Tag: STEM

Science of Sustenance – CLT Housing

Posted on February 10, 2017 in Economics, Government, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Believe it or not, the Caribbean is the “best of times and the worst of times”. – Charles Dickens.

We have the greatest address on the planet – in terms of terrain, fauna/flora, hospitality, festivities, food, rum and cigars – but we have near-Failed-States as well, to the point that 70 percent of the educated classes have fled the region. The above Dickensian quote emerges as a strong parallel:

This phrase has been taken from the famous opening paragraph of Charles Dickens’ novel, A Tale of Two Cities. The novel opens as, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity. – LiteraryDevices.com

This age of radical opposites in the Caribbean must be assuaged. But how? How do we implement a reboot and turn-around?

The book Go Lean … Caribbean asserts that we re-focus on basic needs – food, clothing, shelter and energy – and their required delivery systems. The book quotes that we must:

  • Feed Ourselves
  • Clothe Ourselves
  • House Ourselves – in the US, the National Association of Realtors® trumpets that “housing creates jobs”.

A consideration of the science of housing solutions, is therefore important and apropos for rebooting societal engines as housing requires local jobs and building materials. So it is a study in economics, security and governance.

But rebooting the delivery of housing in this year 2017 must dictate at least one additional criteria:

Adherence to Green principles.

Enter CLT for meeting housing- shelter needs; CLT = Cross Latinate Timber. Green building practices have helped CLT’s popularity, with its combination of environmental performance, sustainability, design flexibility, cost-competitiveness and structural integrity.

CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - CLT Housing - Photo 7

CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - CLT Housing - Photo 6

The Timber label discloses that the based material is wood; naturally grown on trees. This is as green as green gets; every tree cut down can be replaced with seedling for a new tree. But CLT is driven by forces in emerging science – see Appendix.

This is the focus of this commentary: science for rebooting the delivery of basic needs. This is 4 of 4 in this series covering: energy, food, clothing and shelter-housing. It is possible to deliver all basic needs without science. But for our modern world, the advances of science make a positive impact on daily life. So the full series for our consideration follows this pattern:

  1.    Science of Sustenance: Energy
  2.    Science of Sustenance: Food
  3.    Science of Sustenance: Clothing
  4.    Science of Sustenance: Shelter

The book Go Lean…Caribbean promotes advanced science and technology for Caribbean housing solutions, specifically trumpeting Smart Homes – home automation for security, communications, energy optimization, and house work.

CLT is also a Smart Home option, in that its a smart building material. It is strong, safe and flexible. With CLT as building blocks, structures can actually be built tall … maybe even  skyscrapers. See a related new article here:

Title: Why a Wooden Office Tower may Symbolize the Future of Multi Story Construction
By: Patrick Sisson

CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - CLT Housing - Photo 1

“Office building goes up in Minneapolis” isn’t exactly a headline built to blow up Twitter. But the seven-story, 210,000-square-foot T3 commercial structure that broke ground at the end of July in the city’s North Loop neighborhood isn’t just any office.  A new home for the Hines development firm, T3 (Timber, Technology and Transit) will be the first tall-timber building of its type in the United States, a new spin on architecture utilizing a material that’s been a bedrock of construction for millennia. According to architect Michael Green, when it’s finished in late 2016, T3 will challenge assumptions many hold about wooden structures, and represent a massive technological leap beyond the old-school timber warehouses that surround it. Green, one of a number of architects worldwide specializing in tall-timber construction, sees buildings like this as part of a vanguard of sustainable construction technology that will be called upon to create taller and taller buildings going forward. With so much of our energy footprint going towards constructing and maintaining buildings, it only makes sense to move away from resource-intensive steel.

“It’s the beauty of what we’re doing here, incorporating modern technology with good, old ideas,” he says. “We’re not reinventing the wheel, we’re bringing back a very good wheel.”

CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - CLT Housing - Photo 2

CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - CLT Housing - Photo 3

Green’s eponymous Canadian firm is perhaps best known for the seven-story Wood Innovation and Design Centre in Prince George, British Columbia, currently the tallest timber building in North America. For the T3 project, he’s been forced to start with a concrete foundation to meet code requirements, and the skeleton will be steel, but the vast majority of the structure will be wood sourced from the West Coast. The core and floorplates will be made from huge panels of engineered lumber that have been nailed and glued together, with support provided by engineered wooden columns (pressed together to replicate the load-bearing abilities previously provided by massive beams cut from old growth timber). The panels’ density actually means they won’t burn through completely, instead forming a protective layer of charcoal. It’s a marriage of old and new techniques, he says, that will provide a much more energy-efficient building due to the natural source materials. And, as opposed to concrete-and-steel structures that often draw in the cold, this wooden structure will provide insulation, a godsend in a cold climate such as Minneapolis.

While Europe has traditionally been the leader in re-developing timber as a building material for tall structures—The Stadthaus, a nine-story building in London built in 2008 with cross-laminated timber, was one of the forerunners of the modern wooden building boom—Green feels North America is starting to catch up.

“Height is happening, but it’s a slow process,” he says.  “There are a few projects in the U.S. being considered, and you’re starting to see innovation creep up.”

CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - CLT Housing - Photo 4

CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - CLT Housing - Photo 5

While there are scores of projects utilizing cross-laminated timber and heavy wood construction, one of the projects Green is most excited about is the recent $60M forestry school expansion at Oregon State University dedicated to advancing the technology behind timber construction. The concept reinforces the main ecological and economical advantages of the practice, the ability to harvest renewable resources for construction while concurrently redeveloping rural economies. As timber buildings get higher in cities across the country, different areas, such as the seismic West Coast or windy Midwest, will require unique systems and designs to start rising above 20 floors. Developing and sharing regional knowledge between builders, regulators and architects will be key to future acceptance, still a barrier to more widespread adoption.

“The U.S. government investment in building science technology represents .0001 percent of total innovation investment,” he says. “That’s a statistic that needs to be shouted from the roof tops.”

While the industry is just starting to get off the ground here, Green and his firm are aiming skyward. A perfect example is their recent proposal for a 35-story tower in Paris. Set to be submitted after the contentious battle over the Herzog & de Meuron tower, the first tall building of any type approved in Paris in decades, the MGA plan was abandoned. But that was because it was tall and in Paris, not tall and made of wood.

“We have a new means of building that can help us realize a new era of architecture, a post-climate era,” he says. “As this develops, we’ll see how this changes the look of our cities and buildings.

Related stories:

Source: Curbed.com – Urban Design Online Site – (Posted 08-12-2017; retrieved 02-02-2017) from: http://www.curbed.com/2015/8/12/9931212/minneapolis-t3-timber-construction-michael-green

———-

Appendix – About Curbed.com

Since 2004, Curbed has been an integral part of the online housing industry, and by providing analysis, coverage, and insight, we apply an editorial lens to the onslaught of information. Unlike a glossy shelter magazine, we see homes, architecture, interior design, cities, neighborhoods, and properties for sale as related points on a spectrum. An artfully styled home shoot isn’t the be-all-end-of-all in the life of a residence: It’s one station along a continuously evolving timeline.
Source: Retrieved February 3, 2017 from http://www.curbed.com/pages/about-curbed

A consideration of CLT raises a lot of questions:

  • What would CLT Housing mean for the Caribbean region?
  • Are CLT-made homes strong-safe for the tropical zone’s threat of hurricanes?
  • Are they strong-safe for earthquake threats?
  • Do they fit in with the traditional decor of Caribbean neighborhoods?

Answers:

  • CLT Housing in the Caribbean – This region is not known for tall skyscrapers, so 20 – 30 maximum stories would be ideal for urban areas.
  • Strong-safe for hurricanes – The options for 3, 5 or 7 layered timber blocks are just as strong as concrete and steel. These structures have been tested and graded for Category 4 storms.
  • Strong-safe for earthquakes – Wood is energy-absorbent; this flexibility allows buildings to withstand quakes better than concrete, brick or steel.
  • Traditional Caribbean Decor – The classic-colonial look of the region featured wooded homes and sharp colors; this is ideal for CLT.

The book Go Lean … Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU), with a charter to elevate Caribbean society by optimizing the delivery of the region’s basic needs. With 144 missions, the dynamics of housing is identified specifically as one of the missions for the Go Lean/CU roadmap; so too the quest for Pre-Fab housing. The book highlights the CU’s prime directives, as described by these statements:

  • Optimization of the economic engines – including housing solutions – in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

There are a lot of economic issues associated with the subject of building materials; this subject reflects heavily on the local availability of natural resources. The Caribbean member-states – many of them small islands – do not have a lot of iron ore for steel and limited quarry areas for concrete-cement. But trees are an inexhaustible resource. So a confederated union in the region or a cooperative could be a good solution for installing a factory to produce CLT products. See the manufacturing process  in the Appendix VIDEO below.

The Go Lean roadmap, and the foregoing article, calls for the region to double-down its efforts to ensure a quality delivery for housing and building materials. This need was identified early in the Go Lean book, in the opening pronouncement in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 14), as follows:

xxvi. Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries, like prefabricated housing ….

The Go Lean … Caribbean roadmap constitutes a change for the region, a plan to consolidate 30 member-states into a Trade Federation with the tools/techniques to bring immediate change to the region to benefit one and all member-states. The roadmap calls for collaboration of the region’s housing needs at a CU federal agency. Though there is a separation-of-powers mandate between the member-states and federal agencies, the CU can still wield influence in this area by consolidating the purchasing of raw materials and equipment – think Group Purchasing Organizations. The CU empowerments would also allow for better coordination with commercial entities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international stakeholders.

The book details the community ethos needed to effect change in this area, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to impact the region’s housing solutions:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – People Choose For Greatest Benefits Despite Scarcity Page 21
Community Ethos – All Choices Involve Costs Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices Page 21
Community Ethos – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth Page 21
Community Ethos – Lean Operations – Group Purchase Organization Page 24
Strategy – Vision – Confederate 30 Member-States Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Build and foster local economic engines Page 45
Strategy – Mission – Embrace the advances of technology Page 46
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Separation of Powers – Department of Housing and Urban Authority Page 83
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better – Housing solutions Page 131
Planning – Ways to Mitigate Failed-States Page 134
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Housing – Smart Homes Page 161
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage Natural Resources Page 183
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Develop a Pre-Fab Housing Industry Page 207
Appendix – Housing Solution: Pre-Fab Homes Page 289

This Go Lean book asserts that there is a direct correlation between housing and the economy. This viewpoint has been previously detailed in Go Lean blog/commentaries, as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=10140 Lessons Learned: Detroit demolishes thousands of structures
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7659 Pre-Fab Housing and Elder-Care Conjunction
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5155 Tesla unveils super-battery to power homes
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4337 Study: Homes Marketed via the MLS Sell for More
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1896 The Crisis in Black Homeownership
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=709 Student debt holds back many would-be home buyers

CLT methodology is a scientific advance for green building materials. Green is important for the Caribbean region. Among the benefits are the consequences, the mitigations for Climate Change. Some of the threats for this region are hurricanes; as of late, with global warming the storms have been more destructive. A 1 to 2 degree difference in ocean temperature can mean the difference of a Category 2 storm versus Category 3. So CLT buildings will help to assuage greenhouse gases and protect the homes from destructive storms. These are better protections for earthquakes too.

Win – Win! This is the effect of advancing the science of sustenance, for all our basic needs: energy, food, clothing & shelter.

All of these scientific solutions are the new best-practices. They make this Go Lean/CU roadmap conceivable, believable and achievable.

Everyone in Caribbean – residents, homeowners, home-builders, governments – are hereby urged to lean-in to the Go Lean roadmap for regional, societal empowerment. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————

Appendix VIDEO – CLT production line from Kallesoe Machinery – https://youtu.be/BikISh6F1wo

Published on Apr 15, 2015 – This massive high frequency press from Kallesoe Machinery represents the most efficient installation on the marked for the production of CLT elements. The press is a highly efficient production unit with high capacity and very short pressing times.

This CLT press can press endless CLT elements up to 20 meters long and 3.2 meters wide.

  • Category – Science & Technology
  • License – Standard YouTube License
Share this post:
, , , ,

Science of Sustenance – e-Clothing

Posted on February 9, 2017 in Economics, Ethos, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Basic needs (food, clothing & shelter) and cutting-edge technologies, what a conundrum?!

A lot of science/technology goes into the harvesting of food, and the construction of houses, but clothing has a “leg up”, in that the science is emerging to where people can wear their technology.

CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - e-Clothing - Photo 6Welcome to the new age! This is called e-Clothing (electronic-embedded clothing) or e-Textile, a subset of “Materials Sciences” – see Appendix below.

This imagery is so remindful of the old television cartoon show, The Jetsons. It debuted in 1962 telling stories of what the writers envisioned the year 2062 would be like. In those 55 years, the actual technologies have changed, so if envisioned again, what do we now think the year 2062 will look like.

This re-imagining was done; see Appendix VIDEO below.

This commentary presses the point about innovations in wearable technologies; the purpose tends to not be fashion, but function; (there are some fashion statements with flashing lights; see Appendix). There are a lot of circumstances where embedded technologies in clothing would be advantageous; consider:

  • Performance enhancing – technologies to improve and enhance movement and skills.
    CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - e-Clothing - Photo 2
  • Disease Management – diagnostics of medical conditions to alert stakeholders of declining health metrics; consider blood pressure, blood sugar, temperature and pulse rate.
    Microsoft PowerPoint - 5909233016169432_fig3 [Read-Only] [Compat

Considering the Appendix VIDEO below, it would appear that future innovations are expected to take place in places other than the Caribbean. That would be a sad disposition. This point was highlighted in the book Go Lean…Caribbean; it purports that a new industrial revolution is emerging in the world and that Caribbean people and society must engage. This is pronounced at the outset of the Go Lean book in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 14), with this opening statement:

xxvii. Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.

So there must be Caribbean participants in this global race to create technological solutions to better deliver on basic needs. This commentary is 3 of 4 in a series on the modern advances in science for delivering basic needs: energy, food, clothing and shelter. While it is possible to deliver these basic needs without science, our modern world is defined by the advances of science and their impact on daily life. The full series for our consideration follows this pattern:

  1.    Science of Sustenance: Energy
  2.    Science of Sustenance: Food
  3.    Science of Sustenance: Clothing
  4.    Science of Sustenance: Shelter

The Go Lean book’s assertion is that innovations will spurn new economic activity, improve lives and lower our overall cost of living.

Clothing is undeniably a basic need, but e-Clothing is associated more with progress. All people in our region need clothes and yet we do not source our own clothing. We have no textile industry (cotton, wool, linen, leather, etc.). There is art and science associated with the subject of apparels. The art is considered fashion; and Caribbean stakeholders have made a great impact in the fashion industry – remember Oscar De La Renta. But art and fashion does not have to be the limited for the Caribbean vocation – tailoring, dress-making, arts-and-crafts – in this apparel eco-system. For the most part, our clothing needs are imported products, but we can still better provide for the region’s clothing needs, and depend less on globalization.

