Harvard University

I’ve released the Genkii ! AI system into the digital space on 27 July 2022. Since then, it has been assessing the digital space for different types of market demands and comparing this information to its current capability.

If it detects that it doesn’t have the capability and capacity to provide for a particular market demand, it will then persistently try to grow in that area until the system could match them. It is performing this function for many expert domains at once and continuously throughout the day. I’d just basically let it evolve by itself without much interferences.

Now, it has presented its findings and helped to provide clarity in different types of market opportunities, as shown in the pie chart above.

At the moment, I am trying to improve the system by developing an anti-fraud module. The system has actually picked up a couple of bad actors and it is trying to analyze their behavior, and I want to hard-sequence this knowledge so that it can automatically watch out for the bad behaviors then self-improve to provide better customer experience.

Written by Han-Jun, Zeng

The sprawling presence of water hyacinth in some water bodies, presents a growing challenge to some governments around the world right now, especially those that are situated in places with hotter climate. Water hyacinth multiples rapidly in such climate and it is expected that its rate of growth might increase as the global temperature and rainfall increase.

Already, these plants are suffocating some river bodies with their large foliage, often covering the entire surfaces of rivers thereby disrupting the photosynthetic process that is taking place between the sunlight and the fauna and flora in the river. The growth sprawl decreases the amount of sunlight received by these plants, slows down the oxygen creation process and disturbs the natural ecosystem.

A lot of things are happening at this point. Certain plants wither then die off, and this affects organisms that thrive off these plants. Fishes and other living organisms are also affected due to insufficient oxygen. Water flow slows down significantly because the stalks of the water hyacinths pack so closely together, affecting water movement. The entire water body then slowly becomes a huge mass of stagnant water, giving rise to a huge array of disease vector issues.

This has drastic negative implications on the nearby land ecosystem as well. The land ecosystem, comprising people, animals, insects and plants depend heavily on the adjacent water bodies for their daily needs. Rural people who depend on the water for daily needs such as washing, food sources, etc, might have to seek alternatives if the river system fails. If none are available, they’ll have to migrate to other places. This means that they might have to integrate into other communities thus giving rise to potential social implications.

The same goes for animals and insects. If they are not able to adapt to the new situation, they too might have to migrate elsewhere and therein lies the possibility that their migration will disturb other ecosystems. New animals and insect immigrants have to compete for resources with existing living organisms in those ecosystems. Changes to the food chain could sometimes create unexpected outcomes. For e.g. certain incumbent living organisms may proliferate because its predator population was reduced drastically by the changes. Or it may turn out differently too, in many unpredictable ways.

While the leaves of water hyacinth generally turn brown and die during the winter, many water hyacinth plants survive the winter and grow new leaves in spring. This is not the case for countries that are located in tropical areas where temperature remains warm throughout the year. The warm temperature causes the plants to grow stolons, or spreading stems, from which daughter plants grow. Stolon growth is a key driver of water hyacinth dispersal.

Once it starts to flourish, it will clog up waterway which presents a lot of problems to waterway transportation, hydropower stations, etc and these are often very important topics underpinning sustainable urban development. For e.g., in lieu of cars, trains and trams, some societies are contemplating the use of sustainable waterway transportation to decongest land traffic.  Additionally, many countries are turning to hydropower station for their energy needs. These tools can be rendered useless by natural outcomes of climate change, in this case, growth of water hyacinth.

Significant investments have already been poured into such sustainable development initiatives. I predict that more investment will go into these areas as the financial markets, regulators and consumers are starting to emphasize on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) topics. Once the fundaments are cemented, we can also expect financial derivatives to sprout off from the vanillas, creating an even larger market.

These extremely fast-growing water hyacinth (and will grow even faster when global temperature increases), can derail water supplies’, waterways’ and hydropower stations’ operations, affecting significant future investments and government’s capability to provide for their people.

Since the 1970s, many methods have been proposed to cull these water hyacinth, but this issue still persists. Unfortunately, I think that this challenge will persist into the short to medium term future.

However, I propose for those that are facing these issues, to reframe their thinking and view these water hyacinth as a resource. Through proper pyrolysis process and manufacturing techniques, these water hyacinth can be harvested and transformed into water hyacinth biomass briquette. This product can then be burnt in electric power plants to generate electricity.

According to different studies, the average heat value of water hyacinth biomass briquette is about 14 MJ/kg to 20MJ/kg, averaging 15MJ/kg. For perspective, the heat value of natural gas is about 42 MJ/kg to 55 MJ/kg and hard black coal is about 25 MJ/kg. Though not generating as much heat as the latter two, water hyacinth biomass briquette could present itself as a sustainable energy solution, provided that we can control the carbon output.

Apart from this, if the water hyacinth biomass briquette is manufactured to be transport-friendly, producers can export these products in larger volumes.

