Biosensing is the conversion
of biological processes into useful information. Incorporating a
variety of means, including electrical, electronic, and photonic devices;
biological materials (e.g., tissue, enzymes, nucleic acids, etc.) and
chemical analysis biosensing produces signals to detect biological
elements, using related technologies to convert these signals into readable
data. From biomedicine to food production, environment to security and
defense, biosensing addresses a rapidly growing industry in this field.
What is more, the Netherlands is home to a number of scientists who
are currently working on a number of biosensors, promising to come up
with groundbreaking new technologies in all. For the Future of
Biosensing a few of these scientists are going to share some insights
of their work to describe how our future might be effected as a result
of these developments.
from the book Emotional Cartography - Technologies of the Self
This book is a collection of essays from artists, psychogeographers,
designers, cultural researchers, futurologists and neuroscientists,
brought together to explore the political, social and cultural
implications of visualising peoples intimate biometric data
and emotions using technology. The book is the outcome of a research
process which aimed to reach a deeper understanding of a project
called Bio Mapping, which since 2004, has involved
thousands of participants in over 16 different countries. Bio
Mapping emerged as a critical reaction towards the currently dominant
concept of pervasive technology, which aims for computer intelligence
to be integrated everywhere, including our everyday lives and
even bodies. The Bio Mapping project investigates the implications
of creating technologies that can record, visualise and share
with each other our intimate body-states.
The Bio Mapping device: GPS - left, fingercuffs - top and data logger
on the right.
To practically explore
this subject, I invented and built the Bio Mapping device, which
is a portable and wearable tool recording data from two technologies:
a simple biometric sensor measuring Galvanic Skin Response and
a Global Positioning System (GPS). The bio-sensor, which is based
on a lie-detector, measures changes in the sweat level of the
wearers fingers. The assumption is that these changes are
an indication of emotional intensity. The GPS part
of the device also allows us to record the geographical location
of the wearer anywhere in the world and pinpoint where that person
is when these emotional changes occur. This data can
then be visualised in geographical mapping software such as Google
Earth. The result is that the wearers journey becomes viewable
as a visual track on a map, whose height indicates the level of
physiological arousal at that particular moment. The Bio Mapping
tool is therefore a unique device linking together the personal
and intimate with the outer space of satellites orbiting around
the Earth. The device appears to offer the colossal possibility
of being able to record a persons emotional state anywhere
in the world, in the form of an Emotional Map.
People who actually wore the device and tried it out while going
for a walk and then saw their own personal emotion map visualised
afterwards, were baffled and amazed. But their positive reactions
hardly compared to the huge global newspaper and TV network attention
that followed the launch of the project. People approached me
with a bewildering array of commercial applications: estate agents
in California wanting an insight into the geographical distribution
of desire; car companies wanting to look at drivers stress,
doctors trying to re-design their medical offices, as well as
advertising agencies wanting to emotionally re-brand whole cities.
Other emails arrived from academic sociologists, geographers,
futurologists, economists, artists, architects and many urban
planners, trying to get new mental insights into their own disciplines.
Surprisingly, there were also intensely personal emails from people
who wanted to understand their own body and mind in more detail,
asking for a therapeutic device to monitor their daily anxiety
levels.
I was shocked: my device, or more correctly, the idea or fantasy
of my device had struck a particular 21st century zeitgeist. A
huge range of people had imagined ways of applying the concept,
some of which I felt uncomfortable about. I realised that Mapping
Emotions had become a meme that was not mine anymore, but
one that I had merely borrowed temporarily from the global unconscious.
Faced with some dramatic choices, I decided to try to establish
and document my own vision of emotion mapping as a reflexive and
participatory methodology.
From Device to Methodoligy
From talking with
people who tried out the device, I was struck by their detailed
and personal interpretations of their bio-data. Often we would
sit next to each other and look at their track together. While
I would see just a fairly random spiky trail, they saw an intimate
document of their journey, and recounted events which encompassed
the full breadth of life: precarious traffic crossings, encounters
with friends, meeting people they fancied, or the nervousness
of walking past the house of an ex-partner. Sometimes people who
walked along the same path would have spikes at different points,
with one commenting on the smells of rotting ships, while another
being distracted by the CCTV cameras. People were using the Emotion
Map as an embodied memory-trigger for recounting events that were
personally significant for them. Sometimes these descriptions
overlapped, while at other times they were unique. For them, the
spikes were documenting not what we would commonly call emotion,
but actually a variety of different sensations in relation to
the external environment such as awareness, sensory perception
and surprise. I suddenly saw the importance of people interpreting
their own raw bio-data for themselves.