The book Go Lean… Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This effort will marshal the region to avail the opportunities associated with technology and clothing. The CU/Go Lean roadmap has these 3 prime directives:

  • Optimization of the economic engines – including clothing solutions – in order to grow the regional economy.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean roadmap calls for the immediate adoption of the community ethos to foster information technology innovation. This was the original motivation of the Go Lean roadmap, an interdependence of the 30 member-states of the Caribbean to offset the effects of globalization. This statement was also pronounced early in the book on the same page of the Declaration of Interdependence as above:

xxx. Whereas the effects of globalization can be felt in every aspect of Caribbean life, from the acquisition of food and clothing, to the ubiquity of ICT, the region cannot only consume, it is imperative that our lands also produce and add to the international community, even if doing so requires some sacrifice and subsidy.

There is a lot at stake for the Caribbean in considering this subject area. According to the subsequent article, there are scientific developments to power the chips embedded in textiles using body heat. Just think of this innovation: 98.6 degrees is a lot of heat that humans generate. If only that body energy can be captured and harnessed to power electronics in e-Clothing and/or e-Textiles. According to this article, there is progress:

Title: Wearable integrated thermocells based on gel electrolytes use body heat as power source

CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - e-Clothing - Photo 1Summary: Electronics integrated into textiles are gaining in popularity: Systems like smartphone displays in a sleeve or sensors to detect physical performance in athletic wear have already been produced. The main problem with these systems tends to be the lack of a comfortable, equally wearable source of power. Scientists are now aiming to obtain the necessary energy from body heat. They have now introduced a flexible, wearable thermocell based on two different gel electrolytes.

FULL STORY:
Electronics integrated into textiles are gaining in popularity: Systems like smartphone displays in a sleeve or sensors to detect physical performance in athletic wear have already been produced. The main problem with these systems tends to be the lack of a comfortable, equally wearable source of power. Chinese scientists are now aiming to obtain the necessary energy from body heat. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, they have introduced a flexible, wearable thermocell based on two different gel electrolytes.

Our muscle activity and metabolism cause our bodies to produce constant heat, some of which is released through the skin into the environment. Because of the relatively small temperature difference between skin (approximately 32 °C) and the temperature of our surroundings, it is not so easy to make use of body heat. Previous thermoelectric generators, such as those based on semiconductors, produce too little energy, are costly, or are too brittle for use in wearable systems. Thermocells with electrolyte solutions are difficult to integrate into extensive wearable systems. A team led by Jun Zhou at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (Wuhan, China) has now found a solution to this problem: thermocells with gel-based electrolytes.

The researchers are making use of the thermogalvanic effect: if two electrodes in contact with an electrolyte solution — or an electrolyte gel — are kept at different temperatures, a potential difference is generated. The ions of a redox pair in the electrolyte can rapidly switch between two different charge states, accepting or releasing electrons at electrodes with different temperature. In order to use this to produce a current, the scientists combined two types of cells containing two different redox pairs. Each cell consists of two tiny metal plates that act as electrodes, with an electrolyte gel in between. The first cell type contains the Fe2+/Fe3+ redox pair. The second type of cell contains the complex ions [Fe(CN)6]3-/[Fe(CN)6]4-. Because of the choice of these redox pairs, in cell type 1, the cold end gives a negative potential, while in type 2, the cold end gives a positive potential.

The researchers arranged many of these two types of cells into a checkerboard pattern. The cells were connected to each other by metal plates alternating above and below, to link them into a series. They then integrated this “checkerboard” into a glove. When the glove is worn, the desired temperature difference results between the upper and lower plates. This produces a voltage between neighboring cells, and the voltage adds up. This makes it possible to generate current to power a device or charge a battery.

In an environment at 5 °C, it was possible to produce 0.7 volts and about 0.3 μW. By optimizing this system, it should be possible to improve the power, even with smaller temperature gradients.

Reference: Peihua Yang, Kang Liu, Qian Chen, Xiaobao Mo, Yishu Zhou, Song Li, Guang Feng, Jun Zhou. Wearable Thermocells Based on Gel Electrolytes for the Utilization of Body Heat. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2016; DOI: 10.1002/anie.201606314

Source: Science Daily e-Zine – Posted September 6, 2016; retrieved 02-04-2017 from: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160906131128.htm

This foregoing article is describing the dynamics of Research-and-Development (R&D). It is an attitude, a spirit, a motivation and a sentiment. The Go Lean book describes this as community ethos, the appropriate attitude/spirit to forge change in our region. R&D is cited as one of the community ethos the Caribbean region needs to adopt. This will foster the climate, environment and atmosphere to forge change in e-Clothing deliveries. Engaging this ethos early can result in many new jobs, and entrepreneurial opportunities. This is how to succeed in a world dominated by globalization; we must not only consume, we must produce as well. The Go Lean book details R&D and other ethos to adopt, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to forge Research-and-Development and industrial growth in Caribbean communities:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – People Respond to Incentives Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier Page 22
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI) Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development Page 30
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Agents of Change – Technology Page 57
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Growing Economy – New High Multiplier Industries Page 68
Separation of Powers – Patent, Standards, & Copyrights Office Page 82
Separation of Powers – Health Department – Diagnostic Services Page 86
Separation of Powers – Drug [and Medical Devices] Administration Page 87
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Implement Self-Government Entities Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Healthcare Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Entitlements Page 158
Advocacy – Ways to Better Provide Clothing Page 163
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Elder-Care Page 225
Appendix – Healthways Model – Disease Management Data Capture Page 300

Historically, the Caribbean has been quick to consume technological advances. Now we want to be quick to produce the technology, not just consume it. Some Caribbean communities are doing this already, consider Cuba with their research in cancer drugs. Other Caribbean R&D activities have been detailed in these previous blog-commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9751 Where the Jobs Are – Animation and Game Design
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8943 Zika’s Drug Breakthrough
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=8817 Lessons from China – R&D for Mobile Game Apps
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5034 US Patent Office: Model of Innovation and Abuse
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3974 Google’s R&D efforts in Puerto Rico
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1817 Caribbean R&D on the new cycles of flooding & drought
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1288 Future Caribbean Astronauts – Not so improbable
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=308 CARCIP Urges Greater Caribbean Innovation thru R&D
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=286 Puerto RicoCancerR&DCenter Project Breaks Ground

Change has come to the world of textiles and clothing; these changes must also be forged, researched and developed in the Caribbean region. We must be able to better provide our clothing. This is one of the basic needs that we must convene, collaborate and cooperate on as a region. This helps to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play.

But we must also be able to contribute to the new world of performance-enhancing and diagnostic e-Clothes.

The people and institutions of the region are hereby urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap, to embrace all these empowerments efforts to reboot our region. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————-

Appendix – e-Textiles

E-textiles, also known as smart garments, smart clothing, electronic textiles, smart textiles, or smart fabrics, are fabrics that enable digital components (including small computers), and electronics to be embedded in them. Smart textiles are fabrics that have been developed with new technologies that provide added value to the wearer. Pailes-Friedman of the Pratt Institute states that “what makes smart fabrics revolutionary is that they have the ability to do many things that traditional fabrics cannot, including communicate, transform, conduct energy and even grow”.[1]

Smart textiles can be broken into two different categories: aesthetic and performance enhancing. Aesthetic examples include fabrics that light up and fabrics that can change color. Some of these fabrics gather energy from the environment by harnessing vibrations, sound or heat, reacting to these inputs. Performance enhancing smart textiles are intended for use in athletic, extreme sports and military applications. These include fabrics designed to regulate body temperature, reduce wind resistance, and control muscle vibration – all of which may improve athletic performance. Other fabrics have been developed for protective clothing, to guard against extreme environmental hazards, such as radiation and the effects of space travel.[2] The health and beauty industry is also taking advantage of these innovations, which range from drug-releasing medical textiles, to fabric with moisturizer, perfume, and anti-aging properties.[1] Many smart clothing, wearable technology, and wearable computing projects involve the use of e-textiles.[3]

Electronic textiles are distinct from wearable computing because emphasis is placed on the seamless integration of textiles with electronic elements like microcontrollers, sensors, and actuators. Furthermore, e-textiles need not be wearable. For instance, e-textiles are also found in interior design.

CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - e-Clothing - Photo 7The related field of fibretronics explores how electronic and computational functionality can be integrated into textile fibers.

A new report from Cientifica Research examines the markets for textile based wearable technologies, the companies producing them and the enabling technologies. The report identifies three distinct generations of textile wearable technologies:

  1. “First generation” attach a sensor to apparel. This approach is currently taken by sportswear brands such as Adidas, Nike and Under Armour
  2. “Second generation” products embed the sensor in the garment, as demonstrated by current products from Samsung, Alphabet, Ralph Lauren and Flex.
  3. In “third generation” wearables, the garment is the sensor. A growing number of companies are creating pressure, strain and temperature sensors for this purpose.

Future applications for e-textiles may be developed for sports and well-being products, and medical devices for patient monitoring. Technical textiles, fashion and entertainment will also be significant applications.[4]

CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - e-Clothing - Photo 5

Source:  Retrieved February 4, 2017 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-textiles

————-

Appendix VIDEO – The World of The Jetsons, reimagined – https://youtu.be/37waZeR4isc

Published on Nov 15, 2016 – The world of The Jetsons gets a scientific makeover. Arconic has reimagined the year 2062 through the eyes of leading futurists, our engineers and filmmaker Justin Lin. This futuristic world features advanced technologies—flying cars and extra tall, 3D-printed buildings—that Arconic’s materials science and manufacturing experts could help bring to life.

Arconic is built on an extraordinary heritage of innovation that began with Alcoa’s founding in 1888. We have helped shape the aerospace, automotive and building and construction industries since the days of the Wright brothers, Henry Ford and the first modern downtowns. Today, as Arconic, we continue to build on more than a century of innovation to help transform the way we fly, drive, build and power. Arconic is where the future takes shape.

Learn more at http://www.arconic.com/thefuture.

Share this post:
, , ,
[Top]

Science of Sustenance – Green Batteries

Posted on February 7, 2017 in Economics, Government, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

Monkey see, monkey do …

CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - Green Batteries - Photo 0This is the expression; but this is science too: zoology, anthropology, animal husbandry. Monkeys are amazing creatures. They are in the same species as humans – primates. Monkeys are social creatures that live in family groups. Like many other animal species,  they adhere to an Alpha-Herd social order. Despite the fact that monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent, they tend to mimic the actions of their leaders more so than creating their own destinies. It is true, monkeys see, monkeys do.

If only the highest order of primates, us humans, worked the same way, then it would be easy to reform and transform society. To the contrary, the observation is that humans follow a different process:

Monkey see, monkey feel, monkey do. Sorry, make that “humans see, humans feel, humans do”.

As free moral agents, the human experience is that there must be a motivation to do something, like “change”, that we see others doing.

This point is developed more fully in the book Go Lean…Caribbean. It narrates the experience of smoking cessation. The book relates (Page 20):

Change is not easy …

Just ask anyone attempting to quit smoking. Not only are there physiological challenges, but psychological ones as well, to the extent that it can be stated with no uncertainty that “change begins in the head”. In psycho-therapy the approach to forge change for an individual is defined as “starting in the head (thoughts, visions), penetrating the heart (feelings, motivations) and then finally manifesting in the hands (actions).

There are a lot of things that Caribbean people and communities must change; there is the need to reform and transform. We must first develop the right attitudes and motivations for fostering our changes. We must penetrate the heart. The people of the Caribbean must change their feelings about elements of our society – elements that are in place and elements missing. The Go Lean book refers to this as “community ethos”, defined as:

“the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of a group or society; dominant assumptions of a people or period.”

The Caribbean is in desperate straits. We have many societal dysfunctions and defects. We have challenges fulfilling even our basic needs. This is the focus of this commentary; it is 1 of 4 in a series on the modern advances in science for delivering basic needs. No one doubts that the inventory of basic needs include “food, clothing and shelter”. But modernity has forced us to add another entry: “energy”. In fact, the availability and affordability of energy can impact the deliveries of these order basic needs. The full series for our consideration will therefore follow this pattern:

  1.     Science of Sustenance: Energy
  2.     Science of Sustenance: Food
  3.     Science of Sustenance: Clothing
  4.     Science of Sustenance: Shelter

It is possible to deliver all basic needs without science. But for our modern world, the advances of science make a positive impact on daily life. In fact, one Anthropology study has concluded that the greatest scientific accomplishment for 20th Century society had been the invention, deployment and advances of the washing machine. Wow, remember the process to clean clothes before modern laundry equipment; it took all day. Women of the house had to be fulltime homemakers to satisfy this family need. This fact depicts the gravity of science in sustaining our modern life. Let’s consider all of the basic needs from this perspective.

Discussions about energy must consider a discussion on batteries. Battery = Stored Energy …

… despite all the scientific definitions, that is all it means, plain and simple. According to one source:

Batteries come in many shapes and sizes, from miniature cells used to power hearing aids and wristwatches to small, thin cells used in smartphones, to large lead acid batteries used in cars and trucks, and at the largest extreme, huge battery banks the size of rooms that provide standby or emergency power for telephone exchanges and computer data centers.

According to a 2005 estimate, the worldwide battery industry generates US$48 billion in sales each year,[5] with 6% annual growth. – Wikipedia.

Batteries traditionally store energy for later use. When we need it, we absolutely need it. Imagine a flashlight, when we “click” it on, we expect it to work. We spend a lot of money to ensure this functionality – according to the foregoing reference, $48 Billion/year.

But while batteries entail a lot of complicated chemicals – alkaline, lead-acid, lithium-ion, etc. – the underlying principle is to store the kinetic energy for future generation of electricity. There is a new recognition in this equation. The fact is that power grids create more power than they need at certain times; this creates the need for batteries; see here:

That’s the first reason we need batteries on the electrical grid: to even out the supply-and-demand, to time-shift the availability of power from nighttime to daytime.

But reason number two is even more important to our future: Power-plant batteries would eliminate the biggest problem with solar power and wind power, which is that they are both intermittent. “Clouds come over on a sunny day and, all of a sudden, it’s gone,” said Hopkins. “Wind stops blowing, all of a sudden, it’s gone. You need a way to store it.”

See full story in the VIDEO here:

Many experts in electricity are truly JUICED these days. They’re pursuing the “Search For The Super Battery” — the title of this Wednesday night’s [(February 1, 2017)] episode of “Nova” on PBS, hosted by our own David Pogue of Yahoo Tech.  Here is a preview:

VIDEO – Making a better battery – http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/engineers-attempt-to-create-better-batteries

The science is progressing …

… green options are emerging; (green refers to natural, non-chemical solutions). According to the foregoing, green options  for storing energy include:

  • Gravity
  • Melting Ice
  • Magnetic Levitation

CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - Green Batteries - Photo 1

We need to consider these options in the Caribbean. In our region, energy costs are among the highest in the world. The book Go Lean… Caribbean relates (Page 100) how the Caribbean has among the most expensive energy costs in the world, despite having abundant alternative energy natural resources (solar, wind, tidal, geo-thermal). The Caribbean eco-system focuses on imported petroleum to provide energy options and as a result retail electricity rates in the Caribbean average US$0.35/kWh, when instead it could be down to US$0.088/kWh. A previous blog-commentary identified the societal defect that drives the regional governance for energy generation: rent-seeking. The local authorities depend on the fuel tax revenues to finance government operations. But alas, change is coming! The momentum for this change is big and getting bigger.

