session 12

For this session, we continued with the group presentations. My group presented on weather modification. We started off with a trailer of the movie "The Storm".



What I would like to discussed here is the about the meaning of this trailer and some of the phrases that that were mentioned in it. This trailer is a possible scenario that might happen in near future. As we can see the trailer started off with a group of scientists working to develop weather modification technology in order to shift the hurricane away from land. However, as time progress, people (the government) started to exploit these technology in terms of a weapon. "If you control the weather you control the world, is it not worth some small risk?" To them, this technology, instead of benefiting the society, it turns out to be a weapon for them to control the world. This is highly possible to happen given its huge benefit. Looking at the current situation of weather modification, there are some critics that feel that the action of manipulating the weather is messing with nature, as commented by someone in the trailer where these people are "playing with god". They believe that "when you fight nature, nature fights back", and there are serious consequences in such actions. I agree that if humans are messing with weather as a weapon, its destruction force will definitely have a detrimental effect on the earth. However, if this technology is being used as a tool to improve people's lives, such as creating rain when there is drought, and is being utilize strictly according to the legislation, weather modification technology will be one of the greatest invention in the century that will benefits the society.

The other topic that was presented by one of the groups is about 3D technology. This is yet another great invention of the century. During the group's presentation, they mentioned about 3D pornography. This application did not occur to me before. I believe that this might be one of the problems that the government will have to tackle. Using 3D for pornography will enhance the problem that already existed in current society regarding this topic. The group was also mentioning about application of 3D as augmented reality.



Other than the application of augmented reality in medical field, this video suggests that this technology can be used for transactions. A paper with certain designs on it can be sent by the company to the customer, and when the customer receives it, through a certain software in the phone, he or she will be able to see the real product in 3D. This is a very good application of 3D as it allows the company to better advertise their product and reduce the chances of consumers buying the wrong product when shopping online.

Nuclear power is the energy source that the Singapore government might be considering to implement. This is a controversial issue in many countries as people are afraid of its negative health implication. This is especially so in Singapore as Singapore is a small country that is densely populated given its small area. Usually in other countries, they will build their nuclear plant in areas that are more deserted to minimize any negative consequences it has on people. However, this is not applicable in Singapore. Thus, this will be an uphill task for the Singapore government to tackle as they have to keep up with the progress (energy source) of the other countries with a small land size area that they are given to utilize.

This session is rated 9/10.

This is the last lesson of the entire TWC course. I believe that most of my course-mates had learnt a lot about leadership and world change with regards to technology. My main takeaway of this entire course is being summarize in this quote "technology is easy, people are hard". Technology is always there for us to use, it just depends on how the government implement it and how people use it to determine whether this product will benefit the society or not and to a larger or a smaller extent. Finally, I will take this opportunity to thank everyone in the class for your invaluable comments and insights, and our TA, Marcus who guild us along during these 13 weeks. Last but not least, thank you Professor for your effort in making this course a successful one. I really hope that all of us will be able to see each other again.

session 11

Cosmetic surgery is a term that most people would avoid three decades ago. But nowadays, cosmetic surgery is so prevalent, especially among the actor and actress, that out of 10 stars, at least 3 of them had undergone cosmetic surgery. Other than providing some people a chance to regain self confidence by altering their appearance, this commonness of cosmetic surgery can bring about huge revenue to the industry and serve as an economic boost to the country. However, some people took the opportunity of this situation (the prevalence of it) to defame others. There is this video that I came across online, whereby it talks about the how some people of the people used fake photographs and spread the rumours about how the actor or actress are so ugly before they went for the surgery, which can be misleading at times. This is one of the problem that media have to curb with the presence of cosmetic surgery.



Most of the people do not really pay attention to Cybercrime as it does not cause a direct physical impact on them. For example, if a hacker managed to get the information of someone and spread it, it will not be as damaging as it seems in those conventional crimes such as theft or robbery. However, looking at the consequences both crimes may result in, cybercrime may turn out to be equally, or even more serious than conventional crime (in terms of monetary aspect). For example, in theft cases, the amount of monetary involved is limited; whereas the economic damages of cybercrime incur can easily goes up to a few thousands, millions or even billions if it is the companies account that is being hacked. In website created, I like particularly one of the future solutions provided, which is fighting fire with fire. However, a point to note is that people should pay extra cautious while dealing with "fire" as this "fire", if not well-controlled, it might in turn cause damages to us instead. Even anti-virus can be infected, so nothing is impossible in the digital world.

