Return to the tech frontier

humanising healthcare High empathy machines in medicine the mind of the consumer Technology works best when it gets inside your head technology as a game changer Exploring new business m

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return to the tech frontier News and insights

from The Economist’s

flagship event

human 2.0

Man and machine

become one

agent of change Predicting the impact of disruptive technologies

on the way we do business

new world orchestra

Or how a cast of three thousand strangers made some beautiful music.

humanising healthcare High empathy machines in medicine

the mind of the consumer Technology works best when it gets inside your head

technology

as a game changer Exploring new business models

tech trends

to watch The top ten technologies coming your way.

new money Where next for mobile banking?

workforce 2012 Can technology really transform our working lives? And will it be for

the better?

a tale of future cities

A blueprint for the intelligent metropolis

left brain, meet right brain When to go with creative intuition, when to go with the data

privacy and protection Revealing too much at the click of a mouse

blind data Information overload:

Sorting the wheat from the chaff

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image to jump

to the article

www.technology-frontiers.com | © Economist Conferences 2012

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Technology is changing our lives at a phenomenal pace

In the past decade we’ve had the social media explosion, the advent of personalised medicine, the big data challenge .and of course, the ultimate comeback story encapsulated

by Steve Jobs’ Apple

Just keeping up with these developments is tough, but we have a higher ambition At Technology Frontiers, over 250 business leaders and top thinkers shared their views on how new technology will shape the years ahead The conference tackled many of the big technology debates of the day, from data privacy to the future of mobile banking But this

is no ordinary conference – our goal is to inspire as well as inform How often do you get to meet a real-world “bionic man”, or see people turned into living musical instruments operated by crocodile clips and Play Doh? These were just

a couple of the standout moments from the inaugural Technology Frontiers

I hope you enjoy this collection of stories from the frontier

of science and innovation See you at next year’s show!

Jonathan Dewe Director Economist Conferences

News and insights from

The Economist ’s flagship event

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Hugh Herr climbs on stage and kicks off his talk on how technology is changing what it means to be human He’s a man who likes to think on his feet, rapidly pacing the stage as he works the audience

His speech is full of interesting ideas and insights

But it is only when he pauses, then bends down to pull up his trouser legs that the audience grasps what a remarkable story our speaker has to tell

There, wired up beneath his knees, are a pair of bionic legs the like of which you’ve probably only seen in a sci-fi movie

A world-class mountain climber, Herr lost both his legs below the knee in 1982 as the result of frostbite after becoming stranded for days in a blizzard on Mount Washington in New Hampshire

His subsequent experience with artificial limbs set him on a lifelong mission to develop technologically advanced prosthetics Today, he is Director of Biomechatronics at the MIT Media Lab

“I predict that in this century advances in bionics, genetics, and regenerative medicine will largely

eliminate disability,” Herr told the audience

A large swathe of the world’s population experiences a lower quality

of life due to mental or physical conditions, but new technologies are emerging that could transform these people’s lives in ways that were hitherto unimaginable

By way of demonstration, Herr showed how his own prosthetic limbs allow him to run and jump with extraordinary agility But Herr can do a lot more than pound a stage For example, he owns prosthetic devices that have enabled him to revive his passion for climbing “In some circumstances

I can climb better than before Through technology

I found I could augment my capabilities,”

Herr reveals

The technology is impressive – and at times controversial South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius is a double amputee and runs on two prosthetic legs shaped liked curved blades

He has been so successful that it was felt he had

an unfair advantage and he was banned from all able-bodied athletics Herr helped get this decision overturned and Pistorius is now hoping to compete at the London Olympics The possibilities are limitless – an elderly person with arthritis could replace their old arm with a better bionic arm much in the same way that they might have

a hip replacement But there’s no doubt that this new technology also raises some profound questions about what it means to be human

HUMAN 2.0

Man and machine become one

“Today I’m wearing

very high-tech legs”

- coup de theatre at

#Techfrontiers as

Hugh Herr, double

amputee, shows off

his prosthetics.

Andrew Hill

@andrewtghill

I predict that

in this century advances in bionics, genetics, and regenerative medicine will largely eliminate disability.

Hugh Herr, Athlete, Scientist, Innovator, Futurist

Watch Hugh Herr’s full talk >

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1 MobILE baNkINg goEs WEsT

Kenya is the world leader in mobile payments – its success is down to the fact that it fulfils a real need in a developing society While in the rich world it may not be a necessity, it could

be of value, even if it is simply to save a trip

to the cash machine

TECH TRENDS

TO WATCH

Tom Standage, The Economist’s

Online and Digital Editor,

outlines the top ten technologies coming your way

Enjoyed The

Economist’s

#techfrontiers event.