With such a 75% savings, we need the foregoing process: Monkey see, monkey feel, monkey do.

There is definitely the need to adapt some of the scientific best practices for energy generation and consumption. In a previous blog-commentary, it was confessed that one of the reasons why people flee the Caribbean region, is the discomforts during the summer months; (the Caribbean region has 8 – 10 warm months of the year) …

… hot weather, and the lack of infrastructure to mitigate and remediate the discomfort, is identified as one of the reasons for the brain drain/societal abandonment. (This previous blog-commentary appealed for cooperative refrigeration). If only we can turn on the air-conditioner – if we can afford the energy cost –  there would be the need to keep it running most of the time.

Many people find the current lack of energy options unbearable to live in their Caribbean ancestral homeland and thusly flee the region for North American and European destinations. The numbers are bad! We reported a 70 percent brain drain rate among the tertiary educated populations. (These are the ones who can best afford to leave; but the community can least afford to lose them).

Energy needs are undeniable 24-7-365; all the time. There is the need to deliver energy all of these times.

The delivery or fulfillment of these needs is a great target for lean, agile operations. Efficiency and technocratic executions will save a lot of money for the people and institutions of the Caribbean. But fossil fuels should not be the solution for the Caribbean.

  • First, with so many small islands, we do not have much natural resources.
  • Secondly, and most important, there is the matter of burning fossil fuels (oil, coal, wood pulp) and contributing to global warming and Climate Change.

The Go Lean book posits that the embrace of alternative energy generation sources to be more impactful on the quest to minimize the threats on the environment. Early in the book, the pressing need to be aware of Climate Change is pronounced in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 11), with these words, (the first of many “causes of complaints”):

i. Whereas the earth’s climate has undeniably changed resulting in more severe tropical weather storms, it is necessary to prepare to insure the safety and security of life, property and systems of commerce in our geographical region. As nature recognizes no borders in the target of its destruction, we also must set aside border considerations in the preparation and response to these weather challenges.

With the innovative offering of Green Batteries, the quest to adapt to more clean/green energy options can be practical and more cost effective. Power generation from the sun or wind (free & renewable sources) is far cheaper that generation based on fossil fuels.

The book Go Lean… Caribbean serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This roadmap has 3 prime directives:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion GDP and create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

This Go Lean/CU roadmap details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to be early adopters of cutting-edge energy solutions, like Green Battery systems. The following list applies:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Harness the power of the sun/winds Page 46
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 82
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Energy Commission Page 82
Anecdote – “Lean” in Government – Energy Permits Page 93
Anecdote – Caribbean Energy Grid Implementation Page 100
Implementation – Ways to Develop Pipeline Industry Page 107
Implementation – Ways to Improve Energy Usage Page 113
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Public Works Page 175
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Monopolies Page 202

The Go Lean movement (book and blogs) asserts that we should fully embrace Green Energy solutions; its not a want, but a need for the region. This need had been further elaborated upon in these previous blog/commentaries:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7056 Electric Cars: ‘Necessity is the Mother of Invention’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6016 Hotter than July – A case for ‘Cooperative Refrigeration’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5155 Tesla unveils super-battery to power homes
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4897 US Backs Natural Gas (LNG) Distribution Base in Jamaica
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4294 Ambassadors to Caribbean discuss PetroCaribe-Energy, Security
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2465 Book Review: ‘This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2338 Lessons: How Best to Welcome the Dreaded American ‘Plutocracy’
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=926 Conservative heavyweights have solar industry in their ‘kill’ sights
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=915 Go ‘Green’ … Caribbean

A focus of the Go Lean book is the economics of the Caribbean region. But the issues presented in this commentary – and the entire 4-part series – relate to Home Economics. Home Economics is an old field of study. At one point, this was a course in school systems for all levels, K through 12 and even in college curricula. The purpose of the formal “Home-Ec” education was to teach best practices in efficiency and effectiveness for  basic needs. Students learned more about food (cooking & nutrition), clothing (sewing & textiles) and housing (decorating, draperies and upholstery). Home-Ec lessons highlighted the technology of the day (before the 1980’s). Go back and re-visit those schools; the disposition will be that all those programs have been replaced with courses in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - Green Batteries - Photo 2

CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - Green Batteries - Photo 3

The Green Battery is an example of science guiding the future of the delivery of basic needs, in this case energy needs. Science is improving the delivery of all basic needs, all means of sustenance. There are many mountainous islands in the Caribbean; anyone of them can be a great candidate for the “pumped hydro” solution in the foregoing VIDEO. This will call for installing a dam and two reservoirs. During the periods when energy is abundant – mid day from solar panels – the water can be pumped uphill, then during the “off” times the water would flow downhill, using gravity to spin turbines and generate electricity.

CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - Green Batteries - Photo 8

CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - Green Batteries - Photo 5

CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - Green Batteries - Photo 4

CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - Green Batteries - Photo 7

Also consider that with the Caribbean hot-hot-hot summers, there is no doubt there is a need for air-conditioning. The energy hogging of the air-conditioning process is the compression to make refrigerated air. The approach in the foregoing VIDEO of making ice when energy is abundant – mid day from solar panels – then blowing the air from the “melting ice” is a technocratic solution – the simple science is depicted in these photos above. A solution based on this science – see sample product in photo below – can be deployed anywhere, everywhere.

CU Blog - Science of Sustenance - Green Batteries - Photo 6

These Green Battery deployments would be examples of the lean, agile operations, designed for the CU technocracy.

This and other innovations, once executed, would make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people, business, institutions and governments, to lean-in for the innovations and optimizations of the Go Lean roadmap. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

 

Share this post:
, , ,
[Top]

Hurricane Categories – The Science

Posted on October 7, 2016 in Government, Implementation

Go Lean Commentary

Category 5 …

… that term has become one of the most dreaded phases in modern times in the Western Hemisphere, and especially in the Caribbean.

A Category 5 Hurricane – with its maximum sustained winds in excess of 156 miles per hour – is the Sum of All of Our Fears and a Clear & Present Danger. (See the full list of their historicity in the Appendix below). The most powerful one on record featured 215 mph winds – Hurricane Patricia – was just recently in October 2015 off the coast of Mexico.

Hurricanes – tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean and Eastern Pacific Ocean – are the exclusive brand for the Northern Hemisphere. Considering the rotation of the earth, the majority travel East to West, from Africa over to North America. That’s the majority; but the minority is nothing to ignore either.  These can start in the Caribbean Sea or the Gulf of Mexico and travel at will: north, south, east, or west.

Welcome to our Caribbean, the greatest address on the planet!

Hurricanes are our reality. A hurricane is a meteorological phenomena that cannot be ignored; its science is a marvel.

Hurricanes are scientifically measured by the Saffir–Simpson scale. This scale was developed in 1971 by civil engineer Herbert Saffir and meteorologist Robert Simpson, who at the time was director of the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC).[1] The scale was introduced to the general public in 1973,[2] and saw widespread use after a new Director Neil Frank replaced Mr. Simpson in 1974 at the helm of the NHC, as a tribute to Mr. Simpson.[3]

See full details on this hurricane scale here:

Title: Saffir–Simpson Scale
The Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale, formerly the Saffir–Simpson hurricane scale (SSHS), classifies hurricanes –Western Hemisphere tropical cyclones that exceed the intensities of tropical depressions, and tropical storms – into five categories distinguished by the intensities of their sustained winds. To be classified as a hurricane,  a tropical cyclone must have maximum sustained winds of:

  • 74–95 mph –  Category 1.

cu-blog-hurricane-categories-the-science-photo-1

  • 96–110 mph – Category 2.

cu-blog-hurricane-categories-the-science-photo-2

  • 111–129 mph – Category 3.

cu-blog-hurricane-categories-the-science-photo-3

  • 130–156 mph – Category 4.

cu-blog-hurricane-categories-the-science-photo-4

  • ≥ 157 mph – Category 5.

cu-blog-hurricane-categories-the-science-photo-5
So the highest classification in the scale, Category 5, is reserved for storms with winds exceeding 156 mph (70 m/s; 136 kn; 251 km/h). [There have been a number of these since 1924. See full list in the Appendix below].

The classifications can provide some indication of the potential damage and flooding a hurricane will cause upon landfall.

Officially, the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale is used only to describe hurricanes forming in the Atlantic Ocean and northern Pacific Ocean east of the International Date Line. Other areas use different scales to label these storms, which are called “cyclones” or “typhoons“, depending on the area.

There is some criticism of the SSHS for not taking rain, storm surge, and other important factors into consideration, but SSHS defenders say that part of the goal of SSHS is to be straightforward and simple to understand.
Source: Wikipedia Online Reference – Retrieved October 7, 2016 from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffir%E2%80%93Simpson_scale

We are thankful to these two pioneering scientists, Mr. Saffir and Mr. Simpson; they lived full and impactful lives – R.I.P..

Mr. Simpson died on December 18, 2014 at age 102.

Mr. Saffir died on November 21, 2007 at age 90.

These scientists have given us the numbers 1 through 5 to indicate an extent of our misery. But misery is more than just a number. Misery is an experience; an unpleasant one. See here the VIDEO visually depicting damage along the Saffir-Simpson scale:

VIDEO – Why Hurricane Categories Make a Difference – https://youtu.be/lqfExHpvLRY

Published on Aug 8, 2013 – During a hurricane you usually hear meteorologists refer to its intensity by categories. If you don’t know the difference between a category 1 and a category 5 hurricane, The Weather Channel meteorologist Mark Elliot breaks it down for you.

Hurricanes are reminders that “Crap Happens“. They affect the everyday life for everyday people. This discussion is presented in conjunction with the book Go Lean … Caribbean. It addresses the challenges facing life in the Caribbean and then presents strategies, tactics and implementations for optimizing the regional community.

Hurricanes are a product of ‘Mother Nature’ – natural disasters – but communities can be more efficient and effective in mitigating the risks associated with these natural disasters (hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, forest fires, etc.). In addition, there are bacterial & viral pandemics. Lastly, there are industrial incidents (chemical & oil spills) and other man-made disasters: i.e. terrorism-related events.

The Go Lean book asserts that bad things (and bad actors), like hurricanes, will always emerge to disrupt the peace and harmony in communities. Crap Happens … therefore all Caribbean member-states need to be “on guard” and prepared for this possibility. The Go Lean book (Page 23) prepares the Caribbean for many modes of “bad things/actors” with proactive and reactive mitigations. This point is pronounced early in the book with the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 12) that claims:

i. Whereas the earth’s climate has undeniably changed resulting in more severe tropical weather storms, it is necessary to prepare to insure the safety and security of life, property and systems of commerce in our geographical region. As nature recognizes no borders in the target of its destruction, we also must set aside border considerations in the preparation and response to these weather challenges.

ii. Whereas the natural formation of the landmass for our lands constitutes some extreme seismic activity, it is our responsibility and ours alone to provide, protect and promote our society to coexist, prepare and recover from the realities of nature’s occurrences.

x. Whereas we are surrounded and allied to nations of larger proportions in land mass, populations, and treasuries, elements in their societies may have ill-intent in their pursuits, at the expense of the safety and security of our citizens. We must therefore appoint “new guards” to ensure our public safety and threats against our society, both domestic and foreign. The Federation must employ the latest advances and best practices … to assuage continuous threats against public safety.

xii. Whereas the legacy in recent times in individual states may be that of ineffectual governance with no redress to higher authority, the accedence of this Federation will ensure accountability and escalation of the human and civil rights of the people for good governance, justice assurances, due process and the rule of law. As such, any threats of a “failed state” status for any member state must enact emergency measures on behalf of the Federation to protect the human, civil and property rights of the citizens, residents, allies, trading partners, and visitors of the affected member state and the Federation as a whole.

xvi. Whereas security of our homeland is inextricably linked to prosperity of the homeland, the economic and security interest of the region needs to be aligned under the same governance. Since economic crimes, including piracy and other forms of terrorism, can imperil the functioning of the wheels of commerce for all the citizenry, the accedence of this Federation must equip the security apparatus with the tools and techniques for predictive and proactive interdictions.

So the Go Lean book relates that the Caribbean must appoint “new guards”, or a security apparatus, to ensure public safety and to include many strategies, tactics and implementations considered “best-practices” for Emergency Management (Preparation and Response). We must be on a constant vigil against these “bad actors”, man-made or natural. The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU).

The Go Lean/CU roadmap has a focus of optimizing Caribbean society through economic empowerment, and homeland security. Emergency preparedness and response is paramount for this quest. In fact, the Go Lean roadmap has the following 3 prime directives:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus – a new guard – to protect the resultant economic engines and the Caribbean homeland.
  • Improvement of Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The CU would serve as the “new guard“, a promoter and facilitator of all the Emergency Management agencies in the region. The strategy is to provide a Unified Command and Control for emergency operations to share, leverage and collaborate the “art and science” of this practice across the whole region.

The regional vision is that all Caribbean member-states empower a CU Homeland Security force to execute a limited scope on their sovereign territories. The legal basis for this empowerment is a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA), embedded in the CU treaty from Step One/Day One. The CU Trade Federation would lead, fund and facilitate the Emergency Management functionality under the oversight of a regionally elected Commander-in-Chief for the CU.

As cited above, the Caribbean is the “greatest address on the planet”, but there is risk associated with living deep in a tropical zone. With the reality of Climate Change, we must not be caught unprepared.

In our immediate past, the Caribbean region has failed at the need for readiness and response. We have even failed to properly coordinate the “cry for help” and the collection of international-charitable support. We have suffered dire consequences as a result: loss of life, damage to property, disruption to economic systems, corruption … and abandonment. Many of our citizens have fled their Caribbean homeland, as a result, after each natural disaster. We have even created Ghost Towns.

We want something better, something more. We want our people to prosper where they are planted in the Caribbean. So as a community, we must provide assurances. No assurance that there will be no hurricanes, but rather the assurance that we can respond, recover, repair and rebuild:

“Yes, we can … “.

