For better or for worse, technology can make a difference

A lot has been written in the past about technology and the innovation that is associated with it. From humble beginnings, technology has enabled companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple and Toyota to become some of the biggest companies in the world.

More recently, we have seen the effects of innovation within companies such as Uber, Airbnb and Alibaba. None of these companies own stock or assets of their own, yet are trailblazers in their respective industries challenging existing business models.

Have we seen the end of technology innovation? Most certainly not. In fact, some may argue that we are in the most innovative age yet when it comes to technology. A staggering 90% of all the data in the world has been generated over the last two years. Internet-based companies are awash with data that can be grouped and utilized. Is this a good thing?

Tech enabler

South Africa is currently going through one of its worst economic slumps in recent history. After two consecutive quarters of negative growth, the country is in a technical recession which may be upgraded into an outright recession if growth figures don’t pick up over the last two quarters of the year.

Are we alone in this? Again, we are not. For many years, China was struggling to build its economy as it came to grips with being one of the only surviving communist governments in the world. After many countries changed their views on China, the country went about the hard task of building its economy, and it was very successful.

An article on the China Daily website showed that technology played a significant role in this and will play a major role going forward.

Premier Li Keqiang said that technologies such as artificial intelligence and intelligent robots will revolutionize workforces. This was said during his opening speech at the 11th Annual Meeting of the New Champions, also known as Summer Davos being held in the coastal city of Dalian .

Farmers in China’s remote mountainous areas now can see specialty products reach urban consumers in a matter of one or two days, with prices several times higher than if they are sold locally. This is all possible because of booming online trading platforms and express delivery networks.

The article adds that Li used this as an example to highlight how technology and innovation can accelerate a more inclusive economic growth that features meaningful job creation and sustainable development, a main theme of the three-day meeting.

The shared economy

Indeed China has a lot to share with the political and business leaders from other countries attending the meeting on how jobs can be created through promoting innovation and entrepreneurship.

The article states that over the last four to five years, more than 50 million new jobs ( 13 million annually), have been created in the country, a remarkable achievement that is also fundamental to inclusive growth that benefits all people.

All this has been made possible due to the government endeavour to drive mass entrepreneurship and innovation, which, as a result, has seen 14 000 new enterprises registered each day over the past three years, as Li said.

As part of China’s bid to upgrade and transition its economy to more sustainable growth, technology and innovation are playing a key role in helping foster a rapid development of new industries and business models such as e-commerce, mobile payment and bike sharing.

The new growth momentum has not only created 70% of all new jobs last year, but also laid a firm foundation for China to realize its annual growth target of around 6.5%.

The stellar economic performance is a boon to the world economy that is still suffering from an insufficient recovery, given that China imported $1.6 trillion of goods last year, while outbound trips reached 130 million.

From strength to greater strength

In the past, we have spoken about artificial intelligence and the benefits it can add to industries and economies. But what effect is it having on the profitability of specific companies? An article on the Technology Review website discusses this in detail.

Top of the list is Nvidia. Nvidia has gained expertise in AI and used it to transform itself. Once known as a maker of chips for gaming, it is now a leading player in deep learning and autonomous vehicles. Amazon, No. 3, is on the list again for its ambitions to build an AI-powered store and place the technology at the heart of the home of the future.

Companies focused on DNA analysis and developing gene therapies are a dominant group on the list—23andMe (No. 4), Spark Therapeutics (No. 10), Illumina (No. 22), and Oxford Nanopore (No. 32) among them.

Since 2010, SpaceX has been highlighted six times. It’s on again in 2017 (at No. 2) on the strength of its ability to stick rocket landings and then recycle its crafts for another go-round, potentially changing the economics of space travel. IBM has made the list every one of the past seven years; this year it’s at No. 39 for its work with block chain, cloud AI, and quantum computing.

Early adopters

Technology has grown so rapidly that it has fundamentally changed the way we do business and the way company’s are made up.