@tomstandage

should be cloned

and wheeled out

at every tech

conference.

Olivia Solon

@olivia_solon

Elon Musk wants to retire on Mars ‘every time I meet him he sounds less mad’ says @tomstandage

#techfrontiers

Brian Millar

@arthurascii

Watch Tom Standage’s full talk >

10 PrIvaTIsED sPaCE TravEL.

spaceX, established by PayPal founder Elon

Musk, is on a mission to make low-cost space travel possible Musk’s Falcon rockets have proved impressive, and now his capsule is going to be used to transport cargo to the space station, with a view to transporting astronauts in the future

9 augMENTED rEaLITy

The likes of the star Walk app lets you

take a picture of the sky and find out what constellation it is Currently a novelty, this will come into its own when plugged into social networks

8 soLar LIgHTINg.

Solar lamps have been around for some time, but now that the cost is approaching $5 a unit, we can expect them to make a much bigger impact

At this price there is potential to find business models that would enable solar to really take off – think of micro-entrepreneurs helping to “prime the pump” on solar lighting in the way the microfinance model enabled mobile telephony to take off in Bangladesh and Uganda

7 sPy DroNEs

A camera-enabled quadrocopter controlled by an iPhone is proving more than just a novelty Police have been using them to monitor protestors, and the protestors have been using them to monitor the police As they get smaller, the tabloid hack will surely be tempted to spy on a celeb, the unscrupulous tempted to use them for industrial espionage

6 MaN MEETs MaCHINE

We are seeing a hybridisation of human and machine intelligence Amazon Mechanical Turk, for example, is based on the idea that humans can do some jobs better than computers Post a query online, such as

“what is the object in this photo?”, and the technology corrals lots of brain-power to tackle the task

5 ENErgy sCavENgINg

Scavenging ambient energy from the likes

of TV transmitters could be helpful in powering small electronic devices

4 DNa sEquENCINg goEs MaINsTrEaM

oxford Nanopore has created a

$900 DNA sequencer the size of

a USB memory stick Cheaper, faster technology could mean that in 25 years everyone will

be sequenced as soon as they are born

3 EvEryTHINg as a sErvICE

Technology enables us to rent out the things

we own For example, Wheelz enables students

to share their cars with friends, or friends

of friends, on campus It is only through the combination of smartphones, the internet, GPS and RFID that this kind of sharing can be delivered as a service

2 PrINT WHaT you DEsIrE

3D printing is something we’ve been watching for some time Now it’s moving into the mainstream and becoming increasingly competitive on cost versus traditional manufacturing methods But new challenges arise: for example, what happens when people can download and “print” pirated designs of their favourite products?

The future is already here

It’s just not evenly distributed.

William Gibson

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If one were to ask corporate leaders to list the

“megatrends” that are shaping the business world

of tomorrow, three are likely to top most lists

One is the accelerating shift in economic power

from West to East Another is financial market

instability and recession, at least for those in the

world’s more developed economies The third is

technological progress Of these three, the last

is likely to have the most direct impact on how

businesses operate and how they are organised

As difficult as the task is, business leaders and

their teams must deploy their crystal balls and

think ahead about the types of changes that may

be wrought by technology-led innovation

A new report from the Economist Intelligence

Unit (EIU) synthesises different views of how

technology changes will affect organisations

in the period between now and 2020 The report

predicts that technology innovation will continue

unabated, confounding the beliefs of some that

innovation and disruption are slowing Keeping

pace will be tough: nearly four in ten survey

respondents worry that their organisations

may fall behind

among the report’s other predictions:

big data becomes big business

Firms already collect vastly more data than they did a decade ago, and new sources—from smart meters to smartphones—will add much more data to this flow New or more advanced business models based on specialist analytics services are likely to emerge as a result The European Commission estimates that government data alone could add some €40bn (US$55bn) a year

to the European economy by stimulating the growth of new information services

Mid-size companies will be less common in 2020

Technology advances will support a rise in micro-entrepreneurs in the decade ahead, and will enable these tiny businesses to act like far larger ones This has direct implications for midsize companies, which will increasingly need

to choose whether to become larger to compete

on scale, or smaller to compete on speed

Many will face this decision in the years ahead

There will be less need for middle managers

Greater analytics capabilities and other technologies will enable organisations to devolve far more decision-making authority to managers and employees at the periphery Nearly two-thirds

of those polled see this happening, which in turn will allow many to say goodbye to the generalist middle manager of old

Job growth becomes decoupled from economic growth.

