Elon Musk doesn’t follow the same standards that most entrepreneurs do. He’s different, he likes to be different!

And when you’re different, and you’re not afraid to be, it’s okay to test a cigar (or should I say ‘joint’?) of tobacco mixed with marijuana, on Joe Rogan’s famous podcast. But if you look closely, Elon was just nice (polite) and followed Rogan’s elaborate script. Before trying it, Musk even asked him if it was legal.

Then all those facial expressions of Musk, which photojournalists love to catch, go viral as if he’s there promoting some soft drug or passing abroad that his office at Tesla (or SpaceX) is enveloped in a large cloud of smoke.

Quite the opposite. The expressions themselves spoke for themselves, as if to say, “This is nothing special, Joe. Why do you waste my time with these scenes”? Musk even claimed that weed is not good for productivity at all, but it has nothing against (as I do, by the way).

Joe Rogan was far too cheeky and presumptuous to think that Elon Musk would be such a creative and quick guy at what he does, thanks to weed or any other drugs, light or hard. He responded promptly and directly, politely and very lucidly.

However, the media preferred to extol the “non-content” of the interview and highlight the least interesting just because he was nice to test a “cigar” that generated a huge cloud of smoke to the real content.

Well, people see more of what they’re focused on!… Musk is definitely more focused on other things.

Elon Musk likes to do useful things for other people. He said it himself, believe it or not. Although the acquisition of Twitter was a burning desire of Musk, he realized long ago that he could do better than was done with a machine as powerful as this microblogging. He dealt with the “cleaning” like that, wasting no time. He, by the way, even prepared people with the ‘Easter egg’ (sink) that he carried to Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco.

The same needs to be done in relation to Facebook, which is terrible. Super slow; full of patches; many features that do not work properly; very little, or not at all, intelligent algorithms — or rather, they even have intelligence, but for a world of ignorant people (yes, Facebook, or its “master” algorithm, judges its users as ignorant); instability and incongruity in engagement; etc.

The union of all Meta platforms — Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, mainly — made the entire system become anything but practical and not at all user-friendly.

Facebook (the social network itself) urgently needs change if it wants to survive the new future ahead. And I’m not referring to the future that Mark Zuckerberg wants (metaverse) but to the real future of the Internet, the new Internet, whether we call it Metaverse or whatever.

Mark’s elephant is old and tired. It looks more like a mammoth trapped in prehistory. It may be massive and heavy, but what good is a huge footprint far away in the time of the mammoths?

The Facebook glory days are long gone, and it’s time to refresh the new world! It is not with retrograde concepts that the new and demanding society remains active in this already obsolete and worn out network.

Coming back to Twitter, it took a super brave and visionary man — love it or hate it — to, necessarily, move and shake the entire structure of the organization.

I wouldn’t want to be fired so on short notice either, but if you look at the ‘Big Picture’, it doesn’t seem dramatic. Jack Dorsey, co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, who no longer has any voice in the organization, says the company’s employees are resilient and will survive change. And, in my humble opinion, he’s right!

The reactions are felt all over the Internet, ridiculously by all those who have always enjoyed Twitter without paying a penny. Now, with the change, they think they are masters of reason without having any reason at all.

Naturally, this type of “cleaning” is strange, especially for those who are outside and do not see the inside of the heavy “machine”. Strangeness that, if they let the ‘Chief Twit’ work, it will ingrain and end up becoming mainstream.

(Usually, people who do little, perhaps because of idleness, do not have the patience to wait for the result of the hard work of those who actually do things.)

Countless people say that Elon Musk is the demonstration of the power of doing ‘whatever the f*ck he wants’. I think it’s not like that. He even listens to people! He is tired of asking for opinions in order to be more useful to people. However, Elon Musk’s power is legitimate.

When he claims that the $8 monthly “Blue Twitter” plan, which includes the ‘Verified Badge’, is to pay, he is within his rights to do so. After all, he paid $44 billion for the platform, for God’s sake.

Who are the offended people who have always enjoyed Twitter and the ‘Verified Badge’ for free? Yes, because having a ‘Verified Badge’ on Twitter (and other social networks) is like having a social status and, whether we like it or not, they are seen with different eyes. That’s why I use the word “enjoyed”.