Of course, consultants might have to step in to reconfigure the electric power plants in order to accept water hyacinth biomass briquette as a burning agent. Harvesting contracts too, has to be given out. Factories need to be set up or reconfigured, to produce the biomass briquette. Logistics like land and sea transport are also essential part of the whole equation. Not forgetting about all the required certifications and licenses. All these translate to substantial financial commitment but give and take, the investment might be able to create new jobs, expertise and experience, all of which might contribute to creating positive economic and social values.

I haven’t been writing for quite a few months. My last writing was on 17 April 2022 and between that article and now, roughly about four months, I’ve been studying about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and applying those concepts to building Genkii.io.

So, what is Genkii.io?

Basically, it is a talent venture that is powered by AI and the entire construct is to supplement consultants’ and professional service providers’ business development in a big way. Once someone or a company has listed their expertise on Genkii.io, our system will continuously monitor the digital space for business opportunities and promote relevant expertise to buyers or companies that may need them. It’s a hunter type of promotion, different from the usual passive promotion.

So why have I decided to start Genkii.io?

Well, I feel that one of the greatest challenges now, firstly, is the slow transition to a work-from-anywhere business model. At the moment, I believe that we are witnessing the tip of what the future of work might be. I predict that this trend of working-from-anywhere is only going to get stronger when the Gen A enters the workforce, and this wave is going to disrupt immigration and political systems that thrive on immigration.  This will exert substantial pressure on such systems’ ability to grow economically.

Second, the workforce is not as hungry as before. The prices of real estate should continue to rise, and mortgages are expected to be more expensive as the rates go higher. I think that in countries where it’s a cultural thing for people to stay with their parents, they will continue to do so.  However, I noted that more people are staying with their parents, and this is happening in countries where people usually move out after a certain age.

Nowadays, parents are telling their kids to quit their jobs if they don’t like it because they already have a roof over their heads. The younger generation retreats into their room, start their content creation business or begin to take on work that’s related to their skills, for e.g. doing software testing for multiple clients from anywhere.

Third, it’s relatively difficult for people of other colors to secure employment now, and it might become even worse when work-from-anywhere becomes the norm. Since companies might be able to employ workers from anywhere in the future, there could be the warped possibility for recruitment to take on people from just a certain region, country, etc. If this happens, it’s going to strip away a lot of employment opportunities.

Thus, I decided to create Genkii.io. On the surface, it looks like just any talent venture or global marketplace, but it is actually powered by an expert system underpinned by an inference engine that relies on backward and forward chaining technology. Recruitment into the Genkii.io talent venture is based purely on talent. Business development is also based purely on talent.

Through this platform, we are trying to support people who take on remote work, helping them to break free from certain recruitment biases and hoping that this will eventually supplement their incomes or maybe even make it their main source of income. Consultants will also be able to make use of the integrated finance system to manage payments.

After we launched the talent venture, we’ve so far attracted more than 800 plus talents, but we had to scale it back to the 300 consultants to maintain quality and as of the date of this writing, it has gone over 400. I’m very glad that we’ve actually managed to find a practical use case for this type of AI expert system. I sincerely hope that it could serve the global community and unlock economic opportunities for them.

We are still trying to improve so this is work-in-progress.

Tackling pollution from the transport sector continues to be a challenging issue for many countries, especially in places where many rely heavily on private transportation. Full transition to Electric Vehicles (EVs) remains testing for many planners.

This is because EVs, at the moment, cannot happen without lithium and according to research by International Energy Agency (IEA), we would need to mine almost 42 times as much lithium as was mined in 2020 if we would meet the climate goals set by the Paris Agreement.

With this, we then need to understand that existing mines and projects under construction would meet only half the demand for lithium in 2030. Demand currently outstripped supply by far, which explained the rise in metal prices and the pressure might not fall before 2024.

In addition to that, some lithium rich areas fall into the areas bordering several territories. The race to secure lithium might add additional pressure to the already tense situation along these borders, further complicating the current geopolitical situation.   

Already, many are shifting their attention to several lithium alternatives ranging from hydrogen fuel cells, lithium-sulphur, graphene supercapacitors, redox flow batteries, aluminium-graphite batteries, solar panels, solid-state batteries amongst others.

Others, while planning for the electrical grid of the future, are experimenting with hybrid charging stations for vehicles, in order to mitigate future risks. 

I am arguing that nobody in their right mind, would want to dive 100% into building only pure electric charging stations for vehicles.

Why? 

Let’s say you have the political will, government machinery, financial prowess and with all these, the support of the private sector, to secure all the required EVs and lithium-related products/ infrastructure in your jurisdiction.

On one hand, you are ahead in the EV race. On the other hand, the entire situation might drown into a spiral whereby there is not enough lithium to go around for the rest of the world so eventually the price simply becomes too high for the rest to adopt.  

If the price of EVs goes beyond what consumers could afford, it might result in insufficient demand for EVs, thereby prompting the private sector to diversify production to other types of vehicles. No matter what, it is relatively easier for the private sector to make changes compared to public sector’s commitment to large infrastructure projects.  

