Big Problems – Page 5

Big Problems, Future, Science & Technology News, Trending

MIT published a list of the 9 megatrends that will shape the world in 2030. Here’s what they all have in common

March 6, 2020

Climate change, transparency, and nationalism will be driving the workforce 10 years from now.

For decades, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has generated some of the world’s greatest innovators, entrepreneurs, and startups. MIT has built a strong research and engineering culture since its founding in 1861, producing dozens of Nobel laureates along the way. 3Com, Akamai, Bose, Dropbox, Intel, iRobot, Kahn Academy, BuzzFeed, HP, and Qualcomm all have MIT roots. So I always pay attention to the lists published in MIT’s in-house journal, The MIT Sloan Management Review.

Understanding change is at the heart of entrepreneurship. As a founder, you need to spot unmet needs arising from changes in demographics, politics, and innovation. If you fail to do so, you may fail yourself.

Last year, MIT published a list by futurist Andrew Winston of the biggest megatrends that will impact the world by 2030. Winston’s pedigree is extensive; his clients include McDonald’s, Apple, Bank of America, Walmart, HP, Disney, and Cisco. Here is his list (explanations are mine):

Continue reading… “MIT published a list of the 9 megatrends that will shape the world in 2030. Here’s what they all have in common”

Big Problems, Business, China, Science & Technology News

Millions of Chinese firms face collapse

March 4, 2020

A closed Apple store in China

Brigita, a director at one of China’s largest car dealers, is running out of options. Her firm’s 100 outlets have been closed for about a month because of the coronavirus, cash reserves are dwindling and banks are reluctant to extend deadlines on billions of yuan in debt coming due over the next few months. There are also other creditors to think about.

“If we can’t pay back the bonds, it will be very, very bad,” said Brigita, whose company has 10,000 employees and sells mid- to high-end car brands such as BMWs. She asked that only her first name be used and that her firm not be identified because she isn’t authorised to speak to the press.

With much of China’s economy still idled as authorities try to contain an epidemic that has infected more than 75,000 people, millions of companies across the country are in a race against the clock to stay afloat.

Continue reading… “Millions of Chinese firms face collapse”

Big Problems, Employment, Internet of Things, Science & Technology News

Could IoT help fight the talent shortage?

February 28, 2020

Fear of losing your job to a robot is nothing new, but is it time the conversation shifted?

For as long as there have been robots, there have been fears they will take people’s jobs. The rise of the internet of things (IoT) echoes these concerns. An engineer no longer has to monitor a machine or switch on a bank of lights, IoT sensors can do it instead. Smart devices may not be an answer to the global talent shortage, but they’re starting to impact the work employees do.

The likes of heating, lighting and maintenance are already being automated, reducing routine tasks and eliminating others, in offices and factories around the globe. Demand for IoT is changing the role of facilities managers in a way that mirrors how self-service checkouts disrupted customer services in supermarkets or automatic doors and monitoring systems have affected guards and train drivers.

“The increased deployment of data-driven technologies is raising social, legal and ethical questions about the impact on people and their everyday lives. It’s vital that we find ways to engage with employees and the public, as well as identify the issues so they can be addressed,” says Julian David, chief executive of techUK.

Thought leaders are keen to highlight the strong demand for IoT isn’t going to lead to mass redundancies or answer post-Brexit talent shortages, an aging demographic or lead to less work for humans. Instead the focus is on IoT helping people do jobs better, with more productive and added-value tasks, empowered by data, redefining employment in the process.

Continue reading… “Could IoT help fight the talent shortage?”

AI, Big Problems, government, Science & Technology News, security

EU introduces AI strategy to build ‘ecosystem of trust’

February 26, 2020

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission

The European Commission today unveiled a sweeping set of proposals that it hopes will establish the region as a leader in artificial intelligence by focusing on trust and transparency.

The proposals would lead to changes in the way data is collected and shared in an effort to level the playing field between European companies and competitors from the U.S. and China. The EC wants to prevent potential abuses while also building confidence among citizens in order to reap the benefits promised by the technology.

