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human 2.0tech trends to watchagent of changenew world orchestraa tale of future citiesblind data

return to the tech frontierNews and insights from The Economist’s flagship event

human 2.0Man and machine

become one

agent of changePredicting the impact of disruptive technologies

on the way we do business

new world orchestra

Or how a cast of three thousand strangers made

some beautiful music.

humanising healthcareHigh empathy machines in medicine

the mind of the consumer Technology works best when it gets inside your head

technology as a game changerExploring new business models

tech trends to watchThe top ten technologies coming your way.

new moneyWhere next for

mobile banking?

workforce 2012Can technology really

transform our working lives? And will it be for

the better?

a tale of future cities

A blueprint for the intelligent metropolis

left brain, meet right brainWhen to go with creative intuition, when to go with the data

privacy and protection

Revealing too much at the click of a mouse

blind dataInformation overload:

Sorting the wheat from the chaff

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www.technology-frontiers.com | © Economist Conferences 20121

Technology is changing our lives at a phenomenal pace. In the past decade we’ve had the social media explosion, the advent of personalised medicine, the big data challenge ...and of course, the ultimate comeback story encapsulated by Steve Jobs’ Apple.

Just keeping up with these developments is tough, but we have a higher ambition. At Technology Frontiers, over 250 business leaders and top thinkers shared their views on how new technology will shape the years ahead. The conference tackled many of the big technology debates of the day, from data privacy to the future of mobile banking. But this is no ordinary conference – our goal is to inspire as well as inform. How often do you get to meet a real-world “bionic man”, or see people turned into living musical instruments operated by crocodile clips and Play Doh? These were just a couple of the standout moments from the inaugural Technology Frontiers.

I hope you enjoy this collection of stories from the frontier of science and innovation. See you at next year’s show!

Jonathan Dewe Director Economist Conferences

News and insights from

The Economist’s flagship event

www.technology-frontiers.com | © Economist Conferences 20122

Hugh Herr climbs on stage and kicks off his talk on how technology is changing what it means to be human. He’s a man who likes to think on his feet, rapidly pacing the stage as he works the audience. His speech is full of interesting ideas and insights. But it is only when he pauses, then bends down to pull up his trouser legs that the audience grasps what a remarkable story our speaker has to tell. There, wired up beneath his knees, are a pair of bionic legs the like of which you’ve probably only seen in a sci-fi movie.

A world-class mountain climber, Herr lost both his legs below the knee in 1982 as the result of frostbite after becoming stranded for days in a blizzard on Mount Washington in New Hampshire. His subsequent experience with artificial limbs set him on a lifelong mission to develop technologically advanced prosthetics. Today, he is Director of Biomechatronics at the MIT Media Lab.

“I predict that in this century advances in bionics, genetics, and regenerative medicine will largely

eliminate disability,” Herr told the audience. A large swathe of the

world’s population experiences a lower quality of life due to mental or physical conditions, but new technologies are emerging that could transform these people’s lives in ways that were hitherto unimaginable.

By way of demonstration, Herr showed how his own prosthetic limbs allow him to run and jump with extraordinary agility. But Herr can do a lot more than pound a stage. For example, he owns prosthetic devices that have enabled him to revive his passion for climbing. “In some circumstances I can climb better than before. Through technology I found I could augment my capabilities,” Herr reveals.

The technology is impressive – and at times controversial. South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius is a double amputee and runs on two prosthetic legs shaped liked curved blades. He has been so successful that it was felt he had an unfair advantage and he was banned from all able-bodied athletics. Herr helped get this decision overturned and Pistorius is now hoping to compete at the London Olympics. The possibilities are limitless – an elderly person with arthritis could replace their old arm with a better bionic arm much in the same way that they might have a hip replacement. But there’s no doubt that this new technology also raises some profound questions about what it means to be human.

HUMAN 2.0Man and machine become one

“Today I’m wearing very high-tech legs” - coup de theatre at

#Techfrontiers as Hugh Herr, double

amputee, shows off his prosthetics.

Andrew Hill @andrewtghill

I predict that in this century advances in bionics, genetics, and regenerative medicine will largely eliminate disability.Hugh Herr,Athlete, Scientist, Innovator, Futurist

Watch Hugh Herr’s full talk >

www.technology-frontiers.com | © Economist Conferences 20123

1. MobILE baNkINg goEs WEsT. Kenya is the world leader in mobile payments – its success is down to the fact that it fulfils a real need in a developing society. While in the rich world it may not be a necessity, it could be of value, even if it is simply to save a trip to the cash machine.

TECH TRENDS TO WATCH

Tom Standage, The Economist’s Online and Digital Editor,

outlines the top ten technologies coming your way.

Enjoyed The Economist’s

#techfrontiers event. @tomstandage

should be cloned and wheeled out

at every tech conference.

Olivia Solon @olivia_solon

Elon Musk wants to retire on Mars. ‘every time I meet him he sounds less mad’ says @tomstandage #techfrontiers

Brian Millar @arthurascii

Watch TomStandage’s full talk >

10. PrIvaTIsED sPaCE TravEL.spaceX, established by PayPal founder Elon Musk, is on a mission to make low-cost space travel possible. Musk’s Falcon rockets have proved impressive, and now his capsule is going to be used to transport cargo to the space station, with a view to transporting astronauts in the future.