Plus, the supply of lithium currently depends heavily on the mining industry, a sector that is fraught with a myriad of ESG issues ranging from destruction to natural habitat, degradation of geotechnical profiles, disruptions to nearby communities, illegal discharges to nearby water bodies and the list goes on. 

There is a good chance that the supply of lithium through mining, would still continue but the price of the metal would escalate because of Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) considerations, certifications, ratings, operational restructuring, asset investments and so on. 

Apart from these, the narrative about decarbonization seems to be electrifying everything; aircrafts, trains, trams, trains, three-wheelers, motorbikes, etc. With so many competing interests, the current and future inflationary pressure on this metal is simply too high. 

So, when two hands meet, the rest of the world is finally going to wake up to the issue of limited lithium, and might eventually decide that it could be more sustainable and cost-effective  to diversify into hydrogen fuel cells, bio-fuels, etc or maybe even continuing with traditional gas/ petrol. 

In fact, a few have already acknowledged the situation, and are shifting their attention to building capabilities to reconfigure internal combustion engines to run on bio-fuel. Others are starting to experiment with hybrid charging stations that has solar PV panels and able to store natural gases as well. 

Recycling efficiency of lithium is not 100% but the technology powering the battery recycling business is promising. Even though that may be the case, the eco-system should be flexible enough to cater to any future disruptions. In the scenario where there is not enough lithium to produce new cars, the societal machinery could still continue to function reasonably well and not be held ransom to a single type of vehicle.

For this, I like to think that it is a zero-sum game which is why we need to adopt an eco-system approach to the game. Finite amount of lithium means that there would be limited supply of EVs. Most likely, the ones who can own this limited supply of EVs,  are the ones who can afford to. Yet, it should not end up in a situation where there are a few “winners” at the expense of the rest.

Transitioning to a decarbonized future depends to a large extent on creating a win-win situation resting on strong partnerships fostered through open and transparent collaborations among countries and tight coordination between the public and private sector. 

This brings us to my original point, that is, while planning for the electrical grid of the future, it is very important to build flexibility into the planning and be open to experimenting with hybrid charging stations for vehicles, in order to mitigate any future risks.

Hemp, commonly known as industrial hemp, is a plant of the Cannabaceae family that is typically grown for its bast fiber or edible seeds. The plant is commonly mistaken with cannabis plants, which are used to make marijuana and the narcotic preparation hashish.

Although all three products—hemp, marijuana, and hashish—contain tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a chemical that causes psychoactive effects in humans, the strain of cannabis grown for hemp contains far less THC than that grown for marijuana or hashish.

In the public eye, the line drawn between “hemp” and “cannabis” might be a bit murky, but hemp and cannabis aren’t as similar as they may appear.

THC is the psychoactive element in cannabis that causes a ‘high,’ according to scientific study. The concentration of THC in a cannabis plant determines whether it is hemp or marijuana. Hemp is defined as having a THC concentration of 0.3 percent or below. Marijuana is defined as having a THC concentration more than 0.3 percent.

People do smoke hemp, according to what I’ve learned from asking around. It is quickly becoming one of the most common methods of taking Cannabidiol (CBD). CBD is a substance present in trace amounts in hemp.

Although it does not make the smoker high, the user may smoke hemp for a multitude of reasons such as anxiety, depression, pain, inflammation, and overall health and wellbeing.

But the focus of my writing is not on smoking it but rather, utilizing this plant for other types of practical and industrial uses.

As many of us already know, the majority of the plastic we use today is manufactured from cellulose derived from petroleum. Petroleum is derived from oil, which means that the end-product that is plastic, is highly persistent, very difficult to break down therefore very harmful to our environment.

Hemp can be used to create polymers that are both stronger than ordinary plastic and completely biodegradable.

Apart from using hemp to replace plastic-based products, we can also rely on hemp as a source of food. Hemp used to be widely recognized as an excellent source of nourishment all across the world. In fact, the plant is still used in some places in Asia today, even though it has become less popular.

Hemp seed has an ideal combination of essential fatty acids, amino acids, and oils such as Omega-3 and Omega-6.

It is also extremely rich in protein, to the point that some people consider hemp seeds to be a far superior option to high protein sports beverages. These proteins assist to maximize nutrient intake, maintain organs, and even build muscle.

Best of all, hemp is also a highly hardy plant that can thrive in harsh environments such as those found all over the world. It does not require pesticides or as much water as other crops. During the nineteenth century, the Australians survived two unusually protracted famines only on hempseed. These are important attributes to finding suitable crops to replace popular grains like rice in the context of Asia, especially when climate change threatens to destroy many types of food crops.

Hempseed cake is a food that may be fed to both pets and animals. It is essentially a by-product of pressing hemp for its oils, and it includes all of the nutrients that the animal need. It enables for maximal weight increase while being less expensive than regular feed.

Another advantage is that because hemp can be cultivated without pesticides or other dangerous chemicals, and there was research to show that it does not enter the food chain if fed to cattle.