Bio Mapping functions as a total inversion of the lie-detector,
which supposes that the body tells the truth, while we lie with
our spoken words. With Bio Mapping, peoples interpretation
and public discussion of their own data becomes the true and meaningful
record of their experience. Talking about their body data in this
way, they are generating a new type of knowledge combining objective
biometric data and geographical position, with the subjective
story as a new kind of psychogeography.
Participants often describe the sensation of using the Bio Mapping
tool as a kind of Reality TV show, where they can see their own
life documented in front of them. Such a description suggests
something similar to Berthold Brechts notion of Verfremdung
(de-familiarisation). Brechts idea is that this performative
distancing allows the viewer to take a critical distance on viewed
events. In the case of Bio Mapping, the participants are vocalising
their intimate internal mental life as well as public behaviour
to a communal group. In effect, the participants are carrying
out a type of co-storytelling with the technology, that allows
them to creatively disclose, or omit, as much as they like of
what happened during their walks. The Bio Mapping tool therefore
acts as performative technology which shoulders the
burden of having to hold the publics attention, while offering
a safe distance from public exposure to the interpreter.
Used in this way, the tool allows people who have never met each
other to tell elaborate descriptions of their own experiences,
as well their opinions on the local neighbourhood, in a way that
they would have never done otherwise.
This vision of Bio Mapping as a performative tool which mediates
relationships is very different to the fantasy of Emotion Mapping
that many people approached me about: such as marketeers
intentions to metaphorically slice peoples heads open
to see their innermost feelings and desires.
With the passing of the time, I started to realise that both the
particular context and ways in which a biometric sensor is used
drammatically affects the social relationships that are formed,
as well as the types of observations that people make during the
workshop.
The early Bio Mapping workshops had all taken place in art galleries
in the centres of towns and cities. People often walked randomly
for 30 minutes before returning to the exhibition to see their
emotion maps. In such context, the kind of descriptions and annotations
that people left were mainly anecdotal: drank a coke here, had
an ice cream there, was spooked by pigeons etc.
Once I started to work with local community organisations for
longer periods of time and in less central towns areas, where
people lived in and cared about (and not just worked or shopped),
the annotations changed dramatically. Instead of being just about
their momentary sensations in the space, participants told stories
that intermingled their lives with the place, local history and
politics. The discussions often followed a trajectory of noticing
the bodily effect of car traffic on one persons emotion
map, often leading to discussing the lack of public space and
identifying its social and poltical causes. This process of scaling-up
and seeking connections between issues encouraged people to talk
both personally and politically in a way they had often not done
before with other local people.
At the end of each Bio Mapping workshops project, all the information
and data gathered were designed into a printed map, which was
then distributed for free in the locality. For example, in the
Greenwich Emotion Map, this meant using a GIS (Geographical Information
Systems) software to create a communal arousal surface which blended
together 80 peoples arousal data and annotations. The resulting
communal emotion surface is a conceptual challenge
and question. Can we really blend together our emotions and experiences
to construct a totally shared vision of place?
the
future of Biosensing
Thursday, February 11, 2010 Registration: 18:30-19:00,
Conference: 19:00-21:15 Location:
Waag
Society, Nieuwmarkt 4, 1012 CR Amsterdam [Center of the Nieuwmarkt]
registration more
information
The
speakers and topics are
Davide Iannuzzi,
Associated Professor, VU
University Amsterdam
Fiber-top micromachined devices: biosensors on the tip of a fiber
Robert
Shepherd, Founder, Eduverse
Virtual worlds and biosensors
Bert
Mik,
Scientist and anesthesiologist, Erasmus Medical Center
Christian
Nold, artist, designer and educator "Bio
Mapping" -
an exhibition
Moderated by Iclal
Akcay,
Research Journalist
.SixthSense
"Nothing can be and can not be one and at the same time and
I am, I am
Pranav Mistry.
Currently, I am a
Research Assistant and PhD candidate at the MIT Media Lab. Before
joining MIT I worked as a UX Researcher with Microsoft. I received
my Master in Media Arts and Sciences from MIT and Master of Design
from IIT Bombay. I have completed my bachelors degree in Computer
Science and Engineering. Palanpur is my hometown, which is situated
in northern Gujarat in India.