9. augMENTED rEaLITy. The likes of the star Walk app lets you take a picture of the sky and find out what constellation it is. Currently a novelty, this will come into its own when plugged into social networks.

8. soLar LIgHTINg.Solar lamps have been around for some time, but now that the cost is approaching $5 a unit, we can expect them to make a much bigger impact. At this price there is potential to find business models that would enable solar to really take off – think of micro-entrepreneurs helping to “prime the pump” on solar lighting in the way the microfinance model enabled mobile telephony to take off in Bangladesh and Uganda.

7. sPy DroNEs. A camera-enabled quadrocopter controlled by an iPhone is proving more than just a novelty. Police have been using them to monitor protestors, and the protestors have been using them to monitor the police. As they get smaller, the tabloid hack will surely be tempted to spy on a celeb, the unscrupulous tempted to use them for industrial espionage.

6. MaN MEETs MaCHINE. We are seeing a hybridisation of human and machine intelligence. Amazon Mechanical Turk, for example, is based on the idea that humans can do some jobs better than computers. Post a query online, such as “what is the object in this photo?”, and the technology corrals lots of brain-power to tackle the task.

5. ENErgy sCavENgINg. Scavenging ambient energy from the likes of TV transmitters could be helpful in powering small electronic devices.

4. DNa sEquENCINg goEs MaINsTrEaM.

oxford Nanopore has created a $900 DNA sequencer the size of a USB memory stick. Cheaper, faster technology could mean that in 25 years everyone will be sequenced as soon as they are born.

3. EvEryTHINg as a sErvICE. Technology enables us to rent out the things we own. For example, Wheelz enables students to share their cars with friends, or friends of friends, on campus. It is only through the combination of smartphones, the internet, GPS and RFID that this kind of sharing can be delivered as a service.

2. PrINT WHaT you DEsIrE. 3D printing is something we’ve been watching for some time. Now it’s moving into the mainstream and becoming increasingly competitive on cost versus traditional manufacturing methods. But new challenges arise: for example, what happens when people can download and “print” pirated designs of their favourite products?

The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed. William Gibson

www.technology-frontiers.com | © Economist Conferences 20124 www.technology-frontiers.com | © Economist Conferences 2012 5

If one were to ask corporate leaders to list the “megatrends” that are shaping the business world of tomorrow, three are likely to top most lists. One is the accelerating shift in economic power from West to East. Another is financial market instability and recession, at least for those in the world’s more developed economies. The third is technological progress. Of these three, the last is likely to have the most direct impact on how businesses operate and how they are organised.

As difficult as the task is, business leaders and their teams must deploy their crystal balls and think ahead about the types of changes that may be wrought by technology-led innovation.

A new report from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) synthesises different views of how technology changes will affect organisations in the period between now and 2020. The report predicts that technology innovation will continue unabated, confounding the beliefs of some that innovation and disruption are slowing. Keeping pace will be tough: nearly four in ten survey respondents worry that their organisations may fall behind.

among the report’s other predictions:

big data becomes big business. Firms already collect vastly more data than they did a decade ago, and new sources—from smart meters to smartphones—will add much more data to this flow. New or more advanced business models based on specialist analytics services are likely to emerge as a result. The European Commission estimates that government data alone could add some €40bn (US$55bn) a year to the European economy by stimulating the growth of new information services.

Mid-size companies will be less common in 2020. Technology advances will support a rise in micro-entrepreneurs in the decade ahead, and will enable these tiny businesses to act like far larger ones. This has direct implications for midsize companies, which will increasingly need to choose whether to become larger to compete on scale, or smaller to compete on speed. Many will face this decision in the years ahead.

There will be less need for middle managers. Greater analytics capabilities and other technologies will enable organisations to devolve far more decision-making authority to managers and employees at the periphery. Nearly two-thirds of those polled see this happening, which in turn will allow many to say goodbye to the generalist middle manager of old.

Job growth becomes decoupled from economic growth.It is becoming clearer that the productivity gains from technology are allowing firms to create more output from less input. This is a triumph for business, but will create a stark challenge for job creation. Indeed, the technology advancement to come will place a wider range of jobs than ever under the threat of displacement. The very same trends, however, will also create numerous new occupations that do not exist today.

AgENT Of CHANgEPredicting the impact of disruptive technologies on the way we do business, based on the findings from an Economist Intelligence Unit report sponsored by Ricoh.

ClAyTON CHRISTENSEN ON INNOvATION AND DISRUpTION Clayton Christensen is a professor of business administration at Harvard business school and the bestselling author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, among other titles. He is one of the world’s leading authorities on disruptive innovation.

QIn your view, will technology-related disruption continue as before, slow or accelerate in the coming decade?

