the ever changing environment.

Overall, I would rate this lesson a 7 out of 10. The KBE was covered in Secondary school already. Maybe it was the presentations, where there was not as much interesting topics to talk about. Nevertheless the readings did provide some interesting perspectives on where the world will be going in the coming  future.

Lesson 3

This week we discussed about the technology and industrial development as well as innovation management.

Industrialisation

Historically, the suddenly explosion of prosperity in a nation is always attributed to industrialisation, starting with Britain, then the US then the 4 Asian Tiger (Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong) and now the emerging economies like, China, Vietnam and India.

However, this happens always at a cost to the environment. There is currently no proven solutions to replace the traditional way of development. Developing have to sacrifice their environment for economic development.

The traditional linear development: raw materials to end product, without consideration of what happens during the process of getting the end product. These externalities such as pollution, wastage and environmental degradation are treated as externalities that are necessary sacrifices that people need to make to develop.

However people now realise that the planet's resources are finite. There is a push towards sustainable development. Thus we not have the cyclical development model: wastage and pollution are not longer externalities, but are internalities that have to be considered. Environmental sustainability is therefore tied to economic development.

Though there is a push for sustainable development and green technologies, unfortunately there is still no industry that is environmentally sustainable. Even industries such as biofuel, electric cars and NEWATER (recycled potable water), are not sustainable as the energy used for produce these products are not sustainable. Though these technologies are 'greener' than the older technologies they replace but these green tecnologies are still not sustainable.

Therefore, to truly be sustainable, energy needs to be from a sustainable. There are many good work towards a myriad of energy sources, from solar to nuclear, all create pollution in the process. Scientists are still searching for a truly clean and sustainable energy source.

Advantage of Backwardness

There is this interesting concept if the advantages of being a backward nation from a paper from the United Nations on Industrialisation as an engine of growth in developing countries by Adam Szirmai. It illustrates how developing countries such as the Asian Tigers, rode on the proven technologies of the developed countries post WWII to transform their economies and bring tremendous prosperity to its population. The developed countries have done through the difficulty of trying the technologies and prefecting it. Developing countries have the advantage of taking the technologies and leapfrog from there as there are little risk in those validated technologies.

The West also benefited from this advantage as they were emerging from the Dark Ages when they got many technologies from the Middle Eastern nations. More recently emerging countries like China and India has leapfrogged by using technologies validated in the West. However, countries realise that if they want to be a developed nation, they have to be at the forefront of innovation. To be 1st rate, they have to develop their own technologies through R&D. This is exactly what countries like China, India and Singapore are doing. Investing in R&D to develop their own technologies.

Therefore, developing nations enjoy this advantage but have to keep in mind that they have to develop their own innovation so that they can move up the value chain.

Low Cost and Easy to Use Green Tech

A presentation by one of my fellow classmate presented a very discussion. Should the rich provide the less fortunate with sustainable technologies?

There are many Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) that provide aid to less developed countries. The rich can donate to these NGOs to help the less fortunate. What interests me is that there are quite a lot of rather low cost green technologies that are available. It will be easy for the less developed countries to adopt these green technologies are they are not used to any of the not sustainable modern conveniences, thus are more like to adopt these green technologies.

An example of this can be solar power stoves. Such green technologies can help the people in these less developed countries and enable them to develop in a more sustainable way, killing two birds with one stone. We can definitley do more to encourage such NGOs to help developing countries to develop in a more sustainable way, as we can environmental sustainability is our responsibility too.

Lesson 2

Intro

 The topic of the lesson is on Technology, Society and Global Dominance. We looked at how technological edge, social, military, economical and cultural factors can affect a nation's global dominance.
In addition we discussed about Technology and Human Development. We explored the different kinds of development such as technological, cultural (the arts), human talent development (education and productivity) and more. We focused more about sustainable development, green technology to achieve sustainable development and the Millennium Development Goals.

We also have a few students to present their readings on the above topics, which led to more interesting discussions.