When it comes to the built environment sector, you might be mildly surprised that the plant could be used to produce concrete solutions as well. Hempcrete is a hemp-based concrete solution that might be the most helpful of them all.

It has seven times the strength of concrete, half the weight, and three times the pliability of hemp. It is also permeable, which means it helps the structure to breathe, reducing moisture buildup and, eventually, mould and other terrible things.

Hempcrete also hardens over time and absorbs carbon, so offsetting the carbon impact of the construction project. If the average house were constructed with hempcrete, it could store up to more than 20,000 kilogrammes of carbon.

Plus, hemp also has the potential to be a carbon-neutral fuel, or something close to it. During growth, the plant collects CO2 from the environment, and when the fuel is burned, the same amount is released back into the atmosphere.

Because hemp-based bio-diesel is biodegradable, accidents and oil spills will not inflict the same amount of environmental harm as conventional oil does. In fact, most diesel engines can still be run on bio-fuel with minimal conversion nowadays.

This crop could be used as a short-term replacement to fossil fuel when the entire world attempts to switch over to other forms of renewable and clean energy.

On top of that, hemp can also be used to replace cotton that is obtained from harvesting from cotton crop.

Hemp contains two types of fibers: lengthy bast fibres found in the stem and hurds, which are the shorter inner fibres of the stem. The bast fibres are the most valuable, accounting for 20-30% of the hemp plant.

According to Stockholm Environment Institute study, hemp uses half the acreage of cotton, less chemical fertilisers, and less water than cotton.

Finally, hemp can also be used as a material to produce paper.

Hemp paper has several advantages over wood paper. For instance, its composition is far superior to that of wood paper. Hemp paper is rich in cellulose and has just 4-10% lignin. Wood pulp, on the other hand, includes 18-30% lignin, which must be chemically removed during the papermaking process.

This reduction in chemical treatment means that it consumes less water and generates less waste; the creamy colour also means that it does not require as much bleaching.

Hemp paper is also considerably easier to grow and requires far less resources. The quantity of paper that trees can generally create over a 20-year cycle over 4+ acres is the same as the amount of paper that hemp can make in one acre.

Like what I mentioned earlier, the entire world would face an onslaught of agriculture and energy crisis if climate change continues to disrupt our traditional ways of life. The switch over to renewable and clean energy is not going to be clear-cut and there will be hiccups during the transition. One way to ease the switch might be to rely on short term methods like bio-fuel.

Asian food staples like rice might also be affected by climate change. No matter how much Asians like their rice, it is important to explore other types of more resilient food sources.

Desalination is the engineering process of extracting fresh water from salty water, for human consumption or agricultural use.

Given that the seas contain about 97.25 percent of all water on the planet and cover over 70% of its area, desalination of seawater would increasingly become an important source of fresh water for many places.

Climate change is disrupting weather patterns and will continue to do so, most probably resulting in extreme weather events, unpredictable water availability, aggravating water scarcity and polluting water sources. Such detrimental effects exert significant influence on the quantity and quality of drinking water that the future generation require to survive.

We should never underestimate the influence of climate change on our lives, but for the purpose of this article, I will just focus solely on water supply, draw out the intricate linkages between our drinking water and climate change, and how environmental regulations might disrupt some public service.

It can be difficult for some to appreciate their drinking water especially if they are from developed countries. Many from these places, can drink straight off the tap, filter the water through the tap before drinking or boil the tap water for consumption. Plus, people in these places usually have the option to buy drinking water from the groceries or arrange for delivery online.

As climate change persists, one of the resultant effects would be rising sea level. Much of the observed sea level rise is due to meltwater from land-based ice sheets and mountain glaciers, which adds to the volume of the ocean. Thermal expansion, or the expansion of ocean water as it heats, contributes a fair bit to sea level rising. There are other factors at play too but do not contribute as much as what I shared earlier.

Rising sea level are causing fresh water to become salty, compromising the critical water resources that the current and future generation rely on for survival.

In the future, water shortage might produce a slew of geopolitical and humanitarian issues, prompting more countries to turn to the sea and previously useless brackish water sources. Desalination is one way to make fresh water from both saltwater and brackish water.

According to a recent report by Grand View Research, Inc., the global water desalination equipment market is expected to reach USD 25.7 billion by 2027, likely to be driven by rising freshwater use in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. The forecasted growth is an indication of the market’s demand for this technology and its end product.

Just to share a little bit more, there are basically two primary methods of desalination, (1) distillation and (2) reverse osmosis.

Distillation is the most traditional and widely utilised method of desalination. Distillation involves heating a substance to its vaporization point, then collecting the vapor and passing it through a cooling system, where it condenses as water.

Reverse osmosis (RO) is a contemporary technology of water filtration. Osmosis is the separation of freshwater from seawater via a selectively permeable membrane.

