Week 3

The third session of TWC saw us covering Technology & Sustainability of Industrial Development and Innovation Management.

We started off by looking at the old industrial model, elaborating on how people of the past could continue to advance in technology without having to consider the pressing situation of environmental degradation. However, as a result of such, the environment has landed in bad state today, leaving current firms to grapple with the issue of sustainable development. Companies these days now have to ensure that their primary objective of maximizing profits are being met, while ensuring that they do not bring up levels of global warming at the same time.

Furthermore, Prof also mentioned that starting late does not always put you at a disadvantage. This allows firms to leap in to the industry and begin to capitalize, without having the need to invest in the starting of a new technology and its developmental process. This creates a substantial amount of value for such companies.

Hence, all current firms now have the onus on them to innovate, and work around with our current situation, in order to allow economic growth without harming our environment.

One classmate then had his presentation- whether development & sustainability were/had to be trade-offs. We then proceeded into discussion on how much of a role should governments play in the sustainability of the environment. In my opinion, a government is a leadership figure, having power and influence on the people. Its role is to educate, and to provide the framework for long-term change. However it is not up to the government alone. Firms, on their part, have to be receptive to orders, and to question whether they are willing to compromise on profit levels for the sake of the environment. It would be quite unfortunate if governments have to exert too much pressure, putting the whole issue in a very bad light, cause after all, we're under the same sky.

Halfway through class, we moved on to the topic of Innovation Management. One thing that I remember from this segment was Prof's cute attempt at drawing BioEnterprise Asia's Technology Landscape Conceptual Framework! In summary it listed the summits as opportunities when knowledge, technology & barriers to entry are high, with few competitors in the market. Valleys are pretty much the opposite, with low interest for BioEnterprise unless there's innovation. Then there are the clouds, with summit characteristics (high knowledge tech & barriers to entry) although the business case is not yet developed. All this well-represented by the image below-

All in all, what I've learnt during week 3 was that most of the time, it's worth the risk to think innovatively out of the box and to try something else that no one has. However at the same time, we must be careful to not let the risk be damage to our environment.

I rate this session a 7/10.