Last Lesson : Group Presentation 2 and Wrap up

Today is the last last lesson of TWC...which means all the final exams are coming and it is going to be really stressed and busy with all the mugging. I got to be thankful that for TWC, the finals is open book! this definitely lessen my mugging and memorising of notes. But it still does not mean I do not have to prepare much for it! Today is the concluding lesson for this TWC module and it is time for me to look back through all the lessons and reflect on what I've learnt so far...I can say that this course has been really meaningful to me and I've learnt a lot from it. It has also ignited my interest in technology... I think this module generally appeal more to guys with all the cool high tech technology gadgets and inventions. I've learnt more about technology in general and its impacts on us, it's consequences, it's advantages and disadvantages. This term technology is very broad and wide and covers so many aspects of our lifes. It affects every single thing that we're using, or living on. Right now, I'm in my room with the aircon full blast taking a relief from the hot sunny weather, I have to thank technology for this. This computer that Im using to blog and pen down my thoughts (coupled with many other uses for it eg. games,work,online surfing) is all thanks to technology. We humans have progressed and modernised so much at an alarming rate, and technology has helped create a huge impact on the world. But with technology advances, not everyone will benefit. Technology has caused many problems in the world, global warming, greenhouse effects, pollutions and the widening income gap. These problems are not easy to solve and much has to be worked on and looked at.

Today's presentations are generally well done and well prepared probably due to them working on their website and presentations based on the previous session of presentations. The first group presented on music which is one of my interest! the group talks about the progress and change in music recording format, from the olden vinyl disc to cd to mp3... Thank godness for the invention of mp3 that's how I can enjoy portable music on the go. Kudos to this invention! Next, the second group presented on technology and its implications for food and nutrition. Following on, the third group presented on vaccines and gave us a good future predictions of vaccines. The last group presented on crime tracking which reminds me of CSI type. The layout of the website is very well done and it provides clear information and allows me to easily access all the information.

This is finally the end of my TWC module (although there's a final exam yet to come) and I've thoroughly enjoyed myself in the interesting class discussions and I've gained many new insights and knowledge to things that I never knew. Personal rating 10/10 for this module. Thumbs up! :)

Lesson12: Group Presentations

Alright finally the lesson filled with group presentations including my own group has arrived. After many sessions of meetings and discussion, my group is all ready to give our presentation on our topic  E business which i find it extremely interesting and practical in today's world. We chose this topic, other than the fact that there were 3 online shopping queens in my group, however I feel that it is very relevant in today's world especially in doing business. I do shop online at times...nowadays, who don't? Maybe I should put it as who haven't? More and more businesses especially small start ups are going the Ebusiness way rather than a brick and motar shop. I was inspired by my friend who started this online grocery shopping business and it is doing very well now. He was even featured in the newspaper. Guess what, he is only a few years older than me and still studying in Uni. The current situation of Ebusiness where almost everyone has easy access to internet compared to ten years ago, really helps to make Ebusiness start up much more successful than ever. It is becoming so successful that I sometimes wonder how do those brick and mortar shops survive in the next ten or twenty years when this ebusiness bubble is going to balloon. They better get into this online business trend and ride on it if not they are really going to have problems. As for me, I have my great plans to start my own online ebusiness. I do have a few ideas which I can't share it out here ;) However, do watch out for my ebusiness in the coming few years.

My group was the first group to present and I felt we did quite a good job although we received many feedbacks, mostly constructive. Being the first group, it seems like we had the most feedbacks to work on. We shall work on all the suggestions contributed by Prof and the class. Thanks guys! Do check out our final product in due time...For easy reference, our website link is here:

http://www.wix.com/klgan70/twc-ebusiness
Feel free to leave us any feedbacks and watch out for my personal own ebusiness website soon...:)

The second group presented on online dating which I find it really interesting. I personally am guilty of searching love online, not through those dubious funny website but just through facebook or friendster in the past. Their group did not use WIX but instead used a simpler web layout which looks easy to navigate without the fancy flash effects. To be honest, based on my personal experience, all my online dates that I found never seem to work out at least in the long run. I still believe in being a 'man' and approach the girl you like rather than through online which seems like you're too cowardly to approach the girl.