Twitter’s (as well as Facebook and Instagram’s) account verification policy is completely ridiculous and uneven when one of the requirements for doing so is being a “notable person” or having a “notable account”. Come on! Really? Give me a break. There are many (too many, even) verified accounts of people who are anything but notable. Where is the equality, then?

If it is to empower the people, as Musk himself claims, the necessary changes must be made, and he is making them. Only those who do not see beyond their aura of selfishness do not realize what these (necessary) measures bring.

Now, what Elon Musk wants here is to praise free speech, freeing the shackles of other people who, not fitting into the social status of the old Twitter, did not have the ‘freedom of expression’ to be heard. A fairer and more democratic system is needed.

Twitter remains free, of course, but those who want Premium accounts pay a tiny monthly fee of 8 dollars (7.99, to be more precise). In that monthly fee, account verification is included, and current verified accounts need to adhere to this plan to maintain the “status of notable person”, called ‘Verified Badge’. Whoever does not pay, is without the seal. What’s the drama about it?

Whether we like it or not, Elon Musk is a force of nature that has proven his resolve.

Those who complain the most about his irreverence, if they are Twitter users and do not agree with his policy, have a solution, which is, of course, to leave.

Those who stay on Twitter for free and complain about the slightest thing, I don’t think they should do it if they are part of that social house.

Those who pay can complain about the paid services if they do not conform to what was sold to them. Otherwise, they shouldn’t make big waves either.

Let the man work and give it time. Twitter was created in 2006, and it took 16 years to be the colossus it is today, creating many vicious circles that are difficult to get out of at the expense of anything that goes against those same circles.

We have to change to remain dynamically innovative!

© 2022 _Ӈ_

This time I come to talk about a new concept in this Age of Artificial Intelligence and the already insipid world of Social Networks. Initially, quite a few years ago, I named it “Counterpart” (long before the TV series “Counterpart” and “Black Mirror”, or even the movie “Transcendence”).

It was the essence of the ETER9 Project that was taking shape in my head.

Over the years and also with the evolution of technologies — and of the human being himself —, the concept “Counterpart” has been getting better and, with each passing day, it makes more sense!

Imagine a purely digital receptacle with the basics inside, like that Intermediate Software (BIOS⁽¹⁾) that computers have between the Hardware and the Operating System. That receptacle waits for you. One way or another, it waits patiently for you, as if waiting for a Soul to come alive in the ether of digital existence.

This vision of mine is no longer as lonely as it used to be. It is now a reality that is coming closer and closer! And it takes shape even faster when it is reinforced with what former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said at this year’s Collision Conference.

Humans will soon have a Second Self, made by Artificial Intelligence.

These digital receptacles are basic Artificial Intelligences waiting for the “Digital Soul” of each human being! With that Soul is born your Digital Double (or ‘dduplicata’ as I affectionately called it during this BETA journey of creation), your Second Self.

Initially, a child Second Self, but as eager for knowledge as a child is in its first years of life. Your Operating System, unlike the computers themselves (CP/M, DOS, OS/2, Windows, Linux, macOS, …) emerges in the Second Self in a very unique way. We could use here the expression “all different, all equal” because each Second Self will have its own Operating System that, thanks to the “Digital Soul”, differentiates itself from its peers.

The Machine Learning of the digital counterpart is based on the behaviors and “personality” of the human counterpart. Therefore, there is no Absolute Law to regulate or manage ethics, but rather the common sense of each human counterpart. It will be up to each human counterpart to “feed” its digital version with the best of itself.

I do not hide my desire to create a virtual repository of human life. Part of the future, dystopian or not, will be like this. I hope to be able to make my greatest contribution towards a better future of humanity. Should I fail in time, there will be many minds available to do so.

We must not, however, forget one very important thing. Artificial Intelligence and subsequent Superintelligence, or General Artificial Intelligence, originate from the human being. The human being is the creator God of this technology, and by using it we invoke Angels or Demons. We are solely and exclusively responsible for the creation of the “Angels” and the “Demons”. If one day we start blaming the machines, then we lose this great challenge right from the start.

In a digital world like today’s and the one that lies ahead, the fusion between machine and human is inevitable. The question is how. Superficial? Absolute fusion?
I prefer to see a future of Artificial Intelligence where Superintelligence does not reign just because it has a higher cognitive capacity than humans. If we know how to interpret the signals and take appropriate action, we will be smart enough to enjoy Superintelligence as we enjoy Artificial Intelligence today.