Technological advancements are lowering the operating costs of desalination facilities, but the issue is that water desalination is energy-intensive, mostly supported by fossil fuels. As a result, CO2 emissions from water desalination are significant. According to estimates from the Global Clean Water Desalination Alliance, the desalination facilities now in operation globally release around 80 million metric tonnes of CO2 each year, which form less than 1% of the total global emission.

While I agree that one of the most important steps to preventing additional energy depletion and environmental degradation is to strengthen environmental regulations. I argue that we must also consider how environmental regulation on fossil energy consumption impacts critical functioning of important operations such as desalination, and whether or not; we would be able to switch over in time to other energy alternatives.

Environmental regulations, no matter how well-intentioned, if not thought through carefully, could cause significant hardships to the public. This is especially so when done via a blanket mechanism without deeper consultation with industry experts.

Studies are being performed to determine the practicality of using solar energy to power the desalination plants.

Researchers at MIT and from China, have devised a passive solar-powered desalination system that may deliver more than 1.5 gallons of fresh drinking water per hour for every square metre of sun collecting space. For information, the city of New York consumes about 975 million gallons of water in a single day.

For perspective, let’s say we are able to ideally harvest about 10 hours of sunlight per day, this means that we would be able to deliver about 15 gallons of fresh water per day. With this device, we would need about 65 million square metres of sun collecting space to provide enough water for the people in New York City. 65 million square metres of sun collecting space is roughly equivalent to the size of about 12150 football fields. This is slightly bigger than the Bhadla Solar Park in Rajasthan, India, which is currently the largest solar park in the world.

Such infrastructure requires substantial amount of space even though it might possibly provide an efficient, low-cost water source to off-grid dry coastal locations. One solution is to stack the solar panels on top of each other thereby reducing the total area taken but the installation cost would escalate rapidly.

What I am trying to achieve, by going through this case, is to impart a sense of (1) how much desalination contributes to the total global emission, (2) the amount of energy required to supply a city with fresh water and (3) the space requirement if the desalination process were to draw its power source from solar panels.  With this, it would be easier to weigh and then assess sensibly for oneself, the total amount of effort to reduce that amount of carbon emission from desalination.

It would be far easier to target the top 20% of the greatest carbon emitters if we want to achieve substantial results in reducing Greenhouse Gases (GHG) emission.

By this, most would already have a sense of what I am going to propose which is firstly, to have deeper consultations with the specific industry experts. With inputs from the industry experts, identify the sectors that have significant contributions to human welfare and does not yet have the capacity to switch over to renewable energy sources at the moment.

Once the mapping is performed and the sectors identified, a roadmap could be broken into several pathways, guiding specific sectors with different timelines towards net zero outcome.

Secondly, once the sectors are identified and then ranked according to the national priority and implementation challenges. A strategy could be designed for each individual track while taking into consideration the investment of financial capital, and research and development effort in areas such as technology, manpower, sectorial rules and regulations, energy supply and other resources. Greater flexibility in the choices of energy sources could be extended to certain sectors such as the water sector, to ensure seamless transition to net zero operating environments, without disrupting public service.

Thirdly, at this point, the greater clarity of each sector’s status allows for stratospheric assessment across sectors, mainly to check if there are any competing demands in resources especially in the area of manpower and energy supply. With this, technology could be leveraged, adjustments might be made, and buffers built to ensure resiliency in each system and how they operate in tandem with each other.

Fourthly, mechanisms for adjustments must be weaved into the roadmap to ensure relevancy long after it has started. For example, certain sectors could be allowed to operate off fossil fuel sources for longer period before switching to renewable energy source. However, if the technology development progresses faster than anticipated, then the sector could wean off fossil fuel earlier than planned.

There will always be gaps between policies and operational work therefore effort must be made to ensure sufficient information flow from the ground implementation to policy construct and vice versa.

Once again, I would like to reemphasise that environmental regulations, no matter how well-intentioned, if not thought through carefully, could lead to significant hardships to the public. Deeper engagement and consultations with sectorial experts and practitioners is essential for better policies.

This week, I encountered three new ideas for inclusion into Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) ratings, namely mental wellness, responsible use of artificial intelligence (AI) and Multi-National Companies’ (MNC) contributions to the stakeholder communities’ social well-being, the workforce’s professional development and other positive initiatives for the countries in which they operate in.

On one hand, the media has reported that there is a large gap between the companies’ ESG reports and on-site implementations. The current narrative is that companies are signing a lot of MOUs and pledges, committing to a lot of sustainability goals and submitting a lot of ESG reports with beautiful graphs, plots, charts and content, but these are not translated into real action.

We need a lot more capabilities in recognizing, measuring and assessing ESG risks. ESG risks already manifested in many forms such as environmental impacts, workplace safety, fair consideration for employment, diversity and inclusion issues, proper mechanisms for grievances, stakeholder community management, etc.

All these combine to increase substantially the workload of the front-line staff. I see that we currently have three ways to go about solving this.

