Breaking Boundaries Maximising Growth in Technology and Innovation

[Music]

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

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

[Applause]

[Music]

you