Light Shapes the Path of our Future

"Ancient people seem to have understood perfectly well the economic life is a matter of adding new goods and services. But instead of seeing the logic and order by which this happens, they saw magic." (Jane Jacobs, The Economy of Cities)

Light is almost magic. In form of the electric light bulb just being banned lately in Europe by law, and the Energiewende (due to the events in Japan in the earthquake, and tsunami in spring 2011) it has become an issue that drives innovation around new technologies - sometimes, even by magic.

Here in Dresden not only a governement-funded large-scale project, called #CoolSilicon in order to lower the energy use of future mobile applications, going down to the processor itself, but other "edgy" fields around technology inventions, and the adjacent innovations from it emerge. Still at a small scale one has to admit, however growing at exponential rate.

Fraunhofer COMEDD at #ipd2013

The field in question is #OrganicElectronics, and especially #OLED lighting which is still in an infant stage compared to traditional lighting.

What may be so special about OLED lighting, that even whole conferences, or at least major parts of such are covering on the underlying technologies, research, and pilot projects?

OLED (organic light emitting diods) is mainly a flat, scalable lighting based on organic material free of hazardos  material like HG which can be adapted, and shaped in forms only you can imagine. About a year ago Angela Incampo proposed the concept of #OLEDine during the 7th Silicon Saxony Day here in Dresden to bring this to performing arts, namely ballet in order to combine the beauty of dance with the engineering genius of OLED, and the design spirit of fashion makers [LINK].

Fraunhofer Gesellschaft one of the world's largest industry-driven research commuities, on the edge to academics, is not only well-established in Dresden due to a long history in microelectronics, and machinery but holds a major part of the activities in this new lighting field. Favorable conditions like GLOBALFOUNDRIES Fab1, DRESDEN-concept, SEMICONEuropa (especially with the panels at Plastic Electronics 2013, on Twitter more via #PlasticElectronics2013 soon) are the drivers for what emerged last week:

Fraunhofer COMEDD's official opening as an independant industry research institute (especially in the field of OLED and bi-directional microdisplays [mentioned in WIREDUK magazine, p. 51]

Taking the chance to make the opening not just a small dot on the event calendar the following day the 1st Industry Partners Day of Fraunhofer COMEDD pulled in almost 100 partners of ongoing projects from close and far to learn more about what can be achieved for society with these new technologies. The program was overwhelming, and diverse - from organic solar cells, to sensors in medical use, use cases of interactive bi-directional microdisplays such as for #GoogleGlass [GoogleGlass specs for the serious geek]. Even though this one day was certainly not enough to capture and digest all the input, and see the vastly broad (currently) loose connections to future use fields it pulled the interest by the participants who had come not only from Germany, but from Europe as well. #SEMICONEuropa, 8-10 October 2013 in Dresden will certainly bring the next, and longer opportunity to learn more about the research, and industry chances that are connected with Dresden.

During the talks one thing became quite clear: from single pilot product to small-scale, and scalable projects to bring this new energy efficient OLED lighting technology into public awareness, and then use is the main challenge. The OLED substrate from NOVALED, another Dresden-based technology startup is in the newest smartphones made by SAMSUNG, and is one of many small steps on the #SiliconSaxony road towards success, to learn, and build on. And it needs more than just establishing new tech tools to do the early production. The interweaving of technology, (unaware) customers, and innovative business models is the challenge of today's exponentially accelerating technology arenas. Too often the "Just think big"-attitude, only acting as a potential buyer/ industry partner when the concrete outcome in financial terms is the one and only key driver that keeps technology innovations too often "in the basement" or early stage scaling.

What is the global grand challenge that OLED in specific could be of help? It certainly has to do with energy (because these use a "drop of it" compared to normal lighting facilities), and the beauty, and natural light temperature they give in comparison to ultra-bright LED spots, or "heating ovens" that we still call light bulbs.

TRILUX at #ipd2013

We are certainly in the very early stage of a rippling shift in the adjacent industry, especially around lighting, and energy infrastructure, and just thinking a step further can disrupt the current business fabric fully. When your OLED is powered by your organic PV panels wrapped around your house, or sealed in the doubling of your house's windows what else will be different?

Overall this intense #ipd2013 (Industry Partners Day) on April 10, 2013 was a future talk on the edge of a hot innovation hub, waiting to erupt into economic local growth opportunities once the focus of public, and business organizations rescope, and broaden the focus away from solely bringing technology into being, but build on the value-creation chain from there. For this small bold actions, changes in innovation funding, and working on effective innovation funding approaches, and its acceleration appreciating the truly new will open up the "Opportunity Space" towards #Abundance.

The Good and the Bad - what can be learned from both.

German education system is getting under the microscope. A few weeks ago The New York Times brought an article about the excellence title of TU Dresden (one of 11 universities that gathered this title last year, with the prestigious title is coming along a massive public funding for some years to go for them). It is not often that the German education system makes its way into the North Americas despite the fact that the origins of the the education system there is based in large part by the public upper education (university) initiated by Wilhelm von Humboldt.

http://bit.ly/Yk7ObZ

Back in mid-January news spread via Twitter, and by the yearly "Unternehmerfrühstück" at Messe Dresden GmbH organized by the City of Dresden (cc Dresden News) where the Rector of the TU Dresden, Prof. Hans Müller-Steinhagen gave a speech (more about it, though in German, here)

Yesterday's notice about the resignation of former Minister of Education Prof. Dr. Annette Schavan spread again, and made it into The New York Times. The story that has been ongoing for about a year now over her dissertation and possible misquoting in large part of it has hit a high yesterday.

However, leaving all deeper inquiries into the matter to others at this point, it is an interesting point that news are spreading nowadays across continents in almost no time, and yet there is a big difference in both.

