Innovation Watch Newsletter - Issue 13.

04 - February 22, 2014

ISSN:
1712-9834

Highlights from the last two weeks...

scientists list the genes that make us human... IBM tackles personalized medicine... bionic eye implant could cure blindness... scientists control tiny motors inside human cells... Israel's startups rival Silicon Valley... more than 70 mainstream brands have joined the collaborative economy... Yerdle helps people buy things with stuff they would otherwise throw away... hackathons attract tens of thousands of students to computer programming... Germany's Chancellor advocates for a European Internet... China offers to finance 30 percent of India's infrastructure spending through 2017... severe pollution in Beijing has made the Chinese capital "barely suitable" for living... toxic chemicals may be causing brain disorders in children... space law scholars debate whether private ownership is allowable on the Moon... in the 21st century, we are walking the road to superintelligence...

David Forrest is a Canadian writer and strategy consultant. His Integral Strategy process has been widely used to increase collaboration in communities, build social capital, deepen commitment to action, and develop creative strategies to deal with complex challenges. David advises organizations on emerging trends. He uses the term Enterprise Ecology to describe how ecological principles can be applied to competition, innovation, and strategy in business.

More resources ...

a new book by Deborah Perry Piscione, Secrets of Silicon Valley: What Everyone Else Can Learn from the Innovation Capital of the World, showing how Silicon Valleys innovative culture can inform other communities and inspire change in industries that are failing to meet today's global challenges.... a link to the website for the first World Forum on Internet of Things to be hosted by IEEE from March 6 to 8, 2014 in Seoul, South Korea... the trailer for a movie on Google's project to create a giant global library

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David is the founder and president of Global Vision Consulting Ltd., a strategy advisory firm. He is a member of the Professional Writers Association of Canada, the World Future Society, and the Advisory Committee of the Institute for Science, Society and Policy at the University of Ottawa.

containing every book in existence... a blog post by John Brockman on a recent interview with Kevin Kelley...
David Forrest Innovation Watch

SCIENCE TRENDS
Top Stories: Scientists Draw Up Definitive List of Genes That Make Us Human (Guardian) - Researchers have drawn up the first definitive list of genetic changes that make modern humans different from our nearest ancient ancestors, who died out tens of thousands of years ago. The list amounts to a series of biological instructions that shape the brains and bodies of living people and distinguish them from Neanderthals and other early humans that lived alongside them. Scientists are now going through the list to work out which genetic tweaks might have been most important in driving modern humans to become the most dominant living organism on the planet today. IBM Tackles Personalized Medicine's Big Data Challenge, One Genome at a Time (Fast Company Co.EXIST) Personalized medicine has the potential to radically change the health-care business; just imagine if every cancer patient could get a treatment customized to work best with their genes. But there's a problem: storing genetic information is a data nightmare -- genotyping a single individual can produce up to 1.5 GB of data. That adds up quickly, which is why IBM is stepping in to keep our genetic information organized. IBM teamed up with the Coriell Institute for Medical Research, the largest biobank of living human cells, to help maintain its collection of biomaterials, which include cell lines and DNA samples representing over half of the 4,000 known genetic diseases -- everything from diabetes to cancer. More science trends...

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TECHNOLOGY TRENDS
Top Stories: First FDA-Approved Bionic Eye Implant Could Cure Blindness (Tech Times) - The idea of fusing humans with robotic parts was once in the domains of sci-fi novels and movies but it could well turn out to be the future of science. Surgeons at the University of Michigan have sucessfully implanted FDA-approved bionic eyes into patients suffering from eye disorder. Researchers at the Michigan University have managed to develop a DNA chip known as a microarray. This particular chip is highly customizable, and will be able to help doctors diagnose eye disorders in the near future. More importantly, the doctors have managed to successfully perform their first artificial eye implant surgery into patients suffering from retinitis pigmentosa. Tiny Motors Controlled Inside Human Cell (BBC) - For the first time, scientists have placed tiny motors inside living human cells and steered them magnetically. The advance represents another step towards molecular machines that can be used, for example, to release drugs into specific locations within the body. There is interest in the approach because it could enhance the benefits of drugs while minimising side effects. The rocket-shaped metal particles were propelled using ultrasound pulses. More technology trends...

