TWC Session 3

The topic for this week’s lesson was on Technology and industrial development toward sustainability and technology and innovation management. We started the first half of the lesson discussing on industrial development from linear to cyclical. The traditional linear approach is bad for the environment as it does not take the negative externalities such as pollution into considerations. It brought economic well-being at the cost of environmental well-being. Now, the world is changing and is moving towards the cyclical approach. This approach is using of the earth's treasures as a foundation for sustainable fashion and lifestyle. The cyclical approach is driven by sustainability and presents an opportunity for innovation, growth and value creation that promises to bring both economic and environmental well-being.

Our professor had showed us a video entitled The Story of Stuff. This video is critical of excessive consumerism and promotes sustainability. This video shows us that the consumer driven culture is affecting out future generation. After watching this video, I start to think a bit more critically about the media that I consume. And this video has definitely raised my awareness about the often hidden impacts of production and consumption.

There are two presenters for the first part of the lessons. One of them the documentary entitled develop or die and the other one presented on role of technology in sustainable development. Both of the presentations are quite interesting. One question that was discussed in class was whether biofuel was sustainable. I think that it is possible for biofuel to be sustainable. I believe that it will be sustainable as long as it is produce from a sustainable feedstock which is always available and if the feedstock is grow is the right land and country.

We started the second part of the lesson with a quote from Tom Peters. It says that one cannot do the same thing all the time and still is able to succeed. Because of innovation, things changes from time to time. One had to constantly upgrade its skills and constantly change in order to be successful. We move on to talk about the Shahi Landscape Model for Technology Assessment. This framework consists of valley opportunities, summit opportunities and the cloud opportunities. I have learnt from this framework that we should focus on the summit opportunities approach. This approach puts people, technologies and resources together to capture the value of proposition. This approach will help the raise the standard of living and increase business revenue.

There are 3 presentations for the second half of the lesson. All of their presentations were interesting but I like the article on How Apple Got Everything Right By Doing Everything Wrong most. It shows how apple’s innovation helped the company to position itself ahead of its competitors and at the forefront of the technology industries. Overall, I learnt that in order for your business o survive, you have constantly come up do research and come up with new ideas. If not, your business will be left behind and overtaken by other companies. Also, sustainability is important, but one had to make sure that they are doing it in a way that will benefit the future generations.