The next group presented on GM food and they had an interesting video of Superman food. They also brought cooked GM and non GM rice to the class for us to taste the difference. Their website is very informative and really allows me to find out more about GM food. In my previous post where I took a survey on GM food, I should give them this website to let them have a look!

Today is the second last lesson and I really look forward to the holidays and the end of my first sem! few more weeks to go! Alright I can do it!

Personal rating: 9/10 Interestings presentations...

Week 10: Technology Assessment and forecasting

Hey guys, this is my 11th post right here in this learning journal blog of TWC. After going through ten solid lessons of TWC by Prof Shahi, I've really learnt a lot and gain much knowledge and insights into things that are happening right now or in the past and future. The knowledge to gain is tremendous and through this ten weeks of lessons, I've tried my best to absorb as much as I can. I believe these knowledge I gain will be beneficial in the long run and for the future. I remember there was one lesson when we talk about GM food. It so happen I was walking along the streets and I got approached by this surveyors to talk about GM food. So the surveyor asked me, " have you heard of GM food and what you know about them?" Immediately I thought of my TWC lesson and what we discussed in class, so I was well equipped to answer the surveyor and gave a good 15mins survey. My reward was a $5 voucher...:)

This week 10 wraps up this whole module and talks about forecasting and assessing whether this technology is a rising star or a falling star. I believe that in forecasting, no one can know exactly what is going to happen in the future, but one can at least try and forecast what is going to be the next big thing. In order to succeed, one need to forecast the future and create something that is new and useful that the world is going to need in future. We have to be one step ahead of the rest, we got to be the first and the best.

I like this quote given by prof, and yes we need to invent our future. Our future lies in our own hands, how we want to shape it or model it. We can go towards the path of destruction if we continue using non renewable fuel or we can go towards sustainable eco green technology. All these really depends on us humans to make the change for the better. I myself will definitely try and invent the future and make it a rising star opportunity to make money.

-The best way to predict the future is to invent it”

- Alan Kay -

Today's rating for the class is 9/10. A good rounding up end to the TWC module.

Lesson 9: Emerging and Future Technologies

Hey it's finally my turn this week to present to the class and the topic this wk is emerging and future technologies. When I was choosing through the list of topics to present, this topic caught my eye immediately. Future and emerging technologies...hmmm... must be something cool,fun,fascinating and I can present on something wild and crazy! So I went to search online for interesting topics...all kinds of amazing stuff pop up and I was spoilt for choices on topic to present. Eventually, I found this emerging innovation that I like, Surface computing. I read up lots more about it and spent TWO whole days to come up with the slides,ideas,script,rehearse etc... Lots of effort put in because I really want to give a good interesting presentation to the class rather than just a simple normal one. And here goes! I really hope my presentation is good and feel free to let me know if there's any area where I can improve on. This is my first presentation so far in SMU! So I really need as many pointers as I can get.

Ok back to discussion of lessons by prof, today he showed us many future emerging technologies videos. I was quite impressed by some of them and some look really high tech and cool. For example the first video on claytronics. The concept look so futuristic like how is it going to reaally happen. But I believe it's still possible in the future, who knows what may happen! In the future, we may be travelling with transportation? or flying cars? This flying cars is discussed in my research essay. I think it'll be so cool to travel in flying cars. I can just zoom over to school in less than 5mins? how convenient and time saving is that. Prof also showed us a video about AI robot where these 2 guys created the 'perfect woman' which is a AI robot. This 'perfect woman' can massage you n talk to you and understand you. It sounds like so cool but in my opinion I still feel no matter how 'real' the robot is, it can never replace human and the way we interact. I can't imagine dating a robot girl, like it's so weird. At least to me for now, I dont know what may happen in the future, maybe when there's a shortage of girls like 100 guys is to 1 girl, then this may be a possibility. I believe that the society should be able to accept this. Right now there're people even marrying their pets or animals. So probably marrying a robot may not seem like too far fetched an idea. If the robot can give birth too, how cool is that. haha. The last video prof showed us is about electricity cars. I do agree that in the future, we'll definitely look towards electricity cars. Right now, there're more and more hybrid cars on the roads already. If the cost comes down, and the government places policies that push for such green electricity cars, why not man. we'll no longer depend on the exorbitant petrol fuel when we can just use electricity to power our cars.