1. TU Dresden: it got the title back in mid-2012, and made its way into the New York Times about six months later
2. Resignation of Prof. Dr. Annette Schavan happened yesterday, 2013-02-09, and made it into New York Times (online) a day later

1. happened on the edge in Dresden
2. happened in the center of political gravity in Berlin

A major question that arises from that:

Information technology, and the ability to spread news across continents is somewhat lacking an essential ingredient to make stories move across the globe. What could it possibly be?

Sidenote: to my knowledge there are no Dresden-based journalists writing about the ongoings in the region in English. Or should I be wrong at this point? Lot's is happening here on the "edge" of the country especially in research, innovation, and working on shifting the education context to run at similar top level with the hotspots of the world and to a certain point this knowledge tends to be staying locally. Back 80 years and more Dresden has been acknowledged as one of the innovation centers of Europe, and the world alike, and then suddenly the social fabric changed, and made flow of knowledge somewhat dark. Still in some sort of recover time information technology, and English as a first boundary object to accelerate the knowledge flows could spark extraordinary changes we might not have considered yet as a society.

Design for the 21st Century Management & Education Institution

Back in 1989, "The Wall" had not yet come down yet, and first tectonic shifts of the social fabric in Europe were already under way, Jay W. Forrester gave a Banquet Talk at the international meeting of the System Dynamics Society. It was July 13, 1989, in Stuttgart.

http://sloanreview.mit.edu/feature/jay-forrester-shock-to-the-system/

As Jay W. Forrester pointed out on how he had become to create the field of system dynamics over the course of his life, on how he and his team managed the development of the first automate air-defense system, and how his work on Urban Dynamics led to the contact with Aurelio Peccei, founder of the Club of Rome  from which Limits to Growth later came up.

At the end of his talk he points out "A rather small number of relatively simple structures will be found repeatedly in different businesses, professions, and real-life settings. One of Draper's junior high school students, working with bacteria in a culture and in computer simulation, looked up and observed, "This is the world population problem, isn't it?" Such transfer of insights from one setting to another will help to break down the barriers between disciplines. It means that learning in one field becomes applicable to to other fields. There is now a promise of reversing the trend of the last century that has been moving away from the "Renaissance man" toward fragmented specialization. We can now work toward an integrated, systemic, educational process that is more efficient, more appropriate to a world increasing complexity, and more compatible with a unity in life."

Almost 24 years later, what is the evidence that this is true? Personally I very well remember a job interview in Stuttgart for a position as a lean consultant (which when filled out properly goes very much in tune with the words above) back in early 2008. I still recall the drop of my heart beat when the CEO of the company told me, "You are the right person we are looking for at the moment. Your knowledge and expertise in the field is exactly what we need. - Yet, we can't hire you: you would be the first non-engineer (note: economist) in the team of 14!"

If such behavior of business leader is still the prevalent mode of action, where shall we establish the spaces, and institutions that build on Jay W. Forrester's vision of 1989?

10 TED Talks Predicting the Future

Predicting the future, shaping it with language! 

Evolutionary Process ... Humans in the Middle

Reese Jones, trustee of Singularity University, at a recent TEDxSF, on the role of microbiome on not just our individual health but the larger system.

11:18 min - "It's an evolutionary process we are in the middle of. And it is hard to see things when you are in the middle of them"

These two sentences taken in your context of work, or what you try to achieve - what are you currently in, could need an outside, on the edge, observer telling you something you can't possibly see?

Failure has to be Appreciated

Have you embraced yourself on YOUR DREAM? What failures have you been through?

Dresden - A World Microcosmos in a Nutshell

What doubts and reservations do you have on this idea?

What is the story you keep telling about the problems of this community (Dresden)?

Where do you see Dresden in five years time (all odds positively in tune)?

The region around Dresden on the outer Eastern part of Germany (sort of on the edge) has been a legacy of invention, entrepreneurship, and futuristic minds. What has driven it that far? Back in the days of August the Strong it was the urge to rise to intellectual and representative levels of the other kings, and queens around Europe.

Dresden became the 'Florence of the Elbe' (Elbflorenz), not just because the light, and the hilly mountains resemble the area around Florence in Italy, but due to the arts that is to be found at large here in the area. This reaching from one of the most remarkable opera houses, the Semperoper, to world-known museums, and not as quite as prominent in the general visibility: being a place of cutting edge technology, and science.

A few years back when Infineon (formerly Siemens) decided to catch upon the legacy of microelectronics that played a major part since 1961 in Dresden with Werner Hartmann setting the start.  Quickly other institutions followed in now making Dresden, known as Silicon Saxony, Europe's most buzzing science, and research hotspot on fields like nano, bio, mobile computing, in short all fields that are driven by the effects of 'Moore's Law'.

What makes Silicon Saxony different from Silicon Valley?

Dresden in itself is already a microcosmos representing the "world in a nutshell", neatly following the bends of the river Elbe the city spreads along roughly 20 km, and 5 - 10 km in broad. Instead of needing a car, the public transport system with Dresdener Verkehrsbetriebe AG running a 24-7-service (one of the few in the world) being its mobility backbone, or just take the bike.

Arts, science, and technology meet within the city limits constantly, and create a state of serendipity as the interview between Kai Simons and William Forsythe in "Mental Leaps" (page 7 ff.) show. But that is just the beginning. The rising discussion about installing free public WiFi around Dresden, via various approaches, is giving new positive impulses to create a worldwide acknowledged hotspot of Abundance bringing citizens' creative power into being.

What doubts and reservations do you have on this idea?

What is the story you keep telling about the problems of this community (Dresden)?

Where do you see Dresden in five years time (all odds positively in tune)?