Session 3

Today I had my third TWC lesson in SMU. The session is as resourceful as always. The first half of the session we talked about technology and industrial growth and its sustainability. In the second half of the session, we were taught about technology and innovation management.

Through this session, I have a better understanding about sustainable development.  I think reading one is a very good reading that well illustrates the policies European Union is adopting in order to achieve sustainable development. In my conclusion, the biggest obstacle on the journey to sustainable development is the environmental issue. Environmental damage is often considered as trade off for economic growth. However, after reading through the article, I realized that if the country wanted to achieve a sustainable growth, she must find a way to solve these environmental issues. The negative effects may not be shown immediately however, after a period of time the negative impacts will start to surface and incur huge costs to the country. For example, if a country did not post any form of carbon control, air pollution will be a big problem. After sometimes the people living in the country will start to fall sick. Cost will be incurred to the country in the form of medical treatment as well as insufficient labour force to maintain the economic growth due to the poor health condition.  Although it may seem that economic development and environmental protection will never co-exist, with innovation and technological advancement it is possible.

Also from reading one, I find that the idea of carbon trading provides good incentives.  In EU this carbon trading policy is conducted in company level and each company is given a limit to how much carbon it is allowed to emit. The companies have to buy from other company if they exceed the limit given and likewise companies, which have excess limit, can sell it to other companies to increase revenue. This idea is linked to Kyoto Protocol which is a statement signed by many country to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. Personally I think that this policy is able to motivate companies to invest on carbon-free technology and hence reduce the negative externalities of industrial development.  Prof also mentioned in class that china is a good example of a country that willing to invest money to solve its environmental issue. Prof said that China has spent the most amount of money in green technology and environment protection compared to the rest of the world.

Another thing that really interests me is the picture painted by Prof Shahi using windows paint.

The valley represents valley opportunities; the summit represents opportunities and the cloud represent cloud opportunities. I think in order to achieve sustainable growth, companies have to be able to grab the cloud opportunities even though big risks are involved. However, most companies nowadays are stagnant at the summit. It is a dangerous point because if the company remains at summit, it will gradually slide to the valley when there is a lack of innovation.

In today’s session, one of the presenters talked about Apple, which I think is a very good example of company that is able to grab the cloud opportunities. The success of Apple is obvious and the downfall of Microsoft proves the point that if a company remains at the summit and not grabbing the cloud opportunities it will start to slide to the valley.

During the presentation, one speaker mentioned about P&G and one key point the prof mentioned was that a company must have the courage to take failure in order to grow. However my question is that what about those firms that do not have much capital and cant afford to make a failure? How are these small firms able to grow rapidly?

Overall I think today’s lesson is 8/10 as I feel that some of the discussion questions from the speakers are not well phrased and hence affect the quality of the discussions.

Session 2

Session 2

This week’s lesson is interesting and informative.  The topics discussed in this session include various forms of dominance and human development. The four presentations were well prepared and speakers were engaging. They had brought many interesting facts as well as discussion questions that facilitated the discussions.

Some take away points from the session are the discussion of Reading 2 in the first half of the lesson and also the discussion of Reading 1 in the second half of the lesson.  

Reading 2 of 2a talked about innovation in the reset world. I find that the idea of box1 box2 and box3 are extremely important. Personally I like this article a lot because it well illustrated each of the box and gave clear explanations on why in this “reset” world companies should focus on box 2 and box 3. Selectively forget the past and creating the future are indeed the key points for a company to emerge in our modern society. In this passage, the author also mentioned that the best time for expansion is during a recession as goods are cheap. This point gave me a new insight about recession. In the past I used to draw a link between recession and bankruptcy. However now I realized that recession could also mean expansion and wealth. Thus being innovative can bring in wealth even in the midst of a recession.

Reading 1 of 2b gave me a clearer understanding of what human development index are and what does it measures.  Human development index mainly measures based on health, education and income. However, someone brought up a point saying that the index should include happiness inside. I find that this point is valid because happiness is an important measure of the welfare of a person.