Exposure to fields
like Design to Technology and from Art to Psychology gave me a
quite nice/interesting viewpoint to the world. I love to see technology
from design perspective and vice versa. This vision reflects in
almost all of my projects and research work as well. in short,
I do what I love and I love what I do. I am a 'Desigineer' :)
"
'SixthSense'
is a wearable gestural interface that augments the physical world
around us with digital information and lets us use natural hand
gestures to interact with that information. By using a camera
and a tiny projector mounted in a pendant like wearable device,
'SixthSense' sees what you see and visually augments any surfaces
or objects we are interacting with. It projects information onto
surfaces, walls, and physical objects around us, and lets us interact
with the projected information through natural hand gestures,
arm movements, or our interaction with the object itself. 'SixthSense'
attempts to free information from its confines by seamlessly integrating
it with reality, and thus making the entire world your computer.
Biochips are most likely among the most important
medical instruments that appeared over the past few years, on account
of the fact that they can analyze samples looking for a variety
of contaminants, and can provide rapid results. Made up of miniaturized
test sites (microarrays) on a solid substrate, these chips could
become even smaller in the future, and cheaper to mass-produce.
And that day may not be so far out, researchers from the Fraunhofer
Institute for Applied Polymer Research IAP, in Germany, reveal.
They have created a gel that is able to make proteins feel at
home on biochips.
Biochips carrying thousands of DNA fragments are widely used for
examining genetic material. Experts would also like to have biochips
on which proteins are anchored. This requires a gel layer which
can now be produced industrially.
We have developed a gel a network of organic molecules
that we can apply to the surface of the biochip. This gel
layer is only about 100 to 500 nano-meters thick and consists mainly
of water. We thus make the protein believe that it is in a solution,
even though it is chemically connected to the network. It feels
as if it is in its natural environment and continues to function
even though it is on a biochip, IAP Group Manager Dr. Andreas
Hollander explains.
Apparently,
this is one of the most important things about such a device, especially
if it's one laden with proteins. The whole idea about proteins is
that they have a 3D structure, which they use to interact with various
molecules, or to control biological processes inside the human body.
However, if they were to bind with the substrate on a biochip, they
would lose their specific structure, and would become useless, or
worse, destroy its own structure, tainting the results of the analysis.
HYDROFILL is the world's
first personal hydrogen station designed by Horizon. The small desktop
device simply plugs into the AC, a solar panel or a small wind turbine,
automatically extracts hydrogen from its water tank and stores it
in a solid form in small refillable cartridges.
The cartridges contain
metallic alloys that absorb hydrogen into their crystalline structure,
and release it back at low pressures, removing concerns about storing
hydrogen at high pressure. This storage method also creates the
highest volumetric energy density of any form of hydrogen storage,
even higher than liquid hydrogen. Unlike conventional batteries,
these cartridges carry more energy capacity, are cheaper, and do
not contain any environmentally-harmful heavy metals.
The last decade has seen a rapid surge of interest in new sensing
and monitoring devices for healthcare and the use of wearable/wireless
devices for clinical applications. One key development in this area
is implantable in vivo monitoring and intervention devices. Several
promising prototypes are emerging for managing patients with debilitating
neurological disorders and for monitoring of patients with chronic
cardiac diseases. Despite the technological developments of sensing
and monitoring devices, issues related to system integration, sensor
miniaturization, low-power sensor interface circuitry design, wireless
telemetric links and signal processing have still to be investigated.
Moreover, issues related to Quality of Service, security, multi-sensory
data fusion, and decision support are active research topics.
This book addresses
the issues of this rapidly changing field of wireless wearable and
implantable sensors and discusses the latest technological developments
and clinical applications of body-sensor networks.
At Cientifica we
have been working with emerging technologies for fifteen years,
whether developing field emission displays in the mid 90s,
or advising governments, companies and the World Economic Forum
in recent years. Over this period money has been made and lost
in everything from medical devices to scientific instrumentation
and carbon nanotubes, and this hands-on approach has left us with
a wealth of practical experience.
As we approach the end of the first decade of a new millennium,
science and technology are advancing faster than ever, with a
wide range of new and emerging technologies ready to change the
world and take investors for a ride.