session 10

This session was my turn to do the oral presentation. I chose an article that talks about the upstream public engagement with regards to the formation of technology development pathway. I shall not elaborate further on the content. While reading this article, this question kept coming into my mind: how are the public selected to join the engagement session with the scientist? I put it as a discussion question and post it to the class. The answer I got was why restrict the number of public that will be able to attend the interactive sessions? A small group of people will not be able to represent the population. The solution he gave was to put the engagement sessions as a forum and invite the whole community to participate and write their comments in the forum. I thought that this solution is feasible; however, there is a problem that the organizers will have to face, which is to prevent people from misusing the forum. Some people might use the forum to gain popularity or putting up advertisements (since is a whole country's event) instead of providing constructive feedback.

Weather forecasting is an interesting concept that exist since the past. Researches use the linear model of forecasting to predict the future. However, reality is much more complicated than the linear course of development people presumed and more have to be considered than these assumptions to have a more accurate Techno cultural forecast. For the forecast to be correct, several factors have to be considered, including the most complicated nature of human. Most of the time, futurists try to predict the future through analyzing the driver of change scientifically.

Both the presentor and the article for this session mention that science fiction writers forecast what are the possible trend in future, then creating the possible situation in form of a story. I would say that science fiction is an eye-opener of both the public and the scientist. It might even spark off ideas in the scientist and urge them to research on the possible means to bring these situations to reality. The accuracy of the forecast is not the main focus of the story in the science fictions. Instead, its main intention is to open up the imaginations of people and imagination is an important factor to come out with new innovations. Thus, I would say that science fiction is also one of the driver of change.

When I came across this session's topic, I was thinking of reason why we want to forecast the future. After the lesson, I came to the conclusion that people want to forecast the future because they want to be better prepared for the future change. Since people make the preparations for the future based on the forecast, inaccurate forecast can be disastrous as it might lead to people making the wrong investments and decisions. Thus, this is a topic that has to be treated carefully and seriously.

session 9 wk 10

This session's topic was a really interesting one. The fact that we are predicting what is going to happen in future is an exciting task. This session, I was really inspired by the quote given in Professor's powerpoint. “You see things; and you say, 'Why?'But I dream things that never were; and I say, 'Why not?'”. That is the spirit of a successful innovator. Many people blame their failure on their luck. They say those who succeed were lucky enough to have the opportunity. However, I would say that most of these opportunities are actually created, not given. When the same idea come across their minds, some people will say "Why? This is impossible."; while will say "Why not? There must be a way to do it." It is the "never say die" fighting spirit that urge people to move on until they achieve the impossible. Looking at professor's readings, I was truly amazed by the future technology they came up with. Ideas like the Global Electronic Library, Vibrational Medicine, Superlearning Systems, will change our era. What impressed me most is not their creativity, it is their courage to pen down their ideas and put it into action. Many people have brilliant ideas but do not have the guts to expose it to the world in fear of mockery. Thanks to these brave people, our society is what it is now and will prosper in future.

Looking at the content of some of presentations, I was and still fascinated by the ideas and future innovations. Firstly, is the idea about wireless electricity. The article suggest 2 methods in replacement of the wires to transmit electricity: mutual induction and electromagnetic waves. This is indeed a idea as it is a common sight, especially in office where computers are essentials, that wires get entangled or people experiencing the anxiety of bringing the charger with long messy wires everywhere they go. With this innovation, all these will no longer be a problem. However, I believe that the society will have questions about the safety of this innovation. Nobody knows whether having a close contract with these waves on a long term basis will have an impact on our health. As we all know that some waves can be harmful (radioactive waves), one may never know whether these waves used to replace wires will change our body system since we are exposed to it wherever we go. So, I doubt this innovation will be widely utilised unless researchers are able to prove that long term exposure will not have an impact on us.

The other innovation that was mentioned was also an interesting one. The idea of falling in love with virtual people seems ridiculous at first. However, looking at the explanation given in the article, this idea is indeed feasible for some of the people. People fall in love with another person might be for several reasons: appearance, behavior, personalities. If a robot is able to fulfill the criteria and is constructed completely based on people's preference, why would people not fall in love with it? In our society, some people commit suicide or undergo depression due to the loss of their love ones. If these virtual robots are used to imitate their love ones and calm them down, suicide and depression rate will decrease. However, this might be unacceptable to some people. Some people might argue that the knowledge that "she" or "he" is non-human will stop them from falling in love with virtual people. In addition, all parents will not be happy if their children fall in love with a robot. This is because robots are not able to produce our future generations with human. Imagine a society where everyone is in love with a virtual person, I believe that the world's population will decrease drastically. Thus, I feel that this innovation is interesting but is not feasible and will not be widely recognised.

