22 Apr 2012

The Jig Is Up: Time to Get Past Facebook and Invent a New Future – The Atlantic

posted in: Uncategorized |

The Jig Is Up: Time to Get Past Facebook and Invent a New Future – The Atlantic

A very good article which describes how we are getting stuck in a well known paradigm. We need to again think of something radical and novel for communication technology. The author talks about start ups, but his view equally applies to research. How many times are we going to see research and papers on “internet of things”, “mobile interfaces”, “augmented reality”. We already know it and we need to think of the next step and next paradigm shift in communication.

4 Apr 2012

How to Make a Region Innovative

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How to Make a Region Innovative

Excellent article about essential ingredients for creating innovation clusters. It also describes the type of person required to be an innovation leader. I think this is an excellent goal for all students to have to be this kind of person.

•Synthesis. People need to “connect the dots,” making the relevant context of a complex issue clear so everyone can move forward.

• Perspective. For sustained collaboration, people must analyze and understand the economic and social environment — the “human ecosystem” — in which the quad operates.

• Communication skills. Working across sector boundaries, collaborators must negotiate with and convince others, building pro-innovation coalitions that can be mobilized for worthwhile goals.

• Intellectual curiosity. People must be passionate about exploring questions and alternative solutions together, making decisions with urgency but also with an eye to the long term.

• Empathy. Those working closely together need the unshakable willingness to listen to and understand others’ point of view, even when that means operating outside their comfort zone.

• Substantive knowledge. For those engaged in technical innovation, superior levels of specialized knowledge are essential — and when combined with the other skills and attitudes, they allow people to act strategically.

• Cross-sector experience. A successful quad cluster will feature many people with experience well beyond their own silo, preferably in a different country or economic sector. This is one positive side effect of the “revolving door” phenomenon, in which people can move from one firm to another. The wider the range of experiences, the deeper the empathy and the more finely honed an individual’s skills of cross-border communication and negotiation are likely to be.

Taken together, these attributes allow people to think, act, and move across all sorts of borders — institutional and sectoral, as well as national and regional.

3 Apr 2012

Seoul Digital Forum

posted in: Keynote Speeches and Talks |

Seoul Digital Forum

Mixed Reality: Beyond the Real-Virtual Dichotomy, Expanding Human Potentials

The realm of human influence is extending its scope and reach. The new generation of mixed reality technologies is merging the real and the virtual, making possible simultaneous interactions between the two worlds. With its limitations in interface design and accessibility being mitigated, mixed reality is making tangible contributions to expanding human potentials in an increasing number of practical fields including healthcare, education, training and media by lowering spatio-temporal barriers. With the real and the virtual coming to coexist and increasingly interfused, what kinds of benefits and obstacles lie in store for us?

Visionaries: Adrian D. CHEOK, Professor, Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University / Director, Mixed Reality Lab

Howard CHARNEY, Senior Vice President, Office of the President, Cisco

Genevieve BELL, Director, Interaction and Experience Research, Intel

Symposiarch WOO Woontack, Professor, Graduate School of Culture Technology, KAIST

Introduction to the SDF2012

Coexistence

Technology, Humanity and Great Hope for the Future

The advent of new technologies has profound ramifications for the way we think and behave. What, then, is this digital world and its hyper-connectedness for, and where is it headed?

Captivated by such terms as openness, collaboration and a new ecosystem, the narratives of ―coexistence‖ are defining a new zeitgeist and a key formula for survival in the digital era. Information technology is gearing toward enabling a better life by aiming for broader inclusion and bringing together more diverse voices; now more than ever, the world is in an earnest quest for technologies that are not just smarter, but more humane and compassionate.

Amid these currents, how can we forge a world where technologies become more humanized, real and virtual worlds more naturally merge together, the values of the analog era are still preserved, and humanistic digital technologies help narrow the various gaps between groups and generations?

What has so far typically grabbed the limelight has been any newly developed technology and the people in the vanguard of that technological advancement. We have been pouring too much of our energy into keeping apace with rapid changes while unwittingly or tacitly postponing in-depth discussions on technology-induced challenges. It‘s high time that we turned our long-overdue attention to the direction in which technology is headed, and the values it brings to our world. It is the appropriate time to put the technologies around us under close scrutiny and measure their impact, drawing on the framework of Oriental humanism that interweaves science, religion and ethics as well as aesthetics.

What new wonders of technology are before us and how will they shape our future? What is the nature of the Big Data society and how can we make the most out of it? What are the potential pitfalls, and what is the future of data privacy? Is it possible to make appropriate technology (AT) sustainable? What roles can such technologies as speech recognition and interface design play in making technology more people-friendly? Is SNS a facilitator of online democracy or of mob rule? What types of data should be shared and open, and how much? Copyright or copyleft: which way to go? How can we forge a new ecosystem for both corporations and consumers? How do different technologies foster or threaten the emerging era of coexistence?

At SDF2012, we will delve into the new conditions and initiatives for coexistence and explore how we can coevolve with technologies and find ways to better understand and serve the great hope of humanity for a better world.

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