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Creating Generational Legacies

Monday, October 10, 2016

Is Blockchain going to have a larger impact than the Internet?

Bob Pritchard writes about a Great question posed by Lloyd Marino CEO of Avetta Global.
 
Before blockchain, buying and selling usually required an intermediary, a bank or broker who housed your financial data. When you transfer funds or make a purchase, a banker connects to the bank’s system to record the change.
 
No more. Blockchain replaces this central system with a decentralized ledger of chained records. Each record is connected to the one before and the one after it, yielding a traceable history of every transaction. No record can be deleted and no existing records can be altered.  For instance, when a purchase is made, the seller’s computer consults the blockchain ledger stored on thousands of other computers to see if the purchaser has the required funds. If there is distributed consensus among the computers, a new data entry is added to the chain, showing the transfer.
 
The blockchain infrastructure will soon manage many other types of information transfers, providing more services faster for consumers with a significant decrease in potential errors.
 
Blockchains have enormous implications for financial institutions. For instance, the Securities and Exchange Commission approved a plan by Overstock, to issue stock through blockchain. Michael Bodson, CEO of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation said that through blockchain, “The industry has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine and modernize its infrastructure to resolve long-standing operational challenges.”
 
Blockchain can soon reinvent banking, replacing “Too Big To Fail” institutions with computerized systems that are more efficient and more honest. Since every blockchain transaction preserves its own record, bank losses (and tax write-offs) could be much less. Banks would need fewer offices, freeing real-estate and lowering costs.
 
IBM and the Linux foundation are working on a Hyperledger project that would create private blockchains to manage supply chains, oversee contracts, and run other business applications requiring confidential data.  Already Intel, Cisco, JP Morgan, Hitachi, Fujitsu, Wells Fargo, and others have announced support.
 
Banking is only the beginning. In the future, blockchain’s ability to remove the middleman means it could support “smart contracts” with conditional clauses programmed into the blockchain. This makes the contract self-enforcing, by transferring funds only when the conditions are met. Ethereum has developed a decentralized platform to run such smart contracts for crowdsourcing, voting, and even new forms of currency.
 
Smart contracts could change entire fields of law. Blockchain wills could automatically take effect when a person dies, transferring inheritances without needing an executor. Replacing legal jargon with blockchain logic would require a different type of corporate lawyer with skills akin to a computer programmer. Imagine the implications for law schools!
 
The blockchain could soon revolutionize music and the other arts. Currently, most musicians and authors make little money from their work as most of the sales price is consumed by the publisher and retail store. This could change through blockchain agreements.
 
For instance, Mycelia, started by English singer-songwriter Imogen Heap, is developing a way to encode a blockchain contract into songs, so fans would pay the artist directly, without going through a record company. A blockchain e-reader could download ebooks directly from the authors, bypassing both publisher and bookstore, or even Amazon. And when more people have 3D printers, blockchain-locked templates could enable artists to earn greater profits from their designs for toys, figurines, and other art objects.
 
Of course blockchain is not perfect. Because nothing can be removed from the chain, the blockchain ledger quickly swells to humongous size.  Blockchain has enormous potential as a way to link, store, and track data. In the next few years, blockchains will offer consumers an alternative way to make purchases without bank and credit card fees. Soon after that blockchains will revolutionize all forms of data transfer–including music and video streaming and data backups. Traditional banks and retailers will need to adapt to blockchains or be themselves blocked out.
 

Saturday, October 8, 2016

10 Habits of the Most Innovative People

Success in any industry goes hand-in-hand with innovation — the ability to produce new ideas, build better solutions, and launch new products. The most successful people are not simply the hardest working, they are often the most innovative.

From Edison, to Branson and Musk, here are 10 habits of some of the most innovative, high profile people around (at the moment). What would you add to this list?

  1. They constantly look for patterns - do you know what Apopheniais?
  2. They are brilliantly lazy - it comes down to efficiency
  3. They are obsessive note-takers
  4. They preach perfection, yet live for the reality of progress
  5. They have a relationship with their fears
  6. They don't wait for things to break, they are constantly fixing and iterating
  7. They find novel ways to nurture the creative process - mines long showers!
  8. They pursue multiple projects, interests and ventures, not just one
  9. They possess a healthy arrogance
  10. They embrace paradoxical thinking and overlook conventional boundaries

A key part of innovation is implementation and commercialisation — it is not being the first to come up with the idea, but having the boldness to be the first to produce it and bring it to market. When others see risk innovators see opportunity, where others see roadblocks they see potential and outcomes.

How many on this list can you see reflected in yourself? What would you add to the list?

Read more detail on this subject at Huffingtonpost.com

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Accelerating Innovation with Leadership

As the U.S. presidential candidates lay out competing visions for the country, I have been thinking about a topic they have not yet discussed in detail: what political leadership can do to accelerate innovation. Innovation is the reason our lives have improved over the last century. From electricity and cars to medicine and planes, innovation has made the world better. Today, we are far more productive because of the IT revolution. The most successful economies are driven by innovative industries that evolve to meet the needs of a changing world. From the advances that put a computer on every desk to the discoveries that led to lifesaving vaccines, major innovations are the result of both government investments in basic research and the private-sector creativity and investments that turn them into transformative products. 