I would rate this session 9.5/10. I truly enjoy this session a lot. New ideas introduced were fascinating. Especially the presentation about invisibility. I bet the idea of being invisible has been in people's mind for quite some time but only until now that people have the ability solve part of this problem. However, as I always mention, technology is a double edge sword. While looking at the benefits future technologies will bring about, scientist should also spare a thought for the harmful impacts they might have on the society. For example, if the invisibility cloak is invented, what will happen to the safety of our society? CCTV will be useless and chances of criminal escaping will be very great. Even if they are caught, there is also a high chance of them escaping law as there is no witness!

Session 8 week 9

Climate change is one of the most worrying trends in today's context and the fear that the earth is reaching its maximum capacity is overwhelming. People are finding ways and means to reduce greenhouse gases emission and the usage of natural resources. Tracing back to the root of these 2 problems, excessive non-renewable energy consumption is the main culprit of why we are in this situation. But even though people have found the root of the problem, we cannot eliminate it because energy consumption is inevitable. Thus, the only way to solve the problem is to create renewable energy which are environmental friendly. This idea coincides with professor's statement, which states that: "the days of fossil fuels are numbered. Renewable energy will drive the green revolution." However, some problems might appear for certain countries if people solely rely on renewable energy. One of the reason is because selling natural resources (to provide non-renewable energy) is a major source of national income for them, for example, 95 % of Nigeria's national income comes from selling of oil. Thus, if the world is completely relying on the renewable resource, these countries will lose their main source of livelihood. Nonetheless, seeing that the world is reaching its limits, man have to look at alternative means for energy consumption, or we will be facing dire consequences.

One of the articles that caught my attention was about transport. Transportation plays a very crucial role in our lives. Looking at the amount of greenhouse gas produced by transportation, we can see that if people want to be environmentally sustainable and "save the world", new transportation or transportation system has to be created. Before reading this article, I have thought about the future transportation technology and felt that researchers should focus on create alternative fuels or new car system which requires other form of energy (electricity, pressure etc.) to operate. However, I realised that it is not an easy task for these researchers to come out with a completely new technology, it takes years to achieve. Thus, at the mean time, people should also focus on other ways of reducing greenhouse gas emission such as improving current technologies to make vehicles more technically efficient than they are now and lessen their fuel consumption per kilometre of driving or creating new transport systems and infrastructure to reduce the need for vehicle travel and enable more efficient routing, as mentioned in the article. The article also states that the ultimate goal is to create a sustainable transport system, hence exploring alternative fuels for transport is still one of the major research areas that people are focusing on. The current results of the research (on alternative fuels) are:
-Electric propulsion and powertrain systems
-Hydrogen fuel-cell propulsion systems
-Technologies that allow use of biofuels which have near-zero emissions on a well-to-wheels basis
With the introduction of these new technologies, people are no longer solely reliant on non-renewable resources for transportation and at the very least controlling the amount of carbon emission coming from transportation.

Some countries in Africa are so poor was mainly because of the vast space occupied by the desert in their country. In the past, people are not able to utilized the deserts efficiently due to the bad environmental conditions of the deserts. But this does not mean that the desert is completely useless. With the introduction of solar energy, people can actually set up solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies, which convert the sun's energy into electrical energy, in the dessert, acting an electricity generator for the whole country. This is possible given the vast abundant space of land that they have. Also, given the strong sun in Africa, building solar panels on residents' own house can also help contribute to the amount of energy (mainly electricity) generated. The only problem they will be facing is the monetary factor for creating and maintaining the technology. Given the serious corruption problem in Africa, it is predictable that investors will be quite reluctant to invest their money in Africa.

I will rate this session 7/10, because there are some repetitions in the content with the previous sessions about alternative fuels being used as renewable source of energy. However, they are still some interesting ideas that caught my attention, which is the idea about individual families selling the energy generated to the company at a higher rate and buy the same amount of energy at a cheaper rate. This is a good incentive for the public to install solar panel on their house as this can actually act as a source of income for the families. This will be a win-win situation where families earn money and companies receive energy generated without investing in the equipment required. From this, I can derive that it is very important to have an effective policy if the country wants to drive green revolution. People will only adopt the "renewable technology" only when it benefits them. By just saying "to save the world" is not a sufficient reason for them to adopt the technology in this increasingly profit-driven world.