A It will continue as before, but there is a concern about a possible imbalance between the three key types of innovation. One of these is “growth innovation”, which is disruptive. It involves making what is currently an expensive and complex technology that is accessible to only a few people far simpler and far more affordable. All growth in jobs in the US has come from such innovations. The next is “sustaining innovation”, which improves good products’ functionality or expands their capacity. Most innovations fall into this category; on average they do not create new growth, but they are nonetheless important to the economy, keeping

firms sharp. Finally, there is “efficiency innovation”, which is low-end disruption. These are also important, but they destroy jobs in the economy. When Wal-Mart comes to town, for example, they hire people but their model is so much more efficient that they also put many retail shopkeepers out of business.

Looking ahead, growth innovation must outstrip the ability of the other two to take jobs out of the economy. But in the US and parts of Europe, businesses are investing less and less in these kinds of innovation, while engaging in more efficiency innovation.

Q In our survey, many firms cited customers as a major source of innovation in the coming decade, ahead of more traditional ones. What challenges does that hold?

A As a general rule, if you listen to your customers and follow their lead, they help you with the sustaining innovations. But for the innovations that create real growth, customers are not very articulate at what those things need to be. If you just listen to them or follow them, they will misguide more than guide you. However, if you do not listen to what they say but rather look carefully at what they really want to get done in their lives, and how, and you can create a product or service that does it better, at lower cost, then you can learn a lot from customers.

agent of change: The future of technology disruption in business is an Economist Intelligence Unit white paper, sponsored by ricoh. The findings are based on expert interviews together with a global survey of 567 executives, conducted in September and October 2011, on their expectations of the impact that technology will have on business between now and 2020.

Cheap smartphones for all

business-oriented social networks

Data mining for behavioural insight

Cloud computing, providing cheap and nearly limitless processing power and storage

Immersive or holographic 3D video conferencing

augmented reality interfaces

adoption of visual, tactile and voice interfaces in primary computing devices

artificial intelligence—computers that learn by themselves

www.technology-frontiers.com | © Economist Conferences 20126 www.technology-frontiers.com | © Economist Conferences 2012 7

You hail a cab. Half way into the journey you realise you don’t have enough money to pay so you ask the driver to stop at the nearest cash machine. There’s a long queue and all the while the meter’s running and the cabbie is making a few extra bucks at your expense. Far better if you could simply pay by using your mobile to transmit virtual cash to the driver. And yet mobile phone payments are nowhere near as popular in the rich nations compared to the developing world – at least, not yet.

safaricom’s M-PEsa, a mobile-phone based money transfer system, is now used by nearly half of Kenya’s population. There it fulfils a real need by enabling those outside the traditional banking system to send and receive money, whether that means paying a bill, buying goods or receiving their wages. Users create a virtual account connected to their mobile number, then whenever they want to add electronic cash to their phone, or turn e-cash into actual money, they can do so at one of 28,000 retailers.

Fears that the idea would be rejected on the grounds that it suddenly meant its users and their financial transactions could be tracked seem

to be without basis. “We make it clear we have obligations to report to authorities. But this didn’t matter to users as the value of the service far outweighed any concerns,” says Nick Hughes, the driving force behind the project and now director of Signal Point Partners, which advises and invests in companies in emerging markets that use mobile phones to deliver services.

Despite M-PESA’s success, there have been hurdles to overcome– Safaricom had to convince regulators that it wasn’t creating a new currency, arguing that every penny in M-PESA matches a real world penny. Obstacles out of the way, Hughes says it has even more potential: “What is exciting now is the business opportunities it creates. For instance, many Africans are off the electricity grid but they can’t afford the one-off payment for a solar-powered unit. Now they could put down a deposit on the unit, which is embedded with a mobile device, and each time they turn the equipment on a small amount of money could be taken from their M-PESA account. It breaks down the affordability barrier.”

But could electronic cash take off in the West, where most people have bank accounts and credit cards? Ije Nwokorie, Managing Director of brand consultancy Wolff Olins London, asks: “How do you make it compelling here? You are talking about replacing something deep-seated – we still get excited when we pull crisp notes from a cash machine.” He reckons the solution lies in understanding the frustrations people have with making payments and looking at how virtual wallets could solve them. “People want to know they are getting the best deal, or that they can make a payment quickly, without endless forms to fill in. These are areas where these platforms can play a role and add value.”

NEW MONEyWhere next for

mobile banking?

What is exciting now is the business opportunities it creates. Nick Hughes, Director, Signal Point Partners

“We need to go back to the true meaning of money: a token of trust between two parties.” Nick Hughes #TechFrontiers

fabio sergio @freegorifero

people want to know they are getting the best deal.Ije Nwokorie, Managing Director, Wolff Olins

What is exciting now is the business opportunities it creates. Nick Hughes, Director,

Signal Point Partners

www.technology-frontiers.com | © Economist Conferences 20128

the real world and online. With the evolution of technology, services such as “in-play betting” aims to add more to the experience, allowing punters to bet on the outcome of each and every ball in a cricket game, or even bet throughout the 90 minutes of a football match.

Technology has also altered the way the company operates its back office. “Over the last seven years, the digital environment has changed the way in which we collect data. We know every single bet that comes through on a second-by-second basis so we can run a better margin and offer better prices to the customer and so earn their loyalty,” reckons Glynn.