Companies that are slow adopters of technology will always be on the back foot in a market where business will never be able to be done in the same way again. An article on bloomberg.com shows how company’s business models are benefiting from technology.

Chinese companies are setting global trends in technology products or business models in areas such as supercomputers, technology-enabled transportation, digital payments and artificial intelligence. China’s technology companies and its home grown tech ideas are spreading everywhere. The world is cribbing from China now.

The article adds that the US and other countries have seen a flurry of apps that are inspired by Meitu, the Chinese app that pretties up selfie photos. American startups are copying China’s fleets of on-demand bicycle rentals for getting around crowded cities. Apple and Facebook are trying to remold their messaging apps in the image of China’s ubiquitous WeChat. Before there was Tinder for hookups, there was similar dating app Momo in China. Every company that makes drones is following the lead of China’s SZ DJI Technology.

The article adds that the influence of Chinese tech in the world arguably started with telecommunications equipment company Huawei Technologies. It branched first into Europe and forced stodgy local rivals such as Sweden’s Ericsson and Alcatel-Lucent of France to cut prices and copy Huawei’s more advanced methods of updating older gear with fresh software. (Some European officials have said Huawei has benefited unfairly from Chinese government subsidies, a claim the company has denied.)

More recently in India, Chinese smartphone brands including Xiaomi and Vivo are among the top sellers in the rapidly growing Indian smartphone market, and China’s e-commerce king Alibaba is helping digital payments and online shopping catch on quickly there.

With the world moving to technology based solutions at a rapid pace, we need to ask ourselves two questions: Do we see value in technology: and, what kind of adapters are we, early or late?

While South Africa has been through significant drought and has been sending up some urgent prayers for rains, the current storm in Cape Town and the fires in Knysna are devastating.

South Africa is not known as a country that has to deal with natural disasters, so we were wholly unprepared about how to handle the crisis management surrounding the disasters.

This is not to say that no country in the world has ever had to deal with this. The US periodically gets hit by tropical storms and tornadoes that cause extensive damage. During these times, the role of technology cannot be understated.

I have spoken in depth about the dark side of social media and the fact that we could possibly be living too much of our lives over the internet as opposed to with each other. However, social media can also be a tool for good. Facebook has been building capacity in specific areas and can offer significant value during times of crisis.

Assisting aid workers

One of the biggest ways in which Facebook is assisting during times of crisis is that it is sharing information with Aid organisations to help aid workers reach those in need.

A report by Reuters points out that  Facebook recently launched disaster maps – an initiative aimed at helping humanitarian organizations save lives in emergencies.

“When there’s a flood, earthquake, fire or other natural disaster, response organizations need accurate information quickly about where people are in order to save lives,” founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said via his Facebook account.

A scary part about the Cape Storm and Knysna fires is that traditional means of communications are being affected. Telephone lines and mobile telecommunication towers are being swept away or burned down, so communication to find out if loved ones are safe is becoming difficult. “When traditional communication channels like phone lines are down, it can take too much time to figure out where people need help,” said Zuckerberg.

The maps provided by Facebook will reflect the movements and location of people before, during and after disasters to help aid agencies work out where they should deliver food, water and medical supplies.

Facebook said it would provide three types of maps:

• Location density maps will show people’s location before, during and after a disaster;
• Movement maps will illustrate flight between neighbourhoods or cities over several hours; and
• Safety check maps will show when users let their family and friends know they are out of harm’s way.

A safer way

An article on thehill.com pointed out that Facebook had previously helped users in dangerous areas by allowing them to check-in as “safe”� and share that with friends and family.

“One of the consistent pieces of feedback we were receiving is that while a tool like safety check is useful for individuals in a disaster, what organizations actually need is a bird’s eye view,” said Molly Jackman public policy research manager at Facebook.