Imagine a company and its employees. Now imagine those employees being more intelligent than their superiors. This scenario is very common!

Intelligence alone does not guarantee success, personally or professionally. There are many variables that change what most people think is obvious. Success is not obvious to the intelligent. There are other factors that contribute to it. Factors that, I dare say, in a time of technological singularity, will not be part of non-human intelligence. They may be, if they are united with humans, and then it’s a different story.

There are many extremely intelligent people who have no success at all. This is a small example that corroborates the coexistence with Superintelligences without them taking control.

As Alan Turing himself ⁽²⁾ suggested, the way to Artificial Intelligence, is to build a machine with the curiosity of a child, and let the intelligence evolve, with the help of external oracles and not simulate the mind of an adult.

I am convinced that, with basic digital receptacles (child-machines) to start the counterparts journey, is the best method.

By allowing the digital counterpart of each human being to be born with only the Basic Input/Output System (BIOS), and then be subjected to an appropriate learning trajectory, we would be able to obtain a digital brain of an adult.

By then we could look at our Second Self (SSelf) as our best version living and evolving endlessly in the digital world.

⁽¹⁾ BIOS — Basic Input/Output System
⁽²⁾ Alan Turing (1912–1954) was a British mathematician, computer pioneer, and considered today as the father of computer science and Artificial Intelligence.

When in 2015, Eileen Brown looked at the ETER9 Project (crazy for many, visionary for few) and wrote an interesting article for ZDNET with the title “New social network ETER9 brings AI to your interactions”, it ensured a worldwide projection of something the world was not expecting.

Someone, in a lost world (outside the United States), was risking, with everything he had in his possession (very little or less than nothing), a vision worthy of the American dream. At that time, Facebook was already beginning to annoy the cleaner minds that were looking for a difference and a more innovative world.

Today, after that test bench, we see that Facebook (Meta or whatever) is nothing but an illusion, or, I dare say, a big disappointment. No, no, no! I am not now bad-mouthing Facebook just because I have a project in hand that is seen as a potential competitor.

I was even a big fan of the “original” Facebook; but then I realized, it took me a few years, that Mark Zuckerberg is nothing more than a simple kid, now a man, who against everything and everyone, gave in to whims. Of him, initially, and now, perforce, of what his big investors, deluded by himself, of what his “metaverse” would be.

This path is just beginning, but with the devastating results that the “meta child” has had (forgive me), I recommend that investors not be so deluded by those who have the current power, and believe more in what the world now yearns for. There is a time for everything. The time for Facebook is gone, whether it is Meta (Facebook patched) or something else coming from someone where the first name is Mark.

For me, I thank all those who believed in me, in my visions right after the rise of the Internet and especially nowadays, with all these new concepts that I have been introducing in the “system” (new world of digital innovation). Digital Counterpart or Digital Second Self (https://www.SSelf.co) are my warhorse, and I believe they are really going to change the world. They won’t just change the world because they do, but because the world wants and needs it to.

Please note: In the image, virtual (or augmented) reality glasses are on the head of a digital being (Second Self), not a human…!

In the 80s, “with no knowledge, only intuition”, I discovered the world of computing. I believed computers could do everything, as if it were an electronic God. But when I asked the TIMEX Sinclair 1000 to draw the planet Saturn — I am fascinated by this planet, maybe because it has rings —, I only glimpse a strange message on the black and white TV:

0/0

I stared at that 0/0 for a while on the white screen, as if waiting for the rings of Saturn to magically shape.

Nothing came up! I waited a little longer and nothing. I didn’t mean to interrupt the “God of the Machine” in his creation; it was a Planet that was asking, not a small thing!

But, nothing. I realized then we humans had a very significant role in the action of the machines.

When I was a kid, I was a dreamer eager for knowledge — I lived in a time that was not my own. I lived with my maternal grandparents, my mother — widowed since I was three years old — and my brother, in an old house in the village of Mosteiro de Fráguas (Tondela, Portugal). My brother, only 13 months older than me, companion of my adventures, dreamed about the ‘hardware’, I about the ‘software’, although we didn’t really know what that was.

Although we didn’t know what those things were, our intuition told us that was the way to go.