First, hire more people with ESG measurement and assessment skills to perform worksite inspections, outsource ESG measurements and assessments to external consultants or inspectors, train existing staff on ESG-related skills and/ or enhance technology capabilities in recognizing, monitoring and assessing ESG risks. These options are not mutually exclusive and can merge to create a variety of additional solutions.

Second, we will need the expertise of domain specialists to help with mitigating the identified ESG risks. When I bring up domain specialists, it is not just the technical experts in the area of carbon emissions, waste reduction, sustainable procurement, etc, but also the people who can contribute their skills in improving gender diversity, workplace safety, corporate and community grievances mechanisms amongst others.

Third, the entire organization has to be regularly trained to maintain awareness of such issues. The training could be delivered via on-site workshops, video meetings, and online training modules with or without quizzes or a hybrid of all of the above. Additionally, someone must be responsible for keeping the lines in check. It could be the Chief ESG Officer or Chief Sustainability Officer, together with one or more board members or directors with clear sight on these metrics.

Without a proper system in place, the entire exercise could become a one-off event and eventually fade into nothingness.

Now, we already have a lot on hand and that is just to satisfy reports and audit requirements. Moving forward, we need to put forth a whole lot more effort towards implementation. In reality, true transformation takes time and changing habits requires discipline. This means that we need to focus a lot more peoples’ attention towards this target for a longer period and it is definitely going to be draining.

There is going to be even more work if we include mental wellness, responsible use of AI, and MNC’s contributions to the countries that they operate in.

At this point of writing, I only have five thoughts about this.

One – anyway we already have so much work going on so we might as well pile on these considerations and strike while the iron is hot.

Two – adding more considerations at this time when we are not even executing well, could lead to widening the gap between reporting and implementation.

Three – increasing the workload at this moment when the supply of ESG expertise clearly lags far behind the demand for ESG expertise, is a sure-fire way to further stress the system and staff.

Four – we need more software capability to augment current workforce and ease the burden that is fueling the Great Resignation.

Five – public and private sector will need to work hand-in-hand to reach an acceptable equilibrium.

Among these five broad elements that I can think of right now, it is clear that they are more or less within the domains of the proposed inclusions i.e. mental wellness, responsible use of AI and MNC’s contributions to the countries that they operate in.

Going overboard with the implementations might actually foul up the proposed inclusions. Why? We might disturb the mental well-being of staff if we add on more criteria without considering carefully the additional workload. We could be the cause of more staff layoff during the pandemic because it is cheaper to deploy software capabilities. MNCs might find themselves in a tougher business landscape and may delink themselves from the countries that impose increasingly stringent criteria for business operations.

So, should the new criteria be included or not?

In short, this is the chicken and egg paradigm whereby we will be stuck in an infinite loop if no actions are taken. As usual, the way to break through the chicken and egg paradigm is to simply focus on one key path, to forge the way forward, with mechanisms in place for future adjustments and calibrations.

Some governments would not care less about MNC’s positions at all. Already I see that there is a trend in many countries to deleverage from MNCs; increasingly requiring them to work with local partners, surfacing issues like the treatment of tax and profits, stipulating better data protection within the local R&D community and others. This is not new, but the trend is definitely stronger now and the new policies reflect that.

In fact, there are already some that are placing more chips on local enterprises so that they could square off with the MNCs in the future. Policies are being shaped at the highest level to favor local enterprises to build self-resiliency.

Some of these MNCs are also facing increasing regulatory pressures from their countries of origin. I observe these patterns with great interest.

At the other spectrum, others are encouraging MNCs to establish presence and work in their respective countries. So, there is certainly going to be more shifts of investments and human resources, and this certainly calls for attention as consideration for shaping ESG frameworks.

Aside from this, the responsible use of AI is an equally critical topic. To be honest, most of us are already well-aware of how software capabilities can augment human workers and to some extent, replace some workers as well. Especially when work is increasingly translated to digital format, and this makes it so much easier for automation.

Digitalization is the perfect pathway for automation in the future, and to reduce reliance on human workforce.

One of my friends used to work with labor unions in the United Kingdom and she often surfaces this experience as one of her trump cards when discussions touch on life achievements. Even then, she never wants to find work in this area anymore.

Societies are carefully propped up by myriad of intricate constructs, one of which is for people to be gainfully employed with meaningful work that pays enough for daily expenses, mortgages, other debt commitments and some more. Integration of AI without proper consideration on its impact on the larger ecosystem, can lead to unbalancing the society’s pillars.

We need more transparency and to encourage greater participation in crafting and co-creating this future that is jointly owned by all people.

Photo by Christina Morillo

Our educational system, as well as the way our society has evolved, has conditioned people to become more disinterested in science and technology education. Fewer individuals desire to study engineering and mathematics, which I strongly believe will be a major issue in the future.

In fact, many governments have already identified this issue and started working on it for quite some time.

Social media platforms have influenced our attention span and modified the way we receive information. Fewer people are reading books. Some merely read the headlines of articles and may skim through a portion of the piece before quitting halfway through.