“If you imagine you’re the Red Cross and there’s a hurricane, in order to figure out the most effective response plan, you need to understand what’s going-on on the ground,”� she continued.

The platform’s safety check is available to users during crises like terrorist attacks and natural disasters, but Facebook noted that the new features would only be available during natural disasters.

The article added that disaster relief organisations will now have access to maps based on three different types of datasets: location density maps to show where people are before, during and after a natural disaster; movement maps that show how people move around cities during natural disasters; and safety check maps to show where people are checking in as safe in relation to the location of a natural disaster.

Facebook stressed that it was only sharing the information with ‘trusted organisations that have the capacity to act on the data and respect our privacy standards.’� They include UNICEF, the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the World Food Programme.

‘We hope that this can be a model for other companies to start thinking about how they can use data to inform response efforts and to empower organizations to respond more efficiently and effectively,’� Jackman said.

A natural fit

An article on devex.com points out how this will be a natural fit. The NGO partners Facebook has selected for the disaster maps initiative are already acting on the understanding that data plays an important role in the achievement of their humanitarian and development goals.

“The collaboration with Facebook started with a realization that each partner had some piece of knowledge or data that, if shared, could inform a bigger picture,”� Dale Kunce, American Red Cross’s global lead on ICT and analytics, told Devex via email.

The American Red Cross used Facebook’s high spatial resolution maps in its response to Hurricane Matthew in Haiti last year, as well as in its ongoing measles vaccination campaign in Malawi. The maps were part of a separate initiative that emerged from Connectivity Lab at Facebook, which applied computer vision to satellite imagery as part of its work to connect the unconnected, then publicly released population maps with an unprecedented resolution for Haiti, Malawi, Ghana, South Africa, and Sri Lanka.

Kunce said it is too early to tell how the Red Cross will use these new disaster maps – which shows where people are located before, during, and after a disaster, what direction they are moving in, and where people are using Safety Check to notify their friends and family during a crisis – but he said his team is excited about its potential to help international organisations better serve communities impacted by disasters.

“At the Red Cross, we are always looking for ways to deliver our humanitarian mission more effectively and help people in need, so forming partnerships is always a worthy experiment,”� Kunce said. “Tech companies can open doors to humanitarian organisations that … may have too tight of budgets – or are too slim on time – to open alone.”

According to a BBC report, computer company IBM stated that 2.5 billion gigabytes of data was generated every day in 2012.

Given its importance on business strategy, data usage has not abated in the intervening years. Considering this, how can every facet of our world benefit from this data-rich environment?

**Educated guesses **

Everyone of us has a retirement fund, so are investors in some way, shape or form.

The investment space is probably one of the most analytically mature industries in the world today. Key decisions are based on any number of quantifiable indicators that can range from headline earnings per share and price-earnings ratios, all the way through to market time-series forecasting and neural networks.

It therefore stands to reason that people should already understand how beneficial using all available data sources should be to make important investment decisions.

In reality, however, a significant percentage of data in these indicators are constrained to historical corporate and market information only. It does not account for fresh data sources fuelled by conversations online across social networking platforms or multiple varieties of data made available through myriads of new smart device applications.

**Identifying new sources **

So what is the relevancy of Big Data in a developing age? Big Data in the digital world is far richer than traditional historical data sources. This technology drives new insights that can be derived from the masses of information that come from seemingly irrelevant information domains.

Take public sentiment as an example. People share news and individual viewpoints on companies, economies, political parties, and other areas of interest with one another on any number of social networking sites. And while cynics might argue that much of this information contributes to data noise, the reality is that it could provide strong leading indicators of market behavior. It also determines sentiment much quicker than it could historically be detected.

Monitoring social sentiment and responses to a variety of events or triggers can also provide more insight into true market influences.

Similarly, the Internet of Things (IoT) and the continued rise of connected devices are ushering in different opportunities for insights when one have the capability to analyse this data effectively.

