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By: Ben Arnold O. De Vera, InterAksyon.com November 7, 2013 7:16 PM

Michio Kaku speaking at First Pacific Leadership Academy forum

InterAksyon.com means BUSINESS

MANILA - Technological transfer coupled with education and entrepreneurship will make it easier for developing countries like the Philippines to leapfrog into high-income status, according to world-renowned futurist, scientist, author, and TV and radio host Michio Kaku.

The Philippines is poised to leap into the future. You have a population that is semi-educated, ready to move in the future. And remember that developing counties dont have to go through the same stages as the West, said Kaku, who is widely known for his ongoing attempt to complete Albert Einsteins dream of devising a theory of everything that would summarize all the physical laws of the universe.

Kaku said technology and information have leveled the playing field, making economic development easily attainable.

Here, you can leapfrog to the future. You dont have to wire up your citiesyou can go wireless. Technology transfer can compress all these technologies and send them on a microchip. This means that instead of taking a hundred years to industrialize, in one generation you can leap into the 21st century. Thats the benefit of this digital revolution, he said.

According to Kaku, modern technological infrastructure has made physical infrastructure in developed economies pass.

We have an ageing infrastructure in London, Paris and New York City. Subways are falling apart, bridges are falling apart, he said.

Kaku sees progress only in economies that constantly innovate to tap speedy information and technology transfer.

Excerpt from:
Philippines can leapfrog to developed status, says futurist Michio Kaku

By: Ben Arnold O. De Vera, InterAksyon.com November 7, 2013 7:16 PM

Michio Kaku speaking at First Pacific Leadership Academy forum

InterAksyon.com means BUSINESS

MANILA - Technological transfer coupled with education and entrepreneurship will make it easier for developing countries like the Philippines to leapfrog into high-income status, according to world-renowned futurist, scientist, author, and TV and radio host Michio Kaku.

The Philippines is poised to leap into the future. You have a population that is semi-educated, ready to move in the future. And remember that developing counties dont have to go through the same stages as the West, said Kaku, who is widely known for his ongoing attempt to complete Albert Einsteins dream of devising a theory of everything that would summarize all the physical laws of the universe.

Kaku said technology and information have leveled the playing field, making economic development easily attainable.

Here, you can leapfrog to the future. You dont have to wire up your citiesyou can go wireless. Technology transfer can compress all these technologies and send them on a microchip. This means that instead of taking a hundred years to industrialize, in one generation you can leap into the 21st century. Thats the benefit of this digital revolution, he said.

According to Kaku, modern technological infrastructure has made physical infrastructure in developed economies pass.

We have an ageing infrastructure in London, Paris and New York City. Subways are falling apart, bridges are falling apart, he said.

Kaku sees progress only in economies that constantly innovate to tap speedy information and technology transfer.

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Philippines can leapfrog to the future, futurist Michio Kaku says

NEW YORKThinking about the future can be both terrifying and exciting, Ford Motor Company futurist Sheryl Connelly said in her keynote address on day two of the ad:tech conference here.

Connelly's opening trend centered around the growth of the world population and concern that the planet might not be able to handle it. With some projections suggesting the world population will be as high as 11 billion by 2050, many wonder whether resources will soon become too scarce, she explained.

Smaller families are also becoming more prevalent, Connelly pointed out, and while small family sizes may have been mandated in China, reports now show that Western families are having fewer or no children by choice. This change has led to the emergence of other trends, namely the rise of the aging population of the world and the growth of the dependency ratio in several countries.

"An exploding population of older people is coinciding with longer life expectancy worldwide," Connelly explained. In some cases, this is altering the dependency ratio, or ratio of individuals that aren't working to those that are. "In Japan, the number of workers will soon be outnumbered by the number of people depending on those workers," making it difficult for the country to thrive economically, Connelly said. The growth of BRIC countries [Brazil, Russia, India, and China], specifically China and India, will be a "major game changer" as well, Connelly said. India, where the ratio of workers to dependents is high, will become a dominant force in the region, she believes.

The increasing urbanization of the population is another growing trend, largely due to its impact on mobility in major cities. According to Connelly, Henry Ford saw the ability to move as essential for freedom and prosperity, an idea shared by current chairman Bill Ford. "As more and more people move into major cities, mobility, a critical component of innovation and freedom, will be in jeopardy," Connelly said.

The lack of high-level talent in workplaces is becoming problematic as well, Connelly pointed out, as the post-recession period brought on a shortage of skilled talent. The recession did, however, lead to the creation of more jobs for women. "Jobs in healthcare and the service industry are growing as male-dominated construction and finance jobs decrease," Connelly said. "By 2050, the number of female billionaires will outnumber male billionaires," she added.

Connelly closed her keynote by turning her attention to society's addiction to information, and the impact of information overload. "The abundance of information can also lead to fatigue among consumers, in some cases to the point where they delay buying in hope of getting a better deal only to end up looking at the next-generation model of the product and possibly never buying it at all," Connelly asserted. "If you give customers too many choices, too much information, they can't make a decision," she added.

Participants in ad:tech's Social Advertising panel echoed some of Connelly's predictions, focusing especially on society's dependence on information as well as information overload.

"It's not enough to just build audience anymore. There's so much information out there, so many channels, that now you have to not only get customers' attention, but also be continually relevant," Rudina Seseri, partner at venture capitalist firm Fairhaven Capital, said.

If social media is leveraged correctly, however, brands can experience a tremendous amount of success, the panelists agreed. "If you're a marketer today, there's never been a better time in terms of reaching out and connecting with customers. Part of the challenge now is growing ROI, but it's only a matter of time before social becomes a central anchor for driving sales," Dhiraj Kumar, head of performance solutions at Facebook, said.

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Ford's Futurist Sheryl Connelly Forecasts 'Game-Changing' Trends at Ad:tech Keynote

Govt urged to foster culture that allows for mistakes By Miguel R. Camus Philippine Daily Inquirer

Collecting garbage or making rock tunes for a living?

The good news is, you might have a place in the future, as envisioned by celebrity futurist and theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, who told a packed audience in Manila that the jobs of the future would move away from repetitive skills like several manufacturing functions and into more common sense and intuitive tasks.

Kaku, a guest speaker at a business forum organized by the First Pacific Leadership Academy Thursday, shared his views on the jobs of tomorrow and how a country like the Philippines can leap forward if it embraces digital technology, infrastructure and new attitudes toward entrepreneurship.

Saying several tasks will eventually be replaced by man-made robots, Kaku noted that people should focus on skills that require intuition, creativity and leadership.

We are seeing a gradual shift from commodity capital to a mix of commodity and intellectual capital. And that is going to be the currency of the future, said the regular host at the Science Channel/Discovery Channel, where he tackles topics like Einsteins dream of a theory of everything.

The losers [of the future] will be blue-collar jobs that are totally repetitive: automobile workers that do the same motion over and over again, textile workers that do the same thing over and over again. However, garbage men will have jobs, every garbage is different. Construction workers will have jobs, every construction site is different. The police will have jobs, every crime is different, Kaku said.

Stock brokers, scientists, analysts, rock stars and entrepreneurs are likely to have a place in the future as well, noted the physicist.

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For futurist, ‘intellectual capital’ is key