Week 3 lesson started of by discussing on the problems and opportunities of industrialization. The industrial revolution sparked the beginning of humans develop at a massive rate. Machines and automation helped to achieve speed and efficiency which were just dreams of the past. It also allows for new inventions and innovation. However, we begin to realize that our enjoyment resulted to many negative externalities, especially damaging is the degradation of our environment due the vast amount of pollutant being emitted. Industrialization is often driven by access to fossil fuel. Those who have greater access are able to generate more electricity to power the machines required, produce more goods and earn more income, which they can subsequently re-invest for further research and development. Raw material became the deciding factor for the progression of industrialization. However, we have to understand that Earth’s natural resources are finite and if we continue to extract raw materials at the rate faster than they can be replaced, soon we will be left with nothing. In the past, industries work on a linear function whereby the extract material, process them to produce goods and sell them to consumers. This linear function failed to recognize the various environmental impacts during the entire process. Firstly, during extraction of resources, we are removing away raw material that require years to renew, deforestation result to destruction of natural habitat and mining damages the land rendering them unsuitable for agriculture. During processing, it is inevitable to produce carbon soot and other pollutants. Furthermore, only a certain percentage of the raw material extracted actually end up as finished goods. When they are sold to consumers, they will enjoy using them. Once consumers no longer require those goods, the disposal may end up in landfill sites or incinerated, both of which are damaging to the environment. Therefore there is an urge to not only allocate resources more efficiently but also internalizing those externalities, creating a cyclical function, which will be sustainable. Carbon taxes may help to create a cyclical function by inflating the final price of goods, hence consumers’ bear the cost of certain externalities. Other initiatives include consumer education to let them know how much effort is require to produce goods and to persuade them to cut down on excessive consumptions. Reducing, reusing and recycling definitely help to close the loop and pave the way to a cyclical function. Producer should consider the entire lifecycle of the product. They should innovate to maximize the value of raw material. During processing, they should look for new methods, which are more efficient and produce less pollutant. Instead of limiting their responsibilities to end with the sales to consumers, they should consider recollection of those unwanted goods from consumer and recycle them. For example, companies producing printer cartridges can request consumers to return empty cartridges for recycling. The importance of moving towards sustainability will not just benefit us, but the future generations as well. We should try to minimize the burden bear by future generations, from our mistakes of today. Being sustainable will enable us to use resources today but as the same time, allowing future generations to be able to use them as well. Therefore, I feel that future technology and innovation may shift towards focusing on sustainability.
After the discussion on sustainable technology, we realized the need for more innovation and improved technology to achieve that goal. Hence, there is a need to understand how such innovation come about and the management of innovation development. It started off with an introduction of the landscape model for technology, whereby we identify the various opportunities (Valley, Summit, Cloud). The main concept is that where your opportunities stand today, may not be the same as tomorrow. Innovation and improvement is the only way to remain competitive and moving towards a cloud opportunity. To get a better picture of how these opportunities are created, the RDA translation process allows us to understand the difficulties. Every innovation starts from a dream, intensive research has to be done to accumulate the knowledge require. However, the nightmare comes when we have to develop the dream. We will gain a lot of knowledge after researching, but only a minimal percentage of that knowledge will be applicable and often, it is not a simple process. After years of hard work, we will finally be able to see the reality of our dreams. Those innovations will be applied for commercial use and distribution to consumers. The RDA translation process is not a straightforward, easy process, but require determination and intensive research often incurring a very high cost. Therefore, researches have to be able to value the long-term benefits they can gain from the immediate cost involved.
Innovation can be classified into two broad categories, technology or market driven. Market driven is often the easier way, as the demand for such innovation already exists, once it is created, people will adopt the benefits of those innovations. Technology driven innovations requires greater consideration. In order to determine if a market huge enough will be developed, researches have to consider the practicability, feasibility and acceptance of such innovation. Management of innovation is often not an easy process and it requires the overlap of researchers and managers of the business. They have to ensure that such innovation increases values and execution risk is being minimized as development proceeds.
In the race to achieve sustainable technology, I feel that both researches and consumers have to work together. Consumers have to cut down on excessive consumption and face the fact that when sustainable technology has just been developed, initial cost will be high. Cost is often the limiting factor for researches to even have the incentive to start thinking of a sustainable innovation. Ultimately, sustainable innovation is not just for our own benefit but because we are concern about our future generations and want the best for them. Therefore, both researches and consumer have to start this initiative soon before it is too late.
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