TED Talk: Nandan Nilekani's ideas for India's future

Brilliant speech by Nandan Nilekani in Ted about imagining India. Nandan is the visionary CEO of Infosys and the author of the book 'Imagining India'. As part of this speech Nandan explains four brands of ideas that will determine whether India can continue its recent breakneck progress.

Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed by Jared Diamond

'Collapse' is an excellent read. In this book Jared Diamond tries to analyze what caused some of the major civilizations of the past to collapse and what can we learn from their failures. The book is divided into three major sections. In the first two sections Jared does an in depth analysis on several past and modern societies and the factors that led to their success/failure. In the final part of the book he tries to come up with some practical lessons that we can learn from the failure of past societies and how do they apply in today's context. Overall the key message from the book is that environmental destruction and unsustainable development are key reasons for failure of successful societies.

Jared picks an diverse set of societies from different geographies, time periods and cultures for this analysis. He has come up a 5 point framework for analyzing each of the societies. The key factors of the framework include environmental damage, climate change, hostile neighbors, friendly trade partners and society's response to environmental problems.

The book starts off with a detailed analysis of modern day Montana - considered to be one of the most natural and pristine states in US and analyzes some of the problems faced in Montana society due to mining, logging, non-native species etc. In the next few chapters he analyzes some of the past societies starting with Easter island where the natives had deforested the complete island while competing with each other to build more and bigger statues. He then briefly covers the collapse of Pitcairn/Henderson societies, Anasazi's of American southwest and Maya civilizations. This is followed by analysis of some successful societies like New Guinea, Tikopia and medieval Japan(Tokugawa era). He wraps up this section with detailed analysis of Vikings and Norse Greenland society which had failed after surviving for more than four centuries. Jared concludes that the Norse society failed due to its inability to adapt to the harsh Greenland environment, clinging on to unsustainable European lifestyle and last but not the least - not mingling and learning from the Inuits(locals).

The second section of of book covers about the challenges faced by some of the current societies and their outcomes. Jared starts off with the Rwandan Genocide and the factors leading to it. He then talks about Hispaniola and contrasts how the two countries of this island(Dominican Republic and Haiti) with the same history and environments had responded to their challenges differently leading to different outcomes - Dominican Republic is thriving whereas Haiti is on the verge of collapse. He goes on to analyze how the rapid growth and industrialization of China is impacting its environment and affects the quality of life if its people. Finally he wraps up the section with an analysis of some of the challenges faced by Australia and their response to it.

Based on the detailed analysis Jared reasons that past societies had made their disastrous decisions due to - Failure to anticipate, Failure to perceive, Rational bad behavior, Disastrous values and unsuccessful solutions. He sums up the current day scenario and details some of the actions taken by governments and corporates to protect the environment. He concludes the book on a positive note stating that the awareness of environmental issues is increasing and that governments and corporates are taking it seriously and acting on it. He is fairly optimistic about the success of our society.

Overall it was a very interesting read. Jared has done an excellent job by providing indepth details and doing a thorough analysis using a logical framework. The only comment i have is that most of the past societies he has taken are fairly small(except Mayas) and have fragile environments. However his point that environment destruction is a key factor leading to failures is valid and true. It would have been good if he had analyzed the failure of any major civilizations. Anyways this book has spurned my interest in studying the demise of major historic societies like Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Indus Valley and Chinese civilizations. If you have any pointers to these pls let me know!

Are we entering an era of pandemics?

Swine flu has been on top of news for the last couple of weeks. It has been spreading across the globe really fast and on last count around 21 countries have confirmed cases of Swine flu and another 20 more countries had suspected cases. The speed at which this pandemic has spread across the globe has been mind-boggling. The first reported case of Swine flu was in Mexico on April 2nd 2009 and the virulent strain of the swine flu was discovered on April 16th only. Within a short span of 3-4 weeks this has spread to 40 countries across 5 continents putting millions of people at risk!

This is not the first time the world has seen pandemics. The biggest one in the not too distant past was the 1918 Spanish flu. This pandemic claimed an estimated 50 million plus lives across the globe. Some of the other significant pandemics that caused large scale impact include 1958 Asian flu,1968 Hong Kong flu etc. The more recent pandemics in this decade include SARS, Avian flu etc. Never before in the history of humans has the risk of being affected in a pandemic of a global scale that too within a short span of time been higher. The pace of spread of these pandemics gives us very less time to respond/find cures.

Some interesting patterns that i see based on these are:

a) These pandemics seems to be occuring more and more often (3 significant ones so far in this decade)

b) Most of these virulent strains are resistant to known anti-biotics and drugs and are increasing harder to cure using our current medicines

c) The speed with they spread across the globe is rapidly increasing with each outbreak

Increasing trade and travel between countries has been acting as a catalyst speeding up the proliferation of these pandemics. As global population is getting aggregated into ever-growing cities, more and more people are crammed into smaller places/close proximity. In lot of 3rd world countries the living conditions & hygene in these cities are really bad. This exponentially increases the risk of both creating a pandemic and being exposed to a pandemic. If you notice another interesting trend, more than 60% of all infectious diseases are caused by 'zoonoses' - pathogenic viruses that originate in animals and jump to humans. Some of the classic examples of zoonoses include SARS, bird flu, HIV/AIDS, West nile virus, Ebola etc. A lot of these are very lethal and we still dont have a cure yet. Zooneses are caused due to increasing human/animal interactions & clashes due to declining habitat.