The Go Lean book details the series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to provide the proactive and reactive public safety/security in the Caribbean region:

Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in Future Page 21
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens Page 23
Community Ethos – Cooperatives Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Improve Sharing Page 35
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Happiness Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Confederating a non-sovereign permanent union Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Climate Change Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – How to Grow the Economy – Recover from Disasters Page 70
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Homeland Security Department Page 75
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Emergency Management Agency Page 76
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Meteorological and Geological Service Page 79
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change Page 101
Implementation – Start-up Homeland Security Initiatives Page 103
Implementation – Ways to Re-boot Freeport Page 112
Implementation – Ways to Foster International Aid Page 115
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – #3: Consolidated Homeland Security Pact Page 130
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better Page 131
Planning – Ways to Improve Failed-State Indices – Escalation Role Page 134
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy – Quick Disaster Recovery Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Governance Page 168
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract Page 170
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Homeland Security Page 180
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Intelligence Gathering & Analysis Page 182
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Natural Disasters Page 184
Advocacy – Ways to Improve for Emergency Management Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Wall Street – Adopt Advanced Recovery Products Page 200

Other subjects related to Emergency Management, Homeland Security and governing empowerments for the region have been blogged in other Go Lean…Caribbean commentaries, as sampled here:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9070 Securing the Homeland – From the Seas
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=9038 Doing Better with Charity Management
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7896 The Logistics of Disaster Relief
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7449 The Art and Science of Emergency Management
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7327 Zika – An Epidemiology Crisis – A 4-Letter Word
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7235 Flint, Michigan – A Cautionary Tale
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6893 A Meteorologist’s View On Climate Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6563 Lessons from Iceland – Model of Recovery
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6189 A Lesson in History – Hurricane ‘Katrina’ is helping today’s crises
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4741 Vanuatu and Tuvalu Cyclone – Inadequate response to human suffering
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2614 The ‘Great ShakeOut’ Earthquake Drill / Planning / Preparations
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2397 Stopping a Clear and Present Danger: Ebola
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=1817 Caribbean grapples with intense new cycles of flooding & drought

The Caribbean is on the frontline of this battle: man versus Climate Change. While we are not the only ones, we have to be accountable and responsible for our own people and property. The book Go Lean…Caribbean posits that this “Agent of Change” is too big for just any one member-state to tackle alone, that there must be a regional solution; and presents this roadmap.

Climate Change has produced winners (consider northern cities with milder than normal winters) and losers. The Caribbean has found itself on the losing side. This means life-and-death for the people and the economic engines of the Caribbean communities.

While hurricanes are our reality, there is a science to these meteorological phenomena, and an art to our response. We can plan, monitor, alert, prepare and recover. We can do it better than in the recent past. We can provide assurances that “no stone” will be unturned in protecting people, property and systems of commerce. The watching world – our trading partners – needs this assurance!

The people and institutions of the region are therefore urged to lean-in to this Go Lean roadmap to make the Caribbean a better, safer, place to live, work and play. This plan is conceivable, believable and achievable. Yes, we can. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————–

Appendix – List of Category 5 Atlantic Hurricanes

Storm
name

Season

Dates as a
Category 5

Time as a
Category 5 (hours)

Peak one-minute
sustained winds

Pressure

mph

km/h

hPa

inHg
Matthew 2016 September 30 – October 1 6 160 260

934

27.58
Felix 2007 September 3–4† 24 175 280

929

27.43
Dean 2007 August 18–21† 24 175 280

905

26.72
Wilma 2005 October 19 18 185 295

882

26.05
Rita 2005 September 21–22 24 180 285

895

26.43
Katrina 2005 August 28–29 18 175 280

902

26.64
Emily 2005 July 16 6 160 260

929

27.43
Ivan 2004 September 9–14† 60 165 270

910

26.87
Isabel 2003 September 11–14† 42 165 270

915

27.02
Mitch 1998 October 26–28 42 180 285

905

26.72
Andrew 1992 August 23–24† 16 175 280

922

27.23
Hugo 1989 September 15 6 160 260

918

27.11
Gilbert 1988 September 13–14 24 185 295

888

26.22
Allen 1980 August 5–9† 72 190 305

899

26.55
David 1979 August 30–31 42 175 280

924

27.29
Anita 1977 September 2 12 175 280

926

27.34
Edith 1971 September 9 6 160 260

943

27.85
Camille 1969 August 16–18† 30 175 280

900

26.58
Beulah 1967 September 20 18 160 260

923

27.26
Hattie 1961 October 30–31 18 160 260

920

27.17
Carla 1961 September 11 18 175 280

931

27.49
Janet 1955 September 27–28 18 175 280

914

27.0
Carol 1953 September 3 12 160 260

929

27.43
“New England” 1938 September 19–20 18 160 260

940

27.76
“Labor Day” 1935 September 3 18 185 295

892

26.34
“Tampico” 1933 September 21 12 160 260

929

27.43
“Cuba–Brownsville” 1933 August 30 12 160 260

930

27.46
“Cuba” 1932 November 5–8 78 175 280

915

27.02
“Bahamas” 1932 September 5–6 24 160 260

921

27.20
San Felipe II-“Okeechobee” 1928 September 13–14 12 160 260

929

27.43
“Cuba” 1924 October 19 12 165 270

910

26.87
Reference=[1] †= Attained Category 5 status more than once

Source: Retrieved October 7, 2016 from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Category_5_Atlantic_hurricanes

Share this post:
, , , ,
[Top]

Zika’s Drug Breakthrough

Posted on September 5, 2016 in Economics, Ethos, Social

Go Lean Commentary:

As related previously, the Zika virus is proving to be a real “4-Letter” word. Many repercussions have emerged in all aspects of societal life: economics, security and governance. The virus first activated in Brazil, then in the Caribbean. Now, there are reported incidences in Florida.

Bienvenido a Miami!

Now the best practice for Public Health officials is to dissuade pregnant women – and all hoping to someday get pregnant – from traveling to Latin America and the Caribbean…

… and now Miami and other Florida destinations.

Considering the economic consequences (tourism), is there any surprise that there is a breakthrough in drug treatment for Zika, and what’s more that this breakthrough is emerging from Florida. This aligns with a previous commentary, that only at the precipice …

Consider this article here of the medical breakthrough:

Title: FSU research team makes Zika drug breakthrough
By: Kathleen Haughney

CU Blog - Zika Drug Breakthrough - Photo 1A team of researchers from Florida State University, Johns Hopkins University and the National Institutes of Health has found existing drug compounds that can both stop Zika from replicating in the body and from damaging the crucial fetal brain cells that lead to birth defects in newborns.

One of the drugs is already on the market as a treatment for tapeworm.

“We focused on compounds that have the shortest path to clinical use,” said FSU Professor of Biological Science Hengli Tang. “This is a first step toward a therapeutic that can stop transmission of this disease.”

Tang, along with Johns Hopkins Professors Guo-Li Ming and Hongjun Song and National Institutes of Health scientist Wei Zheng identified two different groups of compounds that could  potentially be used to treat Zika — one that stops the virus from replicating and the other that stops the virus from killing fetal brain cells, also called neuroprogenitor cells.

One of the identified compounds is the basis for a drug called Nicolsamide, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved drug that showed no danger to pregnant women in animal studies. It is commonly used to treat tapeworm.

This could theoretically be prescribed by a doctor today, though tests are still needed to determine a specific treatment regimen for the infection.

Their work is outlined in an article published Monday by Nature Medicine.

Though the Zika virus was discovered in 1947, there was little known about how it worked and its potential health implications — especially among pregnant women — until an outbreak occurred in South America last year. In the United States, there have been 584 cases of pregnant women contracting Zika, though most of those are travel related. As of Friday, there have been 42 locally transmitted cases in Florida.

The virus, among other diseases, can cause microcephaly in fetuses leading them to be born with severe birth defects.

“It’s so dramatic and irreversible,” Tang said. “The probability of Zika-induced microcephaly occurring doesn’t appear to be that high, but when it does, the damage is horrible.”

Researchers around the world have been feverishly working to better understand the disease — which can be transmitted both by mosquito bite and through a sexual partner — and also to develop medical treatments.

Tang, Ming and Song first met in graduate school 20 years ago and got in contact in January because Tang, a virologist, had access to the virus and Ming and Song, neurologists, had cortical stem cells that scientists needed for testing.

The group worked at a breakneck pace with researchers from Ming and Song’s lab, traveling back and forth between Baltimore and Tang’s lab in Tallahassee where they had infected the cells with the virus.

In early March, the group was the first team to show that Zika indeed caused cellular phenotypes consistent with microcephaly, a severe birth defect where babies are born with a much smaller head and brain than normal.

They immediately delved into follow-up work and teamed with NIH’s Zheng, an expert on drug compounds, to find potential treatments for the disease.

Researchers screened 6,000 compounds that were either already approved by the FDA or were in the process of a clinical trial because they could be made more quickly available to people infected by Zika.

“It takes years if not decades to develop a new drug,” Song said. “In this sort of global health emergency, we don’t have time. So instead of using new drugs, we chose to screen existing drugs. In this way, we hope to create a therapy much more quickly.”

All of the researchers are continuing the work on the compounds and hope to begin testing the drugs on animals infected with Zika in the near future.

The research was supported by the National Institutes of Health, FloridaStateUniversity, EmoryUniversity and the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund.

Other institutions contributing to the research are the Zhejiang University School of Medicine in China, Emory University and the Icahn School of Medicine. Emily Lee, a Florida State University graduate student working with Tang, shared the first authorship position with Assistant Professor of Biology at Emory Zhexing Wen and NIH scientist Miao Xu.
Source: Florida State University Press Release – Posted August 29, 2016; retrieved September 3, 2016 from: http://news.fsu.edu/news/science-technology/2016/08/29/fsu-research-team-makes-zika-drug-breakthrough/

—————-

VIDEO – FSU research team makes Zika drug breakthrough – https://youtu.be/E8lfY07yWqY

Published on Aug 29, 2016 – A Florida State, Johns Hopkins and NIH team of researchers has identified existing drug compounds that can both stop Zika from replicating in the body and from damaging crucial fetal brain cells that lead to birth defects in newborns.

—————-

AUDIO – Florida State University SoundCloud – https://soundcloud.com/floridastateuniversity/fsu-researchers-make-zika-drug-breakthrough

FSU researchers make Zika drug breakthrough

Somehow, when it comes to Zika and tourism, there seems to always be some inconvenient truths. This is not the first time, inconvenient truths have emerged with this pandemic; and it will not be surprising if this is not the last time.

The book Go Lean…Caribbean relates that there are economic and security consequences tied to public health crises. It relates the bitter experiences of cancer and the quest to optimize the treatment options for Caribbean citizens. As demonstrated by cancer, and now Zika, health crises bring a lot of governmental complications.

The book does not purport to be a roadmap for public health, but rather a roadmap for elevating Caribbean society by optimizing the economic, security and governing engines in the region. Yet, within this roadmap is the strategy to incentivize medical research and facilitate treatment options and workable solutions. In fact this roadmap invites the community spirit to encourage research and development (R&D), and to invite role models like Professor Hengli Tang and the medical research team at the university in the foregoing story.

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the implementation and introduction of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU‘s prime directives are identified with the following 3 statements:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the economic engines, including the monitoring and response of epidemiological threats.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines, including a separation-of-powers between CU agencies and member-states.

One feature of the Go Lean roadmap is the emphasis on community ethos. The book explains, that the Caribbean communities must adopt a fundamental spirit, an underlying sentiment, that would inform the beliefs, customs, and practices to embrace research and development. A community ethos for R&D must be purposeful; we cannot accidentally fall into it..

Another feature of the Go Lean roadmap is the adoption of Self-Governing Entities (SGE). These are to be featured as dedicated, bordered grounds that are ideal for medical research and treatment campuses. SGE requires a hybrid governance involving the CU federal agencies and local administrators – at the start-up.

The Go Lean roadmap clearly relates that healthcare and pharmaceutical drug research are important in the quest to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work and play. At the outset of the Go Lean book, in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 11), these points are pronounced as essential for the Caribbean:

viii.   Whereas the population size is too small to foster good negotiations for products and commodities from international vendors, the Federation must allow the unification of the region as one purchasing agent, thereby garnering better terms and discounts.

ix. Whereas the realities of healthcare and an aging population cannot be ignored and cannot be afforded without some advanced mitigation, the Federation must arrange for health plans to consolidate premiums of both healthy and sickly people across the wider base of the entire Caribbean population. The mitigation should extend further to disease management, wellness, obesity and smoking cessation programs.

Previous blog/commentaries addressed issues related to medical research and drug research & practices, sampled here:

Doing More for Cancer – Philanthropist-Billionaire invest in R&D
Capitalism of Drug Patents – Pricing Dysfunctions
The Cost of Cancer Drugs
Antibiotics Misuse Linked to Obesity in the US
CHOP Research: Climate Change May Bring More Kidney Stones
Welcoming Innovators and Entrepreneurs under an SGE Structure
Medical Research Associates Kidney Stones and Climate Change – Innovative!
New Research and New Hope in the Fight against Alzheimer’s Disease
Research in Diabetes Detection – Novartis and Google develop ‘smart’ contact lens
New Cuban Cancer medication registered in 28 countries
Puerto Rico’s Comprehensive Cancer Center Project Breaks Ground – Model of Medical SGE

Kudos to the research team at Florida State University; they have responded at a time of crisis for the State of Florida – the only American State with live Zika mosquitoes – and have forged a solution. This is a fine lesson for the Caribbean to learn …

… Zika is a crisis, and a “crisis would be a terrible thing to waste”.

One local community, Wynwood, in Miami is ground-zero for the Zika battleground. Their current disposition is that business output in the affected areas has been retarded. As related in this article, this summer season has been slower than normal – the peak time is in the winter months:

Zika changes a way of life in Wynwood

After more than 15 local cases of the Zika virus in Wynwood — the first instance of the virus spreading within continental U.S. borders — the artsy district quickly became “ground zero” for the exotic illness.

“It’s definitely slowed down business considerably,” an employee at Fireman Derek’s Bake Shop said Sunday morning. “Usually we do really good on weekends, but today it’s been super slow.”

…

Source: Retrieved September 5, 2016 from: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/health-care/article94223717.html

CU Blog - Zika Drug Breakthrough - Photo 2

————–

VIDEO – Wynwood baker’s newest creation — shrine to Zika – http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article93717707.html

After all of the news of Zika cases in the neighborhood near his Wynood business slowed down his walk-in business, Zak the Baker, decided to make a new creation — a shrine to Zika. The light-hearted shrine was made to make people smile and not take things – Emily Michot emichot@miamihereald.com

The foregoing news article and VIDEO-AUDIO productions provide an inside glimpse into the medical research discipline. Obviously, the motivation of the medical research is to protect the economic engines of the Florida economy. The State was at the “precipice and only then, has the needed empowerment” emerged.

The Go Lean roadmap posits that more R&D is needed in the Caribbean too. We need the community ethos to prioritize and encourage careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics/medicine (STEM). We have a Zika problem in the Caribbean region too. We need innovations too. We need R&D at our educational institutions and SGE campuses.

This is an issue of economics, security and governance…

… and this is a familiar drama:

  • Ebola – While not an American problem, when American citizens become afflicted in 2014, the US response was inspiringly genius, deploying a potential cure within a week.
  • SARS – During the “heyday” of the SARS crisis, travel and transport to Hong Kong virtually came to a grinding halt! Hong Kong had previously enjoyed up to 14 million visitors annually; they were a gateway to the world. The SARS epidemic became a pandemic because of this status. Within weeks of the outbreak, SARS had spread from Hong Kong to infect individuals in 37 countries in early 2003.s

The CU has the prime directive of optimizing the economic, security and governing engines of the Caribbean region. The foregoing article and VIDEO-AUDIO productions depict that research is very important to new medical innovations and break-throughs. This is the manifestation and benefits of Research & Development (R&D). The book describes this focus as a community ethos and promotes R&D as valuable for the region. The following list details additional ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to optimize the region’s health deliveries and R&D investments:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices and Incentives Page 21
Community Ethos – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Return on Investments Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Cooperatives Page 25
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development (R&D) Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Integrate and unify region in a Single Market Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Health Department Page 86
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Drug Administration Page 87
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Implement Self-Government Entities – R&D Campuses Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Planning –  Ways to Improve Trade Page 128
Planning –  Ways to Make the Caribbean Better Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Healthcare Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract Page 170
Advocacy – Ways Foster Cooperatives Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Enhance Tourism Page 190
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Cruise Tourism Page 193
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Foundations Page 219
Appendix – Emergency Management – Medical Trauma Centers Page 336

The Go Lean roadmap does not purport to be an authority on medical research best practices. This economic-security-governance empowerment plan should not direct the course of direction for epidemiology or pharmacological research and/or treatment. But this war against Zika has dire consequences for tourism-based economies – this descriptor fits most of the Caribbean. So we must pay more than the usual attention to the issue. And we must incentivize those with the passion … and genius to make an impact in this area.