It is becoming clearer that the productivity gains from technology are allowing firms to create more output from less input This is a triumph for business, but will create a stark challenge for job creation Indeed, the technology advancement

to come will place a wider range of jobs than ever under the threat of displacement The very same trends, however, will also create numerous new occupations that do not exist today

AgENT Of CHANgE

Predicting the impact of disruptive technologies on the way

we do business, based on the findings from an Economist

Intelligence Unit report sponsored by Ricoh.

ClAyTON CHRISTENSEN

ON INNOvATION AND DISRUpTION

Clayton Christensen is a professor of business administration at Harvard business school

and the bestselling author of The Innovator’s

Dilemma, among other titles He is one of the world’s leading authorities on disruptive innovation

QIn your view, will technology-related

disruption continue as before, slow or accelerate in the coming decade?

A It will continue as before, but there is

a concern about a possible imbalance between the three key types of innovation One of these is “growth innovation”, which is disruptive It involves making what is currently an expensive and complex technology that

is accessible to only a few people far simpler and far more affordable All growth in jobs in the US has come from such innovations The next is “sustaining innovation”, which improves good products’ functionality or expands their capacity Most innovations fall into this category; on average they do not create new growth, but they are nonetheless important to the economy, keeping

firms sharp Finally, there is “efficiency innovation”, which is low-end disruption

These are also important, but they destroy jobs in the economy When Wal-Mart comes to town, for example, they hire people but their model is so much more efficient that they also put many retail shopkeepers out of business

Looking ahead, growth innovation must outstrip the ability of the other two to take jobs out of the economy But in the

US and parts of Europe, businesses are investing less and less in these kinds

of innovation, while engaging in more efficiency innovation

Q In our survey, many firms cited customers

as a major source of innovation in the coming decade, ahead of more traditional ones What challenges does that hold?

A As a general rule, if you listen to your

customers and follow their lead, they help you with the sustaining innovations

But for the innovations that create real growth, customers are not very articulate at what those things need to

be If you just listen to them or follow them, they will misguide more than guide you However, if you do not listen

to what they say but rather look carefully

at what they really want to get done in their lives, and how, and you can create

a product or service that does it better,

at lower cost, then you can learn a lot from customers

agent of change: The future of technology disruption in business is an Economist

Intelligence Unit white paper, sponsored by ricoh The findings are based on expert

interviews together with a global survey of 567 executives, conducted in September and October 2011, on their expectations of the impact that technology will have on business between now and 2020.

Cheap smartphones for all

business-oriented social networks

Data mining for behavioural insight

Cloud computing, providing cheap and nearly limitless processing power and storage

Immersive or holographic 3D video conferencing

augmented reality interfaces

adoption of visual, tactile and voice interfaces in primary computing devices

artificial intelligence— computers that learn by themselves

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You hail a cab Half way into the journey you realise you don’t have enough money to pay so you ask the driver to stop at the nearest cash machine

There’s a long queue and all the while the meter’s running and the cabbie is making a few extra bucks at your expense Far better if you could simply pay by using your mobile to transmit virtual cash to the driver And yet mobile phone payments are nowhere near as popular in the rich nations compared to the developing world – at least, not yet

safaricom’s M-PEsa, a mobile-phone based money

transfer system, is now used by nearly half of Kenya’s population There it fulfils a real need by enabling those outside the traditional banking system to send and receive money, whether that means paying a bill, buying goods or receiving their wages Users create a virtual account connected to their mobile number, then whenever they want to add electronic cash to their phone, or turn e-cash into actual money, they can do so at one of 28,000 retailers

Fears that the idea would be rejected on the grounds that it suddenly meant its users and their financial transactions could be tracked seem

to be without basis “We make it clear we have obligations to report to authorities But this didn’t matter to users as the value of the service far outweighed any concerns,” says Nick Hughes, the driving force behind the project and now director

of Signal Point Partners, which advises and invests

in companies in emerging markets that use mobile phones to deliver services

Despite M-PESA’s success, there have been hurdles to overcome– Safaricom had to convince regulators that it wasn’t creating a new currency, arguing that every penny in M-PESA matches a real world penny Obstacles out of the way, Hughes says it has even more potential: “What is exciting now is the business opportunities it creates For instance, many Africans are off the electricity grid but they can’t afford the one-off payment for a solar-powered unit Now they could put down a deposit on the unit, which is embedded with a mobile device, and each time they turn the equipment on a small amount of money could be taken from their M-PESA account It breaks down the affordability barrier.”