Certainly, the connected fridge ordering milk when a person runs out might not sound influential on investment choice. However, using personal health devices linked to medical data could have a massive impact on insurance premium strategies.

It might lead to the early diagnoses of a serious illness or even provide an early warning around an imminent heart attack, meaning that action can be taken to prevent this.

The impact this could have on insurance is profound. Some industry leaders have already leveraged these insights to drill their pricing strategies down to almost an individual personalised level showing significant improvement on profitability per insured member.

Data is king

Placing issues of personal privacy aside, the push towards IoT is gaining momentum locally.

It is even extending beyond telemetry in transport and logistics and encompassing the likes of health and fitness, retail, and manufacturing.

These devices are creating new data points with information streaming into corporate networks. For investors, this should signify a different approach to their thinking when they evaluate possible candidate entities to invest in.

The mere fact that a candidate is strategically investing into things such as Big Data analytics and data science capabilities should already provide potential investors with an indicator of future growth potential.

Data has been labelled by many as the new oil. For anybody active in the investment space, this should be a clear sign that organisations who actively embrace the learning that Big Data provide today should be ones to watch in a digitally-led world.

For investment organisations not yet placing a focus on data, time and effort should be spent on understanding the benefits Big Data and Analytics offers in this space, not only to capitalize on these benefits, but to also avoid not falling behind.

**The child factor **

As a parent, there are times when we need peace and quiet, which is impossible with little humans exercising their measure of control on daily routines.

Often, we reach for smart devices to pacify children. These devices are simply easy and always on hand and may not harm the child if given to him once in a while. I read an article on foxnews.com which asked:  If parents hand out a device regularly, though, could the technology slow early child development?

Speech Development

The article pointed out that one new finding presented at the 2017 Pediatrics Societies Meeting did find a correlation. The study analysed over 900 children using parent-reported data on amount of screen time received. The parents reported the screen time of their children at age 18 months.

Then, the researchers conducted an evaluation of the children’s development. Using the information reported by parents, researchers found that one-fifth of the children had almost 30 minutes of screen time each day. As screen time increased in some families, children were almost 50 percent more likely to have a speech delay as they developed.

The article added that on the other hand, senior investigator Dr. Catherine Birken does insist on caution when approaching these results. This pioneering study will need more testing to verify its accuracy. Interestingly, the study did not find a correlation between a child’s screen time and other developmental areas.

An element of fun

Many people don’t think about insurance beyond the premiums that they pay every month or when they have to claim after an accident or house break in.

However, through gamification, Discovery has alerted drivers to driving habits that pose significant dangers on the roads. They made insurance fun. This is the issue with certain schools and teaching methods. Somewhere along the road, education has lost its fun element.

An article on forbes.com suggests that this is where technology can be a major influencer.

The report itself points to a study that identified some key elements of gamification that were found to improve engagement, and learning, among students who took e-learning courses that had gamification elements within them.

These elements include a way to personalize profiles and use avatars in order to create their own version of themselves; create chapters that divide up the action (and learning) to build in interest and help with retention; and create some type of incentive to continue like accumulating points, earning badges, or reaching some status.

A new way to read

The article also quoted Tali K. Gadish, founder of The Library of Miss Gadish, who said that gamification was definitely part of the strategy from the beginning of turning Miss Gadish into an app that would encourage reading and stimulate the imagination.

“In my previous experience with Dreamworks, I saw how quickly children and adults took to any apps that were created for various animated films that included elements of gamification. I knew it had to be central to what we were creating. That’s why we added stars and shapes that readers collect at each level that incentives them to continue through the series of books to get a reward for their accomplishments,” said Gadish.

This is a far cry from my previous blog which pointed out the negative aspects of technology. We need to know the good and the bad aspects of technology in order to appreciate the impacts that it will have on our lives. Technology will impact us as far as we allow it. If we embrace the good, we will grow. If we embrace the bad, technology will become a treat.