This week's session on assesment of technology signals an end to our TWC course. It is very appropriate that today's topic marks the end of our learning journey. After going through 9 TWC sessions, understanding the different forces shaping technological change and such, we were introduced to methods of assessing (new and current) technology.
We discussed the importance of doing a technology assessment, whether it meant analyzing the impact of a current or emerging technology. A lot of this week's topic is on preparation and creating a desirable future with strategic decisions...
It is obvious that we need to assess the impacts of technology. The exponential growth of technologies has created a need to udnerstand changes caused by technologies in order to reduce negative implications and react to surprises. For example, we were all happy to have discovered burning fossil fuels as an 'efficient' way of producing energy yet if we did a thorough technology assessment, we may have been more aware of the externalities caused. This is an simple example but it brings the point across. Technology assessment is important.
Organizations rely on technology assessment to understand when, what, and how much to invest in new technologies/current technologies/upcoming technologies in order to make strategic decisions.
It was also discussed in class how one can plan for the future. There are 2 ways, we can either look at existing realities or forecast a desired future and move in that direction. Personally, I don't think there's a better way, these two broad methods are catered to different problems and should be used together.
We were also introduced to the different methods of foresight and common uses of foresight output. One of the discussed methods was stakeholders mapping which involved getting views from the people involved. Understanding impacts of upcoming technology on stakeholders can help to improve on current technology or future technology decisions. Stakeholder analysis will provide insights from different perspectives so better or a more adjusted and well rounded decision can be made. A common foresight output would be used in policy recommendations to help in directing us to the desired future.
Reading 2, Perspectives of Futurology summarizes the entire topic for this session. The article highlights the importance of understanding the present to predict the future. As Voltaire said 'The present is pregnant with the future'. The present will shape the future. What we lack now will be created in the future. The key lies in anticipating emerging trends. This is very relevant for businssess as anticipating emerging trends helps them to make informed business decisions and avoid pitfall. Futurologists try to predict the future (not in a hocus pocus manner!) or what's best for the future and try to pave the way towards that!
Like Rongxuan mentioned, foresight does not aim to predict the futurew with certainty, it only seeks to reduce uncertainties.
This is the end of the TWC class and for the next two sessions, we will be shown the projects that our class groups have been working on and I'm looking forward to knowing what my class groups have been up to and their take on their chosen topic.
Reflection
My initial impression of TWC is that it involved something technical, probably the study of computer technologies and its impact on the world. In a way, this is right, but we touched on more than the computer. Technology isn't just technical stuff , technology is knowledge, and the sessions on how different technologies have changed the world, what caused the change, how to mange the change has been really interesting...Writing a review paper on a specific innovation, from its beginning to its future direction really helped me to seriously consider how we have evolved (in my topic of discussion) and most importantly, the implications of this specific innovation. The individual assignment, although daunting at times, allowed me to reflect on what are real changes caused by my innovation of choice. I can't believe I'm saying this but I do like TWC, I just wish I read ALL the readings, so just a note to whoever who will be reading this when you're a freshie in TWC class, attempt to read all the readings as it helps you understand the topic better! You will hate reading because you it's really long and you see that there are 16 pages in the pdf file, just remember that 2 to 3 pages are basically cover pages, content page and a end page so do not be afraid.
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