We see more
and more examples of services as part of products. Thinking on services
is hot. From service design to design thinking, taking a service as
a central element in possible success of a product is adopted by many.
But what is the next stage in this development. Will services become
the dictators of our life. Will services shape our products?
An important development
is the rise of service ecosystems. Services as the glue and fuel of
connected touch points. Example of this evolution is the way our travelling
in public transport transforms from a fare based experience into a subscription
based experience. The virtual credit on the OVchipcard (Dutch public
transport card) results in different kind of service, behavior and product
experience.
These kinds of shifts will
happen in all areas. The way we move to a service dominate economy will
influence the way we consume, we behave and the way products and services
itself will be shaped. In this session we look at these developments
from different angles. - Iskander Smit, Strategy Director, Info.nl
By Humberto
Schwab, Philosopher
Director, Club of Amsterdam
Innovation is on the lips of all strategic leaders and all
not-strategic leaders. If we look back at the figures world wide
about the increase of Internet connections and the increase of
mobile phone connections, even in Africa or Latin America; we
know innovation is not any longer something you can do or something
you chose. If you do not innovate you will run out of business,
unless you have good traditional craftsmanship products. One thing
is four sure: in our hyper-fast information driven world, good
traditional values are cornerstones of trust. For all the other
stuff we must be continuously focused on the sustainability and
effectiveness of our client approaches.
It is not that products
and services are changing rapidly, it is the fact that they can
be reached in complete new ways, that they can be produced in
complete new ways and that the information about these facts uses
new ways. These factors can change the character of product.
The techniques of
making products ors services are most of the time creations of
intelligent designers dealing with visions and imagination on
the one hand and technical limitations to that vision and imagination
on the other hand.
Products and services
are answers to real needs or desires of people like you and me
or are strong new imaginations of new human needs or experiences,
or put in another way are incentives for new needs and desire.
All these new and old desires and needs are part of the rich "human
experience".
The discussion is of course always legitimate about the question;
if a certain product, services or (nowadays) application factually
serves a real need, an authentic need or ultimately a good need.
This debate is ongoing since Plato.
The desire to smoke
cigarettes was a strong need, probably generated and in any way
enhanced by the "Dandy" culture of the "roaring
twenties". The culture nestled this need in the hearts and
minds of the people. I myself was really in need of cigarettes
during almost twenty year. It was not an authentic need but it
connected with a body desire, evoked and at the same time satisfied
by the nicotine!
The same holds for
the television, which generated a need that did not exist before.
Although you can say that we had visual needs and we - human creatures
- have very strong visual reward systems in our neurological system.
The television awakened a visual reward system that was potential
present, but evoked and satisfied by the apparatus. It was not
an authentic need, but it generated a strong desire and still
does to a lot of people.
The wine we drink
gives another strong example of another type of need; it is almost
a natural desire that stems from our bodily statue. Yet its influence
has increased the last decades. We drink more wine, we enjoy more
qualities and the new ways of producing, transporting and valorization
have even deepened our wine desire and the satisfaction that goes
with it. If you are enjoying the wine, you praise the day that
somebody taught you how to drink.
If we look for another
need, our need to move, to transport ourselves, to travel; the
change of the way of moving from horse riding to flying with planes,
is paramount.
The human desire is not originally aimed at flying, but it s existence
is a perfect match on the cultural and physical needs we have.
We want to move on, like nomads and we want to settle down, both
genetic engraved drivers that constitute our system. Any innovation
of the experience of traveling can count on these inclinations.
You can travel fast to exotic places, but you want to feel at
settled.
All the examples
are nice from the perspective of the contraposition between real
needs and artificial needs, or as Rousseau would put it between
human needs and alienated needs.
But we might state that almost all our newly created desires are
aimed at enriching the human experience, to give daily life experiences
more dimension or more quality. Or to say it in another way, it
tries to boost the human development, the emancipation to richer
forms of life. The question is always did this or that innovation
really reached that? We can bluntly mistake ourselves in the value
of innovations.
Also we can see that
- although bad for our physical and mental health - they all connect
with real authentic needs in one way or another. We can sometimes
say they are not intelligent connected with our rudimental needs.