Taking a step back, while we have made gaint strides in science and medicine in the last century our risk to getting exposed to these pandemics has only increased. The complexity of newer diseases has outpaced the growth of science and technology. Whether knowingly or unknowingly we may have contributed to this increased risk of pandemics thru pollution, decreasing quality of key natural resources - air/water/soil, deforestation, shinking habitats, unsustainable population levels, genetic engineering, wide spread use of harmful chemicals like pesticides/insecticides, dumping of radio-active wastes etc. These bring home a simple fact that nature is infinitely complex and sensitive, playing with it can affect us in ways beyond our comprehension. Pandemics is nature's way of re-establishing the equilibrium that was disturbed by humans. The sooner we start realizing this simple fact and start acting responsibly the better the chances of our future generations enjoying the quality of life that we enjoy today.

Here are some interesting links/articles on this topic:

Age of pandemics - Excellent article by Larry Brilliant in WSJ
Swine flu tracking map by Ushahidi.com

Pls let me know your thoughts and comments on the above!

Rapid growth in technology & innovation - What about sustainability?

I came across this excellent video on speed of Technology and innovation in YouTube. It really puts things in perspective of the progress we have made in the last several decades/century. 20th century has been the most event filled one in terms of technological progress, innovation & growth in the human history. Never before have we seen several disruptive innovations on a global scale (Ex: Airplane, Automobile, Television, Telephone/cell phone, Computers, Internet etc) within such a short span of time. We made huge progress in almost all fields, most notable amongst those include medicine and science. Technology and innovation has been instrumental in elevating our quality of life and life expectancy. It has shrunk time & distance and enabled us to communicate and express ourselves better. It has made the world one global village!

While there are many positives due to technology, there are also several negatives. We have developed several mass destruction weapons and biological weapons that has potential to destroy the entire life on this planet. We are our biggest enemy and our biggest risk today! In our enthusiasm to advance technology and improve our quality of life we have forgotten the whole concept of 'sustainability'. We have been abusing our planet and have been depleting its resources at a rapid pace. We have been polluting our environment, triggering off large scale environmental changes and global warming. While technology may seem to elevate our quality of life in the near term, if we don't reduce our impact on the environment and fix these issues immediately our future generations will have a drastically reduced quality of life and there is a possibility that their very survival will be threatened.

The need of the hour is to channel our knowledge and innovation to develop sustainable technologies that reduce our impact on this planet. While the last century had been focused on developing new technologies that improved our quality of life, this century should be focused on fixing these technologies, making them sustainable and reversing some of the damage we have done. In order to do that and ensure the survival of our future generations we need to drastically increase the pace of innovation of sustainable technologies.

A lot of political will and investments are required to trigger the next wave of disruptive innovation. In the last decade the awareness of our 'unsustainable development' has definitely increased. However our reaction to it has been somewhat muted and it is not coordinated. We need to shed our differences, geographical boundaries and unite as a single force. We need to act really fast and decisively for us to succeed. The next 2-3 decades will be critical and will determine the course of our future. It will be interesting to see if we can achieve this transformation in our lifetime!

Pls share your thoughts/comments on the above.

Believe in yourself!

One of the most widely reported and talked about story this week has been the appearance of Susan Boyle, a 47 year old singer on the show 'Britain's Got Talent'. This has been the most viral video ever with around 50 million views within 72 hours! As part of the show she attempts to sing 'l dreamed a dream' song from Les Miserables and it was a fabulous performance. The complete audience & judges were stunned and they gave her a standing ovation.

I found this video very inspirational. Here are some of the key learning's from this:

- Belief in self: In life you will always have people who would mock you and doubt your capabilities, having self-confidence and believing in yourself is very critical to success. Initially when Susan came on the stage, both judges and the complete audience were being very cynical and were mocking her. Susan did not let this affect her. She held her nerve and went on to give a fabulous performance. This was possible due to her self-confidence and belief in self.

- Appearances can be deceptive: Most of us typically tend to form opinions on a person based on looks, without interacting/making an effort to know them better. The same happened in Susan's case as well. Everyone including the judges were very skeptic about her and mocked her initially. However at the end of her performance they were stunned. Don't form opinions based on looks alone. Take time to know them better before forming opinions.

- Talent & hard work triumphs: If you have the right talent and work hard you will surely succeed irrespective of the adversities faced. Inspite of all the odds against her Susan went on to score the highest rating in the show due to her talent and hard work.

Check out Susan's performance. Its 7 minutes spent well!