But could electronic cash take off in the West, where most people have bank accounts and credit cards? Ije Nwokorie, Managing Director

of brand consultancy Wolff Olins London, asks:

“How do you make it compelling here? You are talking about replacing something deep-seated –

we still get excited when we pull crisp notes from

a cash machine.” He reckons the solution lies in understanding the frustrations people have with making payments and looking at how virtual wallets could solve them “People want to know they are getting the best deal, or that they can make a payment quickly, without endless forms to fill in These are areas where these platforms can play a role and add value.”

NEW MONEy

Where next for mobile banking?

What is exciting now is the business

opportunities it creates

Nick Hughes, Director, Signal Point Partners

“We need to

go back to the true meaning of money: a token

of trust between two parties.” Nick Hughes

#TechFrontiers

fabio sergio

@freegorifero

people want to know they are getting the best deal.

Ije Nwokorie, Managing Director, Wolff Olins

What is exciting now is the business opportunities

it creates

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the real world and online With the evolution of technology, services such as “in-play betting” aims to add more to the experience, allowing punters to bet on the outcome of each and every ball in a cricket game, or even bet throughout the 90 minutes of a football match

Technology has also altered the way the company operates its back office “Over the last seven years, the digital environment has changed the way in which we collect data We know every single bet that comes through on a second-by-second basis

so we can run a better margin and offer better prices to the customer and so earn their loyalty,” reckons Glynn

But while the capturing of data through the likes

of its loyalty programme helps the business improve its offering, it has to be careful about what it captures in an industry where customer privacy can be a particularly sensitive issue “It is big data and not big brother We make it clear what we are collecting and we reward customers accordingly You have to remember the consumer has power.”

Consumer technologies such as apps and social networks are outpacing enterprise technologies and transforming the way companies work So says Oliver Benzecry, Managing Director of Accenture,

UK and Ireland, who notes we are now at a tipping point and there are many opportunities to reinvent both the front and back ends of a business

Examples include shopkick, a scheme which uses smartphones to reward a shopper just for walking into a store, providing new ways for retailers to interact with potential customers

At the back end, whole processes are changing

In innovation, for example, Procter & Gamble moved away from the traditional internal R&D model and set up Connect + Develop, estimating that for every P&G researcher there were 200 scientists or engineers elsewhere in the world who could help the company innovate Previously, less than 10% of its new initiatives involved external innovation partnerships With its new programme,

by 2008, this was up to over 50%

Traditional high street bookmakers provide another example of how business models are evolving, in their case to compete with online gambling sites “Customers now have a great amount of choice on how, when, and where they place a bet – our job is to over-service,” says Richard Glynn, Chief Executive of Ladbrokes The high street store is still a very important part

of what Ladbrokes offers, but the company now seeks to create an entertainment and community experience around the placing of a bet both in

It is big data, not big brother

you have to remember

the consumer has power.

Richard Glynn, Chief Executive, Ladbrooks

TECHNOlOgy

AS A gAME CHANgER

Exploring new business models

Session sponsored by Accenture

you have to really

careful about

abusing people’s

data - richard

glynn - ladbrokes

#techfrontiers

- old days of the

smokey flat cap

are gone

Fiona Graham

@FionaGraham

benzecry: The

#consumer is now much more

in control than business and can move at speed and en masse

#TechFrontiers

@clearchannelint

Watch the full discussion >

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Not that long ago, technologists predicted that

by the 21st century we’d have nifty robots to do the hard work, leaving human beings to live a life of leisure

As it turned out, the robots were slow to materialise, while rapid advances in computing revolutionised the workplace – only not in the way that most people expected What has become clear is that each new technology imposes fresh demands on managers and workers, as well as opportunities to make work more productive and enjoyable

“Want to get away from it all? Head to the bottom of the Grand Canyon,” was how one executive at Technology Frontiers summed

up the problem of being online and available 24/7 Managers are particularly hard hit: one study indicates that they are interrupted once every three minutes Not before time, bosses are trying to find the communication tools that might help rather than hinder Some are developing unconventional responses: one executive at the conference refuses to read anything they are just CC’d on, another has banned email altogether

While one group of employees worry about technology impinging on their lives, generation

Y types are frustrated by their companies’

sluggish adoption of new tools Thanks to the consumerisation of IT, many of them are using more powerful technologies in their social lives than are available at work

One of the main claims for the new social technologies is that they improve workplace collaboration This can certainly be true When used effectively, collaborative working brings about open innovation across a company But in reality cross-organisation collaboration is hard

to implement, argues Lynda Gratton, Professor

of Management Practice at the London Business School: “It is not because there are different nationalities or clashing personalities People from different disciplines have very individual ways of working and use different technical language It is hard to bring about the level of trust needed for tacit knowledge to be transferred.”