This week's presentations are the most interesting, not because I presented but may be it's due to the topic nature. Ryan presented on robotic arm and it's pretty interesting to have a robotic arm. However that arm must look exactly like a normal human arm then I would not mind getting it. Imagine with it, I can have super strength and I no longer have to go to the gym and slowly train and train but the muscles still take a long time to pop up. I presented on surface computing and I definitely want to get a microsoft surface and put it in my house living room. It'll be a good talking point when guests go to your house and you can have so much interactions and fun with it. Instead of putting a useless antique marble table that can cost up to $10000, why not just get a microsoft surface table! Gideon next talks about Airbus 2050 and it's really cool to see all the new features these airlines are trying to put in place. However, my consideration would be how expensive would it be and can people ever afford to experience it? If majority of the people can't afford it, wouldn't it be so elitist and exclusive.

Personal rating 10/10 because I presented in this lesson :)

Lesson 8: Energy and World Change

Hey guys! I'm back from the one week recess break of hell and projects and assignments to complete. Been really busy with lots of school work during this recess week which should be renamed as project week or catchup work week! Today's session of TWC talks about Energy and World change. Oh ya and this lesson is the first ever lesson that ended early! amazingly and surprisingly! I can slowly stroll over to my next class after this wk's TWC lesson. YAY! Although lesson ended early this week, it was still filled with thought provoking content and interesting presentations although I felt this week's presentations wasn't very well done relatively when compared to other weeks' presentations. Prob the other presenters set a really high standard to keep up. Next week shall be my presentation finally... so guys pls look out for  it and I'll really try my best to give a good one.

Today session about Energy and world change talks about the past,present and the future where we can go about in terms of energy especially in the area of renewable energy. Energy is very important in today's world as the current situation seems to be bleak. As prof mentioned, if the world consumes the amount of energy an average Singaporean or US citizen consumes, the world's oil reserve would deplete in 9 years time! Yes, 9 short pathetic years which can go past in a quick flash. This is how severe the problem is and there're people who predict that the world will end because of lack of energy, fossil fuel to power up the world.  Right now the world still relies on almost 80% of unrenewable fossil fuel as energy sources. IF we continue this heavy dependence on fossil fuel which is unsustainable, we will be leading to a bleak future of destruction. What we should do is to shift to renewable and green energy sources like solar energy which shows great potential.

So what are some of the possibilities we can look into in the future for renewable energy sources. Prof mentioned that the sun provides more energy to the earth in one hour than humankind uses in a year. This means that solar energy has great potential in providing lots of energy however this also means the super high inefficiency of fully capturing the potential of this solar energy as solar energy only occupies 0.7% of the world's energy sources. Germany is a good example of a country tapping the potential of solar energy as seen in the video which prof showed us. Government policies plays a tremendous role in implementing this shift to green and renewable energy sources. This is seen in Germany where the government gives out incentives for the people to use solar energy. However, this only works in well to do developed countries like Germany where the government has the ability and money to provide such incentives. In developing or poor countries, how can they support such actions and they will continue to use cheap non renewable energy sources. Energy conservation and shift is a world wide global effort, the leading and developed countries should do their part to help the developing countries. Obviously one barrier of entry is the extremely high cost to change to renewable energy sources. Installation of solar panels are expensive and this is stopping many countries from switching over. However, a good leader should think long term, say in 100years time, what will happen to our kids, or our grand children if we still continue relying on non renewable fossil fuel. Will they be able to survive? We shouldnt be so narrow minded and just think of ourselves in the short run. I read in an article about this oil company Exonn Mobil which just refuses to invest into alternative renewable energy sources. They are very stubborn and continues to just concentrate on fossil fuels. This is due to their extreme high profits, greatly exceed the other oil companies that's why they believe since they are doing so well, why bother to take a risk and diversify into alternative oil sources which could affect their profits. I kinda disagree with Exoon CEO thinking which I feel is very short sighted. I'll be waiting for the day where fossil fuel runs out or when people switch to renewable energy sources and Exxon will be left lagging behind. When that day comes, let's see who has the last laugh.

