Nexttech

Nexttech
Creating Generational Legacies

Sunday, December 31, 2017

DVD predictions for 2018

Bring on 2018, 

Artificial intelligence applications, virtual reality going mainstream, the end of retail (Rest in peace), print news media... dead  (good riddance), solar powered houses mainstream'sh, electric cars getting cheaper, cryptocurrency/bitcoin ATMs, the beginning of the end of traditional banking, robotics and machines replacing humans for a range of industries...

And there's never been more opportunity and support from business, private investment and government in the tech space to build a tech based business, from grants, to tax incentives to well organised co working spaces, to networking events and sharing of knowledge... 

The Silicon Valley mindset of innovation is going mainstream and the pace of technology and innovation is accelerating.

I also predict a property market crash in the next 24 months... not just wishful thinking... 

Oh and baby will be able to speak English and Mandarin better than me all going to plan :D 

Its going to be an interesting rotation around the sun on our spaceship called Earth! Approximately the 4.4 billionth rotation + or - 500 million years to be relatively precise. 🤣

Wednesday, December 27, 2017

The Robots are Coming


Jobs are not important workers are! The Swedish model works.

The Robots Are Coming, and Sweden Is Fine

The New York Times shares with us the success of Sweden ! 

In a world full of anxiety about the potential job-destroying rise of automation, Sweden is well placed to embrace technology while limiting human costs. 


Some gems:-

A Cushion for Innovation

Sweden presents the possibility that, in an age of automation, innovation may be best advanced by maintaining ample cushions against failure.

“A good safety net is good for entrepreneurship,” says Carl Melin, policy director at Futurion, a research institution in Stockholm. “If a project doesn’t succeed, you don’t have to go broke! “


Handling automation , innovation and change needs a major mindset shift from all parts of an economy and country! 

It boils down to trust !

Trust that the company will look after the employee


Trust that the state will look after the Enterpreneur


Trust that it’s about the worker and the human and not about the job!

Hope you all have an amazing 2018! 


 Read the full story


Best

Ivan

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

BSI Grants Landscape Briefing

Very proud to have been a part of BSI Innovation Grants Briefing hosted by BBG. 
Gems about various grants available in Australia.

Let me know if you want the Slides or interested in being referred to the gurus 



What if we are only at the beginning of the tech revolution?

The Bob Pritchard Column 

We urgently need to totally change the way we think about every aspect of business.  Everything we know, will soon no longer apply. Whether it be leadership, corporate culture and community citizenship, management, marketing and advertising or customer communication and service, we need to be able to manage extraordinary change.
 
The worlds leading thinkers, Singularity University in Silicon Valley, estimate that in the last 10 years we have advanced just 1% of the technology revolution, in the next 15 years we will move the next 99%. That means that in just 10 years, we will be exposed to 2048 times more information every day than we are getting today.   In just 5 years there will be over 5000 new apps every day, the overwhelming majority to facilitate various aspects of business.
 
 
Leadership…
Increasingly, leaders will have to be a visionary, inspiring the market and employees. Investor demands will change from steady management and incremental change to transformational, disruptive and dramatic change.  Cloud technology will interconnect everyone, from management to employees, to investors and suppliers, transparently and faster in all directions.   It is likely that CEOs will be more like the visionary inspiring leaders of Jobs and Musk than business managers like Jack Welch with the traditional CEO role being carried out by the COO. Leadership will change from protecting status quo to extending innovation capabilities.
 
Leaders will be challenged by:
  • Information intelligence not information management
  • Platforms to enable new value chains and integrated ecosystems not IT systems management 
  • Business transformation and  accelerated growth not cost management
Millennials will move into positions of authority changing the values of the corporation and transforming the whole attitude toward life-work balance with the emphasis on life first. Organizations lifespans will be reduced from 45 years to 10 years.
 
Corporate Culture and Community Citizenship…
Research has shown the rapidly increasing importance of the Triple Bottom Line as the community becomes increasingly aware of, and concerned about, not only the environment but also the concept of assisting those less fortunate. The triple bottom line is the concept of not only generating financial returns but also simultaneously creating social and environmental returns.
In order to attract the top employees, investors, and generate sales from consumers, companies are having to increasingly take into account their complete impact on society and the environment, not just their impact on the economy. Businesses will  have to assume responsibilities that go well beyond the scope of simple commercial relationships.
 
Good corporate citizenship will increasingly provide substantial business benefits in eight areas;
Reputation management…the percentage of companies value derived from intangible assets increased from 17% in 1981 to 89% in 2011 and will continue to increase.
Risk profile and risk management…investment in environmental management will substantially reduce a firm's perceived risk and increase stock price from 5% to 25%.
Employee recruitment, motivation, and retention… In 2013, 56%, and predicted to rise rapidly, of employees take into account a company's ethics when deciding to take, or remain in a job, increasingly critical in high skill talent shortages
Investor relations and access to capital…corporate focus on environmental and social criteria now accounts for a 45% better  financial performance than companies without such focus. This will become increasingly important.
Learning and innovation…corporate citizenship objectives encourage creativity and innovation which leads to bottom line benefits.  This innovation will be critical.
Competitiveness and market position…research clearly shows that a rapidly increasing, and now a majority of consumers, form their impression of a company on the basis of its corporate citizenship practices rather than on brand reputation or financial factors.
Operational efficiency…reducing material use and waste saves money, as well as reducing the environmental impact which leads to direct improvements on the bottom line
License to operate…companies with a good reputation for corporate citizenship will increasingly fare much better in the face of labor or environmental issues.
 
The opening line of this newsletter said it all…We urgently need to totally change the way we think about every aspect of business
 
Just when I discovered the meaning of business, they changed it
 

Friday, November 24, 2017

AI is the bomb



"As the mechanistic parts of human cognition get commodified by AI, the uniquely human parts will be even more valuable." - Tim O'Reilly

“Did you ever feel, as though you had something inside you that was only waiting for you to give it a chance to come out? Some sort of extra power that you aren't using - you know, like all the water that goes down the falls instead of through the turbines?” - Aldous Huxley

Thursday, November 23, 2017

Elon Musk's New Battery Just Won Him a $50 Million Bet

  Elon Musk's New Battery wins him a $50m net from Mike Cannon-Brookes

By Emily Price 28 Nov 2017


Mike says he is so happy to have lost the bet!!!


        

Back in March, the Tesla founder made a bet on Twitter with Mike Cannon-Brookes, the co-founder of Atlassian, an Australian enterprise software company, that he would be able to install the world’s largest lithium-ion battery in Australia within 100 days, or he would supply it for free. That “free” would have been anything but to Musk, who said failing to meet the deadline would have cost him “$50 million or more,” Business Insider reports.


The 129-megawatt-hour battery was being built by Musk for South Australia, which generates a substantial percentage of its energy from wind power. Musk vowed to install the battery within 100 days of signing as agreement with the state government, which he did in September.


The goal with the battery pack is to make South Australia more self-sufficient and able to provide backup power and affordable energy to South Australians during the summer months.


The battery is part of a $550 million plan by South Australia to help guarantee its power supply after a string of blackouts over the last 18 months. The state has not indicated how much it is paying Musk for the battery. A 250MW gas-fired generator is also expected to come online in the area next summer to help ease energy concerns.


Musk also recently supplied battery power to help aid Puerto Rico’s electrical grid following the devastating hurricane earlier this year.


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