For this week’s lesson, we discussed about Technology & Industrial Development-Towards Sustainability Development and Innovation Management.
Prof started to show us a video about how we are depleting earth’s resources slowly. For example, 30% of earth’s resources is consumed by United States alone and in turn produced as wastes. This is definitely a very detrimental situation since we rely heavily on non-renewable resources and this may cause our resources to deplete in the long run. I feel that there is a need for a change of mindset in the way we go about manufacture and produce our resources. It should definitely revolve around the idea of “sustainability”. For example, I feel rising emerging countries such as China & India which take part heavily in industrial processes should start to adopt more sustainable measures if not it may lead to negative effects on countries in future. Basically, such countries should internalise negative externalities before carrying out their activities. This helps to drive down the prices of resources and allow these sustainable resources to be cheaper and more readily available to everyone. Of course, this is not possible without government intervention, which is highly necessary in most countries! To sum it up, we need to start changing from a linear to cyclical model in the way we carry out these activities to maximize value creation without reducing options for future generations.
Constant innovation is essential for a company to stay successful. Basically, this is to keep it on the summit and not let it tumble down the valley. To achieve this, companies need to keep improving their products through R&D and to be better than today. The RDA Translation Process definitely fascinates me, as it illustrates how new insights and understandings are being developed and translated to practical application that is ultimately for commercial/social use. However, while most companies’ ultimate goal is to profit maximize, I feel that the decision to come up with new and innovative products should be focused towards benefitting us and to improve the quality of life. After all, this facilitates an increase in demand for the products, and in turn, profit making for companies.
Lastly, what is most important is that companies should always adopt a far-sighted and positive aptitude to stay on the summit because competition is inevitable and ignoring mistakes and new knowledge is a grave mistake any company could make. Rather, they should embrace new changes and constantly try to be at the top by upgrading themselves.
I would rate today’s lesson 8.5/10 because I really enjoyed the content learnt and its very relatable to our world today.
Olandacherie2013 