The smoking is a good example. The destroying of nature in all
aspects is quite unintelligent, but as soon as we get awareness
of the stupidity of the so-called innovation of human experiences,
we will eventually stop it (although sometimes late or too late).
But the process of eliminating the value of smoking is unheard.
Governments have really innovated their way of dealing with health
issues.
Here is where innovation
start, innovation is mostly connected with changing old products
and services into new varieties or into better qualities of higher
level. But if we look at the examples, we can easily say that
innovation has to do with the way we create our needs and the
way we validate our way of satisfactions.
The reconsidering
of the coolness of smoking into coolness without smoking is an
innovation of the concept "cool". The same way holds
for driving cars: the Prius experience and not BMW one, we innovate
the car production lines, but Toyota also innovated our value
of the car experience. The noise producing gasoline cars were
also creating the value of being heard by everyone in the street,
the technical limitations gave form to the product. There were
not a few people, who love to hear the sound of noisy gasoline
engines!
Nowadays all the car experience is about not being heard outside
the car and listening to super hi-fi stereo!
Driving in your hybrid car is a very satisfying and tranquilizing
experience.
We want to eat well; we want to eat slowly (after decennia of
fast food desires) so we innovate our eating experiences. We want
to buy cloths that are made in a fair way, the same for coffee,
chocolate etc. that really enriches our experiences.
Eating chocolate did not incorporate - till recently - the aspects
of child labor or the suppression of other people. Some people
really enjoyed the idea that slaves had worked for their products.
The way we inform, the way we make, and the way we design all
innovated the chocolate experience.
So we innovate our parts or building elements of our daily human
experiences and we probably practice an evolution in these innovations.
Sometimes this evolution is an improvement and sometimes it is
an impoverishment (or better put: an erroneous attempt to evolution),
but always there is a intrinsic connection with elements of the
human neurological and cultural "desire complex". The
goal of innovation - at least the intended one - is improvement
of the human condition; an improvement of previous solutions,
better solution to burning problems, a jump in the possibility
of esthetic-cultural experiences or even the improvement of the
concept of human experiences in general.
Of course comes on all these levels the critical question: what
is a good innovation, or what are the criteria to measure the
value of an innovation?
There are of course
different forms of innovations: we just innovate the product,
the service, the process, the producer- client relation, the price,
the image, the marketing, the business concept or do we innovate
the experience related to the original product? Some innovations
were really small in the concept but huge in their output. When
Ryan air realized that planes are flying machines that ought to
be in the sky as much as possible, they drastically innovated
the whole flight travel industry. This is fundamentally a "deep
dive" reflection on what you really are doing, what your
competence is or what your distinctive competence is.
Socratic Innovation
As we see that the
scope and dimension of innovation are not or should not be limited,
the methods to reach good innovations should be limitless in the
creative sense. There are a lot of very expensive managerial systems
to trigger innovation. These fixed systems do not serve because
they were always constructed in the world preceding the innovation,
they will always try the old paradigm to create new concepts,
which is contradictory. Or at least it will ignore fissures in
the old paradigm.
A real innovation strategy is one which incorporate paradigm switches
from any levels. This can also mean a switch on the creation of
human desire or human experience.
Steve Jobs:
People are in no condition to know what the next star
product will be.
Henry Ford: If I would have asked my clients what they wanted,
they would have answered: a faster horse!
We have to be able
to rethink all the aspects of the human experience with his or
that product, service or application. Even old boundaries between
separated domains, for example making phone calls and making photographs,
should be "virtually" forgotten. To deal with such a
demand we need the possibility of reframing completely old concepts,
the only honest tool is the Socratic discourse method. It can
make fruit of millions of ideas and concepts ever surged in whatever
context, so in the domain of the rich Socratic context, every
person gets back the chance of testing his or hers most strange,
normal or personal idea. The total ocean of ideas is the most
open domain to deliver creative open innovation. Every other discipline
is stuck to its paradigm; the Socratic paradigm is that we can
explore a lot of paradigms.
Most important of
all, we have to realize that people are very context dependent;
we continuously make the mistake of thinking in dispositions.
People of such a background or such a personality will do this
or that in whatever circumstances. Psychological investigation
shows - over and over again- that the environment influences our
inner world profoundly. If we want to create in an innovative
way, we have to recreate our way of working or being together.