Grazie Susan Boyle! from seb fil on Vimeo.

Dream of flight in a high-tech wingsuit

This guy rocks!!! Wingsuit jumping is the leading edge of extreme sports -- an exhilarating feat of almost unbelievable daring, where skydivers soar through canyons at over 100MPH. Ueli Gegenschatz talks about how (and why) he does it, and shows jawdropping film.

Ueli Gegenschatz takes flight just about every way a human can: paragliding, skydiving, BASE jumping (from the Eiffel Tower), and most breathtakingly by donning a wingsuit and soaring.

Internet penetration: An analysis

Came across this interesting presentation by Microsoft on Internet trends in Europe. Europe & North America are leading the pack in terms of internet penetration & usage. By 2010, Internet is expected to overtake television as the primary media as Europe. Europeans are expected to spend more time in Internet than on television! This is a significant milestone in the history of Internet. With this Internet has truly gone mainstream. The trend in North America is similar.

Europe Logs On

View more presentations from crossthebreeze.

Asia is lagging global Internet penetration by a sizable margin. In terms of absolute number of users Asia is the highest (Thanks to China), However in terms of % penetration we are still a good 5-10yrs behind NA/Europe. Current internet penetration in Asia is in the mid-teens. Internet penetration in most major developing countries in Asia ranges between low single digits to 20%, compare this with Europe/NA where the penetration is north of 70%.

Listed below are major stumbling blocks and some of steps that could help with improving the internet penetration in Asia:

PC Penetration: PC penetration rates in Asia are very low. Of the developing countries china leads the pack with around 22% penetration but rest of the populous countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia etc are lagging behind with single digit penetration rates. Making PC's more affordable(tax holidays etc.) and enabling easy availability of loans/low interest loans etc could help with improving the penetration.

Network Infrastructure: Internet bandwidth & Broadband penetration is very low. Per capita bandwidth availability is a fraction of what you see in developed countries. Also bandwidth charges are still high. Massive increase in bandwidth capacity coupled with drastic decrease in bandwidth rates is required to increase broadband adoption rates.

Regional language support & content: Currently a major portion of internet is in English/European languages. Most of current penetration is driven by urban users who are conversant in English. As more rural population/non tech population come online, serving localized content in regional languages is critical to increase penetration and make internet more relevant to these rural users.

Computer literacy & Internet awareness: Literacy rates in most of these countries are low. Computer literacy rate is even lower. Increasing computer literacy and internet awareness is very critical. This should be become a core part of the education system and should be mandated in all schools.

Utility apps: One of the most effective ways to improve internet penetration is by making it more useful to people for their day to day functions - online utility billing/payments , Online taxes, Online registration, online accounts(Banks, Brokerage etc), online shopping etc. Both Governments and corporates should aggressively invest in internet enabling key functions. Making things useful for people and enabling them to do all their tasks from the comfort of their home is a sure fire way of improving internet adoption.

Mobile internet: Globally in the next decade mobile internet users are expected to overtake PC users. Mobile penetration in Asian countries is fairly high. Enabling utility apps(mentioned above) through mobile internet would be a good way to increase penetration. This should also be complemented by lowering of mobile data rates.

By 2020, I expect Asian internet penetration to catch up with penetration levels in NA/Europe. I also expect global internet user base to exceed 5 Billion users (4-5x today's user base).

Future of War: Is Terminator/Matrix scenario going to be a reality?

I saw an interesting TED speech by P.W. Singer about the future of warfare. As part of his speech Singer shows how widespread use of robots in war is changing the realities of combat. He shows us scenarios straight out of science fiction -- that now may not be so fictitious.

A lot of these technologies are either operational or in prototype today. The day is not far when you will see battalions of robots/machines, and warfare would be fought from remote. One of the key aspect of this robotic warfare is that the profile of soldiers is changing. Soldiers of tomorrow will be techies/nerds that will be remotely operating the robots and directing the warfare from the safety of their desks. This is like an extension from some of the video games that we see today. Some of you techies out there watch out there is an interesting career option opening up for you :) On a positive note ,this is a great innovation and will result in lesser fatalities during war.

While these technologies are great and very progressive the flip side is, these robots/devices are prone to be/will be hacked. It opens up possibilities where terrorist groups consisting of few hackers can wire the devices to attack innocents or turn against the countries that own them. It reduces the entry barrier to terrorism and will enable a very small group of terrorists to cause great damage. Size, number of people they have, funding etc. will not matter any more. Total dependence on technology is the biggest risk in this electronic warfare.

Check out the below video:



This video has got me thinking and too many questions are floating in my head - Is the scenario portrayed in Martix, terminator etc going to be reality in the not too distant future? Is there a possibility we might see it in our lifetimes(next 4-5 decades)? This is a great innovation/achievement however given our long history of conflicts and wars is this a direction we should be taking? Finally what are the options available to mitigate some of the risks caused by robotic warfare?

Pls share your thoughts on the above.

Photo Credit: joberrr