As a sane and rational voice in a sea of hype, and one of the
few companies whose clients have consistently been on the winning
team in technology investment, we present a brief guide to making
money out of emerging technologies for governments companies and
investors.
Hands Up Who Swallowed the Hype?
Somewhere near the dawn of time, where men clad in animal skins
hunted mammoths to feed their families, and those of us who hadn't
lost everything in the dot .com crash shivered in the dark, a
bright scientist named Mike Roco was writing a plan that was to
become The National Nanotechnology Initiative.
While much of the document was eminently sensible, especially
given the fact that most people's view of nanotechnology was,
at the time, influenced by the idea of little robots, nanobots,
rather than the rather mundane world of advanced materials, this
really didn't matter. What really caught the imagination was the
headline A TRILLION DOLLAR MARKET BY 2015 - and that's where the
trouble started.
This wasn't the first time that a new emerging technology had
been touted as the answer to all of humanity's ills, or investors'
prayers, and it won't be the last time. From biotech in the 1970's
to synthetic biology now, we draw on Cientifica's decades of investing
expertise to offer a guide of how Governments, Companies and Investors
can take advantage of emerging technologies without getting seduced
by the hype.
Everyone, from Venture Capitalists, who had made a few million
from the dot.com era, to entrepreneurs and scientists looked at
the magic trillion-dollar number and thought "I want a piece
of that!"
However, like almost every business plan we have seen, the plan
contained a prediction that looked something like the graphic
below, where the x axis goes from now to some point in the future,
far enough away that it may be plausible, but no too near that
it may be laughable.
This is, or course, the dreaded exponential curve, a much abused
but little understood mathematical function. If we consider the
x-axis to be time, and the y-axis to be sales, revenues, profits,
return on an investment, ability to attract good-looking girls
or any other measure that we want to market, then it looks quite
attractive. What is less attractive is that while the last portion
of the curve looks like a worthwhile investment, almost 70% of
it looks to give very poor yields.
Unfortunately much of this was as a result of people not checking
their facts. We still see business plans that are entirely based
on a 2007 study of nanotechnology markets that predicts that some
sector or other will suddenly start gobbling up huge chunks of
nanotechnologies (showing exponential growth). We see revenues
that suddenly increase by an order of magnitude in a year, with
entrepreneurs calculating back from some fantastical figure just
over the horizon rather than doing their own market research.
We're now seeing similar wild predictions for synthetic biology,
industrial biotech and a host of other areas - remember that wherever
there is hope there is a market research firm ready to help you
develop the kind of numbers that investors like to see.
But look at it this way, five years ago no one predicted Twitter,
Facebook or the iPhone, so why would anyone attempt to build a
business on a market predicted to start emerging in eight or nine
years?
While there is money to be made from emerging technologies, the
magnitude of the returns, and their nature differs widely between
the various players. Governments want wider economic returns,
while investors just want a positive return while minimising risk.This
white paper examines three different strategies for reaping the
benefits of nanotechnologies.
What Governments Should Do
We spent a lot of time over the last ten years asking various
governments why they were setting up nanotechnology programs,
and the answer was usually to remain competitive in a technologically
based world. Behind the bluff was an element of 'me too' as many
policy makers looked at the US National Nanotechnology Initiative
and wondered whether they should try to muscle in on the action
more effectively than they did with semiconductors or the Internet.
The result was a glut of nanotechnology research programs that
proved a bonanza for infrastructure and instrumentation companies.
While the peak of the clean-tech mania seems to have passed, science
has no shortage of other potential panaceas to throw at the world's
ills.
However, ten years on there are a number of challenges that governments
are facing:
Nanotechnology
has been heavily funded for ten years, yet we still only see
a handful of products and little in the way of the total transformation
that was promised in the early days. This leads politicians
to believe that funding can be diverted to other 'hot' areas
such as clean tech where announcements of new programs can be
more easily quantified in terms of swaying undecided votes in
their direction.
An increasing
pressure to focus on grand challenges and applied science rather
than pure knowledge, or impact-based research funding as is
it increasingly known.
Competition for
funding - as more areas of technology emerge, whether synthetic
biology, Clean Tech, Industrial Biotech etc., governments are
faced with static budgets and increased competition due to Credit
Crunch Economics. The danger is that existing programs die a
death of a thousand cuts to placate more academic pressure groups
with fewer resources, resulting in an under-funded and ineffective
technology program a mile wide and an inch deep.