The classical organization of a company is that of an industrial
army.
Top down management, task-division, marketing, finance etc. There
is a strong hierarchical line within the company; everybody is
looking up to and "waiting for " the management and
- in some cases - with the backs positioned towards the client.
The central fallacy of this system is that the higher you get
the better the creative thinking occurs; that individuals have
to create smart ideas. And that people have fixed roles in these
hierarchies. This classical surrounding puts people in an isolated
position. Talking to your staff will not catalyze at once creative
collaborative thinking. In normal discussions people will stick
to fixed roles and use the same power games over and over again,
people with very bright ideas often have a lack of self confidence
in articulating them, people who keep silent most of the time
think more then people who easy talk; also hierarchical higher
personalities taking more speaking time in the assumption that
that is the best for everyone.
In the Socratic dialog,
this is in a subtle way replaced by a process in which people
do not discuss much, but listen more, take more empathic stands
and are guided to a more "question oriented" approach
then to a solution oriented approach. So the central organizer
is the common shared question. Starting from common values we
then organize a travel towards a possible answer, which is shared
by all. The highest in hierarchy should be the one who can listen
the best. A real Socratic governed organization has a leader who
constantly knows to put the best question at any situation. Crafting
the question is a discipline that can fortify communication processes.
In general the Socratic method as a process catalyst, has a communicative
power in making communities (comunicare). Even within old
contexts the Socratic dialog creates an open innovative space
where brains can connect and the hidden intelligence of all participants
can be brought to light!
On the content side
the Socratic method works as an icebreaker: it can open very fixed
lines of thoughts. Breaking the ice is not only a rational process,
the space you reach is also a emotional ad a psychological space;
crucial for creative thinking
To come to a really strong fundamental reflection on any thing;
about energy, about security, about biking, about wine drinking,
about moving or even about going to the lo, you have to rethink
the simple concept in all its presumptions and assumptions. The
detective work of examining the real impact of these concepts
can lead to real innovations.
Every side step or idea or hesitation of some of the participants
can lead to a new insight. To neutralize classical scientific
barriers or classical abstract languages hurdles, the chair has
to be a practical philosopher who is capable to oversee the whole
language game of science and the connection with simple clear
formulations. So you need trained academic philosophers prepared
to the job. The automatic selection of sophisticated concepts
or so endogen concepts can block a complete opening to new horizons.
You can see this by realizing that our horizons are created by
common sense concepts, we repeatedly use. So to create new horizons
(which are new paradigms) we have to make new basic concepts.
These two ways (creating
another context, using philosophical critical tools) make Socratic
innovation a rich but complex tool for strong innovation. It transforms
the company for one day in a collaborative think tank and the
method is able to produce practical intelligence that is created
by all in a hyper collaborative effort!
Summary
Socratic innovation
can deliver "deep dives" at any depth! In Socratic innovation
we go radically to the roots of our activities, our concepts and
our fixed assumptions. The classical Socratic approach has four
characteristics:
Knowledge can
be pursued, and can lead to an understanding of what is true
The search for
true knowledge is a co-operative enterprise
Questioning is
the primary form of education, drawing out true knowledge from
within rather than imposing knowledge from outside.
Knowledge must
be pursued with a ruthless intellectual honesty. ((from Creative
and Critical Thinking Vol 4.1, Robert Fisher, Brunel University,
England)
You can see very
clearly that these classical approaches are very relevant in our
actual social driven society. With Socratic innovation you will
go to the deep truth about your real capacity (also you will become
very honest with your self), together with all your workers you
will make an intelligent effort to develop practical knowledge
that will help create new horizons. Finally it will be a value
driven approach were the knowledge about the real scope of the
experience is central. Furthermore there is no selling of a product:
in dialog with your stakeholders AND clients you develop the new
experiences. This is perfectly fitted to the world of social media
in which collaboration, consumer intelligence, co-creation, shared
intelligence and value sharing is crucial.
'Social media is
content created by people using highly accessible and scalable
publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media
is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information
and content. It's a set of technologies, tools and platforms
facilitating the discovery, participation and sharing of content.