But while the capturing of data through the likes of its loyalty programme helps the business improve its offering, it has to be careful about what it captures in an industry where customer privacy can be a particularly sensitive issue. “It is big data and not big brother. We make it clear what we are collecting and we reward customers accordingly. You have to remember the consumer has power.”

Consumer technologies such as apps and social networks are outpacing enterprise technologies and transforming the way companies work. So says Oliver Benzecry, Managing Director of Accenture, UK and Ireland, who notes we are now at a tipping point and there are many opportunities to reinvent both the front and back ends of a business.

Examples include shopkick, a scheme which uses smartphones to reward a shopper just for walking into a store, providing new ways for retailers to interact with potential customers. At the back end, whole processes are changing. In innovation, for example, Procter & Gamble moved away from the traditional internal R&D model and set up Connect + Develop, estimating that for every P&G researcher there were 200 scientists or engineers elsewhere in the world who could help the company innovate. Previously, less than 10% of its new initiatives involved external innovation partnerships. With its new programme, by 2008, this was up to over 50%.

Traditional high street bookmakers provide another example of how business models are evolving, in their case to compete with online gambling sites. “Customers now have a great amount of choice on how, when, and where they place a bet – our job is to over-service,” says Richard Glynn, Chief Executive of Ladbrokes. The high street store is still a very important part of what Ladbrokes offers, but the company now seeks to create an entertainment and community experience around the placing of a bet both in

It is big data, not big brother...you have to remember the consumer has power.Richard Glynn, Chief

Executive, Ladbrooks

TECHNOlOgy AS A gAME CHANgERExploring new business modelsSession sponsored by Accenture

you have to really careful about

abusing people’s data - richard

glynn - ladbrokes #techfrontiers

- old days of the smokey flat cap

are gone

Fiona Graham @FionaGraham

benzecry: The #consumer is now much more in control than business and can move at speed and en masse #TechFrontiers

@clearchannelint

Watch the full discussion >

www.technology-frontiers.com | © Economist Conferences 20129

Not that long ago, technologists predicted that by the 21st century we’d have nifty robots to do the hard work, leaving human beings to live a life of leisure.

As it turned out, the robots were slow to materialise, while rapid advances in computing revolutionised the workplace – only not in the way that most people expected. What has become clear is that each new technology imposes fresh demands on managers and workers, as well as opportunities to make work more productive and enjoyable.

“Want to get away from it all? Head to the bottom of the Grand Canyon,” was how one executive at Technology Frontiers summed up the problem of being online and available 24/7. Managers are particularly hard hit: one study indicates that they are interrupted once every three minutes. Not before time, bosses are trying to find the communication tools that might help rather than hinder. Some are developing unconventional responses: one executive at the conference refuses to read anything they are just CC’d on, another has banned email altogether.

While one group of employees worry about technology impinging on their lives, generation Y types are frustrated by their companies’ sluggish adoption of new tools. Thanks to the consumerisation of IT, many of them are using more powerful technologies in their social lives than are available at work.

One of the main claims for the new social technologies is that they improve workplace collaboration. This can certainly be true. When used effectively, collaborative working brings about open innovation across a company. But in reality cross-organisation collaboration is hard to implement, argues Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice at the London Business School: “It is not because there are different nationalities or clashing personalities. People from different disciplines have very individual ways of working and use different technical language. It is hard to bring about the level of trust needed for tacit knowledge to be transferred.”

“It can be a big challenge as people don’t know each other, they don’t have the social interaction, and so it is hard to stimulate that environment,” points out David Mills, Executive Vice-president of Operations, Ricoh Europe.

Gratton believes that the key is in creating a question that is so interesting to all parties that they can’t stop answering it, in spite of any communication difficulties. You also have to find incentives – this idea that you are working for the greater good of the company is not enough.

In a later session, JP Rangaswami, Chief Scientist at Salesforce.com, argued that enterprise social networking is a valuable way to break down hierarchies in an organisation. “Before, you had to make hierarchical assumptions about whether people will work well together, now you just ask if your guys can talk it over. It changes strategy

WORk fORCE 2012

Can technology really transform our working lives? And will it be for the better?

Session sponsored by Ricoh

What is exciting now is the business opportunities it creates. Nick Hughes, Director, Signal Point Partners

Watch the full discussion >

on how to get the best people for the task. Plus, a networked environment means decisions are not made in a silo.”

Technology also promises to make our working lives more flexible. Julie Meyer, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Ariadne Capital, who works with entrepreneurs and start ups, notes that, particularly in the under 30 age group, the concept of employment is changing and technology is enabling the change. “They don’t have experience of working for one organisation. They see themselves as their own brand with their own responsibilities for P&L.” She paints a picture of a generation that is working longer hours but feeling that they have more freedom and want to manage their own time. “Work is something they do that they love, not somewhere they go.”

In this new world, managers worry about potential conflicts of interest and reduced loyalty among employees. However, Gratton argues otherwise: “There is no evidence they are disloyal but they are more conscious of the choices they have. They have seen what has happened to the baby boomers and the breaking of the job for life contract. They want to stay, learn and develop but realise they must stay mobile.” And the message to international companies – they have joined you because you are global and they are expecting to move around the company.