Session 7

I did not go for this week session as I was having fever:( However, I have read through some of the aritcles given, students' powerpoint slide and notes from friends.

This week's topic was an interesting one: still on biobusiness revolution, but focusing on agriculture.The statement given to class for this session is "When we are able to grow the resources we need, only then will we be on the way towards stability." I understand that this statement is true to a certain extent as if we are able to grow the resources, this means that these resources are somewhat "renewable" in the sense that we can regenerate it when we are running out of supply. Hence, they are considered sustainable. On the other hand, given that "resource" is actually a big word, which includes resources for energy, food, raw material for products, there will be several problems we will be facing if we completely rely on the method of growing resources. Firstly, there will be a limited usage of land. Since resources are required for so many purposes, there will not be enough land for us to grow these extensive amount of resources unless we remove the forest, find ways to grow crops in the desert or reducing the the amount of space man live in. However, if we resort to these solutions, other negative consequences might arise. Secondly, excessive use of the land might lead to depletion of nutrients present in the soil. Hence, growing of resources is not exactly sustainable as one of the factors (nutrients in soil) for growing crops might be depleted if not well managed. Hence, I would say that even though men has discovered this method of growing resources which seems to look and is sustainable to a certain extent, men must still continue to explore alternative methods of getting resources rather than putting all eggs in one basket.

In the article "Industrial and environmental application of Biotechnology", there is one segment talking about the opportunities given to the developing countries by the introduction of biotechnology. Bioproducts such as biofertilizer, bioenzyme, bioleaching etc aim to benefit the developing countries both economically and environmentally and giving opportunity for them to make the transition from raw material exports to processed products. I would agree that they definitely do benefit them by increasing the efficiency of the production and improving sustainability developments with the use of environmentally-friendly-technology. However, it is a pity that the author did not discuss about the problem that they will be encountering if they are adopting these bioproducts and technology. Even though these products do increase the yield of production, hence earning more profit, the author did not consider the starting cost. Taking farmers as example, they need invest a large aount of money to buy the biofertilizer, for some cases, GM seeds to increase crop yield. This amount of money might be a heavy burden on the farmers. The profit earn from the extra yield produced might be used to buy more biofertilizer and GM seed. This will seem like a never-ending-debt. To minimize this "side effect" and maximise the benefits of bioproducts and technology, I feel that it is very important for the government to regulate them such as improving market access or provide subsidies for these products.

One of the risks that will affect the future biotechnologies and products for crops mentioned in the article "how to feed the world in 2050" is climate change. Global warming and greater frequency of extreme weather events will lead to damages in the form of declining yields and water scarcity. Therefore, it is a challenge to
take effective action both to mitigate its effects and to adapt to its unavoidable consequences. Solutions such as conservation agriculture, avoiding deforestation, forest conservation and management, agro-forestry for food or energy, land restoration and recovery of biogas and waste to "increase resilience of production systems in the face of increased climatic pressures" are proposed in the article. However, I feel that this is insufficient given that the nature of the crops is still dependent on the temperature of the climate. Once the temperature exceeds its limits, no matter how much water or how many land spaces we reserve for agriculture, the crops will not be able to grow, unless they are grown in the green house, where temperature is being monitored. I would suggested that heat or cold resistant crops (GM crops) seeds should be on stand-by so that in the case of drastic climate changes, we are still able to produce  food.

Session 6

The Biobusiness Revolution has the potential, for now, will transform our lives and our economies. The “lives” here include our health, food, cloths, and energy source. I have been listening to many news on how Biotechnology or business has been integrated in our society. In my opinion, I always equate biobusiness to biotechnology. However, the truth is Biobusiness has a much wider range than biotechnology. Biobusiness includes food industry, energy source, anything that is got to do with live, and of course, biotechnology. Professor Shahi also mentioned that biobusiness might even include prostitution-.-"

Many people think that Biobusiness might be our best hope for achieving sustainable development. However, I would say that there are 2 answers to this question. On the positive light, biobusiness does benefit the society to a certain extent. Alternative source of energy such as bio fuel are being discovered to reduce the depletion of non-renewable natural resources or using genetic engineering to increase food production to cope with food scarcity are all great discoveries. However, technology is always a double edge sword. No matter how good it may seems, there will always be detrimental effects. The main source of bio fuel are corn, wheat and rice. Why would people turn the world's main food staple into fuel when there are people starving to death? Also, due to the introduction of bio fuels, the price of these main food staple increased drastically. Isn't it imposing a heavier burden on the poor? As for the case of using genetic engineering to increase food production, there is one well-known product, which is the genetically modified Salmon. Scientist has discovered that these sterile Salmon are more attractive to their partners as compared to the normal salmon. This may disrupt the ecosystem if these GM salmons are let into the wild as there will be a great reduction in the number of salmons. Hence, I feel that even though Biobusiness have contributed to the sustainable development, people must be aware of the danger or detrimental effects of it.