The champions for this issue in the Caribbean might come down to the contributions of just a few people, or maybe just one. This is the reality of genius qualifiers. Not everyone can do it. So those who cannot, need to step aside and not abate those that can. Epidemiology or pharmacological research & development is no time for egalitarianism.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the empowerments in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This is a Big Idea for the region, one where SGE’s, R&D and geniuses can soar. We can make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, heal and play. 🙂

Download the free e-Book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

 

Share this post:
, , , ,
[Top]

Now it’s Detroit’s turn to rescue Silicon Valley

Posted on August 14, 2016 in Economics, Government, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

“I see dead people.” – Movie quote from The Sixth Sense (1999); see Appendix VIDEO below.

This is what Detroit is saying to Silicon Valley: “they see dead people” along the road of development for the autonomous vehicle (AV). Automobile accidents are one of the leading causes of death in most countries, therefore developing cars that drive themselves and interact with real world conditions on real streets is bound to have some mishaps/fatalities along the way.

CU Blog - Now it's Detroit's turn to rescue Silicon Valley - Photo 2

CU Blog - Now it's Detroit's turn to rescue Silicon Valley - Photo 4

Detroit: “Been there, done that!”

This consideration is in line with the book Go Lean… Caribbean; it serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). One of the features of the Go Lean/CU roadmap is the development of an automotive industry for the Caribbean region. Of course the reference here to Detroit is a metonym; so too the reference to Silicon Valley. Other metonym references were defined in a previous Go Lean blog-commentary, which detailed these ones in the book:

  • Detroit – Page 206 – American Automakers Planning/Design
  • Silicon Valley – Page 30 – AmericanHighTechCenter
  • Wall Street – Page 155 – Big Banks/Financial Center
  • Hollywood – Page 203 – US Movie/TV/Media Producers

The issue now is the risk associated with road traffic. Detroit has been there before. They were the Silicon Valley of the early 20th Century, as regards innovation for the automotive industry. Detroit has competence for this industry. Today, Silicon Valley wants inroads in the automotive industry. They need to tap Detroit’s legacy and insights. See the related article here:

Title: Now it’s Detroit’s turn to rescue Silicon Valley

CU Blog - Now it's Detroit's turn to rescue Silicon Valley - Photo 1
Five years ago, when the U.S. auto industry was just beginning to recover from the Great Recession, there was widespread speculation that the old model of the car business was broken, and that only the new economy could come to the rescue.

And with good reason. The U.S. auto market had cratered, plunging from a peak of over 17 million to a devastated 10 million in yearly sales.

Both General Motors and Chrysler had been bailed out by the federal government and gone bankrupt. Ford saw its stock price fall to less than $2 a share. Gas had spiked to over $4 a gallon in some parts of country. Credit, the lifeblood of the car business, had been wiped out.

Meanwhile, Apple was on a path to become the world’s most valuable company. Facebook was tasking over the media landscape. And Tesla, after suffering a brush with financial death in 2009, looked like the most innovative company of four wheels.

Silicon Valley and California in general was suddenly filled with new and futuristic ideas about transportation, from Google driverless cars to numerous electric-car startups. Detroit, by contrast, was lurching toward the largest municipal bankruptcy in U.S. history (it would come in 2013), and its great automakers looked to be crippled dinosaurs, completely out of step with the times.

The U.S. auto industry was a problem to be solved, and Silicon Valley specialized in solutions.

A doomed industry?
“The automobile industry is in the middle of a fundamental transformation,” wrote in 2009. “There is a lot of information available on how companies have dealt with major changes in their business environments, but little is known about the transformation of entire industries.”

“History shows that most companies do not deal well with transformation.” he continued. “One reason has to do with senior managers. They usually ‘don’t get it.’ They have a difficult time accepting that the future will be vastly different from the present because they rose to power in the old business environment. They excelled in the old environment and didn’t acquire skills necessary to operate in the new.”

Fast forward to 2016 and the senior mangers in Detroit that Grove worried about have deepened their engagement with Silicon Valley and the technology industry to an unprecedented degree. General Motors already had a venture-capital arm before it invested $500 million in Lyft and bought Cruise Automation for its innovative self-driving tech.

Ford had such a solid connection with Microsoft that outgoing CEO Alan Mulally was discussed as a successor to Steve Ballmer, earlier this year. Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has teamed up with Google to create driverless minivans. And all the automakers have a Silicon Valley presence, which enables them to scout emerging technologies and act on them quickly.

An auto sales boom in the U.S. that started in 2013 and set a record in 2016 with 17.5 million new cars and trucks delivered has fueled Detroit’s engagement, as has the broad realization among the car maker’s executive teams that this is their opportunity to disrupt themselves and profit from the experience. Cheap gas, an improving employment picture, and ample credit means that Detroit is selling pickups and SUVs and raking in cash. The game plan is to take some of those winnings and send them in search of rapid innovations that Motown can’t create on its own.

Not-so-smooth sailing
At the same time, Silicon Valley has started to encounter some investor turbulence. Startups with hefty valuations don’t see IPOs as a way to pay back their investors. That leaves getting acquired as an option, but a level of saturation with social networking and apps might have set in.

The Detroit automakers aren’t in the market for messaging apps, but they are looking for technologies that can future-proof them, or advance the process of making cars smarter. In conversations with people in the auto industry, there’s a sense that the tech sector has begun to figure out that Motown has money and wants to spend it.

The signals from the top are also strong. “We’re going to disrupt ourselves, and we are disrupting ourselves, so we’re not trying to preserve a model of yesterday,” . “And when you think of the assets the company has — the scale, the control of the vehicle platform, the ability with embedded connectivity, the knowledge we have of just every aspect of the vehicle and how we’re putting it together now — I think there’s a lot of plus signs, and we can lead.”

That attitude was echoed by Ford CEO Mark Fields, who BI also interviewed. “It’s a very exciting time at Ford, because we are transitioning from an auto company to an auto and a mobility company,” he said. “Mobility for us, at the very simplest level, is to allow people to live, play, and work where they want. How do we help enable them to get around to do that? And there’s a lot of talk around technology companies disrupting the auto industry. Our approach is very simple: We’re disrupting ourselves.”

Birds of a feather
So how did this reversal come about? Even if Detroit isn’t really in a position to rescue Silicon Valley — Silicon valley doesn’t really need to be rescued — then why is the dinosaur now so enthusiastic about participating in its own disruption?

Simple: Detroit was the Silicon Valley of the early 20th century, a hotbed of entrepreneurship, fascinated with the most high-tech contraption of the time — the automobile. True, over the decades the culture of the auto industry has become stratified and bureaucratic, but despite that, the car itself has been steadily improved. Detroit has never backed off from technology, and the engineers and executives who have chosen to work for Ford or GM are still excited about new stuff.

When they look at Silicon Valley, they see a place ruled by engineers, a contemporary version of Detroit’s own origin story.  And that’s why Silicon Valley and Detroit’s newfound mutual admiration could be the beginning of a long and beautiful friendship that stretches from the Bay Area to the banks of the Detroit River.
Source: Microsoft Network (MSN) Technology Column – Retrieved 08-14-2016 from: http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/now-its-detroits-turn-to-rescue-silicon-valley/ar-BBvrK0K?li=BBnbfcN&ocid=1PRCMSE

VIDEO – Inside Silicon Valley’s secretive test track for self-driving cars – https://youtu.be/xILioJ7ZfQU

Published on Jun 2, 2016 – A former military weapons depot is now a track where companies can test their autonomous cars in private​. The media has never set foot in the guarded GoMentum Station, until now. The track is not only attracting the attention of automakers like Mercedes and Honda, but also tech companies like Google and Apple. CNET’s Brian Cooley shows us how Honda is testing its latest self-driving car there.

See a more detailed VIDEO on GoMentum Station and a competing Michigan site in this VIDEO here:
“Inside the self-driving car facilities of Silicon Valley and Detroit” – http://a.msn.com/00/en-us/BBvrK0K?ocid=se

For the Caribbean effort, it will be important to observe-and-report on the developments of the Detroit-SiliconValley synergy. Both industries are being transformed. What can we learn about cooperation, collaboration and coordination among aligning stakeholders? There are jobs, public safety and public administration at stake. This relates to the CU/Go Lean roadmap, which also has a focus on the same 3 areas. This is communicated as the prime directive of the roadmap, pronounced as follows:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy, and create jobs (2.2 million new ones).
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to ensure public safety and protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these above engines, considering the separation-of-powers between Caribbean member states and the CU federal government.

The Go Lean roadmap recognizes the benefits of Research & Development (R&D). The book presents R&D as a community ethos, the fundamental spirit of a culture that drives the beliefs, customs and practices of a society.

Caribbean society must embrace the R&D of autonomous vehicles, automobile advances, safety innovation, and transformative technologies. We cannot ignore the formations of industrial advances. We must not just consume; we must produce as well. This is where the next generation of jobs are to be found.

The automotive industry have always been a source of high-paying jobs, that in previous generations, have transformed society. Today, Silicon Valley is a source of high-paying jobs. The transformations are continuing.

This aligns with the opening Declaration of Interdependence (Page 14) in the Go Lean book, as conveyed by these statements:

xxvii. Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries, like … automobile manufacturing. In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries … impacting the region with more jobs.

xxviii. Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.

Producing and not only consuming – especially related to autonomous vehicles and robotic technologies – has been a consistent theme in prior Go Lean blog/commentaries; see this sample here:

Building the Infrastructure for Streetcars
‘Olli’ – The Self-Driving Public Transit Vehicle
3D Printing: Here Comes Change
Drones to be used for Insurance Damage Claims
Robots help Amazon tackle Cyber Monday
Here come the Drones … and the Concerns
Where the Jobs Are – Computers Reshaping Global Job Market
Google conducting research for highway safety innovations
Ghost ships – Autonomous cargo vessels without a crew

The Go Lean book provides a roadmap for developing and fostering a domestic automotive industry, and for fostering R&D. The process starts with the spirit to want to improve the status quo, to innovate and make things better and safer. This spirit is described in the book as a community ethos for Research-and-Development. The book details other ethos to adopt, plus the executions of the following strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to forge innovation in Caribbean communities:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier Page 22
Community Ethos – “Crap” Happens – Like Car Accidents Page 23
Community Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments (ROI) Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development Page 30
Community Ethos – Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Vision – Caribbean Integrated Single Market Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Technology Page 48
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Growing Economy – New High Multiplier Industries Page 68
Separation of Powers – Public Works & Infrastructure Page 82
Separation of Powers – Department of Transportation Page 84
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Implement Self-Governing Entities Page 105
Planning – 10 Big Ideas – Cyber Caribbean Page 127
Planning – Lessons from Detroit Page 140
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Transportation Page 205
Advocacy – Ways to Develop the Auto Industry Page 206
Appendix – Job Multipliers – Detroit’s 11.0 Rate #1 of all industries Page 260

There is a business axiom:

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

This is the goal – autonomous vehicles not mousetraps – of so many stakeholders in the technology and automotive industry space, in Silicon Valley and in Detroit; see Appendix VIDEO 2. A self-driving car is not the future, it is now; well soon. (According to the foregoing VIDEO, one automaker projects an AV for the 2020 Model Year).

Mideast Dubai Driverless CarsThis is the type of innovation now being urged for the Caribbean. Yes, we can … make an impact in this industry. We do not have to be the inventor, but at least an “early adopter”. The controlled environment of a Self-Government Entity – campus or corridor – is ideal for AVs. Imagine a toll-road across a Caribbean member-state (island or mainland) that traverses 70 miles that encourages self-driving cars, buses and trucks.

This vision is being fostered … elsewhere. Why not here?

The Caribbean region has historically been slow at adopting technological innovation. This roadmap presents a change to the Caribbean status quo. We urge all stakeholders – governments, businesses, and drivers – to lean-in to the innovations detailed in the Go Lean book. With the proper planning, preparation and participation, yes we can, we make our homeland a better place to live, work and play.:-)

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

————–

Appendix VIDEO 1: Next Big Thing – Self-driving cars: Why? – https://youtu.be/QUYKSWQmkrg

Published on Oct 9, 2013 – http://cnet.co/1bfQkWn – Why self-driving cars make a whole lot of sense, how gesture control will augment — but probably not replace — a lot of technology, and is there even a third seat left at the mobile platform table?

————–

Appendix VIDEO 2: The Sixth Sense ….. I See Dead People …scene – https://youtu.be/QUYKSWQmkrg

Published on Sep 9, 2012 – In Your Dreams ? ….No. While You’re Awake? …Yes. All The Time, They’re Everywhere.

 

 

 

Share this post:
, , , ,
[Top]

UberEverything in Africa

Posted on June 19, 2016 in Economics, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

UPDATED August 29, 2020 – Uber Technologies Inc. continues to change the Old World [economy] to a new world [economy]. This car-sharing service has already rankled taxi-limo companies and cabbies across the world, and now they are setting their sights on other industries.

They have dubbed this advance into diverse businesses as UberEverything. See the detailed news story / product announcement here of this launch in Africa, published by Quartz Africa – see Appendix:

Title: Uber Africa will diversify beyond car rides this year with its ‘Everything’ service
By: Yomi Kazeem

Having nearly perfected the business of moving people around on the continent, Uber is set to diversify the core of its business in sub Saharan Africa with the introduction of UberEverything, a division of the company with ambitious plans to plug its existing drivers network into the on-demand economy and provide services such as product and food delivery and courier services.

CU Blog - UberEverything in Africa - Photo 1

“The first market will probably be South Africa and we are pushing to make that happen before the end of the year,” said Alon Lits, Uber’s general manager for sub-Saharan Africa.

‘Everything’ is Uber’s strategy to build on its logistics infrastructure in the cities it operates. Once the company is at scale in a city with ride passengers it can develop other services such as UberRush, a personal courier service or food delivery with UberEats,(available in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York) . “Everything we’re building is on top of a platform that already exists,” Jason Droege, head of the UberEverything division, told the Los Angeles Times last month.

With the rising popularity and adoption of e-commerce shopping and on-demand services among a growing African middle-class who live on-the-go and increasingly value convenience, UberEverything could be a hit.

Logistics have been a big challenge for e-commerce companies in African larger cities, some of which have poor road networks and other infrastructure challenges. Major local players like Konga in Nigeria and African Internet Group’s Jumia and sister company Hellofood have had to invest heavily in developing their own logistics platform to get round the weak local infrastructure.