“It can be a big challenge as people don’t know each other, they don’t have the social interaction, and so it is hard to stimulate that environment,”

points out David Mills, Executive Vice-president

of Operations, Ricoh Europe

Gratton believes that the key is in creating a question that is so interesting to all parties that they can’t stop answering it, in spite of any communication difficulties You also have to find incentives – this idea that you are working for the greater good of the company is not enough

In a later session, JP Rangaswami, Chief Scientist

at Salesforce.com, argued that enterprise social networking is a valuable way to break down hierarchies in an organisation “Before, you had

to make hierarchical assumptions about whether people will work well together, now you just ask

if your guys can talk it over It changes strategy

WORk fORCE 2012

Can technology really transform our working lives?

And will it be for the better?

Session sponsored by Ricoh

What is exciting now is the business

opportunities it creates

Watch the full discussion >

on how to get the best people for the task Plus,

a networked environment means decisions are not made in a silo.”

Technology also promises to make our working lives more flexible Julie Meyer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Ariadne Capital, who works with entrepreneurs and start ups, notes that, particularly in the under 30 age group, the concept of employment is changing and technology is enabling the change “They don’t have experience of working for one organisation They see themselves as their own brand with their own responsibilities for P&L.” She paints a picture of a generation that is working longer hours but feeling that they have more freedom and want to manage their own time “Work is something they do that they love, not somewhere they go.”

In this new world, managers worry about potential conflicts of interest and reduced loyalty among employees However, Gratton argues otherwise: “There is no evidence they are disloyal but they are more conscious of the choices they have They have seen what has happened to the baby boomers and the breaking of the job for life contract They want to stay, learn and develop but realise they must stay mobile.” And the message to international companies – they have joined you because you are global and they are expecting to move around the company

It is hard to bring about the level of trust needed for tacit knowledge

to be transferred

Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice, London Business School

Lynda gratton,

a facinating presentation on the way people will work in the future - a bit scary

#TechFrontiers

Rachael HanleyBrowne

@leadmetoit

Lynda gratton Lbs average time

of executives not interrupted

is 3mins

#TechFrontiers

Helmut Fink

@helfink

PaNEL sEssIoN

Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice at the London Business School, joins a panel discussion with

David Mills, Executive Vice-president of Operations

at Ricoh Europe, Julie Meyer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Ariadne Capital and Mark Judd, Global Director

of Human Resources of the shared services organisation

at Rolls-Royce

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Choir singers don’t need to congregate together

to make music together At least, not when you have YouTube at your disposal, says Eric Whitacre,

a composer and conductor

Whitacre has put together a virtual choir with singers from around the world that he conducts via video The idea started life when Britlin Losee – a fan of Whitacre’s music – recorded herself singing one of his compositions and shared it on YouTube

Her voice is sweet, but the bedroom recording is pretty low-fi Even so, Britlin’s videoed audition got Whitacre thinking He sent out an appeal for volunteers for his virtual choir, and worked with producer Scott Haines to bring the video recordings together – with some impressive results

At Technology Frontiers, Whitacre shows us how the music comes to life We watch individual singers all over the world sitting in their bedrooms

or living rooms, watching their virtual conductor intently and piping up for their particular contribution But the magic happens when all these voices are brought together, transforming the individual song lines into a rich and highly

textured piece of music Cue gasps of awe and delight from the audience

Encouraged by his initial success, Whitacre upped his ambition The next project called for 900 people to record themselves singing his song

“Sleep” Before long Whitacre had received 2,052 contributions from singers in 58 countries

Whitacre isn’t entirely sure where this is all heading Virtual Choir 3, ‘Water Night’ launched

in April using 3,746 singers’ videos from 73 countries But he says there is a lot more to it than just the music

Having asked for feedback from the singers via Facebook and Twitter, Whitacre heard some of their stories “There are people taking part in places in Africa with no running water and rough Internet connections They are spending days uploading their video.”

“I started as a music nerd to see what I could come up with but it is far bigger than that

It is about people’s desire to connect.”

NEW WORlD

ORCHESTRA

Or how a cast of

three thousand

strangers made

some beautiful music.

Watch Eric’s full talk >

‘Water Night’ launched in April using

I started as

a music nerd

to see what

I could come

up with but it

is far bigger

than that

It is about

people’s desire

to connect.

Eric Whitacre, composer

and virtual choirmaster

Eric Whitacre’s

virtual choir at

the #techfrontiers

conference was

quite mesmerising!

Michael Anyfantakis

@MAnyfant

Watch the video for “Sleep” >

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