During the lesson, Prof also showed us a video that illustrates the change of income and life expectancy of the world in the past few hundred years. A circle represents each country and the movement of the circles along the chart gave us a clear understanding of the rate of development of each country. However, one particular point draws my attention. In the video, the speaker took out china and even though china is far above the African countries in terms of income n life expectancy, some of the province is almost as poor as some of the African country. This vast gap of income is the root for many social and economic problems. Thus I think government in china and many other countries should work on the closing of the gap before trying to expand their economy.

There is a question I would like to ask for further discussion regarding the Millennium Project created by the UN. Prof posted a question that if the goals of Millennium Project seemed so unreachable then why the UN still want to carry it out. Someone answered that even though the goal may not be fully achieved, through the efforts, the life of people will still be improved. Moreover, with this project many countries are forced to put aside certain amount of money for the development of the poor ones. However, this millennium project is a promise given by all the members of UN. If the goals are not achieved, then on what ground can we put any confidence in UN?  I think if the goals of millennium project cannot be met by 2015, many people will start to question the authority and importance of UN as well as the so call SUPER POWERS. The image of UN will be tarnished. When conflicts happened again, will other countries still submit to UN? Thus, is it really good to set these goals?

Overall I give this session 9/10 because I think the discussion topics and videos as well as readings are very useful and informative. Many points can be applied in our future. I am looking forward to the next session.

Session 1

This is the first time I am actually making a post on my OWN blog and I think it is a pretty cool experience even though the technical part has caused me some headache at the beginning.

After attending my first TWC lesson in SMU I finally gain some insights on the syllabus and what we are expected to learn through this lesson. Personally I feel that the skills and knowledge that we are going to acquire is going to be useful in the future.

There are two things I would like to share this week. Firstly, I would like to give my personal opinion regarding the discussion topic, “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo, but we black people had little cargo of our own?" Secondly I would like to share some of my take away after reading through Reading 3 (how domestication and agriculture lead to the rise of civilization).

During the lesson, Prof. Shahi played a video on Jared Diamond regarding his book “Guns, Germs and Steel”. After watching the video, Prof. Shahi post the question “why New Guinea are poorer than the other parts of the world?” Some people suggest that it is due to geographical location, climatic differences while others suggest that it may due to the contentment of New Guinean themselves. I agree with all these points but in my mind I was thinking maybe the true reason lies with us. I feel that one of the main reasons why New Guinean still living in their primitive ways is due to the lack of concern of the modern society. New Guinea is surrounded by forest so there is a natural obstacle to the people living there. Thus they may be cut off from the rest of the world all these years. However we are living in a modern society, it is much easier for us to get in contact with them. Hence if the world is more concerned about the development of New Guinea, volunteers will be sent to New Guinea to teach the natives knowledge and introduce modern technology to improve their standard of living. I believe with the help of the modern society, New Guinea will undergo a drastic change within a short period of change. The young generation of New Guinean may be able to get proper education and the older generation may be able to learn to operate simple machineries. I think this will be the only way for the New Guinean to improve their standard of living. Therefore in conclusion, I feel that we are also partly responsible for the current state of New Guinea.

After the lesson, I spent some time reading through the Reading materials on LMS. I find that reading 3 is interesting as it tells us how agriculture has lead to the rise of civilization. Agriculture is one of the most important factors that lead to the rise of civilization. The reason very simple, human needs food to survive! Without a stable food supply, our ancestors have to spend most of their time trying to get food through hunting or gathering. Without agriculture, food supply is limited and thus the population of human being remains small. Based on the reading, human population increased drastically after the development of agriculture. Moreover, the stable food supply enable human to focus their attending and energy on other areas which in turn greatly accelerated the pace of technological advancement. Population and technology is the key factor for the start of civilizations. Hence agriculture development is one of the most important factors that lead to the rise of the civilization.

Here are some of my thoughts and reflections. Hopefully you will find it useful. If there is anything you do not agree or you find it inaccurate please feel free to inform me. Looking forward to the next session.