“If things go well in South Africa, there’s no reason why we won’t bring UberEverything to more markets.” One of such markets will likely be Lagos, which Lits says Uber remains “bullish” about despite Nigeria’s struggling economy. Home to 20 million people, Lagos’ infamous traffic jams and haphazard address system make it difficult—and expensive—for delivery services to operate but could represent a big opportunity for UberEverything’s goal of providing efficient logistics using its existing drivers network.

Aided by its recent $3.5 billion funding—its single biggest investment ever— from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, Uber expanded to Kampala and Accra in the last week and Lits says a launch in Dar es Salaam is imminent. This follows plans to spend $250 million on growing its market across North Africa and the Middle East.

But Uber’s operations in Africa have not been without hitches. In Cairo and Nairobi, Uber drivers have been targets of protests and, in some cases, violent attacks. In South Africa, the company was forced to provide drivers with emergency numbers and also partner with a local private security firm.

Source: Quartz Africa Weekly Brief – Posted 06/13/2016; retrieved 06/18/2016 from: http://qz.com/703087/uber-africa-is-will-diversify-beyond-car-rides-this-year-with-its-everything-service/

In a previous blog on Uber, the Go Lean commentary identified how evolutionary changes in technology and modernization affects Old World taxi businesses. Now we see how evolution is changing all businesses … everywhere.

The challenge with technology, for the taxi cab industry and many other areas of life, is one-step forward-two steps-backwards. This point aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean which anticipates the compelling issues associated with Internet & Communications Technologies (ICT) and their effect on traditional commerce. The book prepares the Caribbean region to move to the intersection of opportunity and preparation. The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). This roadmap accepts the tenets of ICT, that it can serve as an equalizer between big countries and small countries, or big companies and small companies. So opportunities will come to the Caribbean region as a result of the advances in technology. How will the region prepare?

First, the book asserts that before the strategies, tactics and implementations of the Go Lean roadmap can be deployed, the affected communities must first embrace a progressive community ethos. The book defines this “community ethos” as the fundamental character or spirit of a culture; the underlying sentiment that informs the beliefs, customs, or practices of society; dominant assumptions of a people or period.

The Go Lean book stresses that the current community ethos must change and the best way to motivate people to adapt their values and priorities is in response to a crisis. The roadmap recognizes this fact with the pronouncement that the Caribbean is in crisis, and that “a crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. This ethos corresponds with the UberEverything motives. In a lot of urban communities around the world, Caribbean included, traffic is crisis-worthy. According to the foregoing article, this reality is creating business opportunities around the logistics of Uber.

Uber 2The Go Lean roadmap avails these opportunities, by strategizing logistics with a regional focus. The roadmap for Caribbean logistics is also our means for delivering the mail; this is the vision for the Caribbean Postal Union (CPU). The focus of the CPU is not just postal mail, but rather all the lean technocratic activities that make up logistics. Mail requires logistics, but logistics means so much more than just mail. So we would want to model successful enterprises in this industry space, like Uber. (The Go Lean book considers the postal operation of the US Postal Service – Page 99 – and rules it null-and-void for transforming e-Commerce). Other successful enterprises that provide good examples of lean technocratic efficiency include Amazon and Alibaba.

Modeling UberEverything, the Go Lean/CU roadmap will directly employ technologically innovative products and services to impact its own prime directives, identified with the following 3 statements:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Uber model helps the CPU impact the economic, security and governing engines, like job creation. In the previous 2014 blog relating Uber, it was disclosed that Uber is responsible for 20,000 new jobs per month. The median income for drivers using the UberX platform, Uber’s low-cost service, is $90,000 per year in New York and more than $74,000 in San Francisco, the company said. How is this possible to make so much more money than traditional driving professionals? Uber is a sophisticated business model; one thing is Uber fully applies the laws of economics – supply and demand. Note the explanation in the VIDEO here:

VIDEO – Make More $ During Times of High Demand – https://youtu.be/cHfWwnJwyOU

Professor Wolters
Published on Nov 20, 2019 – Ever wonder how Uber and other ride sharing firms calculate their prices? Or maybe how prices are made for airlines? Well to understand the pricing you need to understand what is called Dynamic Pricing, which is constantly moving prices.

Filmed in Watkinsville, GA. Copyright Mark Wolters 2019
#marketing #pricing #principlesofmarketing

Topic 4: Digital Marketing
Topic 13: Dynamic Pricing

Learn more at http://uber.com

This model is a good starting point for elevating the Caribbean. But this is heavy-lifting; notice in the foregoing article regarding the complex issues associated with Uber in terms of security and taxi-limo licensing (governance). The Go Lean roadmap conveys that heavy-lifting of logistical details are more of an investment. The community will enjoy the returns, with the optimized commerce deliveries.

The Go Lean roadmap seeks to change the entire eco-system of Caribbean logistics and resulting commerce – the interaction with postal operations. This vision is defined early in the book (Page 12 & 14) in the following pronouncements in the opening Declaration of Interdependence:

xv. Whereas the business of the Federation and the commercial interest in the region cannot prosper without an efficient facilitation of postal services, the Caribbean Union must allow for the integration of the existing mail operations of the governments of the member-states into a consolidated Caribbean Postal Union, allowing for the adoption of best practices and technical advances to deliver foreign/domestic mail in the region.

xxvii. Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.

The Go Lean book details a series of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to foster the best practices for the logistics of the CPU and trade marketplaces in the Caribbean region:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – All Choices Involve Costs Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – People Respond to Incentives Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Economic Systems Influence Choices Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principles – The Consequence of Choice Lie in Future Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Return on Investments – ROI Page 24
Community Ethos – Cooperatives Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship Page 28
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Bridge the Digital Divide Page 31
Strategy – Customers – Citizens and Member-states Governmental Page 47
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – How to Grow the Economy to $800 Billion – Trade and Globalization Page 70
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Postal Services Page 78
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Interstate Commerce Administration Page 79
Implementation – Year 1 / Assemble Phase – Establish CPU Page 96
Implementation – Anecdote – Mail Services – USPS Dilemma Page 99
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change – Group Purchase Organizations (GPO) Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Optimize Mail Service & myCaribbean.gov Marketplace Page 108
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Implementation – Ways to Impact Social Media Page 111
Implementation – Ways to Benefit from Globalization Page 119
Planning – 10 Big Ideas for the Caribbean – # 8 Cyber-Caribbean Page 127
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade – GPO’s Page 128
Planning – Ways to Improve Interstate Commerce Page 129
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Mitigate Black Markets Page 165
Advocacy – Ways to Manage the Federal Civil Service Page 173
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Cooperatives Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Foster e-Commerce Page 198
Advocacy – Reforms for Banking Regulations Page 199
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Main Street Page 201
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Transportation – Union Atlantic Turnpike Page 205
Appendix – Network of Ferries – Model of Marine Highway System Page 280

Issues related to the CPU business model have previously been detailed in these Go Lean commentaries, listed here:

Transformations: Caribbean Postal Union – Delivering the Future
The Future of Money
How to address high consumer prices
Truth in Commerce – Learning from Yelp
Net Neutrality: It matters here … in the Caribbean
Robots help Amazon tackle Cyber Monday
Role Model Jack Ma brings Alibaba to America
Where the Jobs Are – Computers Reshaping Global Job Market
Amazon’s new FIRE Smartphone
Grenada PM Urges CARICOM on ICT

The foregoing article describes Uber’s activities in Africa. The Caribbean is now ready, willing and able …

The Go Lean roadmap posits that the CU will incubate the e-Commerce industry, forge entrepreneurial incentives and facilitate the regional logistics so that innovations can thrive. As related in the foregoing article about impact in other regions, these efforts can elevate the economy, security and governing engines of a community.

The world is continuing to change; and ‘change’ is bringing great new opportunities.

We need to be prepared. This is the intersection – change and opportunity – that we need to position ourselves at. Then, only then will success is within reach. We can make the Caribbean, a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

—————-

Appendix – About Quartz

Quartz is a digitally native news outlet, born in 2012, for business people in the new global economy. We publish bracingly creative and intelligent journalism with a broad worldview …

Quartz is owned by Atlantic Media Co., the publisher of The Atlantic, National Journal, and Government Executive.

 

Share this post:
, , , , , ,
[Top]

ENCORE: eMerge conference aims to jump-start Miami tech hub

Posted on April 27, 2016 in Ethos, Industries, Strategy

This commentary is being re-distributed on the occasion of eMerge TechWeek 2016.
The event just ended … April 18 – 19.

CU Blog - eMerge Conference 2016 Photo 1

In the commentary in 2014, previewing the inaugural event, the expectation was for 3,000 visitors. This time, just 2 years later, the attendance was 13,000 visitors. Congratulations to the organizers on this successful event. Now let’s plan on another successful one for June 12 – 13, 2017.

The original blog – still relevant – is as follows:
—————

Go Lean Commentary

Master BrokersPositive Change!

It doesn’t just happen. It takes people forging it, guiding it and fostering it. The below news article speaks of the effort in South Florida (from Miami north to West Palm Beach) to establish an economic engine of a “tech hub”.

This is a noble, yet strategic undertaking. Success in this “industry space” would mean more jobs, investment capital, and more technology students remaining in South Florida after matriculating in the area’s colleges. These 3 objectives align this story with the advocacies of the book Go Lean … Caribbean.

The book serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The prime directive of this organization is to optimize the economic engines of the Caribbean region. We also want to increase jobs and investment capital, plus retain more of our young people aspiring for careers in high technology fields. But the CU wants to harvest these activities in the Caribbean, for the Caribbean and by the people of the Caribbean.

South Florida is germane to the Caribbean conscience. It is the Number One destination for the Caribbean Diaspora, featuring large populations of Cubans, Jamaicans, Dominicans (DR), Puerto Ricans, Bahamians, and Haitians. The book relates this association by declaring the NBA basketball team, Miami Heat, as the “home team” of the Caribbean; (Page 42).

Right time, right place!

The eMerge Americas Techweek is this week. Also, the Miami Heat has just started the playoffs in defense of their consecutive World Championships.

By: Marcia Heroux Pounds and Doreen Hemlock

A movement to make South Florida a technology hub for the Americas kicks off its first conference this week, aiming to draw more than 3,000 people from entrepreneurs to investors to students — from Broward and Palm Beach counties and from around the world.

Organizers want to build on South Florida’s success as a gateway to Latin America for trade, banking and services, extending that prowess into technology, entrepreneurship and capital for startups. They hope the event — eMerge Americas Techweek — can do for tech what the annual Art Basel event in Miami Beach has done for art: put South Florida on the world map.

It’s an exciting chance for entrepreneurs like Boca Raton’s Dan Cane, chief executive of Boca Raton-based Modernizing Medicine, which developed an iPad application for specialty physicians. He’s among influencers named to the event’s “Techweek100” — South Florida leaders who have had a significant impact on business and technology. He will speak at the conference.

“We jumped at the opportunity,” said Cane, whose 3-year-old company had $17.5 million in sales last year. “We hope to find contacts and connections and begin to develop the right ecosystem in the Latin American market” to export south starting next year.

The eMerge push doesn’t strive to make South Florida into Silicon Valley. It aims instead for a tech center specialized in multinationals looking south, Latin American companies moving north, local startup companies, as well as universities and investors.

That’s why Citi Latin America, the regional headquarters for financial giant Citi, is taking part in what is planned as an annual event. The division employs about 750 people in Miami-Dade and Broward counties and is sponsoring the event, sending speakers and bringing clients, said Jorge Ruiz, who heads digital banking.

“This event is a great example of the things we should do more of,” Ruiz said. It showcases the importance of technology to a range of industries, promotes what South Florida already offers and highlights South Florida’s ability to unite from across the Americas for tech business, he said.

“As people come together, they’re going to realize this is the space to invest in,” Ruiz said.

Universities that train talent for tech jobs are eager to participate too.

“We’re going to bring as many students as possible,” said Eric Ackerman, dean and associate professor of the Graduate School of Computer and Information Sciences at Nova Southeastern University, who also is on the Techweek100 list. Nova has more than 500 students studying information technology.

Ackerman said tech graduates often leave South Florida, figuring they will have better job opportunities in larger hubs known for innovation.

“That’s one of the things we are trying to change — to become an innovation zone for new technology, new products and new services,” Ackerman said. “An event like this says, ‘Look what’s here in our own back yard. Why should I go somewhere else?’ ”

Kimberly Gramm, assistant dean and director of FAU’s Adams Center for Entrepreneurship, is taking winners of FAU’s recent business plan competition to eMerge’s Startup Village.

Some of South Florida’s largest tech companies also will exhibit at eMerge. Those include Citrix Systems of Fort Lauderdale, C3 Cloud Computing Concepts of Delray Beach and TriNet Group of Boca Raton, said Lonnie Maier, president of the South Florida Technology Alliance, a group that promotes local tech.

Investors and consultants to startups also are heading to eMerge to network and build business.

New World Angels, a Boca Raton-based group of investors, will share a booth with the Miami Innovation Fund to offer entrepreneurs advice on launching or growing their ventures, said Rhys Williams, executive director of New World Angels and a Techweek 100 leader.

“Technology investing is a contact sport. There are few textbooks or classes of relevance, so this conference is a timely way to keep current on your knowledge base and pick up new knowledge, skills and contacts,” said Williams, who also is a judge in the eMerge Launch competition where more than 200 companies will compete for $150,000 in prizes.

Of course, South Florida faces hurdles in its quest, tech leaders said.

The area needs to overcome a long-time image based on sun and fun. And it needs to show critical mass in tech, especially success stories of entrepreneurs that grew startups to global players — much as conference organizer Manny Medina did, starting Miami-based Terremark and selling it for more than $1.4 billion to Verizon.

Enterprise Development Corp. President Rob Strandberg, whose group works with startups from Boca Raton to Miami, will be busy making introductions between entrepreneurs and potential investors at the conference. He’s also a judge in the Launch competition.

EDC executive director Linda Gove will participate with the Boca Raton incubator’s startup companies.

“Investors are taking notice of South Florida companies to a far greater extent than they were,” Strandberg said.

Joe Levy, CEO of Fort Lauderdale-based startup ClearCi and also named to the Techweek 100, said the perception of the area as a tech hub is changing.

“Folks used to ask me, ‘Why aren’t you in Silicon Valley?’ ” Levy said. “We don’t get that anymore.”

South Florida’s Sun Sentinel Daily Newspaper – April 27, 2014 – http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/careers/fl-emerge-broward-palm-beach-20140427,0,1252077.story

The Go Lean roadmap calls for agencies within the CU to champion technological start-up endeavors, much like this week’s eMerge initiative.