It is hard to bring about the level of trust needed for tacit knowledge to be transferred. Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice, London Business School

Lynda gratton, a facinating presentation on the way people will work in the future - a bit scary #TechFrontiers

Rachael HanleyBrowne @leadmetoit

Lynda gratton Lbs average time of executives not interrupted is 3mins #TechFrontiers

Helmut Fink @helfink

PaNEL sEssIoN Lynda Gratton, Professor of

Management Practice at the London Business School,

joins a panel discussion with David Mills, Executive

Vice-president of Operations at Ricoh Europe, Julie Meyer, Founder and Chief Executive

Officer at Ariadne Capital and Mark Judd, Global Director of Human Resources of the

shared services organisation at Rolls-Royce.

www.technology-frontiers.com | © Economist Conferences 201210 www.technology-frontiers.com | © Economist Conferences 2012 11

Choir singers don’t need to congregate together to make music together. At least, not when you have YouTube at your disposal, says Eric Whitacre, a composer and conductor.

Whitacre has put together a virtual choir with singers from around the world that he conducts via video. The idea started life when Britlin Losee – a fan of Whitacre’s music – recorded herself singing one of his compositions and shared it on YouTube. Her voice is sweet, but the bedroom recording is pretty low-fi. Even so, Britlin’s videoed audition got Whitacre thinking. He sent out an appeal for volunteers for his virtual choir, and worked with producer Scott Haines to bring the video recordings together – with some impressive results.

At Technology Frontiers, Whitacre shows us how the music comes to life. We watch individual singers all over the world sitting in their bedrooms or living rooms, watching their virtual conductor intently and piping up for their particular contribution. But the magic happens when all these voices are brought together, transforming the individual song lines into a rich and highly

textured piece of music. Cue gasps of awe and delight from the audience.

Encouraged by his initial success, Whitacre upped his ambition. The next project called for 900 people to record themselves singing his song “Sleep”. Before long Whitacre had received 2,052 contributions from singers in 58 countries.

Whitacre isn’t entirely sure where this is all heading. Virtual Choir 3, ‘Water Night’ launched in April using 3,746 singers’ videos from 73 countries. But he says there is a lot more to it than just the music.

Having asked for feedback from the singers via Facebook and Twitter, Whitacre heard some of their stories. “There are people taking part in places in Africa with no running water and rough Internet connections. They are spending days uploading their video.”

“I started as a music nerd to see what I could come up with but it is far bigger than that. It is about people’s desire to connect.”

NEW WORlD ORCHESTRAOr how a cast of three thousand strangers made some beautiful music.

Watch Eric’s full talk >

‘Water Night’ launched in April using 3,746 singers’ videos from 73 countries.

I started as a music nerd to see what I could come up with but it is far bigger than that.

It is about people’s desire to connect.

Eric Whitacre, composer and virtual choirmaster

Eric Whitacre’s virtual choir at the #techfrontiers conference was quite mesmerising!

Michael Anyfantakis @MAnyfant

Watch the video for “Sleep” >

www.technology-frontiers.com | © Economist Conferences 201212

top 20 of the world’s most liveable cities,” says YB Senator Dato’ Raja Nong Chik, Minister of Federal Territories and Urban Wellbeing. The city is working hard to get there. For example, Kuala Lumpur suffers from both traffic congestion and flooding caused by heavy rain storms – problems which have prompted the construction of a new “smart tunnel”. Most of the time, this tunnel is used by traffic, but if flooding is predicted it closes and is used to manage water levels instead. Other schemes include a Mass Rapid Transit system, and the regeneration of the rivers and surrounding areas.

Crucial to the success of such projects is the private sector, he adds. “It has to be a government initiative, but they then need to incentivise the private sector and help facilitate the project. We have to be smart in our integration with other partners whether they be the landowners, local authorities, or the transport providers.”

Ratti believes that to develop smarter cities, governments need to make their data available and allow anyone to build apps for it, in much the same way that the data.gov.uk project is doing. Bottom-up innovation is the way forward.

Our cities have become living computers in which the digital and physical worlds merge together to offer a better life for the people that descend on them daily. This is the image created by Carlo Ratti, Associate Professor and Director at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s SENSEable City Laboratory.

Its projects have included the quirky – such as a ‘digital water pavilion’ in Spain, where the building’s walls, which are made of nothing else but water, appear and disappear when the pavilion opens and closes. Others have more practical applications: LIVE Singapore! collates real-time data on urban activity to help people make better decisions based on what is actually happening at any one time in the city. One of the applications looks at how taxi and rainfall data can be combined to help manage supply and demand for cabs in bad weather. Then there’s the Copenhagen Wheel, which transforms ordinary bicycles into hybrid e-bikes controlled through a smartphone. They capture the energy dissipated while cycling and braking and save it for when the cyclist needs a boost. They also collect data on pollution levels, traffic congestion, and road conditions in real-time.

