Session 9 - Emerging Technologies

This week we were exposed to a bunch of emerging technologies which are more emerged than emerging really. We were thrown into the deep end of this brave new world when Prof showed us the video on Claytronics (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcaqzOUv2Ao). He also showed us videos on plastic electronics, augmented reality and on AI. In fact the AI video was on the creation of a 'perfect woman', who has been designed for a projected market of millions of lonely men. All of these fantastic ideas drew me to a rather frightening and humbling realization.

I have realised through the breadth of this course that my generation is at the cusp of an immensely important time in the history of human kind. Now don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying that there haven't been people who didn't have immense responsibilities on them. But a certain mix of circumstances have linked our future actions much more inextricably with that of the earth and the entire human race. These circumstances are -

1. The rise of triple convergence and globalisation (From the World is Flat, a highly recommended read)

2. An impeding non renewable energy crisis, shown by the fact that peak oil and peak coal may have been reached.

3. A shift in global power after almost 500 years from West to the East.

4. The near exponentioal rate of growth of science and technology which is leading to a singularity.

5. The Internet which is now bringing people together at an ever increasing rate.

Of course there are other factor that are contributing to this situation, but my basic idea remains the same.

It is up to us now to handle this situation the best we can. We can allow ourselves to ride on this wave of emerging technology and let it carry us where it will. Or we can manage innovation and lead it in the way that is the most beneficial for mankind.

And lead it we shall. The efforts of my fellow students in this class have convinced me that we are going in the right direction. And I hope that the time to come will be a good one.

One emerging technology that I want to talk about is synthetic biology. I came across this while researching my presentation. It's basically making new life by using tools developed and discovered while doing traditional genetic engineering. I won't tell you too much about it because I'm trying to understand it myself, but i'll say that this is something that might make biology the science of this century. Check out this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niQ0kkgPxJk&feature=related. Andrew Hessel who is a professor at Singularity University talks about synthetic biology.

I'd rate this session a 9.