There is much for the CU’s planners to glean by the observation of the planned events this week. The Go Lean/CU approach, in the absence of the actual establishment of the Trade Federation is simply to:

1. Look
2. Listen
3. Learn
4. Lend-a-hand
5. Lead

This approach is codified in the book, with details of community ethos, strategies, tactics, implementations and advocates; as follows:

Community Ethos – Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Foster Genius Page 27
Community Ethos – Help Entrepreneurship Page 28
Community Ethos – Promote Intellectual Property Page 29
Community Ethos – Impact R & D Page 30
Community Ethos – Bridge the Digital Divide Page 31
Strategy – Agents of Change: Technology Page 57
Separation of Powers – Patents & Copyrights Page 78
Implementation –  Self-Governing Entities Page 105
Implementation –  Impact Social Media Page 111
Ways to Better Manage Image Page 133
Industries – Ways to Foster Technology Page 197
Industries – Foster e-Commerce Page 198

We hope for success for eMerge Americas Techweek. We hope our Caribbean brothers living and working in South Florida participate, engage in and benefit from this initiative. Then we hope that they would repatriate some of this passion, knowledge, and experience back to their Caribbean homelands.

Lastly, we cheer for further basketball dominance. Go Heat!

Basketball shot

Download the book – Go Lean…Caribbean now!!!

Share this post:
, , , , , ,
[Top]

PC industry swoons …

Posted on April 24, 2016 in Economics, Industries, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary

“Live by the sword, die by the sword” – Matthew 26:52; The Bible CU Blog - Aereo Founder and CEO Chet Kanojia on the future of TV - Photo 1

The history of the Personal Computer (PC) industry is synonymous with change. The product and industry came along and force change everywhere on everything; not just on businesses, but for families and households as well. Just consider this photo here. All of these transformations happened because of the ubiquity of personal computers … and the internet.

The trend of upward mobility in the PC industry started 35 years ago. The IBM PC, running Microsoft’s MS-DOS operating system – was introduced in 1981. In fact, due to the impact of the PC, Time Magazine named the computer as Man of the Year in 1982.

CU Blog - PC industry swoons - Photo 2

Like most trends, this product has had an arc, a bell-curve per se; but now the curve is trending downward. The PC is being out-maneuvered in transforming society by alternate concepts transforming PC’s. The truth is, businesses and consumers want solutions, more so than technology. So whatever new function or application can perform better than the old function or application will get traction. This aligns with an old business adage:

Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.

This adage has been a “battle cry” since the Industrial Revolution; even more so now in the Information Revolution. The battle is …

  • Man versus machine: Man loses!
  • Old machine versus new machine: Old machine loses.
  • For the jobs of the men (and women) associated with the old machines and old technologies, they continue to lose.

This point also aligns with the book Go Lean…Caribbean which prepares the Caribbean economic, security and governing engines to better anticipate and respond to transformational changes in Internet & Communications Technologies (ICT). The book asserts that the Caribbean region has been losing the battle of globalization and technology. The consequences of our defeat is the abandonment of our people. The assessment of all 30 Caribbean member-states is that every community has lost human capital to emigration; people are moving to where the jobs are; many times the new jobs are tied to innovative companies in the technology industries. This is why so many of our region’s college-educated citizens (more than 70 percent) have fled their homelands for foreign shores.

The below news article asserts that change in the ICT industries goes both ways for the industry players: trends come and go; markets will be up and down. The PC, which has been a great trendsetter is now getting trumped by other trendsetters: mobile devices, tablets and cloud computing. See related stories here:

Title #1: Intel to cut up to 12,000 jobs as PC industry swoons
By: Narottam Medhora
CU Blog - PC industry swoons - Photo 1(Reuters) – Intel Corp said on Tuesday it would cut up to 12,000 jobs globally, or 11 percent of its workforce, as it refocuses its business towards making microchips that power data centers and Internet connected devices and away from the declining personal computer industry it helped found.

Tech companies including the former Hewlett Packard Co and Microsoft Corp have reorganized in the face of the PC industry decline. Many new tech users around the world turn to mobile phones for their computing needs, and corporations increasingly rely on big machines rather than desktop models to run their businesses. Global personal computer shipments fell 11.5 percent in the first quarter, tech research company IDC said on Monday.

Intel, the world’s largest chipmaker, lowered its revenue forecast for the year. It now expects revenue to rise in mid-single digits, down from its previous forecast of mid- to high-single digits.

Intel’s shares were down 2.2 percent at $30.90 in extended trading.

Most of Intel’s factories are in the United States, although it did not identify where cuts would be focused geographically. It said it would record a pretax restructuring charge of $1.2 billion in the second quarter and expected annual savings of $1.4 billion per year starting mid-2017. (http://bit.ly/1WDPfBm)

The company also said Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith will move to a new role leading sales, manufacturing and operations. Intel said it would begin a formal search process for a new CFO.

Smith said that Intel now expects the PC market to decline by a percentage in the high single digits in 2016 versus a prior forecast of a mid single-digit decline. Declines in China and other emerging markets are also leading to greater than anticipated reductions in worldwide PC supply chain inventory, Intel Chief Executive Brian Krzanich said on a conference call.

“PC demand, at least in the eyes of Intel, is expected to be weaker than the industry originally anticipated,” said Angelo Zino, an equity analyst at S&P Capital Global Market Intelligence.

He added that although the industry has already seen some of the weakness experienced by Intel, the company’s comments dashed any hope of recovery.

The Santa Clara, California-based company has been focusing on its higher-margin data center business as it looks to reduce its dependence on the slowing PC market. Intel has also made inroads into the mobile devices market, although competitors Qualcomm Inc and Samsung Electronics Co dominate there.

Intel said in a statement the job cuts would be carried out by mid-2017 and the restructuring would “accelerate its evolution from a PC company to one that powers the cloud and billions of smart, connected computing devices.”

Sales of products for the data center and the Internet of things accounted for 40 percent of revenue and the majority of operating profit, it added.

Raymond James analyst Hans Mosesmann, who rates Intel “under perform” said the problems leading to the job cuts were likely more about Intel than the broader tech industry.

“The bigger issue is the restructuring and will it be enough for the company to properly adapt to a changing environment where cloud and IoT competitive dynamics are quite different,” Mosesmann added.

On a per share basis, the company earned 42 cents per share, in the first quarter, up from 41 cents a year earlier.

Net revenue rose to $13.70 billion from $12.78 billion.

Non-GAAP net revenue came in at $13.80 billion, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $13.83 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. Adjusted earnings of 54 cents per share topped Wall Street forecasts of 48 cents.

Up to Tuesday’s close, Intel’s shares had fallen 8.4 percent this year, compared with a slight gain in the broader semiconductor index <.SOX>.

(Reporting by Narottam Medhora in Bengaluru and Peter Henderson in San Francisco; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila and Diane Craft)
Source: Reuters News Service – Retrieved 04-19-2016 from: https://www.yahoo.com/news/intel-cut-12-000-jobs-pc-industry-swoons-001010341–finance.html

——————————

Title #2: Intel and Microsoft face different challenges in shifts to cloud
By: Sarah McBride
CU Blog - PC industry swoons - Photo 3SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Financial results from Microsoft Corp and Intel Corp this week brought into sharp relief the challenges the onetime PC partners face as they shift more of their emphasis to cloud computing.

Microsoft has seen strong long-term growth in parts of its cloud business, a combination of services and software catering to corporations moving computing functions to remote data centers run by outside providers.

While revenue for its flagship cloud services business Azure more than doubled last quarter, the company said in Thursday’s earning report, the “intelligent cloud” division that includes it saw just 3 percent revenue growth in the period. And operating profits for the division dropped by 14 percent, in part reflecting non-cloud products included under its umbrella, such as traditional server software.

Chipmaker Intel has a less clear path to growth for its cloud operations, and investors have remained skeptical.

The company’s  share price is down about 1 percent over the last year, as software maker Microsoft’s stock rose about 30 percent. Microsoft’s market capitalization of around $440 billion is almost three times Intel’s at $151 billion, compared to about double five years ago.

“Wintel” computers running Windows on Intel chips dominated the personal-computing era, which is slowly ending as more people turn to mobile phones for computing needs and corporations deemphasize desktops. Both Intel and Microsoft, run by relatively new CEOs Brian Krzanich and Satya Nadella, are betting their businesses on the cloud.

Graphic on Intel and Microsoft market value: http://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/rngs/1/1368/2143/e2jq021kfn46.htm

At Intel, in a quarter where the company announced plans to cut 12,000 jobs as it shifts away from the PC, data-center business revenue rose 9 percent to $4 billion. That segment includes the chips powering cloud data centers, where the company says it is doing well.

“There’s this perception that Microsoft is more on the cusp and benefiting from this (cloud) trend,” said Dan Morgan, a fund manager at Synovus Trust Co who holds both companies in his portfolio. “Intel is still more drowned out,” meaning not as high-profile.

Microsoft’s best-known play in the cloud is Azure, a set of services for computing and storage as well as tools for software developers.

Azure is gaining ground on Amazon’s AWS unit, the industry heavyweight in cloud computing services. Azure commands about 10 percent of the $23 billion market, estimates Synergy Research, compared with AWS’ 31 percent.

Intel has done well in its category, dominating the market for processor chips that are the brains of data center computers, but the business faces major pressures.

Much of the difference in the companies’ fortunes boils down to Microsoft’s fundamental business as a software company versus Intel’s as a hardware company, said Nick Sturiale, a venture capitalist at Ignition Partners.

Clients are spending an ever-larger part of their technology budget on software, according to research firm Gartner. And Intel’s customer base for data-center chips is consolidating into a few big companies, including Facebook, Google, Amazon and Microsoft itself, from a much wider group.

“The cloud vendors are brutal price negotiators and have more power over Intel,” said Sturiale. Average prices of data center chips fell 3 percent in the last quarter, although Intel said that reflected the fact that cheaper chips were gaining ground the fastest.

Intel could suffer as big data-center builders like Facebook increasingly design their own data-center hardware. So far, Intel has held its own, but one day its customers could extend their cost-cutting to chips.

In a call this week with analysts, Krzanich said Intel’s “top to bottom” understanding of the cloud-based data center and keen eye on competitors would help it stay ahead.

“Always paranoid about the competition, always driving,” he said.

“And you know that we live or die by the performance of our product.”

Intel makes other promising products, including chips for Internet-connected devices known as the Internet of Things. If a blockbuster consumer or business product in that market comes along, those chips could take off.

And Microsoft may be overemphasizing how far it has come. Much of its “intelligent cloud” business comprises software for traditional on-premises servers and other businesses with little to do with the cloud. A spokeswoman said the segment’s name “is to align to the ambition” of building the cloud.

Microsoft also is good at playing up its cloud business. In its January earnings call with investors, the term “cloud” came up 59 times. In Intel’s call this week, it came up 11 times.

(Reporting by Sarah McBride,; additional reporting by Noel Randewich; editing by Andrew Hay)
Source: Posted April 22, 2016 from: https://www.yahoo.com/news/intel-microsoft-face-different-challenges-shifts-cloud-010342392–finance.html?ref=gs

See VIDEO‘s of both Intel and Microsoft’s “Cloud” offering in the Appendices below.

Considering the trends in the foregoing articles – tablets, mobile and web-enabled virtual devices (cloud computing) – the Go Lean book posits that there is a need for the Caribbean to be agile or lean to optimize to benefits from the ever-changing technology industry-space. This requires the stakeholders in the region to re-focus and re-boot the regional engines of commerce so as to benefit from these innovations – keep pace – and to create jobs. These two assignments are among the missions of the Go Lean book, blogs and movement.

The book Go Lean… Caribbean, serves as a roadmap for the introduction and implementation of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU) with the charter to facilitate jobs in the region. The book posits that ICT (Internet & Communications Technology) can be a great equalizer for the Caribbean to better compete with the rest of the world. The book thereafter details the prime directives (3) of the roadmap:

  • Optimization of economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion and create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support all these engines.

Early in the Go Lean book, the mission to create jobs and keep pace with technology was identified as important functions for the CU with these pronouncements in the Declaration of Interdependence (Pages 14):

xxvi.  Whereas the Caribbean region must have new jobs to empower the engines of the economy and create the income sources for prosperity, and encourage the next generation to forge their dreams right at home, the Federation must therefore foster the development of new industries, like that of ship-building, automobile manufacturing, prefabricated housing, frozen foods, pipelines, call centers, and the prison industrial complex. In addition, the Federation must invigorate the enterprises related to existing industries tourism, fisheries and lotteries – impacting the region with more jobs.

xxvii. Whereas the region has endured a spectator status during the Industrial Revolution, we cannot stand on the sidelines of this new economy, the Information Revolution. Rather, the Federation must embrace all the tenets of Internet Communications Technology (ICT) to serve as an equalizing element in competition with the rest of the world. The Federation must bridge the digital divide and promote the community ethos that research/development is valuable and must be promoted and incentivized for adoption.

xxviii. Whereas intellectual property can easily traverse national borders, the rights and privileges of intellectual property must be respected at home and abroad. The Federation must install protections to ensure that no abuse of these rights go with impunity, and to ensure that foreign authorities enforce the rights of the intellectual property registered in our region.

xxx.  Whereas the effects of globalization can be felt in every aspect of Caribbean life, from the acquisition of food and clothing, to the ubiquity of ICT, the region cannot only consume, it is imperative that our lands also produce and add to the international community, even if doing so requires some sacrifice and subsidy.

According to the foregoing articles, changes in computing trends are reshaping the global ICT industry; and the job market is being affected, for better and for worse. The Go Lean book identified that tablet devices must be part-and-parcel to any technology empowerment plan, it detailed the possibilities of deploying low-cost tablets ($35) throughout the Caribbean region.

CU Blog - PC industry swoons - Photo 4

The Aakash UbiSlate 7Ci is a super-cheap tablet that will attempt to connect every student in India to the Internet. Educators have long hoped that cheap computing devices could bridge the global information divide, but previous attempts have been dogged by disappointing performance, lack of Internet access, and financial barriers. The latest version of India’s $35 tablet comes equipped with WiFi and has an optional upgrade ($64) of a cellular Internet package of $2/month for 2 GB of data… – Go Lean … Caribbean (Page 296).

Likewise, the Go Lean book identified the emergence of cloud computing. The roadmap detailed a strategy of forging a Cyber Caribbean with many outsourcing/in-sourcing deployments, plus the assembly of the Caribbean Postal Union (CPU) to consolidate and integrate the region’s postal operations into a 21st Century model, including all the tenets of ICT: email, social media (www.myCaribbean.com), e-Government, etc.. The roadmap there-in describes the role of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) as an alternative to expensive Personal Computer installations for corporate and institutional (government and NGO) applications. See a specific reference from the book here:

CU Blog - PC industry swoons - Photo 5
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is a desktop-centric service that hosts user desktop environments on remote servers and/or blade PCs, which are accessed over a network using a remote display protocol. A connection brokering service is used to connect users to their assigned desktop sessions. For users, this means they can access their desktop from any location, without being tied to a single client device. Since the resources are centralized, users moving between work locations can still access the same desktop environment with their applications and data. For IT administrators, this means a more centralized, efficient client environment that is easier to maintain and able to respond more quickly to the changing needs of the user and business… – Go Lean … Caribbean (Page 295).