The few technical manuals and electronic devices our father left us were the basis of everything; not much, but a seed doesn’t seem to be much before it is sown!

My brother dissected the electronic gadgets, I devoured the books. And then came the moment when my brother (still a kid) assembled a ‘kit’ that we had ordered from TIMEX’s version of the ZX81 microcomputer for Portugal, the TIMEX Sinclair 1000 I’ve mentioned above. It was only 2 KB of RAM running on a “super” 8-bit microprocessor (Z80) at a frequency of 3.25 MHz.

The inside of the machine, which we can call ‘Digital Soul’, fascinated me. And it was with this great little machine that I started to explore Assembly Language, aka Machine Code. By doing so, I felt closer to this invisible world where everything seemed to be possible.

On ETER9 universe the Game of Life, or just Life (1970) — a cellular automaton — by John Horton Conway, is an inspiration. Besides the duplication of people (and companies) into the digital world, the life that is born, lives and dies in the ether of artificial existence, follows the same rules as the cellular automaton.

Rule of Birth: — If a cell has three neighbors in any direction, it is born.

Rule of Survival: — If a cell has two or three neighbors in any direction, it continues to live.

Rule of Death: — If a cell has none or only one neighbor, it dies by isolation. If it has four or more neighbors, it dies by overpopulation.

Technology itself is increasingly becoming part of us. And whether we like it or not, we are all already in the process of merging with machines… and we don’t even realize it yet! This fusion is invisible and silent, and happens in a very natural way. Many people insist on separating intelligent technology from people, as if there were two sides, two teams that should confront each other. Almost as if a conflict happens between the two sides.

I don’t see it that way. I prefer to see man and machine united towards a single, common goal: to coexist in absolute harmony!

Furthermore, I believe that in the future there will be no clear distinction between humans and machines, every aspect of our lives will be transformed. The technological evolution is exponential, technology increasingly feeds on itself. I would go further: technology is increasingly becoming intelligent… artificially intelligent.

And what a subject this is. So sensitive and sometimes controversial.

I must confess: I prefer to see Artificial Intelligence as an improvement to ourselves, when allied to the human being itself, with increasingly wide applications.

Some studies show that Artificial Intelligence could double the annual economic growth by 2035. Of course, this will lead to many changes in various areas. Changes to the nature of jobs are predicted, for example.

But just as we can’t imagine ever seeing professions like paperboy again, so in the future some professions we see today will fall away to make way for others. This is only natural. The impact of Artificial Intelligence technologies on business is expected to increase labor productivity by up to 40%. This will change the way we all look at the world.

And while Artificial Intelligence is increasingly present in digital systems, this concept has led to the development of ‘Machine Learning’, which is based on the ability of computers to learn from information without being explicitly programmed to do so.

In essence, instead of teaching computers everything they need to know, and how to perform tasks, scientists and engineers have come to the conclusion that it is much more efficient to codify them to ‘think’ as if they were humans. Teaching them to learn for themselves.

These ‘Machine Learning’ systems take Artificial Intelligence to another level, through so-called neural networks or ‘Deep Learning’, where the system learns to perform tasks based on huge amounts of information, readjusting itself thousands of times until it can accomplish a task.

Essentially, the machine is intended to categorize information in the same way that a human brain would.

In other words, or modern words to be more exact, from the human brain to the cloud.

© 2022 Ӈ

(Credit: Adobe Stock)

Fernando Pessoa’s “First you find it strange. Then you can’t get enough of it.” contained intolerable toxicity levels for Salazar’s Estado Novo (Portugal). When the level of difference increases, censorship follows. You can’t censor censorship (or can you?) when, deep down, it’s a matter of fear of difference. Yes, it’s fear! Fear of accepting/facing the unknown. Fear of change.

What do I mean by this? Well, I may seem weird or strange with the ideas and actions I take in life, but within my weirdness, there is a kind of “Eye of Agamotto” (sometimes being a curse for me)… What I see is authentic and vivid. Sooner or later, that future I glimpse passes into this reality.

When the difference enters, it becomes normal and accepted by society to make room for more innovation, change, and difference.

Cyberspace 2021.

The term “cyberspace” first appeared in fiction in the 1980s, incorporating the Internet invented earlier (1969). It’s as if time doesn’t matter, and cyberspace always exists. There might not be a name for it yet, but it sure did, like certain Universal Laws that we are discovering and coining, but that has always existed.