In a series of announcements, EC leaders expressed optimism that AI could help tackle challenges such as climate change, mobility, and health care, along with a determination to keep private tech companies from influencing regulation and dominating the data needed to develop these algorithms.

“We want citizens to trust the new technology,” said Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission. “Technology is always neutral. It depends on what we make with it. And therefore we want the application of these new technologies to deserve the trust of our citizens. This is why we are promoting a responsible human-centric approach to artificial intelligence.”

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Big Problems, Environment, Health & Fitness, Science & Technology News

The ‘forever chemicals’ fueling a public health crisis in drinking water

February 9, 2020

About 700 PFAS-contaminated sites have been identified across the US while those exposed to enough chemicals can face devastating health consequences

Recent tests revelaed dangerous levels of PFAS in rain, a range of foods and sewage sludge that farmers spread on cropland as fertilizer.

In 2002, the French multinational Saint-Gobain boosted production of chemically weatherproofed fabrics that it produced in its Merrimack, New Hampshire, plant. Soon after, serious health problems began hitting residents living near the facility.

The Merrimack Citizens for Clean Water (MCCW) advocacy group says people there suffer from high levels of cancer, cardiovascular issues, autoimmune disorders, kidney disease and developmental disorders. That includes an alarming number of children facing rare and aggressive cancers, said MCCW’s Laurene Allen, who lives in the city of about 30,000 that sits an hour north of Boston.

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Big Problems, Environment, Green Friendly, Science & Technology News

Everything you know about recycling is probably wrong

February 7, 2020

A refresher for the new decade.

The next time you pass a recycling bin, do yourself a favor and take a peek inside. See anything unusual? Let’s rip the Band-Aid off right now: Turns out many of the things we drop into recycling bins don’t go on to beautiful second lives as bespoke greeting cards or shiny new bikes — a large percentage of this stuff actually ends up in landfills.

If you’re just tuning in, some background to our current recycling problem: In 2018, China, which previously bought and processed 70%(!) of the US’s recycled plastics, changed its policies about what kinds of recycled waste it would accept. China banned imports of certain types of paper and plastic, and cracked down on contamination (like leftover food scraps) in the materials they still process and recycle.

As long as we were shipping our recycling overseas, Americans never really had to deal with the repercussions of being, to quote Alana Semuels at The Atlantic, “terrible at recycling.” We tend to just throw everything into the bin without much thought about whether everything is actually, you know, recyclable. Now that US towns and cities are scrambling to figure out how to deal with recyclables, Semuels explains, they have two options: “pay much higher rates to get rid of recycling, or throw it all away.”

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Big Problems, Economy, government, Science & Technology News

Look to cities, not nation-states, to solve our biggest challenges

February 4, 2020

Los Angeles’ economy is bigger than that of many nation states.

This article is part of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting

The world in 2020 is looking more turbulent and uncertain than ever. Powerful economic, demographic and technological forces are rewiring international politics. According to the World Economic Forum’s new Global Risks Report, structural shifts are encouraging nation-states to adopt more transactional and unilateral postures. Some nations are abandoning old alliances, questioning the value of multilateralism and retreating to narrowly defined national interests. Amid continued downward pressure on the global economy, citizens are growing restless and frustrated with their national politicians.

Maybe they’re onto something. Perhaps nation-states are part of the problem.

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Big Problems, Crime, Food, Science & Technology News

Fish, sausage, even honey: Food fraud is hidden in plain sight

January 31, 2020

A 2018 study found 61% of seafood products tested at Montréal grocery stores and restaurants were mislabelled

The globalization of the food chain has resulted in increased complexity and diminished transparency and trust into how and where our foods are grown, harvested, processed and by whom.

Furthermore, recurring incidents of food fraud remind us that some of those involved in the food chain are exploiting this complexity. Today, consumers are at an increased risk of buying lower-quality food than what they paid for, or worse, eating food with unsafe ingredients or undeclared allergens.

Historically, food chain transparency and trust was established between the shopper and the farmer or fishmonger, green grocer, butcher, milkman and baker. Dutch scholar Arthur Mol argued that this personal interaction enabled face-to-face transparency, which built trust.