The Go Lean book details how jobs are to be created in this new world of cyclical technology trends and in the new Caribbean. The book asserts that certain industries are better than others for generating multiple indirect jobs down the line for each direct job on a company’s payroll. Industries relating to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields have demonstrated high job-multiplier rates of 3.0 to 4.1 factors (Page 260). In total, the book details the creation of 2.2 million new jobs for the Caribbean region, many embracing ICT skill-sets, by adopting certain community ethos, plus the executions of key strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies. The following is a sample from the book:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Economic Systems Influence Choices & Incentives Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Principle – Voluntary Trade Creates Wealth Page 21
Community Ethos – Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future Page 21
Community Ethos – Job Multiplier Page 22
Community Ethos – Lean Operations Page 24
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Future Page 26
Community Ethos – Ways to Foster Genius Page 27
Community Ethos – Ways to Help Entrepreneurship Page 28
Community Ethos – Ways to Promote Intellectual Property Page 29
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development Page 30
Community Ethos – Ways to Bridge the Digital Divide Page 31
Strategy – Mission – Education Without Further Brain Drain Page 46
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Tactics to Forge an $800 Billion Economy – High Multiplier Industries Page 70
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Commerce Department – Postal Services/CPU Page 78
Implementation – Trends in Implementing Data Centers Page 106
Implementation – Ways to Improve Mail Service – Caribbean Postal Union Page 108
Implementation – Ways to Impact ICT and Social Media Page 111
Planning – Ways to Improve Trade – e-Commerce to Streamline a Bigger Regional Market Page 128
Advocacy – Ways to Grow the Economy Page 151
Advocacy – Ways to Create Jobs Page 152
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Education – e-Learning Options Page 159
Advocacy – Ways to Foster Technology Page 197
Advocacy – Ways to Foster e-Commerce Page 198
Appendix – Growing 2.2 Million Jobs in 5 Years Page 257
Appendix – Job Multipliers Page 259
Appendix – Virtual Desktop Infrastructure Page 295
Appendix – India’s $35 Tablet Page 296

As depicted in the foregoing news articles, the current trending with ICT innovation nullifies location. The innovations need not come from Silicon Valley – a region just south of San Francisco, California, they can easily come from any beach in the Caribbean.

The Caribbean is arguably the best address on the planet – definitely the best beaches – but jobs are missing. We can fill the void the same way other communities are jockeying to fill the void: innovations for ICT. The Go Lean roadmap posits that we can get the needed innovation from our own people, rather that watching our prospective innovators “take their talents to South Beach”, or South Toronto, or South London or South of San Francisco (Silicon Valley).

The Go Lean/CU roadmap is designed to foster job-creating developments in the Caribbean region. This requires a full-vertical strategy: identifying human resources, developing the skill-sets, incentivizing high-tech start-ups and incubating viable companies. These points have been detailed in many previous Go Lean blog-commentaries; consider this sample:

https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=7806 Skipping School to become Tech Giants
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6422 Microsoft Pledges $75 million for Kids in Computer Science
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6341 The new Tourism Stewardship: e-Commerce
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=6151 3D Printing: Here Comes Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5840 Security Concerns: Computer Glitches Disrupt Business As Usual
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=5435 China Internet Policing – Model for Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4793 Truth in Commerce – Learning from Yelp
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=4381 Net Neutrality: It Matters Here …in the Caribbean
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3974 Google and Mobile Phones – Here comes Change
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3915 Microsoft’s new Hologram systems – Changing the World View
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3881 Intelligence Agencies to Up Cyber Security Cooperation
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=3187 Robots help Amazon tackle Cyber Monday
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=2126 Computers Reshaping Global Job Market
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=689 ‘eMerge’ Conference aims to jump-start Tech Hub
https://goleancaribbean.com/blog/?p=308 CARCIP – CariCom Initiative – Urges Greater Innovation

The primary ingredient for a Caribbean ICT strategy need only be Caribbean people, and the community “will” to engage. This is conceivable, believable and achievable. The Go Lean roadmap describes the need to reform and transform this community “will” as community ethos – national spirit – to spur achievement in this ICT industry space.

We can do this – here at home.

The roadmap goes further and provides the turn-by-turn directions to get “us” to the desired location: a better place to live, work and play. 🙂

Download the book Go Lean…Caribbean now!

————

Appendix VIDEO – Why Intel Cloud Technology – https://youtu.be/P5h1KMk-8Qo

Published on Jan 10, 2014 – Customers want to know what is inside their cloud. This animation provides an overview of the Intel Cloud Technology program, which provides users assurances that their cloud service provider is running on the latest Intel Xeon Processor-based servers, which means taking advantage of technologies including Intel Turbo Boost Technology, Intel TXT, Intel AVX, and Intel AES-NI. Intel Cloud Technology helps increase performance, reduce completion time, and enhance security. Learn more at http://intel.ly/1gpFL5PSubscribe now to Intel on YouTube: http://bit.ly/1BZDtpf
About Intel:
Intel, the world leader in silicon innovation, develops technologies, products and initiatives to continually advance how people work and live. Founded in 1968 to build semiconductor memory products, Intel introduced the world’s first microprocessor in 1971. This decade, our mission is to create and extend computing technology to connect and enrich the lives of every person on earth.
Connect with Intel:

Visit Intel WEBSITE: http://intel.ly/1WXmVMe

————

Appendix VIDEO – Microsoft Cloud: Empowering Business – https://youtu.be/HZChlynmtgc

Published on Jan 18, 2016 – See how The Microsoft Cloud is helping businesses around the world scale, connect, transform and reinvent.

Share this post:
, , ,
[Top]

Cancer: Doing More

Posted on April 18, 2016 in Economics, Government, Implementation, Strategy

Go Lean Commentary:

If you had a lot of money and wanted to do good in the world, what causes would you pursue?

  • World hunger
  • Education of girls
  • Childhood vaccinations
  • Cancer

That last one is BIG. And noble. And maybe, just maybe viable.

CU Blog - Cancer - Doing More - Photo 1This is the hope of philanthropist-billionaire Sean Parker; (founder of Napster and onetime CEO of Facebook). He is investing his time, talent (business & entrepreneurship) and treasuries in this quest to impact the world of cancer research and treatment.

Kudos, Mr. Parker!

The book Go Lean…Caribbean relates (Page 157) the statement that:

“1-in-3 Americans are due to be diagnosed with cancer … at some point. If 1-in-3 Americans are at risk, then surely Caribbean citizens cannot be far behind”.

This book does not assert to be a roadmap for treating cancer, but rather a roadmap for elevating Caribbean society by optimizing the economic, security and governing engines in the region. Yet, within this roadmap is the strategy to incentivize cancer research and facilitate treatment centers and workable solutions. In fact this roadmap invites role models like this philanthropist-billionaire Sean Parker – featured here in the following VIDEO and article:

VIDEO: Napster Co-Founder Sean Parker Pledges $250M to Fight Cancer
http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/napster-co-founder-sean-parker-pledges-250m-to-fight-cancer-665463363805

NBC Nightly News – Posted 04-13-2016 – The Silicon Valley billionaire and Napster co-founder is putting his money behind a new cancer institute focusing on the emerging field of cancer immunotherapy.

News Article Title: Sean Parker Donates $250 Million to Launch Cancer Immunotherapy Institute
By: Reuters
Silicon Valley billionaire Sean Parker – see photo here – will donate $250 million to launch a new institute aimed at developing more effective cancer treatments by fostering collaboration among leading researchers in the field.

“Any breakthrough made at one center is immediately available to another center without any kind of IP (intellectual property) entanglements or bureaucracy,” Parker, the co-founder of music-sharing website Napster and the first president of Facebook, told Reuters in an interview.

The new Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy will focus on the emerging field of cancer immunotherapy, which harnesses the body’s immune system to fight cancer cells.

It will include over 40 laboratories and more than 300 researchers from six key cancer centers: New York’s Memorial Sloan Kettering, Stanford Medicine, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of California, San Francisco, Houston’s University of Texas MD Anderson and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Recently approved drugs have helped some patients sustain remission. But those first-generation therapies do not work for everyone, and scientists are trying to understand how to make them more effective.

“Very little progress has been made over the last several decades,” Parker said, referring to cancer drug research. “Average life expectancy has only increased three to six months with some of these drugs that cost billions to develop.”

Parker said the current system of cancer drug development discouraged the kinds of risk-taking that could lead to a major breakthrough.

The new institute “is paradigm shifting,” said Dr. Jedd Wolchok, chief of the melanoma and immunotherapeutics unit at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

He said it would alleviate the need for scientists to secure grants, which he said took up at least 30 percent of his time, foster collaboration among accomplished scientists and provide access to the newest information processing and data technology.

“I have no doubt this will allow us to make progress, and to make it much more quickly,” Wolchok said.
Source: NBC Nightly News – Retrieved 04-13-2016 from: http://www.nbcnews.com/health/cancer/sean-parker-donates-250-million-launch-cancer-immunotherapy-institute-n555196 

Related: Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘Initiative’ Adds New Wrinkle to Tech Philanthropy

The Go Lean book serves as a roadmap for the implementation and introduction of the technocratic Caribbean Union Trade Federation (CU). The CU‘s prime directives are identified with the following 3 statements:

  • Optimization of the economic engines in order to grow the regional economy to $800 Billion & create 2.2 million new jobs.
  • Establishment of a security apparatus to protect the resultant economic engines.
  • Improve Caribbean governance to support these engines.

The Go Lean book asserts that healthcare covers all the above 3 facets of the prime directives. Healthcare costs can easily bankrupt a family, community or a nation; economic security, public safety and government entitlements are therefore embedded in any discussion about cancer and its community impact.

The book also posits that one person can make a difference and maybe even change the world. The efforts of Sean Parker may very well fit this advocacy. He is therefore a role model for Caribbean philanthropists; he is doing more! We invite this type of impact in the Caribbean.

The Go Lean roadmap calls for more medical R&D initiatives like what Mr. Parker is pursuing. The roadmap strategizes the adoption of Self-Governing Entities (SGE) to employ medical research and treatment campuses. These dedicated, bordered grounds are ideal for immuno-therapy research and treatment. We hereby extend the invitation to all innovators and facilitators who want to do more in cancer research to come to the Caribbean. These ones will find cooperative and supportive governing structures to facilitate their impact on the world. They can do more … against cancer.

The Go Lean book strategizes economic empowerment in the region, clearly relating that healthcare and pharmaceuticals research/developments are important in the quest to make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, heal and play. At the outset of the Go Lean book, in the Declaration of Interdependence (Page 11), these points are pronounced:

viii.  Whereas the population size is too small to foster good negotiations for products and commodities from international vendors, the Federation must allow the unification of the region as one purchasing agent, thereby garnering better terms and discounts.

ix.  Whereas the realities of healthcare and an aging population cannot be ignored and cannot be afforded without some advanced mitigation, the Federation must arrange for health plans to consolidate premiums of both healthy and sickly people across the wider base of the entire Caribbean population. The mitigation should extend further to disease management, wellness, obesity and smoking cessation programs.

xxviii.  Whereas intellectual property can easily traverse national borders, the rights and privileges of intellectual property must be respected at home and abroad. The Federation must install protections to ensure that no abuse of these rights go with impunity, and to ensure that foreign authorities enforce the rights of the intellectual property registered in our region.

Previous blog/commentaries addressed issues of cancer and other medical research and practices, sampled here:

Using Group Purchasing Organizations to lower HealthCare costs
Role Model Shaking Up the World of Cancer
The Cost of Cancer Drugs
Antibiotics Misuse Linked to Obesity in the US
CHOP Research: Climate Change May Bring More Kidney Stones
Welcoming Innovators and Entrepreneurs under an SGE Structure
Big Pharma & Criminalization of American Business
Medical Research Associates Kidney Stones and Climate Change – Innovative!
New Research and New Hope in the Fight against Alzheimer’s Disease
Research in Diabetes Detection – Novartis and Google develop ‘smart’ contact lens
Health-care fraud in America; criminals take $272 billion a year
New Cuban Cancer medication registered in 28 countries
Puerto Rico’s Comprehensive Cancer Center Project Breaks Ground – Model of Medical SGE

Cancer is a crisis! The Go Lean book declares that a “crisis is a terrible thing to waste”. This premise is loud-and-clear from the foregoing VIDEO, that there is money to be made in this industry-space. But most importantly, there are lives to be saved.

The Go Lean roadmap posits that more innovations will emerge in the region as a direct result of the CU prioritization on science, technology, engineering and medical (STEM) activities on Caribbean R&D campuses and educational institutions. This is based on the assumption that intellectual properties (IP) registered in the Caribbean region will be duly respected around the world.

This IP protection mandate is a heavy-lifting task for the Caribbean Union Trade Federation. This is an example of the issues related to economic, security and governance that need to be managed in a technocracy.

The CU has the prime directive of optimizing these economic, security and governing engines of the Caribbean region. The foregoing article and VIDEO depicts that R&D is very important to medical innovations. So the roadmap thusly focuses on the community ethos to promote R&D as valuable for the region. The following list details this and other community ethos, plus the strategies, tactics, implementations and advocacies to optimize the region’s healthcare deliveries and R&D investments:

Community Ethos – Deferred Gratification Page 21
Community Ethos – Economic Systems Influence Individual Choices and Incentives Page 21
Community Ethos – The Consequences of Choices Lie in the Future Page 21
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Return on Investments Page 24
Community Ethos – Governing Principles – Cooperatives Page 25
Community Ethos – Non-Government Organizations Page 25
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact Research & Development (R&D) Page 30
Community Ethos – 10 Ways to Promote Happiness Page 36
Community Ethos – Ways to Impact the Greater Good Page 37
Strategy – Integrate and unify region in a Single Market Page 45
Strategy – Agents of Change – Globalization Page 57
Tactical – Fostering a Technocracy Page 64
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Health Department Page 86
Tactical – Separation of Powers – Drug Administration Page 87
Implementation – Ways to Pay for Change Page 101
Implementation – Ways to Implement Self-Government Entities – R&D Campuses Page 105
Implementation – Ways to Deliver Page 109
Planning – Big Ideas for the Caribbean Region Page 127
Planning – Ways to Make the Caribbean Better Page 131
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Healthcare Page 156
Advocacy – Ways to Better Manage the Social Contract Page 170
Advocacy – Ways Foster Cooperatives Page 176
Advocacy – Ways to Improve Emergency Management Page 196
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Foundations Page 219
Advocacy – Ways to Impact Persons with Disabilities Page 228
Appendix – Emergency Management – Medical Trauma Centers Page 336

The Go Lean book or movement does not purport to be an authority on cancer research or any medical best practices. No economic-security-governance empowerment plan should ever dictate the course of direction for cancer research and/or treatment. But the war on cancer has been stagnant for far too long; more needs be done. The solutions must be incentivized for private enterprises and private individuals – role models. The SGE structure invites innovations like that of Sean Parker and many others with this same passion … and some degree of genius.

Now is the time for all of the Caribbean, the people and governing institutions, to lean-in for the empowerments in the book Go Lean … Caribbean. This concept of Self-Government Entities (Page 127) is a Big Idea for the region. Change can really take hold, and thrive. We can do more … for cancer.  We can make the Caribbean a better place to live, work, heal and play. 🙂

Download the free e-book of Go Lean … Caribbean – now!

Share this post:
, , , ,
[Top]