Disruptive innovation, is a completely new concept that I came across in this week's article. According to the definition from wikipedia, disruptive innovation is an innovation that disrupts an existing market.The article suggests that the health care industry is actually resistant toward the introducion of disruptive innovation (low cost alternative health equipments which can be used by public). This resistant comes from certain professionals, such as radiologist, insurance company and hospitals, as mentioned in the article. It is understandable that in order to keep their jobs or maximising their profits, these people are not in favour of introducing disruptive innovation, however this resistant actually hinders the development of public care. There is one statement written in the article that have my full support: "[m]anagers and technologies need to focus instead on enabling less expensive professionals to do progressively more sophisticated things is less expensive settings." The direction that the health care researchers are moving towards should no longer be focusing only on developing more advanced technology, but also on creating innovations that enable procedures to be done in less expensive and more convenient settings. Imaging one day if most of the patients that requires hospital stay can receive treatments in the clinic, this will defintely remove the heavy burden of medical fee from the patients family. In regards to the solution of this crisis (resistant), I fully agree with the article that leaders of the industry should take the initiative to remove the barrier that have prevented the introduction of disruptive innovation.

I will rate this session 8/10. This is because I am interested in this topic. I was a biology student in Junior College, hence some of the technical terms mentioned during the presentation was memory refreshing. The presentation that I like most in this session is on the growing of organs. I have heard of it but not in detail. The ethical issues associated with this technology is similar to human cloning. Should man be creating man? Or should it be God's work? I am agreeable to one of the ideas brought up, which is to use this technology only for medical purposes, but not to create a "better man kind". I have actualy came across a forum discussing on the question "should man be mordifying our genetic make-up?" Some people brought out the fact that if people mordify their DNA so that they get the so called "best" genetic make up, won't everyone ended up having the same appearance, behaviour and character? While studying on the topic "evolution", I learn that in order to survive, variation is required. One of the very good example is cheetah. According to the research, cheetahs are 99 per cent genetically identical and a virus could wipe out entire populations. If we human are also 99 per cent genetically identical to each other (all having the "best" DNA), wouldn't we be facing the same problem also?

session 5

With increasingly more and more knowledge generated or discovered, conventional means of disseminating knowledge such as books are no longer sufficient to meet the great demand. An alternative route is required such that knowledge can be easily accessible. Information and communication technology (ICT) as we can see from its name, it means any kind of technology that already exist to help individuals, businesses and organisations use information. Written by Professor Shahi, ICT is the catalyst that facilitates the knowledge revolution. Why is it a catalyst? I feel that it is because ICT has not only made access to information easier, but also speed up the process of generation of knowledge. When people get to access more knowledge, they tend to widen their scope and perspective. In this way, new ideas are more easily synthesize.

When we talk about ICT, the first thing that comes to our mind is internet. Internet is so prevalent in our society now that it is almost impossible to find a middle-income-family without a computer. In this session, Professor Shahi asked a question that has never stuck my mind before. Should internet be a human right? In the third world countries, where having 3 meals a day is dream, do they need internet? To them, is internet considered as a luxurious good? I feel that there is no right or wrong answer to this question. If a country is so poor that even having a meal is a dream, what is the use of internet? Can it fill their empty stomach? On the other hand, some people may argue that giving them internet is something like teaching people how to fish. If we only supply them the food and not the technique to get food, they will not be able to get out of poverty. I will say that it all depends on the circumstances. For people who are on the verge of starving to death, of course supplying them food is priority. For those who are able to survive, but is in poverty, then supplying them internet, getting to come in touch with the rest of the world will be a good idea.