In Singapore, Prof mentioned that he felt that Singapore has not been doing a good job in switching to renewable energy sources. I agree to a certain extent but Singapore do has certain initiatives and is very slowing trying to switch. the key word is very slowly...I mentioned in class that Singapore has built the first Eco green HDB in Punggol where it is run on solar power with solar panels installed on the roof top. Kenny who is one of the presenter, coincidentally stays in that block! I believe this is a good effort by the government and hopefully the rest of the HDB will be converted to this eco green concept. I think that the government is trying to use that Punggol HDB block as a case study and see how effective it is and only if it's effective then they will implement further actions to build more eco green HDB block. The cost of such solar panel is not cheap and the efficiency level may not be high enough to justify the cost. Being a practical government, they will not just plunge into this eco green concept. So I believe we need to give the government more time, and slowly we will be able to see more of such HDB.

One good strategy discussed in the class to help countries switch to green renewable energy sources is the use of taxation on fossil fuel. Countries can impose higher taxes on fossil fuels to reflect their externalities and with this money, they use it to build solar panels and invest in green technology. This is a good way to offset the high cost of new technology. However, this may not seem as easy as it seems. Oil companies are very powerful and have great influence in the world. They will not easily let this happen. What we can hope for is that green renewable energy technology can be improved with cheaper cost and higher efficiency and this will thus help to justify the switch over. Let's look towards this green future from now on!

Personal rating: 9/10

Week 7: Biobusiness Revolution: Agribiology,Environmental,Industrial

Alright this is the 7th week into TWC module, and this week talks more about this huge biobusiness revolution topic and focusing especially on agribiology, genetically modified food to be exact. Although next week is recess week, I'm totally not excited about it because my recess week is labelled projects week. Monday to Friday every single day, I have project meetings. Not to mention all the assignments to be due, individual research essay for this module! It's going to be a hell of a week for me! Ok enough of ranting, time for serious biobusiness here...

Prof Shahi kicked off the lesson with a thought provoking quote, "When we are able to grow the resources we need, we will finally be on the road to sustainability". I fully agree with this statement that prof said. If the world continues to consume food,energy,materials,fuels and goods at the current alarming rate, it is only a matter of time the world will run out of resources to feed us humans. Prof showed us an interesting 'happy tree friends' video  http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=GKEAXOnogZU&feature=player_embedded  showing us humans as 'PEST' that leech on Earth's resources and ruin its environment and pollutes the air, destroying Earth as a result. After we are down with Earth, we will go on to other planets and do the same. The objective of many space NASA  projects to other planets is to seek useful resources for our consumption and usage. So, in order for us not to leech on Earth resources, we need to find new ways to keep our consumption sustainable for the long run. Prof gave a very interesting idea, for example if every household has this machine which you can convert biowaste into energy, how cool and effective it'll be. It'll be one of the greatest invention ever in my opinion. I believe the idea and concept is already being extensively researched but we need to make it affordable and efficient enough to churn out a high conversion rate of energy that is sufficient for our usage.

This week focus is on agribiology, biobusiness in agriculture and food. Prof shared with us this unsung hero behind Green Revolution- . His video is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcwnWxy-YzU&feature=related I have never heard of this man before just like the rest of the class but after Prof talked about him, I realised he is indeed a man worthy of respect and admiration. His contribution to the world in solving world hunger is tremendous. I saw a quote in reading 6 which is quite shocking, food production must increase by 70 percent to feed the world population in 2050. The consolution is that the report went on to state that the required increase in food production can be achieved if the neccessary investment is undertaken and policies conducive to agricultural production are put in place. Looks like all is not gone, we have hope now. The world is not going to die of hunger! But hold on! Increasing food production is not enough, food security is the main cause of concern especially in rural areas. Food security is a condition where all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food prefereneces for an active and healthy life. I believe that this main concern needs to be addressed alongside increasing food production. What's the point of producing lots of food volume but none of it reaches the right people which are the poor in rural areas.

This week presentations talks about the idea of GM food. In my opinion, I strongly agree with the acceptance of GM food as I believe it is a fantastic way to reduce world poverty and increase food production. Some skeptics may argue about the detrimental effects of such GM food but lets think about it. Would u rather have no food on ur table and starve to death right away or would u rather have food which COULD or COULD NOT be harmful but at least u wont starve to death. So far there's no prove of such harmful effects and it probably does not have any! Prof mentioned that there are many food we're eating now are GM food. Are we going to freak out right now and start finding out what are those GM food and avoid eating them? I believe that for those who are rich and can afford organic food, please go ahead and eat them but do not stop other people from eating GM food which are definitely much cheaper and affordable.