It is transforming monologues (one to many) into dialogues (many
to many) and the democratization of information, transforming
people from content readers into publishers." (Wikipedia)
It is no longer push
we can exercise, you have to listen to your clients, talks with
them ad then cooperate with them. You even have to invest into
free exchange of information or knowledge that is valuable for
your potential clients.
Most important is that you give truthful information, that you
understand the needs of the client and that you can react in a
personalized way. Furthermore you will engage in a sustainable
dialog with your client in which you cannot hide secrets or at
least have to be open. Then probably you will be joining hands
in making products, services and application.
In the innovation methodology of Humberto Schwab there are different
key elements built in one Socratic chain: Value creation. Appreciative
inquiry. Socratic dialog and future scenarios.
Thursday,
February 17, 2011 Registration:
18:30-19:00, Conference: 19:00-21:15 Location:
Het
Bethaniënklooster, Barndesteeg 6B, 1012 BV Amsterdam
[Next to Nieuwmarkt] registration more
information
The speakers and topics are
Pieter Jan Stappers, Professor, Chair of Design Techniques,
TU Delft
Future of Services - Future for Designers?
Iskander Smit,
Strategy Director, Info.nl
A future of impulse driven and hyper personalised services
Lorna Goulden,
Lead Creative Director, Philips Design
Consequences of The Internet of Things from a design perspective
Daniel Erasmus,
Owner, The DTN
Scenarios for a Society driven by Services
Moderated by Kwela Hermanns
.Desert
Greening
Permaculture
in Landscape and Society
As the basis of permaculture is beneficial design, it can be added
to all other ethical training and skills, and has the potential
of taking a place in all human endeavors. In the broad landscape,
however, permaculture concentrates on already-settled areas and
agricultural lands. Almost all of these need drastic rehabilitation
and re-thinking. One certain result of using our skills to integrate
food supply and settlement, to catch water from our roof areas,
and to place nearby a zone of fuel forest which receives wastes
and supplies energy, will be to free most of the area of the globe
for the rehabilitation of natural systems. These need never be
looked upon as of use to people, except in the very
broad sense of global health.
The real difference
between a cultivated (designed) ecosystem, and a natural system
is that the great majority of species (and biomass) in the cultivated
ecology is intended for the use of humans or their livestock.
We are only a small part of the total primeval or natural species
assembly, and only a small part of its yields are directly available
to us. But in our own gardens, almost every plant is selected
to provide or support some direct yield for people. Household
design relates principally to the needs of people; it is thus
human-centered (anthropocentric).
This is a valid aim
for settlement design, but we also need a nature-centered ethic
for wilderness conservation. We cannot, however, do much for nature
if we do not govern our greed, and if we do not supply our needs
from our existing settlements. If we can achieve this aim, we
can withdraw from much of the agricultural landscape, and allow
natural systems to flourish.
Recycling of nutrients and energy in nature is a function of many
species. In our gardens, it is our own responsibility to return
wastes (via compost or mulch) to the soil and plants. We actively
create soil in our gardens, whereas in nature many other species
carry out that function. Around our homes we can catch water for
garden use, but we rely on natural forested landscapes to provide
the condenser leaves and clouds to keep rivers running with clean
water, to maintain the global atmosphere, and to lock up our gaseous
pollutants. Thus, even anthropocentric people would be well-advised
to pay close attention to, and to assist in, conservation of existing
forests and to assist in, the conservation of all existing species
and allow them a place to live.
We have abused the
land and laid waste to systems we never need have disturbed had
we attended to our home gardens and settlements. If we need to
state a set of ethics on natural systems, then let it be thus:
Implacable and
uncompromising opposition to further disturbance of any remaining
natural forests, where most species are still in balance;
rehabilitation
of degraded and damaged natural systems to stable states;
Establishment
of plant systems for our own use on the least amount of land
we can use for our existence; and
Establishment
of plant and animal refuges for rare or threatened species.
Permaculture as a
design system deals primarily with the third statement above,
but all people who act responsibly in fact subscribe to the first
and second statements. We believe should use all the species we
need or can find to use in our own settlement designs, providing
they are not locally rampant and invasive.
Before
and after photos of previous Jordan project
'Greening the Desert the Sequel
When theres no soil, no water, no shade, and where the
sun beats down on you to the tune of over 50°C (122°F),
the word poverty begins to take on a whole new meaning.