Kuala Lumpur is also looking to technology to help make it one of the best cities in the world to live. “We are now number 78 (in the EIU’s ranking of liveable cities) and by 2020 we want to be in the

A TAlE Of

fUTURE CITIES

A blueprint for the

intelligent metropolis

Totally want a Copenhagen

wheel now... really interesting presentation from

Carlo ratti and MIT #TechFrontiers

Laura Scott @Laura_Scott

PaNEL DIsCussIoN Carlo Ratti, Associate Professor and Director, MIT SENSEable City Laboratory, discusses the future of cities with YB Senator Dato’ Raja Nong Chik, Minister of Federal Territories and Urban Wellbeing, Malaysia, and Peter Geuns, Technology Leader, Europe, Middle East and Africa, GE Power and Water.

The Copenhagen Wheel transforms ordinary bicycles into hybrid e-bikes controlled through a smartphone.

www.technology-frontiers.com | © Economist Conferences 201213

THE MIND Of THE CONSUMER Technology works best when it gets inside your head

The social graph is not enough to predict influence. aleks krotoski #TechFrontiers

Herve Lilliu @hlilliu

@boninbough says tech is changing us. google search is rewiring us to short mssg. Mobile phones as addictive as cocaine #TechFrontiers

Claudia Girrbach @ClaudiaGirrbach

Watch Bonin >

Watch Aleks >

Watch Charlie >

Apple has it down to an art form – how to get inside the heads of its customers. “You may be old/bald/unpopular but buy me and you will be cool again,” was how Charles Leadbeater, a leading authority on innovation, strategy and education, summed up why Apple’s brands have become hotter than Hades.

Marketers may well look to replicate the company’s success but understanding what makes a product popular in the tech sphere can prove elusive. Leadbeater contends that for a piece of technology to become successful, it has to become part of the furniture. “Technology has to fit in naturally and be adopted into normal, everyday life,” he says. One strategy is to make the new seem ultra-simple – an iPad stylus that allows you to write as much as you would with a traditional pen, for example. Crucially, technology needs to have empathy and be designed in a way that understands human needs. “What we get now is so far short of a human experience,” says Leadbeater.

Bonin Bough, Vice-president of Global Digital and Consumer Engagement at Kraft Foods, agrees: “When technology began to look more like us it took off and became cross generational so you have grandparents keeping up with their families lives through the likes of Facebook and Skype.” He notes that every successful technology changed our lives without us knowing

There is the assumption that an online connection = friendship = influence.

It is much more nuanced than that.

Aleks Krotoski, technology academic and freelance journalist

Technology has to fit in naturally… What we get now is so far short of a human experience.Charles Leadbeater, author on innovation and creativity

it. The clock is a case in point – before its invention, we would wake and sleep naturally but now our lives our dictated by it. “The Web is doing the same. It could even be reprogramming our brains without us knowing it as we are becoming less used to digesting long-form content.”

Not only does technology have to mesh itself into our lives seamlessly, but it also has to have a buzz around it. Marketers are keen to exploit the idea of influence and how that might play out in the digital world. But Aleks Krotoski, an academic, journalist and social psychologist, says that the way some businesses are looking at how people influence each other online is crude. “There is the assumption that an online connection = friendship = influence. It takes complex human beings and reduces them into a relatively simple series of ingredients that you can pour into a recipe and, hey presto, they can be influenced. But it is much more nuanced than that.”

Further observation would yield more accurate results – if two people use multiple communication platforms such as Facebook, SMS and chat, then they are likely to be close and have more influence with each other. Or if a person receives more requests to connect through a social media platform than those reaching out to them, they are likely to be more influential. But there is a caveat: anyone can manipulate their identity online.

Charlie Leadbeater: “ryanair sell you a ticket, and then they declare war on you” #Techfrontiers

Tom Standage @tomstandage

“Food at a Farmer’s Market comes with narrative.” @wethink on the empathy systems of oddly shaped potatoes. #techfrontiers

Aleks Krotoski @aleksk

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When to go with creative intuition, when to go

with the data

“Creativity challenges technology and technology inspires creativity,” says Sir John Hegarty, Worldwide Creative Director and Founder of Bartle Bogle Hegarty. To make the most of technology, businesses need to get creative. But often they get so involved with the technology that it takes a while before someone comes up with the creative insight about how to apply this technology to human needs.

“There is a schism between technologists and creatives, but we are also in cohesion with each other,” he adds. Marketing, in particular, can be transformed by technology. “Today the way you can communicate with people can be done economically and in an exciting way. But what we are seeing is very conventional and disappointing.” Regardless of the technology, Hegarty reckons success lies in storytelling. The invention of film was revolutionary but who would want to go and see a movie without a story? The same is true for the technology we have today, with the likes of social media enabling businesses to tell a compelling story or start a conversation with its customers.

But technology enables more than just the telling of a story or the igniting of a debate. “We can use technology to connect us to the crowd – whether that is customers, suppliers, or bloggers,” says

PANEL DISCUSSION Sir John Hegarty, Worldwide

Creative Director and Founder at Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH),

Geoff McGrath, Managing Director at McLaren Applied

Technologies, and Neil Rimer, Co-Founder and Partner at

Index Ventures look at how technology can be used for

competitive advantage.

