Innovative Technologies Asking the Right Questions Alain L.
Kornhauser, Ph.D. Professor, Operations Research & Financial
Engineering Director, Program in Transportation Faculty Chair, PAVE
(Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering Princeton University
Jinan Foreign Language School Jinan, Shandong China May 25,
2013
Slide 2
I am pleased and honored to be here with you on this day of
transition. For each of you it is the end of one journey and the
Commencement of another Your first journey was guided family who
instilled in you a foundation of knowledge, collection of skill and
set of values from which your mind created dreams, visions and
perspectives that govern your views of the world. Your new journey
has many different possible paths filled with challenges,
opportunities and achievements, but you will follow only one.
Slide 3
The contribution that you make to improve the world as you
travel along your chosen path will involve the many choices that
you will make as you approach each of its many branching points.
Those achievements will be all about your choice as to what body of
knowledge you wish to enhance, what skills you wish to improve and
what values you use as the basis for choosing and pursuing your
path through life. Choices that will empower you to realize your
dreams, achieve your visions and make your contributions that help
create a better world, a better place for all. From now on it is
about your choices, your desires, your leadership.
Slide 4
35 years ago, I had the great pleasure and honor to visit and
lecture in China as part of one of the very first Scientific
Exchanges following the normalization of US-China relations. In my
intervening visits I have observed first-hand the enormous
transformation that has occurred. Only a two lane road with few
vehicles led to the small Beijing airport terminal. Only buses,
bicycles and pedestrians occupied the streets of Shanghai. Since
1978 monumental change has occurred on a scale that the world has
never seen. Chinas human resources were mobilized to rapidly catch
up to the ideas and designs of the industrialized world. China is
now the leading producer of the worlds goods. While monumental,
this may have been the easy part. Over the next 35 years, it will
be each of you that will have the opportunity and the
responsibility to lead China through an even greater transformation
of a new and even better world.
Slide 5
The famous Harvard Economist, Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950)
wrote: [I]n capitalist reality, it is not [price] competition which
counts but the competition from the new commodity, the new
technology- competition which commands a decisive cost or quality
advantage and which strikes not at the margins of the profits and
the outputs of the existing firms but at their foundations and
their very lives. I pioneered the development of one of those
disruptive new technologies: getting directions on how to get
there. For the first 100+ years of the automobile, everyone used a
paper map to figure out the directions on how to drive from one
location to another. Every car had at least one paper map. Cars had
map compartments. Rand McNally was the pre-eminent map maker. It
was as well-known as Coca-Cola.(1883-1950)
Slide 6
I became convinced that paper maps, while inexpensive, were not
convenient, reliable nor easy to use. A better way would be to
combine GPS, a digital map database, a routing algorithm,
communications and a portable computing environment. Many thought I
was crazy. 15+ years ago I put the first nation-wide turn-by- turn
GPS navigation systems on the market in the US. I was 1 st on
iPhones and Android. I believed that the product provided a
decisive quality advantage over paper maps. I pursued my dreams, my
passion. CoPilot, my product, and other similar products now guide
most motorist. Today, few if any cars have paper maps.
Slide 7
My innovation with CoPilot is but a small example. You have
witnessed many other transformative technologies, technologies that
have struck at the very foundations of existing firms. Digital
photography versus film, Streaming video/audio content versus
CDs/DVDs, Smart wireless phones versus land- line phones,
Flat-screen TVs versus tube TVs.
Slide 8
We are today sitting at the verge of what is another revolution
in technology: the automation of road transportation vehicles.
Automated highways are not a new concept. What is new and
revolutionary is the incorporation of sufficient intelligence in
the vehicle so that automation can drive the car avoid all
collisions without requiring any changes in the infrastructure. To
date, Google has been the innovator. Google saw that 93% of roadway
accidents involve human error. 32,000 are killed each year in the
US, in China the estimate is 97,000. Google set out to develop
crash avoidance technology focused on the vehicle. Focusing
resources on the software and sensors that could substantially
reduce these fatalities (81% fewer fatalities, 65% fewer injuries,
71% fewer crashes).
Slide 9
The brilliance is in the approach. By focusing the intelligence
on the vehicle rather than the infrastructure, the development can
be done in a garage by a few creative, innovative and motivated
individuals. Once perfected, duplication cost of the software is
essentially free and the computer hardware behaves as Moores Law
These are ingredients for viral growth. This is about to happen. It
has Schumpeters decisive quality advantages: in safety benefit, in
comfort - not having to drive the car and eventually in the ability
to take the driver completely out of the car so as to create the
ultimate in public transportation: autonomous Taxis for all. A
fleet of 1.9 x10 6 aTaxis would serve all 32 x10 6 daily trips in
New Jersey save 500 lives/year, no congestion, use half the energy,
half the pollution. This is disruptive technology
Slide 10
Over the next 35 years, you will fuel Chinas continued
transformation with the new disruptive technologies that you will
pioneer. How will you come up with the ideas, concepts, and
innovations? There is no magic formula, except asking/formulating
the challenging question. One must always ask questions, even the
ones that at first might seem the most silly. 17 years ago, people
said to me: you want to replace the simple map with all of that
hardware and software. Thats crazy! I tenaciously disagreed, and
asked, How can it be done? I encourage you to remain focused on
your vision and tenacious in your visionary effort, even if many
suggest you are crazy. Listen to the advice, but make your own
decisions, follow your own path. In your way you will be
transformative as Bill Gates was the computing environment, Steve
Jobs in the ways we enjoy music, communicate and interact, Henry
Ford in the ways we do manufacturing By asking questions,
challenging the status quo, you will accelerate Chinas
transformation and create a better world for all..