One of the topic that caught my attention in class on Monday is Cloud computing. Given that there are more and more projects nowadays, students like to use applications such as drop box or Google documents. However, I didn’t know that there is specific name to this kind of applications, which is known as Cloud computing. Given in an article: “Cloud computing is an Internet-based technology through which information is stored in servers and provided as an on-demand service to clients, possibly jointly with the traditional form of access.” After looking at this definition, this first thing that came to my mind is since the information is stored in the server, wouldn’t it be unsafe? Maybe the information might not be accessible to the rest of the public, but I doubt that this information is safely protected against the person or organization controlling the server. This might be the reason why certain companies or industries, which do not allow their information to move outside the companies' firewall, are not willing to adopt cloud computing. Furthermore, there is still the question of whether this system is reliable or not, as who knows maybe the system might crash or come in contact with virus, which can lead to detrimental consequences. On the other hand, I do not deny the convenience and benefits brought about by cloud computing. Therefore, I feel that the companies should use cloud computing in a selective manner. Important or confidential information should be stored in the companies’ own hardware. For the rest of the information, why not use cloud computing given its advantages?

For this lesson, I will rate it as 7/10. I particularly like the presentation on “Why I am quitting Facebook?” I guess this is the situation most the Facebook edicts will have to face. Checking photos, friends, playing Facebook games, replying messages, all these applications made Facebook more interesting, but also more time consuming. I feel that this link to the quote Professor Shahi mentioned in the previous lesson, about how technology is easy and people are hard. Facebook is meant to create bonds between people. Who knows why the results turn out to be this way?

Session 4

There are essentially 3 ways to cope with changes:
Option A- Make it happen (proactive)
Option B: respond what it happens (reactive)
Option C: Be surprised when it happens (Blur like sth)

After looking at this, I think I am categorized either under Option B or Option C. I am not a person that is very proactive. In the reading “Human Change Management: Herding Cats”, it discusses a lot about option B, about how people in the organizations adapt to changes, using the unfreeze-change-refreeze model. I agree with it by saying that this is model is already outdated due to the constant changes in the world. Personally, I feel that option A is the best model where everyone can try to make changes. However, this is unrealistic as making changes happen requires talent and a bit of luck. Hence, the modern model: Continuous monitoring and renewal (also option B, but with certain qualities of option A) should be used instead. Another quote was also mentioned in class: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” When I first saw this, I thought that there was some typo error: the “unreasonable” should be “reasonable” instead as I have always thought that the successful men are the ones who can adapt to the change quickly. But after Professor Shahi’s explanation, then only I understand what “unreasonable” meant. It is not purely accepting what is given to him, but in turn making the change himself, causing people to change for his sake.

Speaking of changes, one of the main changes stated in “Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World” is about the global multipolar system. It was predicted that there will be an unprecedented shift of power from the western (USA) to the East (China, India). Superpower is something of the past. During the cold war, USA and Russia are the superpowers at that point of time. However, due to the “complex economic interdependencies on the international scale” and “the creation of a global village”, the idea of superpower is obsolete. As mentioned in the reading “Global trend 2025”, more countries might be emulating China’s economic model instead of the Western Model in future. The writer also mentioned about multipolarity without multilateralism (multi countries working in concert on a given issue, from Wikipedia). I agree with this as due to globalization, issue required to be tackled are usually issues that affects everyone (transnational problem). Multilateralism can no longer suffice the manpower required to resolve the problem. Efficient governance is necessary and this is where multipolarity comes in. According to the definition on Wikipedia, mutipolarity is the distribution of power in which more than two nation-states have nearly equal amounts of military, cultural, and economic influence. I also feel that this system can avoid exploitation to a certain extent as now a few countries in the dominance and they can pin down or restrain each other from doing so.

Overall, I rate this lesson 7/10.There was an interesting fact raised in class, about how virus is one of the driver of the changes in Europe, which affects not only in the economically, but also people’s belief. However, it is quite a pity that we did not come out with a satisfying answer on the question: How can LDC compete with the developed countries. But I guess if we managed to get the correct answer, we will be politicians instead of sitting here in class

Session 3

“Sustainability requires a shift from linear to circular thinking. Old industrial Model: Economic Development Vs Environmental Well-being. Sustainable Industrial Model: Economic Development and Environmental well-being.” In the past, to many people, environmental issues seems to be very irrelevant, all people care about is the profit or the convenience they will gain from the product. This is because they have not yet experience the consequence of the complete depletion of the world’s resources or the disaster that will come if global warming exit the limits. Hence, the typical old industrial model does not include environmental issues. It is a linear thinking as they only focuses on producing the products from the raw material without considering the process. However, as we can see from the increasingly prominent disasters and the forever rising temperature, the world is reaching its maximum carrying capacity, and people are starting to realize that. Therefore, people started to change their mindsets, instead of treating pollution as externalities, it is considered as part of the economic assessment, as internalities. It is called the circular thinking. For the earth to be more sustainable, circular thinking has to be adopted.