Before modern supermarkets, a local village or town grocery store stocked up to 300 items grown or processed within a 240-kilometre (150-mile) radius. In comparison, our post-modern supermarkets carry an average of 33,000 items that travel 2,400 kilometres or more. The Canadian government is poised to tackle that problem by announcing a Buy Canadian food campaign.

While the extent of global food fraud is difficult to quantify, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) suggests food fraud affects 10 per cent of commercially sold food. Various academic and industry sources suggest that globally, food fraud ranges from US$10 billion to $49 billion. This is likely a conservative range considering estimates of fake Australian meats alone and sold worldwide are as high as AUD$4 billion, or more than US$2.5 billion.

Continue reading… “Fish, sausage, even honey: Food fraud is hidden in plain sight”

Big Data, Big Problems, mobile apps, Science & Technology News, Software Development

Clearview app lets strangers find your name, info with snap of a photo, report says

January 21, 2020

It may not be long before you’ll have to forget about walking down the street anonymously, says a New York Times report.

“Just a face in the crowd.” That figure of speech may one day need a footnote to explain it.

What if a stranger could snap your picture on the sidewalk then use an app to quickly discover your name, address and other details? A startup called Clearview AI has made that possible, and its app is currently being used by hundreds of law enforcement agencies in the US, including the FBI, says a Saturday report in The New York Times.

The app, says the Times, works by comparing a photo to a database of more than 3 billion pictures that Clearview says it’s scraped off Facebook, Venmo, YouTube and other sites. It then serves up matches, along with links to the sites where those database photos originally appeared. A name might easily be unearthed, and from there other info could be dug up online.

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Big Problems, Money Talk, Science & Technology News

Davos 2020 : the World is drowning in debt

January 16, 2020

New York (CNN Business)The world’s already huge debt load smashed the record for the highest debt-to-GDP ratio before 2019 was even over.

In fact, it broke that record in the first nine months of last year. Global debt, which comprises borrowings from households, governments and companies, grew by $9 trillion to nearly $253 trillion during that period, according to the Institute of International Finance.

That puts the global debt-to-GDP ratio at 322%, narrowly surpassing 2016 as the highest level on record.

More than half of this enormous number was accumulated in developed markets, such as the United States and Europe, bringing their debt-to-GDP ratio to 383% overall.

There are plenty of culprits. Countries like New Zealand, Switzerland and Norway all have rising household debt levels, while the government debt-to-GDP ratios in the United States and Australia are at all-time highs.

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Big Problems, government, Human Behavior, Science & Technology News

The coming surge of separatism

January 8, 2020

Why splittists will be on a roll around the world

FROM CATALONIA to Kashmir, and from Hong Kong to Scotland, separatist movements will make headlines in 2020. At best, this will lead to political turbulence and tension. At worst, it could lead to violence.

Across the world, two types of identity-driven movements are increasingly clashing—and feeding off each other. On the one hand, there are separatist groups that seek to break away from their nation-state and establish new countries; on the other, there is the outraged and assertive nationalism of existing states, determined to crush separatism.

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Big Problems, Employment, Money Talk, Science & Technology News

The retirement crisis is real and frightening, as these six charts show

December 17, 2019

An uncertain retirement may be lurking just over that ridge.(Dennis Curran)

Is the “retirement crisis” just a scare story? That’s what conservatives would like you to believe as they rail against proposals from progressives in Congress to expand and increase Social Security.

Andrew Biggs, a former Social Security official, wrote recently in the conservative National Review that there’s no need to expand Social Security benefits because “Americans’ retirement incomes and retirement savings have never been stronger.”

That may be true, in the aggregate. But the question is: whose retirement incomes and savings? Monique Morrissey of the labor-supported Economic Policy Institute presents evidence that, just as income inequality for those in their working years has soared, so has inequality in the distribution of retirement resources.

The trends…paint a picture of increasingly inadequate retirement savings for successive generations of Americans—and large disparities by income, race, ethnicity, education, and marital status.

Continue reading… “The retirement crisis is real and frightening, as these six charts show”