I’ve heard some people argue that life-changing innovations come exclusively from the private sector. But innovation starts with government support for the research labs and universities working on new insights that entrepreneurs can turn into companies that change the world. The public sector’s investments unlock the private sector’s ingenuity.

I was lucky enough to be a student when computers came along in the 1960s. At first they were very expensive, so it was hard to get access to them. But the twin miracles of the microchip revolution and the internet—both made possible by U.S. government research—completely changed that. It’s no wonder that today most of the leading hardware and software companies are based in the U.S.

Accelerating innovation requires both political leadership and private sector leadership. As U.S. voters decide which candidates they want to elect to fill national, state, and local offices, and as many countries around the world undergo similar political transitions, I think we should consider what kind of leaders can drive the innovations we need.

The best leaders have the ability to do both the urgent things that demand attention today and at the same time lay the groundwork for innovation that will pay dividends for decades.

As a country and around the world, we confront a wide array of urgent issues that our leaders must address—from terrorism to job creation to migration. Our next president will be part of a new group of global leaders who will wrestle with these urgent problems. Those leaders can either prioritize alleviating poverty, making everyone healthier, and accelerating economic growth—or they can let progress stall. The key to prioritizing progress is support for innovation.

When we innovate, we create millions of jobs, we build the companies that lead the world, we are healthier, and we make our lives more productive. And these benefits transcend borders, powering improvements in lives around the world. Our global culture of innovation has been most successful at those moments when science, technology, and great leadership come together to create miracles that improve modern life. I believe we are in one of those moments.

One of the most indelible examples of a world leader unleashing innovation from both public and private sectors came in 1961 when President John F. Kennedy spoke to the U.S. Congress and challenged the country to put a man on the moon within the decade. That speech came at a time of cultural and political turmoil, when national and economic security dominated the headlines. President Kennedy believed looking to the skies would inspire the country to dream big and accomplish huge things.

That speech didn’t just launch humankind on a successful journey to the moon. It also inspired America to build a satellite network that changed the way we communicate across the globe and produced new forms of weather mapping which made farmers far more productive. In the face of fear, President Kennedy successfully summoned our country to harness American ingenuity and advance human progress.

It’s important to remember what made the moonshot the moonshot—that is, what transforms political rhetoric into game-changing breakthroughs. A moonshot challenge requires a clear, measurable objective that captures the imagination of the nation and fundamentally changes how we view what’s possible. And it requires marshaling the resources and intellect of both the public and private sectors. When we do that, we chart a course for a future that is safer, healthier, and stronger.

Because we are at a pivotal moment when the conditions are ripe for transformative innovations, there are many important things this new group of national leaders—including whoever is elected in the U.S. in November—can accomplish over the next decade. There are four objectives I think we should prioritize:

  1. Provide everyone on earth with affordable energy without contributing to climate change.
  2. Develop a vaccine for HIV and a cure for neurodegenerative diseases.
  3. Protect the world from future health epidemics, which might be more infectious than Ebola and more deadly than Zika.
  4. Give every student and teacher new tools so all students get a world-class education.

Provide everyone on earth with affordable energy without contributing to climate change

There is enormous potential to develop technologies that will make energy cheaper and reduce our energy imports without contributing to climate change or air pollution. In the next eight years, we could start the transition to a new type of clean fuel that doesn’t emit carbon, deploy batteries that let electric cars run far longer on a single charge, and produce dramatic drops in the total cost of renewables.

Last year, the U.S. and 20 other countries committed to doubling their energy R&D budgets, and 28 investors pledged to invest in the output of that research. This is only the start. By increasing government support for clean-energy research, presidents and prime ministers could attract more private investors to the field. As early-stage ideas progress, private capital will pour in to build the companies that will deliver those ideas to market.

Develop a vaccine for HIV and a cure for neurodegenerative diseases

With the right leadership and investments over the next decade, we can discover and deliver a vaccine for HIV. Many have forgotten about the scourge of AIDS, treating it like a disease that can be managed instead of the deadly virus that kills more than 1 million people worldwide every year. Based on recent progress, I believe world leaders could help make an effective AIDS vaccine a reality within the next decade. And with a vaccine, we would be on the path to ending the disease altogether.

We can also make tremendous progress on ending neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. These diseases are devastating for the people and families that they affect. They are also huge drivers of out-of-control health care costs, which deplete government budgets that could be used for other critical functions. New digital tools and the rapid advancement of science are providing new momentum and hope in the search for cures.

Protect the world from future health epidemics 

Global leaders should be proud of their role in bringing the Ebola crisis to an end and helping the affected countries recover. Many agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. military, did exemplary work in the face of significant risks to their own safety. Other leaders around the world mobilized their infrastructures as well. But the Ebola epidemic and the rise of the Zika virus also highlight the need for new advances. There is a significant chance that a substantially more infectious epidemic will come along during the next decade. If one does, we will need to be able to detect it, develop a test for it, and produce cures very quickly. Using advances in biology, scientists are developing these capabilities. With vision and support, we will be able to identify and prevent epidemics before they devastate families, communities, and economies.