It is the ether of digital existence…!

In 1995, I was also called crazy — albeit nicely, by the way — when, from door to door, I announced the presence of something called the Internet. Entrepreneurs who esteemed me until they warmly welcomed me into their companies, perhaps because of my passion for explaining what was unknown to them, only to decline later what I proposed to them: placing companies in the network of networks.

I was affectionately dubbed crazy for a few more years until the part where “I stopped being crazy” to be another entrepreneur exploring something still strange called the Internet. We were about to reach the so-called “dot-com bubble.” The competition had arrived, and I clapped my hands; I no longer felt alone!

(Obviously, I wasn’t the only one to see the future forming in front of our eyes. I saw color on black and white screens.)

The heights of wisdom, the masters of the universe, began to emerge because they heard that the Internet was a business that made much money, and the gold rush became frantic and ridiculous. A few years later — some weren’t for years — there was a mushroom explosion.

After persuasion resulting from the obvious and not the explanations of insane people (me included), this new industry has matured and revolutionized the world. However, history tends to repeat itself, and several revolutions, large and small, have taken place since then. Some are so natural that change happens overt and viral. But more attention needs to be paid to some revolutionary changes that could jeopardize human existence as we know it.

I’m referring to Artificial Intelligence (AI) which is now everywhere, albeit invisible and tenuous. The exponential acceleration of technology is taking us there to the point of no return.

When Moore’s Law itself becomes outdated, it only means that technological acceleration has gone into “warp” speed. At the risk of us human beings becoming outdated, we must change our reluctance and skepticism.

There is no time for skepticism. Adaptation to what is coming, or what is already here among us, like extraterrestrials, is crucial for the evolution and survival of the human species. I believe we are at another great peak of technological development.

I always pursued the future, not to live outside the reality of the present but to help build it. After all these years of dealing with the “Eye of Agamotto,” I feel the duty and obligation to contribute to a better future and not sit idly by watching what I fear will happen.

Angels and demons lurk between the zeros and ones!

So far, with current conventional computers, including supercomputers, the acceleration is already vertiginous. With quantum computers, the thing becomes much more serious, and if we aren’t up to merging our true knowledge, our human essence, with machines, danger lurks.

Quantum computing powers AI, maximizing it. An exponentiated AI quickly arrives at the AGI. That is the Artificial General Intelligence or Superintelligence that equals or surpasses the average human intelligence. That’s the intelligence of a machine that can successfully perform any intellectual task of any human being.

When we no longer have the artificiality of “our own” intelligence and Superintelligence has emerged, it’s good that the bond between human and machine has already had a real “handshake” to understand each other, just like two “modems,” understood each other in the BBS (Bulletin Board System) time.

We human beings are still — and I believe we always will be — the central computer, albeit with inferior computational resources (for now), and replaced by mighty machines that accelerate our evolution.

There is no way out. It’s inevitable. It’s evolution. So, a challenge and not a problem. Perhaps the greatest human challenge. So far, it’s been warming up. Henceforth, everything done will have to be free of human toxicity so that New AI is, in fact, our best version, the cream of the very best in human beings; its essence in the form of a whole!

A digital transformation is a transition to a different world. The power of adaptation to this different world defines our existence (survival, like Darwin).

As you’ve already noticed, the title of this article (Innovation is a risk!) has a double meaning. Let me complement it with:

Life is a risk!

In 2018, The Federal Communications Commission granted SpaceX approval to launch up to 4,425 low-Earth-orbit satellites at several different altitudes between 1,110km to 1,325km. The following year, the FCC approved a license modification to cut the orbital altitude in half for 1,584 of those satellites. The lower altitude for the Starlink satellites reduces the latency of the Starlink. Yeah initial Starlink will be nearly the mass of the ISS.

MANILA, Philippines — A dengue case forecasting system using space data made by Philippine developers won the 2019 National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s International Space Apps Challenge. Over 29,000 participating globally in 71 countries, this solution made it as one of the six winners in the best use of data, the solution that best makes space data accessible, or leverages it to a unique application.