Most people will agree that it is important to implement the sustainable industrial model. However, is it fair for third world countries to take into account the cost of environmental degradation such as adopting green technology? Previously, the first world countries used the old industrial model (which is much more efficient in generating profit than the sustainable industrial model as no funding was required to be allocated to buy green technologies or the process without considering environmental issues are less time consuming) to achieve rapid growth in their economy, without taking into account the environmental issues. But now, we are forcing the third countries to adopt the costly industrial model when it is their turn to undergo rapid economic development? I do not think it is fair. Much of the pollutions were the products of the first world countries. Hence, it is not fair for the third world countries to bear the consequences. I am not saying that these countries shouldn’t use the green technologies, but these technologies should be subsidised by the first countries, who were the main culprits that caused the world to be in the state it is now. Moreover, these acts can be seen a sign of peaceful ties between countries. Friendly treaties such as exchange of resources and technology can be made. In the world of globalisation, it is better to have more friends than foes

In this session, Professor Shahi brought up a very interesting idea: the advantages of backwardness. Countries such as Germany and Russia were slower at picking up the development of green technology at the beginning as compared to Europe countries. Hence they do not need to go through the pain of researching from the scratch. By the time they were ready to use the green technologies, they were already several final products from the more developed countries, and all they need to do is to utilize it. Hence, the cost and manpower required for research was greatly reduced. However, for countries that are “too backward”, even though they enjoy this benefit, they will face the problem of not being able to undergo rapid economic development, as mentioned in the above paragraph.

Overall, I will rate this session 7/10. I was really surprised by the idea of having two meanings in the Chinese character of crisis. Crisis = danger + opportunity. I believed that this opportunity (green technology revolution) which arises is of great potential. Also, I was truly amazed by Air car, which is so environmentally friendly. I am sure that even though it is not in production now, one day (when the world runs out of petrol), this invention will be greatest invention in the century. During the lesson, the term “Kyoto Protocol” was mentioned. From what I understand from this term, it is a protocol created to fight global warming. It gives the incentives to reduce pollution, as by doing so, they will be able to sell the extra units to the other countries. However, the negative aspect of this protocol was not discussed in detail. From the rate at which America is producing the greenhouse gases (20 tons per person annually, over six times that of the global average (ignoring the US)), it seems that the protocol is not very effective in the reducing the level of emission greatly as a whole. Personally I feel that it is because since America is a rich country, they can afford to buy the units from the other countries (a loophole in the Kyoto Protocol). Hence, for America, it does not really serve as a deterrent to reduce GHS emission. It is quite a pity that this issue was not discussed in class. However, I understand that due to the time constrain, Professor Shahi would not able to discuss everything in detail.

TWC session 2 :)

This is the second session of our TWC lesson. We have covered 2 main topics on Technology, Society and Global Dominance and Technology and Human Development. Here, I will pick a few interesting discussions made in class to talk about.

Change is inevitable and often necessary; the transition process can often be difficult or painful (for some). This statement was introduced to us in class. This made me think of another very similar idea, which is, change is the only constant in world. This is especially true when we apply it to our rapid pace modern society. Europe was globally dominance in terms of economy a few decades ago. However, their position was taken over by United State. Who knows maybe a few years later, countries such as China or India might be the ones clinching the top position. The development of some changes might be insignificant, but the process of certain changes can be devastating. For example, when Marx’s, the founder of communism, idea of communism was being introduced, the attempt to creating a utopian state caused over 100 million dead, millions more imprisoned, vast regions depopulated, and suffering the world has never before seen. Since change is inevitable, the only thing that people can do is to minimise the damage done by change and amplify its benefits.

There was a very interesting concept about “Rising star, falling star and dominant player” being introduced by Professor Shahi. The rising star countries contain characteristics such as open perspective, optimistic, eager to learn from others and have the guts to try out new ideas; while falling star countries, on the other hand, is the opposite of these. What I felt interesting was the idea of dominant player, which Professor Shahi described as the beginning of the end. It was meant to describe countries that are about to fall into in the falling star category. I find the definition of dominant player ambiguous as it is difficult to determine who is on the falling edge. Personally, I feel that Singapore was a Dominant player before the economy crisis 2 years ago. People at that time were starting to be pessimistic and were not keen to invest in new ideas. However, after the crisis, people started to realize that if they do not improve, they will soon be replaced by those rising star countries such as China and India. I will classify the present Singapore as a rising star now.