In fact, it is recommended that content creators limit their pieces to no more than three paragraphs and no more than 500 words.

Video commercials must be no more than one minute long and must be able to capture people’s attention within the initial three seconds.

Professional development books are increasingly shorter, and many are encouraged to pepper pages with condensed summaries throughout the book, which is why the very popular Idiot’s Guide series have those little summary pop ups every few pages.

This loss in attention changes how information is collected and consumed and, as a result, affects how teaching and learning take place.

How often has your focus wandered during a meeting or a conference, and a phone check has become the norm? Most things receive only a fraction of my attention.

Students who listen while texting divide their focus between where their bodies are and where their brains are. The most recent adaption of short attention span instruction may be found in videos that are now available on Tik Tok and Instagram.

There is only one notion, one idea, and one instruction and no reading required, which is why these social media platforms are huge hits with the younger generation.

In a recent ranking survey done by an East Asian country, they ranked South Korea has having the best mathematics education system, followed by Singapore and the third place goes to Japan.

This East Asian country used to consider themselves as the best in providing mathematics education, but they’ve determined that their ranking has fell. They considered this a major issue and are putting their best people to work with the private sector, to develop a proposal to rectify it.

Still, research is being done by the best to further improve their position and one of the latest ideas is to introduce gaming to teach science, mathematics and programming.

I saw the latest research on teaching with games, and it allows players to immerse themselves in a Role-Playing Game (RPG) with attention-grabbing storyline that’s paired with beautiful graphics. Players will be able to solve interesting puzzles and fight fantastic battles with enemies throughout the game, and somehow all these actions are performed by solving programming scenarios.

By the end of the game, you are supposed to be able to understand the logic flow of programs and how to sew together the different syntaxes to achieve your desired programming outcomes.

It’s really quite fun and research is being done to quantify its relationship to improving users’ programming proficiency while keeping their attention on the game.  I think that the research results should be released in about two to three months’ time.

I believe that within a few more years, we will no longer need to type syntaxes in order to program. Long gone will be the days whereby you’ll feel cool to be able to type in long strings of words, press “Enter” and then strings upon strings of neon green colored fonts on black background scrolls endlessly down the computer screen. Think Matrix opening and ending scenes.

Anyway, if you think that’s cool, you’ll most likely might be considered as outdated by the younger generation.

Graphical programming is unquestionably on the rise, and more parts of Artificial Intelligence (AI) will eventually be merged with programming languages, making it easier to program in the long run.

Photo by Sippakorn Yamkasikorn

A smart grid is a digitally enabled electrical system that collects, distributes, and works with data on all electricity providers and consumers’ behaviour in order to enhance the efficiency, reliability, and sustainability of power delivery.

Smart grids generate massive amounts of data, which may be examined using data analytics and with machine learning, converted into valuable insights. Weather conditions, demand and supply records, and location are all examples of data metrics. 

With this data, operators may make smarter judgments about the transfer of energy from one location to another, proactively ensuring supply and minimising waste.

Southeast Asia is definitely a rising smart grid industry that is making tremendous progress and offers big advantages for customers as well as significant potential for suppliers by the end of this decade. 

Countries in Southeast Asia are growing rapidly and extending their web of electrical grid to more communities. With more foreign capital inflow and a growing middle-class, it makes perfect sense for governments to build smart grid roadmaps with implementation strategies. 

Outside of China and India, Southeast Asia has the greatest expected GDP growth rate of any emerging smart grid market. These strong GDP growth rates, however, are not assured and might pose structural, political, and social difficulties to Southeast Asian countries.

According to Global Climate Scope, Southeast Asia would invest up to $14 billion by 2030 to achieve universal power access, with distant microgrid systems serving 75 percent of the off-grid population.

Already, there are significant hurdles to crafting policies to tackle connection costs, network costs, maintenance cost while ensuring a healthy amount of return of investments for investors, suppliers and operators. 

Actual construction is another set of obstacles as some of the Southeast Asian countries might have to cough up the manpower and expertise to undertake huge infrastructure projects to lay underwater cables between islands, provinces and states.  

In the roadmap of some Southeast Asian countries, the administration had planned for the smart grid to enable single proprietors and individual business owners to sell a small quantity of power generated by their own entrepreneurship to the grid via a smart meter.

This can potentially be another issue if the pricing is not done right and could impact the agriculture industry. 

Agriculture is critical to the economy’s survival and growth. It’s the foundation of everything that motivates humans to survive. It not only produces food and other basic resources, but also presents job opportunities. Yet in many countries, agricultural workers are leaving the sector. 

According to the Indonesian National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), their projections show a steady drop of agricultural workers. It revealed that in 1976, 65.8 percent of Indonesian employees were employed in the agriculture sector. 

However, in 2019, it fell dramatically to only 28%. Part of this reduction might be attributed to agricultural employees moving to other industries, particularly to the service sector. The service sector workers accounted for 23.57 percent in 1976 and 48.91 percent in 2019.

