Session 3 - Sustainable Development

This session covered the topics on Tech and Industrial Development as well as Tech and Innovation Management. Prof started the lesson with a youtube video on "The Story of Stuff". An interesting video, i would say, but a pity it was 21mins long that we were only able to watch the first few minutes of it. Not too bad though, as i learnt the difference between operating linearly VS cyclically. The bottomline is,we cannot operate linearly on a finite planet. One example mentioned was U.S. The rate at which people in U.S. use resources is terribly fast! Cant imagine if every country consume as much as them.. True that we'll need 3 to 5 planets to satisfy the wants of people. I feel that the only way to reduce consumption of U.S. is to allow more government intervention. It's not a good idea to let them deplete all the resources and leave nothing for the future generations.

However, even though every individual has a part to play in being green and saving resources, i feel that more can be done. Take a look at Singapore. We used to have a campaign to save plastic bags every Wednesday (if i am not wrong). People shopping at the supermarkets had to bring their own bags to contain their groceries. How about now? Well, i have no idea why the campaign has gradually stopped. Also, instead of recycling, reducing, and reusing, i still see loads of waste on the streets and everywhere else. But i have to agree on the fact that there are not enough bins (normal / recycling bins) around. Taking Jurong East Mrt Station for example, since i have to stop by at least twice a day to go and return from school, less than 5 bins could be seen on the long pathway. Even if one has been spotted, there is a high chance that the bin is full. Which thus explains why the area around the bins are especially dirty.

So much about being green, the question that was raised during class was: How to maintain the speed of growth but at the same time, be green? Some mentioned about creating a new industry - the Green Industry. Well, i think it's achievable if that happens, and if people are more socially responsible for the environment.

The 2nd half of the session covered the landscape model and the R-D-A translation process. (Nice model drawn by Prof, Could see the effort he made in spraying the paint for the hills, hahah)

Here, i learnt about the Market-driven opportunity VS Technology-driven opportunity. If one is able to afford R&D, he/she should branch into technology-driven side, where the market has not been created.

As for the R-D-A process, Prof used a pipeline to express the idea.
Research consists of Concept which is the generation of idea, and Technology Validation.
Development consists of Validation, Productization which is the production and packaging.
Application consists of Business Case Validation (understanding the market, knowing how to enter) and Rapid Growth.

The rest of the time was left for individual presentations by classmates and i think they did well. Good points were brought up and the class was active in discussions. Oh, it'll be my turn this coming Monday! I seriously hope everything will go smoothly! :)