Watch the discussion >

Watch Sir John’s talk >

Neil Rimer, Co-founder and Partner at Index Ventures. “They can operate like simultaneous focus groups, you can have customers support each other, and even open up competition for a new design.”

Geoff McGrath, Managing Director at McLaren Applied Technologies says that user-driven innovation is becoming very much part of the mix in product development. The company works with pioneers in the field such as cyclist Mark Cavendish, who shows just what is possible, as well as the public.

“We design products for humans and so we have to find an environment where we combine man and machine,” says McGrath of how McLaren uses technology.

Brian Millar, Director of Strategy at Sense Worldwide, later commented in a session on social media that we should be encouraging the involvement of “creative consumers” – such as the endurance athletes that hack their shoes. “In a focus group, you might get £50 and a pizza. Here you are contributing to a better running shoe. Participants also get bragging rights and there are a tonne of talented people out there without jobs who can add this project to their CV. They certainly don’t feel as though they are being used.

There is a schism between technologists and creatives, but we are also in cohesion with each other. Sir John Hegarty, Founder of Bartle Bogle Hegarty

anyone not watching #TechFrontiers can do now at: http://t.co/u8gDfzJu - even if just to see John Hegarty’s suit! a creative winner...

Sarah Caddy @caddster

storytelling will always be the greatest form of communication - sir John Hegarty from bbH #TechFrontiers

Simon Meredith @simon_meredith

Image from Sir John Hegarty’s presentation

www.technology-frontiers.com | © Economist Conferences 201216 www.technology-frontiers.com | © Economist Conferences 2012 17

MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) machines have massively improved diagnosis of many diseases. But having a scan can be a huge ordeal for patients, particularly for children. New generation machines now provide high quality imaging with a more patient-friendly experience. With the help of an iPhone, patients can control the lights, the pictures and even the scents while they are in the MRI suite. Crucially, such developments also mean you are less likely to have to sedate a frightened child.

Such examples are part of big trend to humanise medical technology. Mike Harsh, Chief Technology Officer at GE Healthcare, explains how they use storytelling to make MRI less frightening. Children become part of an interactive tale, which begins in the waiting room with a jungle or pirate theme, and is continued right through the scan. “There is a part in the scan where the patient has to hold their breath to get clear image and so we have even made that part of the story. It is important to move

It is important to move away from these cold technical machines and bring humanity to the experience.Mike Harsh, Chief Technology Officer at GE Healthcare

HUMANISINg HEAlTHCAREHigh empathy machines in medicine

away from these cold technical machines and bring humanity to the experience.”

This is just one example of how the future could be shaped by so-called “high empathy” machines. While technology has transformed healthcare, the next stage is actually making it more patient-focussed and looking at what the experience is for the end-user.

Fabio Sergio, Executive Creative Director at Frog Design, which works with companies to design new products and services, says that attention to detail is crucial, and sometimes it has little to do with the technology itself. For example, in the process of designing a machine that enables diabetics to test their blood sugar, it was realised that in some cultures, users had a problem with touching the measuring strip which would have a trace of their blood on it. A simple low-tech eject button that eliminated the need to touch the strip was the solution. “Technology is sold as the key value but it is not always the case – human nature has to shine through.”

While the future promises to empower patients, the danger of information overload also has to be tackled. One example of how this could be avoided is the “chip in a pill” that transmits information to a patch attached to the patient’s skin, which then relays it to a mobile phone so that doctor can accurately measure if a drug is being taken properly.

Panellists felt that healthcare has to move away from process and protocols. “Think people not patients,” was the message.

Mike Harsh, Chief Technology Officer, GE Healthcare, Antonio Hidalgo, Executive Vice-president and

Chief Innovation, Marketing and Strategy Officer at Philips Consumer Lifestyle, and Fabio Sergio,

Executive Creative Director at Frog Design, look at how technology can be made more user-friendly.

great story from mike harsh: MrI scans for kids made fun with a pirate story. Hope they call it M arrrrrgh I #techfrontiers

Brian Millar @arthurascii

Watch the full discussion >

www.technology-frontiers.com | © Economist Conferences 201218

pRIvACy AND pROTECTIONRevealing too much at the click of a mouse

The Web is awash with all kinds of free services that benefit people’s lives. Smartphones now put a wealth of nifty apps at our fingertips, often for less than the cost of bag of chips. Even so, some experts say these tools come at a cost. Often unwittingly, consumers enter into a bargain in which personal data is the new currency.

Cory Doctorow, science fiction author and Co-Editor of Boing Boing, reckons that while most people genuinely care about their privacy, we are bad at assessing the long-term consequences of our disclosures. “No one would eat cheesecake if it immediately turned into cellulite, no one would smoke if it immediately caused a tumour,” he says, pointing out that this time lag between cause and effect applies just as much in the world of data as it does health.

Doctorow believes that technology can now be used to solve the privacy problem it has created. In the past, an epidemic of pop-up ads that plagued every website was quelled after Mozilla won plaudits for putting a pop-up blocker into its Firefox browser. In the same way, we need to make it as easy to manage cookies through our browsers.

