Breaking Boundaries Maximising Growth in Technology and Innovation
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good morning
now before i start i’d like to ask if
anyone
can recognize this map
the hint is some masks i see some people
wearing some masks
so it’s a coronavirus and everyone here
has heard of the novel coronavirus
outbreak
i believe as of the 7th of february
the number of worldwide confirmed cases
have reached about 31
500 and the death toll up to 600
and these are the facts and figures for
yesterday
now can you imagine in just two weeks
the number of infected cases has spiked
up by more than double
and the death toll by more than 1 500
but these numbers are not just going to
stop here the virus will only continue
to spread
and spread and the numbers continue to
increase
until we can truly find a cure and make
preventive measures
fortunately in an attempt to bring this
outbreak under control
the who or the world health organization
is convening a global research and
innovation forum
to mobilize international action
but the who director said
that still there are questions we need
answers to
and tools we need developed as quickly
as possible
as quickly as possible which means that
we would need to act
even faster we would need to accelerate
the progress
but how can we accelerate this progress
how do we do this well let’s take a look
at what he said before
keep these two things in your mind first
the questions and answers
and second the tools to be developed
but the chronovirus outbreak is just one
of the countless
crises our world face every single day
and despite efforts being made towards
global issues many still remain
unresolved until today
first and foremost poverty is an
inescapable issue for nearly all
developing countries
second is hunger leaving one in every
four people malnourished
and in fact inadequate nutrition
contributes to nearly half of
all child deaths worldwide
third people lack water a necessity
essential for survival and a third of
the world’s population risk disease by
not having adequate sanitation
education is also another major issue
especially prevalent in developing
countries
and because of this there’s
a gender inequality as women would have
far less educational opportunities than
men
and in addition over the past century
there has been rapid environmental
decline
as deforestation pollution overfishing
and other man-made climate change remain
the global ground challenges have been
created with seven unsdgs or sustainable
development goals that also align to the
global issues mentioned before such as
deforestation or quality education
and their mission is to tackle our
planet’s most urgent problems
using exponential technologies but now
to achieve their goal there are many
many
many small steps that need to be taken
and it’s not uncommon for failure
however the mission of the global grand
challenges is to turn these ideas into
reality
as an open call for innovative ideas to
solve some of the world’s biggest
problems
now i do understand that solving poverty
solving hunger things have been that
have been here for the past millennia
but still remain unresolved they do
sound kind of impossible right
but i’m not talking about eradicating
these problems in just 10 days
but we can look toward the time frame of
several hundred years and if we do take
the necessary actions
then we will be able to see results now
combining the two missions that the
global grand challenges aim for
we get this an open call for innovative
ideas to tackle our planet’s most urgent
problems
using exponential technologies this
means that first
we’ll need innovative ideas and second
the exponential technologies
to make this work but for the first part
how do we get the most innovative of
ideas
most efficiently now recall the two
things that the who director has said
before
first the questions and answers and
second
the tools to be developed and we
actually find that we can align his
methods
so that we so that we get this
so you can actually use questions and
answers
to get innovative ideas but why
questions and answers and why are they
so important
well a recent article written by warren
berger has challenged assumptions
how brainstorming questions and not
ideas spark creativity
he highlighted the increasing importance
of developing questions rather than
generating ideas
yes brainstorming brainstorming has
developed a noteworthy reputation all
over the world
schools use it and companies use it but
when groups of people are thrown
together and expected to come up with
original ideas
there’s often too much pressure which
results in the lack of original ideas
instead
so if brainstorming doesn’t work
then why not use questions while this
may sound counterintuitive because
who needs questions we all need answers
it actually does allow people to
formulate lots of questions
around the topic or issue which would
then allow them to grasp a better
understanding around the problem
and lead to a deeper analysis this would
then yield smarter ideas on how to
tackle the problem
in addition while brainstorming is
typically dominated by a few big idea
people
questioning exercises on the other hand
seem to
have more across-the-board participation
mainly because they’re much easier to
think up of and they’re judged much less
harshly than ideas
in fact hal gregerson the executive
director of the mit leadership center
actually uses
um question storming sessions with his
clients
but he first tried this idea out 22
years ago
and he said that at that time he was
in a brainstorming session in one of his
mba sessions and they were discussing an
important problem that many
uh companies struggled with how to build
the culture of equality in a
male-dominated environment
now clearly this was an issue that many
of the students cared about
but they felt very uninspired by the
ideas that they were generating
and soon the energy level in the room
slowly
dissipated and eventually hit rock
bottom
hal gregerson he glanced at the clock
and then he decided