Eurocentric History

Much of history are shaped by the Europeans and told from a European perspective. We hear about the great achievements on Greece and Rome, while little was said about the ancient Indian and Chinese empires that are even more superior in some areas of technology. It is only recently that we are hearing more about achievements of other ancient cultures to offer a more balanced view of the world.

In modern history, it is more so apparent. The winners of the wars are the ones that wrote history. The article "The Colonial Holocaust and its Legacy : Colonialism and its Contemporary Legacy in the Establishment of Western Civil Society" by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is a very interesting article. (http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq7.html#2) It offers an intelligent and more balanced account of what actually happened during and after the colonial era.

In Singapore's history textbooks, students are taught that the colonial powers are a force of good, helping to bring technology, law and governance to the colonies. The British gave Singapore proper legal structure and infrastructure. Though student are taught that the colonial masters did rob their colonies of resources in the other resource rich colonies. However, this article highlights that the European powers did even more damage then just that. Economies of many colonies were destoryed and manipulated to what the colonial powers needed.

This article highlights the covered part of colonial history and make us rethink if the colonial powers were beneficial at all to their colonies.

US Hegemony

With China rising in the world stage voicing their stand more than before, is the US hegemony being challenged? Will China seek hegemony?

Currently the US and China are very closely interdependent. China produce cheap goods and export a lot to the US allowing it to continue to grow at a minimum 8% annually. The US in turn have grown used to enjoy cheap goods from China. In order to this to continue, China has been buying US dollars and Treasuries to in effect subsidise the US consumers. This win-win, has led some to dub both as Chimerica. China has now become the main creditor of the US, to ensure stability back in China.

Will China one day pull the plug on the US and challenge the US hegemony? Will the world see major conflict between China and US? Will current trade tension lead to war? The last time when such a relationship exist, between the United Kingdom (UK) and Germany, led to World War I.

On a positive note, China is partipating actively in the current international framework. Continued integration and respect for international rules may prove to prevent World War III.

Rise of Great Powers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thVt4u5GnPY

This a 12-part documentary that I watched on History Channel a couple of years back. Do look at the other parts. It is a very interesting documentary that offers a balanced view of rise of nations, not merely eurocentric view. It covers the different factors that enable nation to be come dominant from Portugal before the Americas was found to the US dominance after World War II.


Unfortunately, I cannotfind the English version, only managed to find the original chinese version from CCTV in youtube. If you have the link to the English do let me know then we can share for the benefit of a wider audience.

Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReRx12QUv54

This emotional videos seeks to reach out to people to get more private organisation and grassroots leaders to garner more momentum and take actions to help to achieve these Millennium goals:

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Goal 4: Reduce Child Mortality Rate
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development

These are recognised to be the basic human living standards for all humans.

Though the deadline of 2015 will not see these goals being met, at least there is a recognition and commitment but all the nations. There is even a movement in the US now to get its high net worth individuals to give at least 50% of their wealth charity, following the lead of Warren Buffet and the Gates family. Society should not depend too heavily on the government. Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) can fill the gap, where members of the society contribute back to the society. This community spirit is very apparent in the early years of Singapore's development with people like Tan Tock Seng, Lee Kong Chian and Lien Ying Chow. These are examples on the rich helping the less fortunate and giving back to society. Bring more awareness to such a cause will encourage wealthier people to contribute to achieving the MDGs.

Presentation

A few of the our classmates gave presentations on the topics being discussed based on their readings. One presentation stood out by Cherrin. Her presentation was delivered well and the information brought across clearly. There were discussions on each of the presentations.

One was "is it necessary for developed countries to share their knowledge and know-how with the developing countries". Whether developed countries have the moral imperative to do so is debatable. However, from an economic perspective, developed countries have an enlightened self-interest to help developing countries to develop as that would create new markets for their higher value products. The developing countries wil also tend to give back in return. For example, China has built a lot of goodwill with the African nations to aid to them. African nations are then more willing to welcome Chinese companies.

Conclusion

Overall I rate this lesson as 6 out of ten. Due to some presentations taking too much time, there were little time for discussion on the issues presented. The presentation by Cherrin also made an impact to the rest of the class that this was the standard we should look to.

Rise of Great Powers e1 Part 1/5