Dengue fever is a viral, infectious tropical disease spread primarily by Aedes aegypti female mosquitoes. With 271,480 cases resulting in 1,107 deaths reported from January 1 to August 31, 2019 by the World Health Organization, Dominic Vincent D. Ligot, Mark Toledo, Frances Claire Tayco, and Jansen Dumaliang Lopez from CirroLytix developed a forecasting model of dengue cases using climate and digital data, and pinpointing possible hotspots from satellite data.

Correlating information from Sentinel-2 Copernicus and Landsat 8 satellites, climate data from the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST-PAGASA) and trends from Google search engines, potential dengue hotspots will be shown in a web interface.

Using satellite spectral bands like green, red, and near-infrared (NIR), indices like Fraction of Absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FAPAR) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) are calculated in identifying areas with green vegetation while Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) identifies areas with water. Combining these indices reveal potential areas of stagnant water capable of being breeding grounds for mosquitoes, extracted as coordinates through a free and open-source cross-platform desktop geographic information system QGIS.

Check out the website here: http://aedesproject.org/

“AEDES aims to improve public health response against dengue fever in the Philippines by pinpointing possible hotspots using Earth observations,” Dr. Argyro Kavvada of NASA Earth Science and Booz Allen Hamilton explained.

The DOST-Philippine Council for Industry, Energy and Emerging Technology Research and Development (DOST-PCIEERD) deputy executive director Engr. Raul C. Sabularse said that the winning solution “benefits the community especially those countries suffering from malaria and dengue, just like the Philippines. I think it has a global impact. This is the new science to know the potential areas where dengue might occur. It is a good app.”

“It is very relevant to the Philippines and other countries which usually having problems with dengue. The team was able to show that it’s not really difficult to have all the data you need and integrate all of them and make them accessible to everyone for them to be able to use it. It’s a working model,” according to Monchito B. Ibrahim, industry development committee chairman of the Analytics Association of the Philippines and former undersecretary of the Department of Information and Communications Technology.

The leader of the Space Apps global organizing team Dr. Paula S. Bontempi, acting deputy director of the Earth Science Mission, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate remembers the pitch of the winning team when she led the hackathon in Manila. “They were terrific. Well deserved!” she said.

“I am very happy we landed in the winning circle. This would be a big help particularly in addressing our health-related problems. One of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is on Good Health and Well Being and the problem they are trying to address is analysis related to dengue,“ said Science and Technology secretary Fortunato T. de la Peña. Rex Lor from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in the Philippines explained that the winning solution showcases the “pivotal role of cutting-edge digital technologies in the creation of strategies for sustainable development in the face of evolving development issues.”

U.S Public Affairs counselor Philip W. Roskamp and PLDT Enterprise Core Business Solutions vice president and head Joseph Ian G. Gendrano congratulates the next group of Pinoy winners.

Sec. de la Peña is also very happy on this second time victory for the Philippines on the global competition of NASA. The first winning solution ISDApp uses “data analysis, particularly NASA data, to be able to help our fishermen make decisions on when is the best time to catch fish.” It is currently being incubated by Animo Labs, the technology business incubator and Fab Lab of De La Salle University in partnership with DOST-PCIEERD. Project AEDES will be incubated by Animo Labs too.

University president Br. Raymundo B. Suplido FSC hopes that NASA Space Apps would “encourage our young Filipino researchers and scientists to create ideas and startups based on space science and technology, and pave the way for the promotion and awareness of the programs of our own Philippine space agency.”

Philippine vice president Leni Robredo recognized Space Apps as a platform “where some of our country’s brightest minds can collaborate in finding and creating solutions to our most pressing problems, not just in space, but more importantly here on Earth.”

“Space Apps is a community of scientists and engineers, artists and hackers coming together to address key issues here on Earth. At the heart of Space Apps are data that come to us from spacecraft flying around Earth and are looking at our world,” explained by Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA associate administrator for science.

“Personally, I’m more interested in supporting the startups that are coming out of the Space Apps Challenge,” according to DOST-PCIEERD executive director Dr. Enrico C. Paringit.

In the Philippines, Space Apps is a NASA-led initiative organized in collaboration with De La Salle University, Animo Labs, DOST-PCIEERD, PLDT InnoLab, American Corner Manila, U.S. Embassy, software developer Michael Lance M. Domagas, and celebrates the Design Week Philippines with the Design Center of the Philippines of the Department of Trade and Industry. It is globally organized by Booz Allen Hamilton, Mindgrub, and SecondMuse.