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BUSINESS TRENDS
Top Stories: Next Silicon Valleys: What Makes Israel a Start-Up Nation? (BBC) - For more than 70 years, the area now known as Silicon Valley has pumped out one world-changing company after another. Now, other areas are aiming to replicate its success with their own revolutionary technologies. In the first in a new series, Rory Cellan-Jones visits Israel to discover how the so-called "startup nation" has emerged as one of the front-runners. More Than 70 Mainstream Brands Now Taking Part in Collaborative Economy (2 Degrees) - In case you are new to the collaborative economy, there's an unstoppable wave of people trading, renting and borrowing all kinds of services and goods. The disruptive impacts to brands are potentially very high. Consumers are already buying and trading among themselves, often without purchasing items directly from the brands themselves. Companies that don't pay attention to this trend are leaving themselves in a state of risk, as technology and society continue to quickly innovate. To stay relevant with this unstoppable trend, every corporation must evaluate a business model of products as a

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service, marketplaces, tapping the maker movement and crowd collaboration as market behaviors shift. More business trends...

SOCIAL TRENDS
Top Stories: This 'Unrepentant Hippie' Wants You to Stop Throwing Your Stuff Away and Get Things for Free (Business Insider) Here's the idea: When you sign up as a new Yerdle user you instantly get 250 credits, which you can use to "buy" things on the site. Dig through your home or apartment and find your own things that you no longer want or need. Post pictures on Yerdle, with a suggested "price" in credits. Other Yerdlers can trade in their credits for your items and you can get other people's items with your credits. Once a deal is made, Yerdle offers low-cost, flatrate shipping to anywhere in the U.S. With Hackathons Taking Center Stage, the Coming Transformation of the Computer Scientist (Tech Crunch) For the first time next semester, more than 10,000 students are expected to participate in one of 10 mega-hackathons, in a discipline that graduated just about 16,000 students in 2012. That could mean that a majority of CS students will have participated in a hackathon before graduation in just the next few semesters. Hackathons, though, are just one part of the coming transformation of computer science education. Once a theoretical subject to the chagrin of many undergraduates, computer science students are increasingly finding outlets like hackathons, open source projects, and startups to learn the applied skill sets desired by industry -- and are getting the job offers to prove it. More social trends...

GLOBAL TRENDS
Top Stories: Europe Need NSA-Proof internet, Says Germany (Wired UK) - Germany's Chancellor wants to redesign Europe's data networks to stop the US infiltrating web use. Angela Merkel made the call on her weekly podcast at the weekend, saying she would also raise the proposal with French President Francois Hollande this week. "We'll talk about European providers that offer security for our citizens, so that one shouldnt have to send emails and other information across the Atlantic. Rather, one could build up a
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communication network inside Europe," the BBC reports her as saying. China Offers to Finance 30 Percent of Indian Infrastructure Spending Through 2017 (The Diplomat) - According to a report in India's Economic Times, China has offered to finance a large portion of India's infrastructure development via loans. A Chinese working group has reportedly submitted a five-year trade and economic cooperation plan to the Indian government that offers $300 billion of India's $1 trillion targeted infrastructure investment during its 12 Five-Year Plan from 2012-2017. The investment would amount to 30 percent of India's planned infrastructure spending through 2017. For comparison, China contributed a mere 0.15 percent of India's total FDI inflows between April 2000 and December 2013. India has in the past refused Chinese investment in critical infrastructure, particularly telecom and power, over national security concerns. More global trends...