Give every student and teacher new tools so all students get a world-class education

Education is one of the areas in R&D that is often overlooked and can have immediate payoff. The world can develop technologies that can help students learn in ways that are more tailored to their needs. But that is just one part of the equation for educational success. High-quality online courses are still in their infancy. So is personalized learning, which combines classroom time with digital tools to let students move at their own pace. Technology can make teachers’ jobs easier and their work more effective by letting them upload videos of themselves in the classroom, connect with other teachers, watch the best educators at work, and get real-time feedback from their students. The private sector has started work on these ideas, but funding for government research budgets would boost the market and help identify the most effective approaches, giving teachers and students new tools that empower them to do their best work.

I hope our leaders seize these world-changing opportunities by investing in great research institutions, which translate into big opportunities for innovators.

When these ideas help shape a future that is healthier, more productive, and more powerful, it will be because world leaders stepped up to do the urgent and the important at the same time.


This was originally published at gatesnotes.com.

Sunday, October 2, 2016

AI in Health and Medical Aid

Aetna announced that it will be subsidizing the purchase of an Apple Watch for select companies and individuals. Aetna as a health incentive.

Why?

 Aetna is saying that it has determined that watch-wearers are lower insurance risks. Some of that may be because those who want to wear a watch are already healthier. But others are because the watch creates healthier habits.
 
The Watch allows Aetna to directly incentivize certain behaviors in its customers. And as the AI in the Watch becomes more sophisticated, the directions from Aetna could become more personalized with health guidance tailored to each individual. 

While there is a “greater good” aspect to incentivizing healthier lifestyles, it will also be important to watch how the AI solves for Aetna’s profit margin.

 What kind of directions would an AI give to an individual who has a long-term illness? Or to an individual who has a history of exercise-related accidents? Are the health benefits worth the cost of treating broken bones? 
 
I wonder whether this will be followed by Hcf or mbf  or discovery health ... maybe a whitelabelled Apple Watch ? 

Innovation defined

What do we mean by "innovation"?

Innovation is interpreted differently in different situations hence some difficulties in communication between different groups such as academia and industry which could impede progress.

Some forward-thinking members of the LinkedIn Group Innovation Management (approx 40,000 members around the world) recently suggested general definitions and voted on them. There are 33 definitions in the list below.

Interestingly some said we shouldn’t have a general definition, that it’s specific to the situation. One member also said “Everyone loves innovation but no one wants to change”.

For those of you who are interested in a general definition the 2 favourites are below followed by the definitions proposed.

Top definitions

30. The result of a creative process that creates value for society

11. The process of bringing new, problem-solving ideas into use

Definitions proposed.

1. Anything that improves anything

2. Ideas applied successfully

3. New ideas, successfully applied

4. Doing things in a new way, or creating new things, that have a significant impact.

5. The creative development of solutions to real and important problems of customers, which are profitably brought to market

6. The beneficial utilization of knowledge and creativity, in order to discover and realize what does not yet exist.

7. The creation of value from ideas (which are new to you)

8.  A successfully implemented and widely accepted invention, which can be material and non-material, an object, process, phenomenon and/or their combination.

9. Creative thinking that adds value, or in two words, meaningfully unique

10. Creation of a viable new offering

11. The process of bringing new, problem-solving ideas into use.

12. Creating new value or capturing value in new ways

13. The actual use of a nontrivial change and improvement in a process, product or system that is novel to the institution developing the change

14. Profitable change

15. The act of introducing something new in something or in somewhere.

16. An idea that meets its market

17. Activity that brings a new repeatable (scalable) concept to customers.”

18. Research is the transformation of money into knowledge. Innovation is the transfer of knowledge back into money

19. The process of creating a product or service solution that delivers significant new customer value

20. The process of idea realisation

21. The result of: connect ideas from different sectors + current insights + solve a pain point

22. New business with new money

23. Successful commercialisation of an idea which adds value to any stakeholder

24. A change in culture.

25. Creating progress that brings important improvement in our quality of life.

26. The process of taking an idea from a state of Conception to a state of Commercialization (value creation

27. Successful adoption* of value-added change** (novelty) in economic, social and environmental spheres

28. The successful usage of new ideas or ways to fulfill certain needs.

29. Something new or different that provides greater value or benefit.

30. The result of a creative process that creates value for society

31. The use of new ideas, or existing ideas in a new context, to result in change which delivers value

32. Commercializing novel ideas

33. Created value for social change

Lynn Wood

Chief Idea Spy

IdeaSpies


Thursday, September 29, 2016

Facebook, Amazon, Google, IBM and Microsoft creating a Partnership on AI

The world’s largest technology companies with the biggest databases have partnered to form an AI - artificial intelligence collaboration. 

Those that own the databases own the power

How can they communicate and collaborate - working together va working in competition!

What do you think? 

What are the issues that we will face with the advent of the proliferation of AI? 

Blockchain Quote!