It is distinct and surreal. Its a land of dust, flies, intense
heat and almost complete dependency on supply lines outside of
ones control. This is the remains of what was once called the
fertile crescent. It is the result of thousands of
years of abuse. It is a glimpse at a world where the environment
whose services provide for all human need has all
but completely abandoned us. This is a glimpse at the world our
consumer society is inexorably moving towards, as our exponential-growth
culture gorges itself at ever-increasing rates.
The original Greening
the Desert video clip has been watched hundreds of thousands of
times and has been posted to countless blogs and web pages in
the datasphere. Although only five minutes long, it has inspired
people around the globe, daring the lucid ones amongst us, those
who can see the writing on the wall, to begin to hope and believe
in an abundant future a future where our survival doesnt
have to be based on undermining and depleting the very resources
of soil, water, phosphorus, etc. that we depend on. The work profiled
in that clip demonstrates that humanity can be a positive element
within the biosphere. Man doesnt have to destroy. Man can
repair.
In the clip at top
I introduce you today to Greening the Desert II. I shot the footage
for this video last month (October 2009) and edited it on location
in the Dead Sea Valley in Jordan the lowest place on earth,
at 400 metres below sea level. Much of it was shot in or near
the village of Al Jawfa where I stayed, which is effectively a
Palestinian refugee camp that has morphed over the decades since
1948 into something resembling a functional small town. It was
first shown to delegates of the ninth International Permaculture
Conference (IPC9) in Malawi, Africa at the very beginning of November
and is now being released for general consumption. The video will
take you to the original Greening the Desert site, letting you
see its present condition after six years of neglect when funding
ran out in 2003. Youll also be introduced to our new project
site the Jordan Valley Permaculture Project, aka Greening
the Desert, the Sequel and see some of the spin-off
effects within Jordan from the influence of the original site;
promises of much more to come.
The work were
undertaking in Jordan is in accordance with what we call the Permaculture
Master Plan, where the projects future is assured
through funding from running educational courses. Project sites
thus become self-sufficient, and self-replicating.
Through this work we
envision thousands of educational demonstration sites worldwide
all inspiring and teaching communities around them how to
begin to tackle at root the massive challenges we now face after
decades of short-term profit-based thinking has all but consumed
our planet and dismantled the social constructs that the human race
has always depended on for its survival. Through this work we see
desertification stopped in its tracks, and reversed. We see this
centurys dire water issues getting resolved. We see productive
work for millions in bypassing the irrelevant efforts of our leaders,
to instead build a new kind of culture a culture based on
cooperative effort and learning. Its a culture where its members
have regained a sense of their place in creation, where they become
land-based stewards of remaining resources; creating a culture where
we at last find ultimate satisfaction promoting and building
peace and low-carbon, relocalised, community-based prosperity.
We have many such
Master Plan projects in various stages of development
worldwide, and a steady stream of enquiries from people around
the globe wanting to get involved and help widen this cooperative
network. Perhaps its time you took a look at Permaculture?
After all, do you have something more worthwhile to do?
What is a personal future? As we interpret personal futures here,
they are explorations of the potential futures of one individual,
but only the futures that directly involve that individual. You
will be learning about the futures that relate directly to you
and your family.
What should you be able to expect from studying about your future?
The approach you will take with this workbook consists of three
steps:
1. Build a framework of information about your life.
2. From the framework information, explore your future with scenarios.
3. From the scenarios, develop a vision, strategies, and action
plans for your future.
You will use the same methods that have been practiced by futurists
for decades all over the world. At the end of this process you
should have an overview and a vision for your life, specific plans
for the next stage of life, and contingency plans to deal with
unexpected changes.
Here are the steps that you will be following in this workbook
as you prepare for your future:
Personal Research
Life stages
Personal domains and driving forces
Life events
Your plans, goals and values
Personal Scenarios
Develop a scenario matrix
Examine the driving forces in your life
Create four scenarios
Personal Strategic Planning
Create a vision for the next stage of your life.
Develop strategies
Develop action plans
Develop contingency plans
The Marine Board of the European Science Foundation (ESF) says in
its latest report that Europe can take the leading role in marine
biotechnology by 2020. Latest data show that the marine biotechnology
market is valued at EUR 2.8 billion, and has the potential to grow
up to 12% each year if industry and academia cooperate.