Rating is 7/10. I wish to see more discussion on the environmental and industrial aspect of biobusiness rather than just agribiology.

Lesson 6: Biobusiness Revolution: Healthcare and Biomedical Sciences

Hey guys! It's week 6 already, 6 weeks into Uni life and things are getting more and more hectic with mid term exam coming soon,tons of projects to do, and assignments to hand up. Ok I shall be prepared for this heavy workload in uni and just try my best and tackle it and do well in it. This week of TWC, we looked into Biobusiness. This area of technology seems foreign and complicated to me at first but it is in fact a 'big thing' in the technology field. It constitutes over 25% of global GDP and employ some 40% of the world labour force (and this is in 2001, ten yrs ago) Biobusiness just means commercial activity based on an understanding of life sciences and life science processes. Biobusiness is used in many industry sectors like the biomedical sector where u have healthcare, herbal traditional medicine where I'll talk more about it and we had a presentation on it too. There's also the food industry, environmental and industrial biobusiness and other biobusiness like nanotechnology. This week will concentrate mainly on biobusiness in healthcare. What struck me most is when prof talks about the US healthcare and he quoted that more than 70% of healthcare spending goes to the last 1 year of the people life. He even showed us an interesting video called "Sicko" where it talks all about US healthcare and how atrocious the system is. I remember watching it before last time and till now I still remember this part of it. They talk about how expensive it is to get healthcare services in US and some people even have to migrate to Canada to get their healthcare services which is much cheaper than in US. Despite the advancement of healthcare in the biobusiness industry, I feel that what is the point of this when the government and the companies are controlling the industry and making it unaffordable for people to use it. There may be lots of arguements for this, like companies need the money for their R&D so they cant sell it at a low cost. I feel that we need to work on improving the healthcare system in countries, making it affordable for people. One of the readings talk about disease management where the elderly people get involved in technology to help keep their doctors informed of their medical status and from this, they can get constant help from the doctors. Things like this is very good to improve the healthcare level in the country and countries should go towards this system. In one of the presentation, we talked about Singapore going towards such management system. I shall go into the presentations next.

This week, we had 5 presentations and they were all really good as usual, making me feel the stress and pressure because I still haven't presented. Dont worry guys, I'll try my best not to disappoint the class and definitely give it my best shot for the presentation. Priya started off presenting on the future of Singapore healthcare. I believe like Singapore, many developed countries face the problem of ageing population and this problem  must be tackled before it gets too late. In her article, it talks about using technology to help solve this problem just like the disease mangement system. I believe this is possible but only if the user interface for such devices are very simple and legible to read. For example, my dad will only use phones which has easy to read interface like the iphones. When u make a call, the keypad is very legible and easy to read. Although the msging keypad seems a little small for him to read, no wonder my dad dont really use sms. Next, Jethro talks about a very interesting topic of immortality. To be honest, I find his presentation abit dull and boring however his discussion questions brightens up the class. To answer his question, in my opinion, I feel that there are many considerations for being immortal, it is very hard for me to decide on this matter. If u're immortal, you can have all the time in the world and do many many things. However, one may feel since u have so much time in ur life, life will get bored and everyday u'll just be doing nothing and wasting your time and life away.I think at this moment, I'll lean towards living my life as it is right now. The last presentation, Surbashene talks about herbal medicine and traditional medicine. To be honest, as a Chinese myself and also based on my personal experience, I have more faith in such chinese traditional medicine which may not have much medical support. I remembered I tore my calf muscle when I was serving the army. I was brought to the western way of treating it which is to do physiotherapy. After doing for sometime, I realised that the recovery is very slow and I'm getting really impatient. So, I turned to chinese medicine, I went for accupunture, massage, and chinese medicine. In the end, I recovered much faster and now Im up and running all thanks to chinese traditional medicine. I still remembered after the first session of treatment, I can already feel a great improvement in my leg and I thought to myself what a great miracle. Seriously...

Personal rating: 9/10