Week 11 (Session 10)

Technology Assessment and Forecasting; Developing a Framework for Understanding What Come Next

This.is.it. The final session of because the next week will be presentations for the group project and also the day that I did my individual presentation. I didn't have a chance to choose the topic that I had to do and was just left with this week. To be honest, I felt that this week's topic was the most difficult as it was quite abstract and there wasn't any particular technology that you can link to it. When I first started out preparing for my presentation, I didn't know where to start at all. All I could think of is - If it happens, it happens. Why would we need a framework to understand what comes next? Don't inventors just invent things when the light bulb simply lights up?

However, after looking through the readings and after the lesson itself, I could understand things more. Technology don't just appear simply like this. Because the world is so vast and technology is appearing everywhere at every minute. Why do we need a framework then?

Here are some of the reasons (taken from the slides)

• The need to gain an understanding of what kinds of changes a new technology innovation might bring – in economic, social, ethical/legal, environmental and other terms.
• The need to prioritize in deciding whether and when to invest in research and development of new innovations and technologies
• The need to prioritize, given limited resources, on whether and when to implement and use new innovations and technologies – especially important in developing countries

In the world today, we have various issues to address: Scarce Natural Resource, Mobility, Healthcare and Infrastructure. How then, do we use the current resources we have to address the issues? Which one is most important? Of course, this would differ from every part of the world. What will be the possible impacts of future technology? How will it affect social, ethical, legal and environment?

The thing that made me interested is the "framework" that prof talked about.
You essentially get an advantage if you work back from the future instead of project from the present.
• You cannot run away from the past and present
• Start with the blank sheet
• What would you want the world to look in the 5 years time (without any constraints)
• Then you bring out the sheet of paper in the past. How are you going to move from the past/present to the future?
• Convert stumbling blocks and convert them into stepping stones
• The future forward you look, the more uncertain you are

Indeed, we are all uncertain of the future. Who will be the ones deciding our future?

My presentation was actually about "Kids for the future". After all, it will be the kids now that will decide what will happen in the future. Kids nowadays live in a very different from us, even more so as compared to our parents and grandparents. For example, I recently saw a toddler (maybe about 2 years old) playing with an iPhone and she actually know how to use it! I was actually quite appalled by it because at 2 years old, I think many of us were still playing with alphabet blocks. It is amazing to see how technology is affecting our way of live. Of course, this may not be a bad thing because if we were to deny technology, then we will be at the losing end. So what we could do it actually to embrace it and make the best out of it. Even though children are highly dependent on technology and it could have negative impacts, but think about the positive impacts that it could possibly bring as well!

Many think that with more children spending more time on their computers and video games, they would not learn any social skills. However, with the advent of social media, more children have Facebook accounts. Even though it is mainly used to play games, but this would connect them socially to their friends as well as they could talk and share about their experience while playing the games. Also, more games these days are multi-player, children can also get a chance to interact with others. The thing to note is that when allowing children use the internet, parents must be especially careful because the internet is very hard to censor and it may expose children to different things that may spoil their innocence of even be dangerous for them.

Rating for lesson: 10/10