As we end the year, we realize that the 2K10 decade is ending and a new frontier awaits us. I felt that way as I attended last week’s MIT Leadership Summit in Singapore. The moment I stepped into the hall and began reading the preview of the technological showcase, it gave me the feeling of a heightened sense of the need to catch up with the technologies in showcase. In the tech world, where development and innovation are set at an evolving rapid pace, it’s fairly common to have that feeling of being left out. The silver lining? Innovation sheds a trailblazing path that we can follow to enhance our knowledge of concepts and its technical details. Below are the forward-pacing themes that got me thinking of how quickly our perception changes based on innovative advancements:
Smarter Nation
In the essence of leadership, nations are shaped by policies and the participation of all its inhabitants. The key part are the leaders who will define the policies to better serve the interest of the nation as a whole. These nation leaders are nation builders, that must continuously re-asses the constantly evolving “smarter” way to run and do things.
A “smarter” nation is ideal and yet the smarter way must be practical and most of all, achievable with the current resources or capacity to build towards those idealistic changes. A smarter nation means smarter cities and a smarter way of governing to achieve the existing and yet evolving smart city indicators. As each nation, its populace and its key cities are beset with their challenges, the immediate challenge is knowing the smarter way of things as a self-awareness proponent; knowing our capacity and deficiencies that must be overcome.
Impact technologies presents a way of improving things and a smarter way to achieve the desired innovation fulfillment scope. Once that core ingredient or requisite is known, we are able to construct a feasible project framework to achieve smarter cities and smarter regions. The first step will always be the most challenging as we, as leaders, are tasked to tow the line to make way for a desired output down at the horizon. There will be self-doubt and unforeseen challenges along the way, but as long as we are committed to that smart development framework, our leadership capacity must hold firm to move all participants as enablers in the project.
The Power of Harnessing Systems
As someone who has been involved in the service integration and systems development industry, systems are a continuous work in progress right after its installation — roles are defined, capacities are measured, things are processed like clockwork and the desired output is achieved. What makes systems tricky to continually optimize is based on its concept of continuity; one subtle change is a disruptor and yet, it is a part of the technical change management tasked to process engineers and systems overseers. Things change and systems must adapt to the dynamic business environment.
Harnessing systems are a fruit of research, trials and scientific evaluation across the systematical process management. In between the output are metrics to be measured, parallel challenges to be observed and improvements to be formulated. In harnessing systems for optimal results, the outputs or continual yield are merely the tangible by-product. Think of the product undergoing a journey and the small details – in seconds, minutes or stoppages are a part of the quantifiable and yet intangible details of the final product. This is where Blockchain is put to good use based on use cases. The systematic process with the capacity to recede dependence on human interference on the process as per important check stops on verification or evaluated decision-making are important breakthroughs that will help point existing systems to optimal automation.
In harnessing the power of systems, I believe that the true breakthrough is unlocking its optimal potential and for the process thinkers to leave more room for future innovation.
Growth Strategies in the Age of AI and Automation
It is a nice wrap up for this year’s leadership summit. It challenges leaders, decision-makers and managers to think of possibilities, assess where they are now and how do you define a footprint in the 2K20 decade and beyond as AI and Automation will be making great strides. There will be emerging markets and frontier markets to capitalize for these disruptive catalysts that will define key-service integration opportunities, new lines of work, automation professionals and the overall structure of an enterprise. There are concerns on what happens with the human aspect in the age of employment. To me, what will happen is that the workforce of tomorrow will upskill as educational or technical skills institutions will alter their courses. The job market will see a hybrid of technical professionals who work with automation and still be able to interface with people.
It’s good that groundbreaking technologies will always challenge and let us rethink our perspective of what is come, this is part of the leadership aspect of rethinking being able to visualize, re-assess and re-strategize for the future.