When farm owners are able to sell the power generated by their own renewable energy devices such as solar panels, windmill, etc to the grid, they might consider giving up farming entirely. These farm owners might find it financially feasible to install more renewable energy devices and sell the electricity instead of rearing animals, performing soil maintenance and taking care of agriculture produces. 

In other parts of the world, a growing number of farmers and ranchers are supplementing their income by capturing the wind that blows over their land and converting it into electricity. In addition, new renewable alternatives are becoming accessible.

NPR reported in the United States that farmers in the Midwest both support and oppose major solar generating ventures on farms. Some people make significantly more money leasing land than they do cultivating crops. Others are concerned about the loss of productive land.

Leaving the situation entirely to market forces, will have the farm owners to simply choose the option that yields the highest return, but this might further jeopardise the agriculture sector in years to come.

Renewable energy sources and smart grid must be able to support core sectors like agriculture, not destroy it. 

I often use the term “Thinking without the box”, something that leaves people puzzled so I decided to articulate a little bit more about this concept. It’s about inspiring brainstorming by reaching into the abyss of the deep unknown.

Many technological innovations were very much informed by experiences. That is, experiences that were shaped by our interactions with our environment. Early humans observed the flow of water bodies and decided to use water mill to harvest its energy. From this, it inspired the invention of the engine and sparked the development of a mechanical system made entirely out of gears, axles, wheels, etc.

Things might have turned out differently if the early human decided to focus first on other sources of energy, for e.g., sunlight, geothermal, etc and that might have given rise to a different type of mechanical system.

Let’s say, for example, instead of transmitting energy from engine to gears and axles, we might have inherited a system that depended on expansion and contraction for energy transmission. That might make a lot of differences to how we conceptualise future designs, shifting from ideas that depended largely on linear movement to maybe one that’s omni-directional in 2D.

Like some of you, I like to drive cars occasionally and I am always amazed when I take the steering wheel. Even till now, I still wonder why car design turned out the way it is. Why the steering wheel? Why the gear box? Why the car design?

Cars are generally shaped to be elongated so that it reduces wind drag in a single direction. Its wheel design is thus shaped to assist cars with bi-directional movements i.e., that are to move back and forth.

Who would have known, maybe, in another place with different environmental conditions, the early inhabitants might have focused their initial attention on harvesting other forms of energy which then inspired them to build things differently?

We might inherit a different type of car design, maybe one that spherical, triangular, etc? Why must everyone sit in the same cabin? Can’t it be individual vehicular pods that connect to each other mid-way for distribution of energy and to save energy for long distance travel, then disconnecting from body of connected vehicular pods when it is charged or no longer has the same travel path as the rest of the pods?

Maybe instead of having wheels, we might depend directly on the body shape of the vehicles for movement.

Why not?

So, what I am saying is, most of our innovations are inspired by early innovators’ experience with the environment, and it continually influences future concepts and designs.

You could think within the box or think outside the box, but somehow or rather, that particular box has some influence in how we think. To think without the box is to break free from existing ideas and underlying assumptions for breakthroughs.

One way to strengthen this type of mindset is to continually question why we innovate the way we do, why we create the way we do. Through deep introspective questioning, we would uncover the constraints that prevent us from shaping ground-breaking concepts.

Why these assumptions for mathematics? Why do our machines understand instructions in binary code? Why such propulsion systems? What if our first machines were developed to understand instructions in different spectrum of colours instead? Would data transmission be faster? Inspired a different type of computer system setup or changed the way how data are stored?

Who knows? But it’s entirely possible.

The thing is many of our innovations are built on past experience. These type of solutions or innovations may be useless for a business industry that may disappear in time to come.

Let’s be really radical with a thought experiment. What if people from the future no longer “see” time on a watch dial? Some revolutionary time keeping devices could change the way people prefer to keep track of time. Shifting their habit to listening to time instead? Or maybe visualising (think) time within their mind or in their contact lenses. Ok, let’s be really radical, what if people preferred to feel time or maybe even smell time?

Some might think it’s crazy to feel time or smell time.

Let’s take a step back if we think that this concept is ridiculous. Why do we even think that it is ridiculous? Could it be that we are too conditioned by our past experience of tracking time in numerical values, to the point that we can’t even consider other methods? Could this subconscious restraint prevent us from making new breakthroughs?

Let’s throw ourselves into a dramatically different future.

What if in the far future, the Sun expanded by so much that the sunlight has almost destroyed human’s physical vision and because of that, we had to depend on other sensory faculties to keep track of time?

Now, it doesn’t seem to be that crazy to read time by thinking, smelling, feeling or listening.

Doesn’t it?

So, a device that allows you to tell time by thinking, smelling, feeling or listening, wouldn’t do much good if it doesn’t have any traction with the buyers. Many new breakthroughs started out this way, with zero traction.  That’s why we need a solid marketing and user experience plan that builds adoption steadily, in order to disrupt an existing business.