Says Doctorow: “The privacy bargain is a myth – it claims that people consent to being tracked as they don’t reject the cookies. But it is hard to selectively allow the cookies that will be useful to you. The trouble is, nobody knows how to use their browser so companies can take their data for free.”

However, others argue that most consumers understand that if they want a service for free, they will have to give up their data. Even so, the

transaction needs to be more explicit: customers volunteer basic information in return for a service, and if a company wants to know more then they need to negotiate. This was the view reiterated several times by participants at Technology Frontiers – consumers need to be savvier when it comes to what they give away, but businesses also need to innovate in how they reward their customers for the data they part with.

Some governments are more concerned about the current state of play than others. The European Commission believes its citizens need protecting and is proposing a new regulation that would become law in the member states. “We need to establish trust. People don’t know what happens to their data,” says Françoise Le Bail, European Commission, Director General for Justice.

The EC’s new regulation has four aims. First, it would mean that people have a right to be forgotten (that is, to have their online information removed). Second, explicit consent would need to be given in order for information to be stored. Third, people must have a right to know what data is held about them. And fourth, any data breach must be notified to the data protection authority within 24 hours.

Strong enforcement will be vital to make the rules stick: transgressors can expect fines of up to 1m euro or 2% of the global turnover of a company. The EC reckons the proposals will not encroach on other rights such as freedom of speech or burden global business operating within the EU. As ever in these matters, it’s unlikely that everyone will feel reassured.

Cory Doctorow, science fiction author and Co-Editor of Boing Boing, leads the discussion with David Greenberg, Executive Vice-president, LRN and Mark Stevenson, author of “An Optimist’s Tour of the Future”.

Thought provoking perspective on

privacy issues from Cory Doctorow #TechFrontiers

Wolff Olins @WolffOlins

Watch Cory’s talk on privacy >

Watch the panel discussion >

The privacy bargain is a myth – it claims that people consent to being tracked. Cory Doctorow, science fiction author and Co-Editor of Boing Boing

www.technology-frontiers.com | © Economist Conferences 201219

BlIND DATAInformation overload: Sorting the wheat from the chaffSession sponsored by Huawei

It is said that big data has the power to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems, from climate change to AIDS. Whether or not that will transpire, we are certainly seeing an unprecedented explosion in the sheer scale of information that is now captured.

Having all this data is one thing, making sense of it is quite another, and many businesses are vexed as to how to tackle the mountain of information they collect. “Most companies are random screeners of their data or they screen everything which is rather like looking for needle in a haystack,” says Heidi Messer, Chairman of Collective i. But doing nothing is not an option either – data can provide huge insight so ignore it at your peril. “Every flawed decision has tremendous ramifications. Every wrong choice made can undermine millions in terms of marketing investment,” she says.

Messer compares the dilemma with that faced by airports. When it comes to security, one option might be the random screening of passengers but this is subject to human bias. But if you screen everyone, the process is extremely time-consuming. A third way, and by far the most successful, is combining business intelligence with human intelligence. Airlines screen passengers before they even get to the airport, the data flags up potential security concerns,

Heidi Messer, Chairman of Collective i, Kirk Dunn, Chief Operating Officer, Cloudera, John Frieslaar, Chief Technology Officer, Huawei Western Europe and Nigel Shadbolt, Head of Web and Internet science group, University of Southampton, look at some of the challenges companies face in extracting value from their data. Instead of

focusing on the size of data, focus on the answers you want and the tools that will get you those answers. Heidi Messer,

Chairman of Collective i

#techfrontiers Collective(i) chairman Heidi Messer rightly bemoans marketing depts shift to managing data instead of creating value

@onyeije

Nigel shadbolt: Most data of value is locked away in spreadsheets #TechFrontiers

Ricoh Europe @ricoheurope

People have an inflated idea of what digital data is worth, John Frieslaar of Huawei at #TechFrontiers - argues for more data sharing

ifs Financial World @_FinancialWorld

Watch the full discussion >

Watch Heidi’s presentation >

and airline personnel look at the risk factors and make the further checks necessary.

“Instead of focusing on the size of data, focus on the answers you want and the tools that will get you those answers,” says Messer. “For most organisations, that requires a seismic shift as the culture is not geared to analytically-driven decision making. A business needs to train people about applying human intelligence on top of the data.”

We are in the digital dark ages when it comes to data, reckons John Frieslaar, Chief Technology Officer at Huawei Western Europe, who argues that we are not using data creatively enough. “We should be collaborating and problem-solving

but no one wants to share their data. They have an inflated idea of what their data is worth. But it is only by sharing that the real value will come in.”

Nigel Shadbolt, Head of Web and Internet science group at the University of Southampton concurs: “Data becomes useful when it becomes actionable information.” Shadbolt and Tim Berners-Lee have been appointed Co-Directors of the new Open Data Institute, which will help businesses make use of UK government data. “There is a lot of high quality information often sitting locked away in spreadsheets in government. The public sector should see itself as a platform for data and allow others to innovate around this data.”

Image from Heidi Messer’s presentation

Image from Heidi Messer’s presentation

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