that he had to move on to a new starting
point so he said
everyone actually let’s just forget
about finding answers for today
and come up with questions let’s see how
many we can make in the remaining time
we have
and so they did the students threw out
questions and he scribbled them on the
chalkboard
he was surprised to find out that they
could come up with so many questions
in just um in just a little time and
they came up with questions that even
challenged the basic assumptions that
they had
even when the students left the room
they were still talking excitedly about
the few
questions that they made
there was so much more to discuss
because the discussion had opened up
new unexpected pathways for potential
solutions
amazing isn’t it but now
let’s take it a step further the next
part is
exponential thinking through the tools
to be developed
now as humans we tend to think in a
straight line
we take the first step and when we’re
done we continue on to the second step
and we take the third step and take the
next step and continue on until we reach
the endpoint right over there
but why do we do this why do we take
this kind of method
well it’s because it seems like the most
simplistic most systematic
isn’t it but this type of thinking
linear thinking
can it really survive in this era of
change technological change
with technology growing an unprecedented
pace at an exponential rate
can we as humans really keep up can we
adapt
think about it the previous generation
has so much more trouble
working around with computers and phones
and drones and teenagers do nowadays
so if linear thinking does not work as
effectively
then what kind of method
should we use
well here’s a clue technology as i’ve
said before has been growing at an
exponential rate
and these technologies are exactly what
we call exponential technologies
their power or speed doubles every year
but their cost is actually halved
artificial intelligence virtual reality
digital biology and biotech
nanotech medicine autonomous vehicles
and robotics
all these exponential technologies which
are shaping major industries and all
aspects of our lives
they all revolve around exponential
thinking
but if exponential thinking really did
give us such
would really give us such favorable
results then why haven’t many major
industries switched to it
or at least tried it out well actually
they did some did but can you see a
problem here
exponential thinking it starts out
really slow because
it’s actually not that easy there’s no
straight line from your start point to
end point there’s no step-by-step plan
but it’s actually because of this that
it actually
removes some of the disruptive stress
that comes with linear thinking and
reveals new opportunities
it actually allows people to become more
comfortable with uncertainty and more
ambitious
with their vision
but because it starts out slow there
aren’t immediate results and businesses
and companies
without immediate results and when
they’re impatient
they would resort back to linear
thinking
but if we can actually go beyond that
point we can expect that disruption
and in fact google actually
uses exponential thinking to reach its
ambitious vision
of organizing the world’s information
and facebook also uses exponential
thinking
to make the world more connected now
moving on to my third point
it’s actually a bit different but it was
one that
i realized from a problem back in 2014
and i attended this robotics center um
and that year together with my friends
we joined a competition called first
lego league
and our team decided that for that year
we wanted to have the under privilege
gain some valuable experiences some new
opportunities
and so we provided some hands-on
activities for the children to work
around with and engage in robotics
and we were glad to see that they were
actually excited
they were passionate about it but this
told us one thing
it meant that it was their first time
it meant that without these activities
they wouldn’t have even known that
robotics ever existed
and without these activities they
wouldn’t have even built interest in
these fields
but without utilizing everyone we can
how can we further maximize the growth
of technology and innovation
how can we accelerate its pace
but we also added in some stem skills um
stem activities into the project
and at the time it was actually a
relatively new concept
but it’s now considered to be the key
for a successful future
in fact research has shown that students
who study stem are more creative
flexible and are able to take advantage
of the changes in their workplace and
workforce of the future
so i believe that we should first apply
uh provide some hands-on activities for
children to
build interest in these fields and then
use stem activities to further cultivate
the thinking flexibility of their
mindset
there are countless global issues all
over the world and more so
than we can probably ever count but we
have hope
we’ve seen how far technology has taken
us in this past decade
a new phenomenal inventions are
constantly constantly evolving
but in order to further maximize the
growth of technology and innovation i
believe that we will need to utilize
several strategies first when we find
out when we find it difficult to come up
with innovative ideas
why not take a breather from
brainstorming ideas and instead try to
come up with questions
the next step would be to shift from
linear thinking towards exponential
thinking
but we aren’t utilizing everything to
the max yet to do that
i believe that we must first provide
some hands-on activities
to build interest in these fields and
then provide some stem activities
for them to cultivate their thinking
flexibility
so i would like to conclude that with
these three strategies we will be able
to further maximize the growth
of technology and innovation and if we
are able to take this initiative
humanity will be able to take the next
step forward towards the future
thank you
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