The ESF experts say
Europe's four seas and two oceans offer diverse conditions of temperature,
pressure, light and chemistry, from shallow coastal waters to the
deep ocean. The changes that allowed myriad marine organisms to
thrive in these conditions led to a living library of diversity
that is both unexplored and underexploited, the ESF's Marine Board
says.
Marine biotechnologists
can use these resources to develop new products and services, and
in turn help bring solutions to the table as regards challenges
that affect our planet, including offering a sustainable supply
of food and energy and new industrial materials and processes, and
developing new drugs and health treatments.
'Marine biotechnology
not only creates jobs and wealth, it can also contribute to the
development of greener, smarter economies,' explains Lars Horn of
the Research Council of Norway and Chair of the Marine Board. 'Japan,
China and the US are already investing heavily in marine biotechnology.
If we fail to act, Europe will lose out.'
The annual Global Employment Trends (GET) report provides the latest
global and regional estimates of employment and unemployment, employment
by sector, vulnerable employment, labour productivity and working
poverty, while also analysing country-level issues and trends in
the labour market. Taking into account macroeconomic trends and
forecasts, the GET includes a short-term outlook for labour markets
around the world.
The report finds that there were around 40 million more working
poor at the extreme US$ 1.25 level in 2009 than would have been
expected in the absence of the global economic crisis. An estimated
630 million workers (one in five workers in the world) were living
with their families at the extreme US$ 1.25 a day level in 2009.
Globally, an estimated 1.53 billion workers were in vulnerable employment
in 2009, which corresponds to a vulnerable employment rate of 50.1%.
.European
Values Study
The European
Values Study is a large-scale, cross-national,
and longitudinal survey research program on basic human values.
It provides insights into the ideas, beliefs, preferences, attitudes,
values and opinions of citizens all over Europe. It is a unique
research project on how Europeans think about life, family, work,
religion, politics and society.
The European Values
Study started in 1981, when a thousand citizens in the European
Member States of that time were interviewed using standardized
questionnaires. Every nine years, the survey is repeated in an
increasing number of countries. The fourth wave in 2008 will cover
no less than 47 European countries/regions, from Iceland to Azerbaijan
and from Portugal to Norway. In total, about 70,000 people in
Europe will be interviewed.
A rich academic literature
has been created around the original and consecutive surveys and
numerous other works have made use of the findings. In-depth analyses
of the 1981, 1990 and 1999 findings with regard to Western and
Central Europe, and North America reinforced the impression that
a profound transformation of modern culture is taking place, although
not at the same speed in all countries. Cultural and social changes
appear dependent upon the stage of socio-economic development
and historical factors specific to a given nation. The new 2008
wave will provide further insights in this matter.
Whether youre designing consumer electronics, medical devices,
enterprise Web apps, or new ways to check out at the supermarket,
todays digitally-enabled products and services provide both
great opportunities to deliver compelling user experiences and great
risks of driving your customers crazy with complicated, confusing
technology.
Designing successful
products and services in the digital age requires a multi-disciplinary
team with expertise in interaction design, visual design, industrial
design, and other disciplines. It also takes the ability to come
up with the big ideas that make a desirable product or service,
as well as the skill and perseverance to execute on the thousand
small ideas that get your design into the hands of users. It requires
expertise in project management, user research, and consensus-building.
This comprehensive, full-color volume addresses all of these and
more with detailed how-to information, real-life examples, and exercises.
Topics include assembling a design team, planning and conducting
user research, analyzing your data and turning it into personas,
using scenarios to drive requirements definition and design, collaborating
in design meetings, evaluating and iterating your design, and documenting
finished design in a way that works for engineers and stakeholders
alike.
.Global
Food and Farming Futures
Global Food and Farming Futures
by the Government Office for Science, London How can a future global population of 9 billion people all
be fed healthily and sustainably?
The Foresight project Global Food and Farming Futures explores
the increasing pressures on the global food system between now
and 2050. The Report highlights the decisions that policy makers
need to take today, and in the years ahead, to ensure that a global
population rising to nine billion or more can be fed sustainably
and equitably.
The Foresight report
makes a compelling case for urgent action to redesign the global
food system to meet the challenge of feeding the world over the
next 40 years.