Consumer Pressure
Groups are increasingly anti technology. While some of their
concerns are legitimate, many are not, and for policy makers
who are not scientific experts, and few are, speculative concerns
are given equal weighting with scientific results.
So what can Governments
do to ensure a more effective transfer of technologies from the
lab to the economy?
Support basic
research. While we know a lot more than we used to about nanotechnologies
we are still at an early stage. It has taken biotech thirty
years to get this far, and all emerging technologies will face
a similar long haul. The more we understand about the basics,
the easier it is to turn something that works in a lab into
an industrial process. To achieve that, you really need to understand
the science behind the phenomena, and that takes ten to fifteen
years.
Create more spin-outs.
Easy to say, but how much time and effort is wasted by governments
in supporting small technology-based businesses when very few
of them actually exist. The usual bunch of professional project
managers who haven't moved technology forward one iota in ten
years will suck up any government cash. A system of small, no
strings attached grants for technology-based start-ups would
encourage university spin-outs and support them through that
difficult first year of product development. We are talking
about tens of thousands of pounds, not millions.
Address the issues
of process and manufacturing. Many countries trumpet about a
wide range of open access facilities, but how many of them actually
do what is needed by business? The key to getting to market
is moving a lab-based process to an industrial process, meaning
not just scale up, but quality control and reproducibility.
For a technology to be usable it needs to be a reproducible
process with quality control to ensure that the result will
be the same whether you produce a gram or a ton, and whether
you do that this week, next week, or in ten years time. Leveraging
existing expertise in pharmaceuticals and chemicals is an obvious
place to start.
Cut regulation
for start-ups, don't strangle them at birth. Not every start-up
works, many don't, but some do. It's a numbers game but funding
more start-ups to employ more people is surely better than funding
people to be idle.
Fire 90% of university
tech transfer people and replace them with people who understand
how small businesses and science based innovation actually works.
We have spent months negotiating with some institutions that
issue unreasonable
demands and detailed ten-year revenue projections when current
economic conditions can change in ten minutes.
What Companies
Should Do
Some companies have done very well out of nanotechnologies, while
others have fared less well. The golden rule seems to be
Avoid
nanomaterials at all costs (unless you are a large chemical company)
Oxonica, publicly quoted in the UK, is a classic illustration
of the typical trajectory of a nanomaterials company. After five
years of trying out different applications of nanomaterials, from
phosphors to fuel additives, the company began to gain traction
and managed to hold an initial public offering valuing the company
at some £150 million. However, many of their products were
generic, for example titania nanoparticles for sunscreens, and
could not be protected and others were licensed getting the company
bogged down in disputes about intellectual property and licence
terms. With only a few products to sell, and required to find
channels to market in areas as diverse as cosmetics, fuel additives
and security, the company was unable to realise its early potential.
Investors gradually lost patience and the company withdrew from
Londons AIM market in 2009.
Despite this cautionary tale, many large companies who have heavily
invested in carbon nanomaterials production, Mitsubishi Chemical,
Bayer, Arkema and others seem to be still searching for a market.
While large chemical companies can, and often do, take a fifteen
or twenty year view, smaller companies have a tough time getting
their investors to swallow more than a few years.
Even the largest companies have been under strain recently leading
to four main challenges
We built it (the
plant) but they didn't come - many companies have made the transition
from lab-scale production to pilot plants, and the better funded
among them have even built full-scale plants, but often the
growth stops there, why?
The reason is often access to markets (see below).
Breaking out of
the sales trap - emerging technologies can have diverse applications.
While a large company such as BASF can add a few additional
lines to its existing catalogues on paints, coatings, adhesives
etc., as it already has a wellestablished presence, smaller
companies often do not have the resources to develop each channel,
relying instead in one or two large potential customers. But
who would companies rather trust, a well-established multinational
or a few guys who just spun out a company?
High R&D costs
in an era of falling budgets - the latest numbers show R&D
spending holding up well despite the economic climate, but pressure
is mounting, especially on longer-term R&D projects to show
some evidence of success.
Cost of litigation
- Oxonica, Raymor, and Evident are just three of the nanotech
companies that came close to failure in 2009 as a result of
litigation. Smaller companies simply do not have the resources,
either financial or human, to fight long energy sapping legal
battles with larger competitors.