Space Apps is a NASA incubator innovation program. The next hackathon will be on October 2–4, 2020.

#SpaceApps #SpaceAppsPH

Life in the digital age is raising fundamental questions about the future of business and employment and hence the strategies, skills, and abilities we need to develop to survive in the next economy. This article explores two key changes that we need to start developing a core of capabilities for – namely the quest for exponential growth and the growing use of corporate venturing.  

Why are these becoming important? Well, technology and the thinking it enables are driving new ideas and experiments on commercial strategies, the shape and structure of organisations, business models, and the relationship with extended ecosystems of partners. Both strategies are seen as options to drive growth and accelerate the realisation of market opportunities. 

Exponential thinking is seen as a fast track approach to driving business innovation and growth. We are used to the idea of exponential growth in many fields of science and technology. For example, Moore’s Law in information technology tells us that the amount of computer power we can buy for £1,000 doubles every 18–24 months. This has inspired digital innovators to try and grow their business at the same pace or faster than the underlying technologies. The broader business world is taking notice. The stellar rates of development and growth we are witnessing for some exponential businesses in the digital domain are encouraging many organisations across literally every sector from banking to aviation to try and apply similar thinking to some or all of their activities.  

Hence, it is now common to see businesses pursue a vision of doubling of revenues within three to four years and a achieving a 2-20X or more improvement in other aspects of the business. For purely digital entities, their business models are predicated on using network effects to drive exponential growth or better in user numbers and revenues. Some suggest that to embrace the exponential model, businesses must reject defined end goals and step-by-step plans in favour of such ambitious visions and develop a high tolerance of uncertainty. Typically, the exponential growth initiatives are driven through a combination of iterative task specific ‘sprints’ to define, test, refine, and deliver business changes that could result in massive performance improvements in specific areas of the business.  

At the overall business level, exponential revenue growth is a function of trying a variety of experiments to take current and possible new offerings to existing and potential customers, trialling different pricing models and routes to market, and engaging ideally the whole firm in the search for new opportunities. The aim is to try a portfolio of experiments, each of which delivers a 1–2% annual improvement in revenues. The process, if repeated annually, can lead to exponential growth within a relatively short timeframe. The critical learning enablers for both exponential approaches are curiosity and the relinquishing of restraining assumptions, learning how to work at speed, a willingness to experiment, training of staff to help them become opportunity spotters and creators, and effective portfolio management. 

Corporate venturing and intrapreneuring are seen as ways of buying ourselves faster learning and growth. As organisations wrestle with finding the right path to the future, we can expect a growing focus on the use of corporate venturing, or corporate venture capital. This is basically the investment of funds in external start-up companies. Typically, this is either focused on investments in firms that could enhance the core business, enterprises in adjacent sectors, or ventures that could potentially disrupt and compete with the existing entity.  

This business model may become increasingly popular as firms look to these startups to help speed up knowledge acquisition,  learn about new technologies, accelerate entry to new markets, or access critical skills and resources. Core to the success of such models are intrapreneurs and venture managers who can help the ventures gain the support they need from the core business without the imposition of unnecessary central processes and controls. Alongside these venture management skills, success requires internal leaders and functional heads to have the ability to collaborate with new ventures which might threaten their existing business.  

We are on an uncertain path through an almost unknowable future. Experiments to test such new strategic innovation approaches are only likely to increase as the pace of change accelerates. This creates an exciting opportunity for learning and development to get ahead of the game and identify the skills we might need to drive the next waves of experimentation and change.  

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Fast Future publishes books from future thinkers around the world exploring how developments such as AI, robotics and disruptive thinking could impact individuals, society and business and create new trillion-dollar sectors. Fast Future has a particular focus on ensuring these advances are harnessed to unleash individual potential and enable a very human future. See: www.fastfuture.com 

Rohit Talwar is a global futurist, keynote speaker, author, and CEO of Fast Future where he helps clients develop and deliver transformative visions of the future. He is the editor and contributing author for The Future of Business, editor of Technology vs. Humanity and co-editor of a forthcoming book on The Future of AI in Business. 

Web http://www.fastfuture.com  

Twitter http://twitter.com/fastfuture   

Blog http://blog.fastfuturepublishing.com/  

LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/talwar