ENVIRONMENTAL TRENDS
Top Stories: Pollution Making Beijing Hazardous Place to Live, Says Chinese Report (Guardian) - Severe pollution in Beijing has made the Chinese capital "barely suitable" for living, according to an official Chinese report, as the world's second largest economy tries to reduce often hazardous levels of smog caused by decades of rapid growth. Pollution is a rising concern for China's stabilityobsessed leaders, keen to douse potential unrest as affluent city dwellers turn against a growth-at-all-costs economic model that has tainted much of the country's air, water and soil. Growing Number of Chemicals Linked with Brain Disorders in Children (Science Daily) - Toxic chemicals may be triggering the recent increases in neurodevelopmental disabilities among children -- such as autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and dyslexia -- according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The researchers say a new global prevention strategy to control the use of these substances is urgently needed. More environmental trends...

FUTURE
TRENDS
Top Stories:

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Hard Cheese (Economist) - Who owns the Moon? According to the United Nations Outer Space Treaty, signed by every spacefaring country, no nation can claim sovereignty over Earths lunar satellite. 102 countries have entered into to the 1967 accord; China joined in 1983. But space law scholars debate whether the Treaty actually implicitly prohibits, or allows, private ownership on celestial bodies. Some commercial companies, such as Bigelow Aerospace, are hoping to use the ambiguity of the treaty's language to their advantage. Founded in 1999 and based in Las Vegas, the firm aims to manufacture inflatable space habitats. It already has an agreement with NASA to expand the International Space Station in 2015 using its flexible modules, and also to devise a plan for a privately developed, NASA financed, lunar base architecture. The Road to Superintelligence (Huffington Post) - In the 21st century, we are walking an important road. Our species is alone on this road and it has one destination: super-intelligence. The most forward-thinking visionaries of our species were able to get a vague glimpse of this destination in the early 20th century. Paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin called this destination Omega Point. Mathematician Stanislaw Ulam called it "singularity." For thinkers like Chardin, this vision was spiritual and religious; God using evolution to pull our species closer to our destiny. For others, this vision was a fiercely secular and naturalistic technological utopia designed on scientific principles alone. The rapture for the nerds. More future trends...

From the
publisher...

Secrets of Silicon Valley: What Everyone Else Can Learn from the Innovation Capital of the World
By Deborah Perry Piscione Read more...

A Web Resource... IEEE World Forum on Internet of Things 2014 - The Internet of Things, or IoT, is in the works to interconnect billions of devices and ordinary objects, giving people the ability to track and communicate with just about anything. But what does this mean for how individuals will navigate the world, share information, and, more important, protect their privacy and security? To explore these and other questions, IEEE is hosting its first World Forum on Internet of Things from 6 to 8 March in Seoul, South Korea. "The Internet of Things touches just about everything," says Harold Tepper, senior program director for IEEE's Future Directions Committee. "From a technology standpoint, IoT involves a broad range of industries, including but not limited to consumer electronics, power and energy, and transportation."

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Multimedia... Trailer: Google and the World Brain (Polar Star Films) - The story of the most ambitious project ever conceived on the Internet. In 2002 Google began to scan millions of books in an effort to create a giant global library, containing every book in existence. They had an even greater purpose -- to create a higher form of intelligence, something that HG Wells had predicted in his 1937 essay "World Brain." But over half the books Google scanned were in copyright, and authors across the world launched a campaign to stop Google, which climaxed in a New York courtroom in 2011. A film about the dreams, dilemmas and dangers of the Internet. (2m 3s) The Blogosphere... The Technium: A Conversation with Kevin Kelly (Edge) - John Brockman "For the thirty years I've known him, Kevin Kelly has been making bold declarations about the world we are crafting with new technologies. He first began to attract notice when he helped found Wired as the first executive editor. 'The culture of technology,' he notes, 'was the prime beat of Wired. When we started the magazine 20 years ago, we had no intentions to write about hardware -- bits and bauds. We wrote about the consequences of new inventions and the meaning of new stuff in our lives. At first, few believed us, and dismissed my claim that technology would become the central driver of our culture. Now everyone sees this centrality, but some are worried this means the end of civilization.' "

Email:
future@innovationwatch.com

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