Among the five presentations, I realized that Dora’s presentation about hegemony interest me most. She discussed about how US tried to uphold its hegemony by providing the knowledge of missile. Initially they were not willing to share the information as they are afraid of Soviet Union’s adaptations of technology due to certain nations’ all-too-liberal export policies. However, due to the pressure from western European to relax its nondisclosure policy, US had no choice but to share the guided-missile technology. Dora brought up a question whether hegemony is still relevant these days. I believed that it is a yes from me. I felt that hegemonic these days exist in a different form. In the past, hegemony could be shown by controlling other countries (colonization, I would prefer to treat it as controlling through pure violence though). These days, hegemony can not only be shown through global dominance in military, but also other aspects such as economically dominant. US was trying to move in this direction by promoting globalization, which they believed can act as a means to control the other countries. Ironically, instead of gaining control, they were taken aback by China and India’s quick adaptation towards the new system. As mentioned in the earlier part of the lesson, change is inevitable. Nobody is able to predict what will happen and it is a risk that we all have to take.

Actually there is a question that I would like to know how the class will respond: “Do you think that the millennium goals are realistic?” Personally, I feel that goals such as eradicating poverty are too general and idealistic as it is also impossible to remove poverty from our society. I believe that everything has 2 sides of it. Anywhere with light, there will always be shadow. The total removal of dark side of the society is impossible. I felt that the goals should be set with a feasible direction, for example to increase the average wage of the poorest to $6/day. In this case, people will have the urge to move forward as the direction of the goal is clearly define and achievable.  

Generally, I will rate this lesson 7/10. I felt very comfortable with the environment created in class when a discussion was carried out. I can see that people are trying their best to sharing their valuable opinions and clarifying their doubts in class. Scenarios, such as someone speaking for the sake of speaking (no content) or asking stupid/ irrelevant questions, which I fear, did not happen. However, due to the time constrain, we did not have the chance to listen to the last presentation in detail. This was a little disappointing as it seems to be an interesting article discussed about.

TWC Session 1

I never had much interest in the current technology, just like the kind of people whom Professor Shahi referred to as luddite. I always take things as they are without questioning how these products come about or whether will they make an impact on the rest of the world. This TWC lesson made me think about questions that I had never thought of.


Professor Shahi started the lesson with a short video clip in hopes of getting us interested in the course, stating the rate at which the world’s technology is improving. Before the lesson was started proper, we were asked to do a short introduction of ourselves. We were then introduced to the overview of this course. There were a few topics which we discussed about:

Technology revolution


We watched a movie named "Guns, Germs and Steel" and were shown a timeline of technology revolution. A discussion was sparked off when we were discussing about the differences between the rates at which each country’s technology is progressing. Question like why some countries are so much more advanced than others and why there was a change in the most technologically advanced and powerful country as time progressed were brought up. Before I attended this lesson, I read through some of the notes and asked myself what led to the different rates of progress of technology. I came out with my own answer, resources and demands. Personally, I feel that people are able to invent new things because they have sufficient resources, and there is no need for them to struggle for survival. Hence, for people living in New Guinea, who work hard everyday in order to survive, who would have the time to think of new inventions to improve their lives? During the lesson however, I heard a different answer: trade. Due to the location of certain places like New Guinea, or political reasons (China), these countries have no access to international trade. I believe that without trade, improvements will be minimal.

Creativity, innovation and invention

Creativity, innovation and invention. There was a debate regarding the chronological order of these three terms. Most people agree that usually creativity comes first. I feel that creativity is the spark of an idea that initiates the discovery of a new product. After that, even though Professor Shahi does not agree with it, I feel that innovation comes next. I understand what Professor Shahi meant in class, innovation means coming up with new methods to use a product, in other words, the application of the product. However, in my opinion, in order for a product to be invented from a spark of an idea, innovation is needed. Hence, the process should be creativity -> innovation (developing an idea into a product) -> invention -> innovation (application) -> marketable product.

Technology is easy, people are hard

Regarding this statement, most of us in the class have the same opinion. Technology is easy because it is direct and straight forward. It is the people who are making things complicated by using it for different purposes. For example, a knife is simple; however, people can use a knife to do all sorts of things, such as murder, stealing, cutting, cooking etc.

I wish that we had more time to discuss about the book “Guns, Germs and Steel”. It inspired us to consider many questions that we have never thought of before and it is really interesting and benefiting to listen to different perspectives regarding an issue. I will rate this lesson 9/10.