Fear of backlash
/ litigation / class action - With any new material or process
there is the possibility of unforeseen effects. It is almost
impossible to determine the full lifecycle of any material,
and in complex multivariate systems such as the environment
there is always a possibility, no matter how remote, of unintended
consequences.
So what can companies
do to ensure a return on their investments thus far?
Search for complementary
technology to address market needs . one trick companies rarely
succeed, and a large part of addressing market needs involves
finding out what end users really want, whether master batches,
dispersions or a more usable user interface.
Avoid commoditising
your core product - Simply producing a material puts you in
direct competition with the bulk chemical industry. Companies
that protect their product and add value through IP or trade
secrets (how do you get it to stay dispersed?) can prevent erosion
of margins.
Take advantage
of government R&D collaboration facilities - the last ten
years has seen massive government investment in infrastructure
with much of it having the aim of providing this to industry.
Some academics are more receptive to industry than others, but
as your taxes have already paid for it, use it!
Create a product
or process - magnetic storage was nothing new, but when Apple
took advantage of the effect of giant magnetoresistance which
made 2" hard drives possible a whole new industry was born.The
iPod was made possible by Nobel prize winning nanotechnology,
but the technology was not developed by Apple even though they
made all the money.
Partner for channels
to market - a company may have the technology but it probably
won't have the channels it needs to get it into the hands of
the people who want it. As an example, big pharmaceutical companies
own most of the medical sales channels, and it is often faster
and cheaper in the long run to partner with big player provided
that your technology doesn't disrupt their business too much.
What Investors
Should Do
How can you do appropriate
due diligence on a technology that is so new that you have nothing
to compare it to? You can't, so investors need to look at more
creative ways of funding emerging technologies.
Technology IPO's are few and far between these days, and if businesses
that are funded by a couple of guys with a couple of laptops that
wind up reaching hundreds of millions of people have problems
what is the situation like for a couple of guys who need a lab
full of glassware and some pretty fancy instrumentation just to
get to proof of concept? Dismal!
Many investors find it hard to make rational decisions when it
comes to investing in emerging technologies because oftenthe technology
is too new, and markets too diverse, but more importantly too
far away from the normal everyday experience. (Policy makers have
similar issues, in that they can grasp the importance of things
that relate to their daily lives and tend to ignore the rest).
In general, investing in emerging technologies is more like taking
an option on the future than scoring a sure fire slam dunk home
run and is fraught with danger, but there are steps investors
can make to minimise risk.
First and foremost
ignore any reports citing exponential growth and do your own
due diligence. Is the science feasible, is there anybody on
the management team who would look credible to investors, how
much does the company know about its target market and how do
the know this? If all the market numbers come from someone else's
work then walk away.
Invest for the
long haul. That's easy for multinationals and sovereign wealth
funds to do, less easy for VCs and private equity and even trickier
for private investors. Despite claims that we are accelerating
towards a technological singularity it still takes ten to fifteen
years from the emergence of a new discipline to making serious
money.
Don't look at
the basic technology but what it enables. Coming back to the
iPod analogy again, you don't have to invent a technology to
take advantage of it. In the same way that the iPhone generated
huge opportunities for people to develop applications running
on the platform, thin film flexible photovoltaics will require
all kinds of infrastructure from smart metering to storage.
Leave the heavy lifting to the huge armour plated rhinos who
can raise $100 million, and just be the bird that lives on the
ticks.
Look for revenue
as well as exits. While an IPO or acquisition is the big pay
off, loan notes, R-class stock or even consultancy fees are
good ways to share in any growth on valuation and/or revenue.
Finally, and importantly,
don't invest in something you don't understand. If you can't
tell your proteins from your enzymes or your protons from your
electrons either get someone to explain it to you or steer well
clear of emerging technologies.
Conclusion
So does this make investment in emerging technologies a good or
a bad idea? It depends who you are and why you are investing.
For Governments it should be a no-brainer. Countries such as South
Korea, Taiwan and Singapore managed to build wealthy advanced
economies as a direct result from investing in technology, and
have the institutions in place to ensure that they can hold on
to their position through nanotech, biotech and information technology.
However, as the case of the United Kingdom shows, investing solely
in research without ensuring technology is efficiently transferred
to the wider economy can squander a once promising lead.