The Project analysed
five key challenges for the future:
A. Balancing future
demand and supply sustainably to ensure that food supplies
are affordable. B. Ensuring that there is adequate stability in food prices
and protecting the most vulnerable from the volatility
that does occur. C. Achieving global access to food and ending hunger -
this recognises that producing enough food in the world so that
everyone can potentially be fed is not the same thing as ensuring
food security for all. D. Managing the contribution of the food system to the
mitigation of climate change. E. Maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem services while
feeding the world.
The Project has involved
around 400 leading experts and stakeholders from about 35 countries
across the world. Drawing upon over 100 peer-reviewed evidence paper
commissioned by the Project which can be accessed in full here (hyperlink).
The Project was sponsored
by the UK Governments Department for Environment, Food and
Rural Affairs (Defra) and Department for International Development
(DFID).
.Acasa
look to print new homes in the developed world
ACASA
seeks to produce cheap, high-quality homes in the developing world.
Instead of building a house brick by brick, the ACASA team proposes
automating the process and printing concrete walls.
The technology for such an endeavour is already in place.
Based on the work of
Behrokh Koshnevis at the University of Southern California, Rapid
Automated Manufacturing (also known as Contour Crafting) is capable
of building a 1000 ft² home in approximately one day. Advances
in robotics and materials science suggest that future developments
in this technology will include interior surfaces and furnishings.
Over one billion
people worldwide reside in substandard housing facilities, live
in temporary shelters for displaced populations, or have nowhere
to call home. Imagine if we could alleviate today's global housing
crisis using new, automated construction technologies. Our team
is designing a business plan to leverage advances in rapid 3D
additive manufacturing technologies in order to construct affordable,
customizable housing for the developing world. This low-cost,
environmentally sustainable solution has the potential to create
a powerful new paradigm for improving housing construction using
local resources. We are exploring innovative financial models
to support an R&D incubator that will produce exponential
gains in bringing these next-generation technologies to market.
We will commercialize these emerging technologies through strategic
partnerships with industry leaders, international development
organizations, and local communities.
.Futurist
Portrait: Ian Pearson
Anyone can predict stuff, but only a few get it right
"Just occasionally, everyone else is wrong!"
Ian
Pearson
has been a full time futurologist since 1991, with a proven track
record of around 85% accuracy at the 10 year horizon. He has delivered
keynote presentations at over 1000 conferences, company away-days,
PR events and workshops. He previously worked for BT, where he
invented text messaging in 1991 and later established their futurology
presence. He acquires basic data from conferences, reading and
talking to engineers and uses this to feed his thinking about
all aspects of the future. Ians brief now covers technology
impacts in almost every major field over the 5-20 year timeframe.
"I work as a
Futurologist. I study the future. My day to day work with Futurizon
involves tracking developments across the whole field of technology
and society, figuring out where it is all going next, and how
that will affect our everyday lives. I take account of as many
technology and social factors as possible. My main tools are:
a strong background in science and engineering, trends analysis,
common sense, reasonable business acumen, knowing when to listen
to other people, and a whole lot of thinking. I usually get it
right, but since the future is never totally predictable, I sometimes
get it wrong too, about 15% of the time. But I specialise in doing
long term stuff, so I have a lot of fun. I hope to be retired
before anyone can prove me wrong. ..."
.Agenda
OurSeason
Program 2010/2011
February 17,
2011
18:30 - 21:15
the
future of Services
Services as part of products
Location: Het
Bethaniënklooster, Barndesteeg 6B, 1012 BV Amsterdam [Next
to Nieuwmarkt]
March 17, 2011
18:30 - 21:15
the
future of Shell
Location: Shell Technology Centre Amsterdam, Grasweg 31, 1031 HW Amsterdam
April 14, 2011
18:30 - 21:15
the
future of the Human Mind
May 19, 2011
18:30 - 21:15
the
future of Singularity
June 23, 2011
18:30 - 21:15
the
future of European Democracy
February 4, 2011
The Club of Amsterdam visits CERN in Geneva, Switzerland FULLY BOOKED!
.Contact
Your
comments, ideas, articles are welcome!
Please write to Felix Bopp, Editor-in-Chief: editor@clubofamsterdam.com