For companies the situation is less clear. Emerging technologies
are a good long-term strategic bet, but a degree of maturity is
required if they are to translate directly into profits. Companies
that can take a ten-year view of technology will find it rewarding,
but those with shorter term needs will always find it more profitable
to outsource innovation to start ups.
Finally, for the investment community, it once again depends on
your timescale. Anyone expecting a rash of dot com companies that
can be built and sold within eighteen months will be sorely disappointed,
but investors with the ability to raise follow on capital, or
to be able to view technology as a longer term asset will do well.
Unfortunately this excludes 95% of the venture capital industry!!!
.Futurist
Portrait: Lidewij Edelkoort
Li Edelkoort is one of the world's most renowned trend forecasters.
Her work has pioneered
trend forecasting as a profession; from the creation of innovative
trend books and audiovisuals since the 1980s to long-ranging lifestyle
analysis and research for the world's leading brands today.
Li announces the
concepts, colours and materials which will be in fashion two or
more years in advance because, "there is no creation without
advance knowledge, and without design, a product cannot exist."
In this way, she and her closely-knit teams orientate professionals
in interpreting the evolution of society and the foreshadowing
signals of consumer tastes to come, without forgetting economic
reality.
Born in Holland in 1950, Li Edelkoort studied fashion and design
at the School of Fine Arts in Arnhem, and upon graduation became
a trend forecaster at the leading Dutch department store, De Bijenkorf.
There, she discovered her talent for sensing upcoming trends and
her unique ability to predict what consumers would want to buy
several seasons ahead of time. This brought her to Paris in 1975,
working first as an independent trend consultant and soon creating
Trend
Union.
Li has received continual recognition for her work in providing
inspirational stimulus and fostering creative talent. In 2003,
TIME magazine named her as one of the worlds 25 most influential
people in fashion, while she received the Netherlands Grand
Seigneur prize one year later for her work in fashion and textile.
In 2005, Aid to Artisans honoured Li Edelkoort with a lifetime
achievement award for her support of craft and design. More recently,
in March 2007, she has been named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres
by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication.
Li Edelkoort is famous
for her lively and inspiring seminars and speeches.
Twice a year with
Trend Union, she tours the world to present her fashion and interiors
trends audiovisuals, starting in Paris and then visiting Stockholm,
Copenhagen, London, Amsterdam, Tokyo, New York and Los Angeles.
Li also makes trend
presentations upon request for companies, industry associations
or institutions. With her team, Li has created trend forums and
audiovisuals which have remained imprinted in the minds of the
textile and design community through installations for Première
Vision in the 90's and more recently for Pitti Filati, Pratotrade
and Moda Pelle.
Since she has been
nominated as Chairwoman of the Design Academy Eindhoven, this
already well-known institution has gained reputation with her
vision on the future of education coupled with her knowledge of
design and industry. Exhibitions are regularly organized in Eindhoven
with the Graduation Show or during major events such as Milans
Salone del Mobile.
Expressing her increasing
involvment in art and design, Li also curates exhibitions such
as Armour: the fortification of man in the Netherlands and an
installation as part of Skin Tight: the sensibility of the flesh
at Chicagos Museum of Contemporary Art and New York's Stephen
Weiss Studio.
Exhibition at the Designhuis in Eindhoven, The Netherlands
from 26 March - 31 May 2009. Archeology of the Future maps and
analyses the most influential tendencies of the last 20 years
seen through the eyes of Li Edelkoort, who has taken the lead
of the Designhuis as its director since the beginning of this
year. This is the first exhibition in its kind to outline and
define trend forecasting as a profession and it is entirely dedicated
to Lis' oeuvre.
.Agenda
Our Season Program 2009 / 2010:
February 11
18:30-21:15
the
future of Biosensing
Location: Waag Society, Nieuwmarkt 4, 1012 CR Amsterdam [Center of
the Nieuwmarkt]
March 25
18:30-21:15
the
future of Sports
Location: Amsterdam
April 29
18:30-21:15
the
future of Music
Location: Hogeschool van Amsterdam, Amstelcampus, Rhijnspoorplein
1, 1091 GC Amsterdam
June 3
18:30-21:15
the
future of CERN
Location: Amsterdam
July 1
18:30-21:15
the
future of Bollywood
Location: Amsterdam
.Contact
Your
comments, ideas, articles are welcome!
Please write to Felix Bopp, Editor-in-Chief: editor@clubofamsterdam.com