Thomas Frey's Blog, page 33

Megaprojects Set to Explode to 24% of Global GDP Within a Decade

Gone are the days where people are impressed by projects costing $10-$50 million or even $100 million. We are witnessing an explosion in the number of $1 billion+ projects with some, like the artificial archipelago being built in Azerbaijan, Turkey’s massive Urban Renewal project in Istanbul, and the new construction of Masjid Al Haram in Saudi Arabia each exceeding $100 billion.

But even these are merely scratching the surface of the extreme megaproject growth that will happen over the next decade, and there are several important reasons why this is happening.

First, we’re seeing a shift in power towards megacities. As people relocate from rural to urban communities and population clusters grow, so does the demand for major infrastructure improvements to help manage the traffic, water, sewage, power, and living strains of these growing economies.

Second, the wages paid for workers building infrastructure projects will improve the local economy to a point where other megaprojects become viable.

Third, as global awareness improves, so does the desire to standout and impress the rest of the world. Megaprojects become a source of national pride and a status symbol for emerging economies.

Fourth, we are moving into an era of technological unemployment where jobs are automated out of existence at an unprecedented level. The demand for new jobs – and these will provide tons of new jobs – will trump most other arguments.

And finally, megaprojects have a way of collateralizing themselves through the sheer size and impact of the project. Even though many will be based on un-provable claims and flawed accounting, the spinoff economies alone will create an overpowering momentum to push them across the finish line.

The growing list of megaprojects include tunnels, bridges, dams, highways, airports, hospitals, skyscrapers, cruise ships, wind farms, offshore oil and gas rigs, aluminum smelters, communications systems, Olympic Games, aerospace missions, particle accelerators, entire new cities, and much more.

In spite of their problems, here’s why the megaproject list will continue to grow and will continue to define the cities and megacities of our future.

$45B Lusail City – Qatar’s largest real estate project, will be home to 200,000 with a scheduled completion date of 2019
Understanding the Value of Megaprojects

According to Global Strategist, Parag Khanna, we are becoming a globally networked civilization because that is exactly what we’re building. All of the world’s defense budgets and military spending taken together total just under $2 trillion per year, but our global infrastructure spending is projected to rise from $3 trillion to $9 trillion per year over the coming decade.

“We have been living off an infrastructure stock meant for a world population of three billion, as our population grows towards nine billion,” says Khanna. “As a rule of thumb, we should spend about $1 trillion dollars on basic infrastructure for every 1 billion people on the planet.”

It’s no surprise that Asia has taken the lead. In 2015, China announced the creation of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which together with a network of other organizations aims to construct a network of iron, silk, and digital roads, stretching from Shanghai to London.

And as all of these megaprojects unfold, we will likely spend more on infrastructure in the next 40 years, than we have in the past 4,000 years.

Examples of this are easy to find. Ten of the world’s most impressive megaprojects currently in the queue include:

Dubai World Central Airport (United Arab Emirates)
Songdo International Business District (South Korea)
Tokyo-Osaka Maglev Train (Japan)
Masdar City (United Arab Emirates)
The Grand Canal (Nicaragua)
National Trunk Highway System (China)
International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor [ITER] – Fusion (France)
World’s Tallest Building (Azerbaijan)
Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (India)
King Abdullah Economic City (Saudi Arabia).

According to Bent Flyvbjerg, a management professor at the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, megaprojects currently constitute 8% of global GDP (gross domestic product).

Even though nine out of ten megaprojects experience cost overruns, and most take far longer to build than expected, they represent a crucial piece of today’s global economy.

Flyvbjerg also noted that project leaders have an incentive to overstate income, underestimate costs, and exaggerate future social and economic benefits due to lack of accountability and risk-sharing mechanisms.

But even though things go wrong, people generally don’t care. They don’t care about the poorly calculated cost-benefit statements, squandered money along the way, or the political wrangling necessary to get the green light; they just want something significant to happen in their community.

The benefits of megaprojects can be boiled down to these six points:

Technological Inspiration. Most megaprojects are technically inspiring. Engineers and technologists develop great enthusiasm for working on large and innovative projects, pushing the boundaries for what technology can do.

Source of Jobs. With so many jobs being automated out of existence, megaprojects serve as a catalyst for both the unemployed and the under employed.

Political Accomplishment. Politicians need something they can point to with a sense of pride and accomplishment.

Economic Benefits. Business people, trade unions, and workers alike will all reap the rewards from megaprojects.

Community Pride. Everyone loves to tell stories about the big things their community accomplished.

Aesthetic Beauty. Most people appreciate good design when it comes to building, using, and looking at something very large that is also ironically beautiful.

As a rule of thumb, history books don’t spend time memorializing the critics and project-killers, only those who succeed.

Raising the Bar – 64 Next-Generation Megaprojects

It’s easy to look at the world’s top 10 bridges and try to build something bigger, taller, longer, or more artistic than any of the ones currently in existence.

The same thinking applies to creating the next tallest building, largest cruise ship, longest tunnel, most popular theme park, or grandest stadium.

At the same time we seeing a form of blue ocean thinking creeping into the megaproject arena that includes never-been-done-before projects like colonizing Mars, tube transportation networks, floating islands, and underwater cities.

Here are a few megaprojects that have the potential to inspire the world for generations to come:

Will global tube transportation networks be coming to a megacity near you?

A. Global Infrastructure – All global systems need a point of origin, and the point of origin will typically turn into the global center of knowledge and operation for the industry it creates.

Global Tube Transportation Project – ET3, Hyperloop, or something else.

Whole Earth Automated Postal System – Delivering packages anywhere on earth without ever touching human hands.
Global Wi-Fi Network – Connected anywhere at anytime.

Global Genealogy Systems – For humans, plants, and animals including standards.
Global Ownership Authority – To govern standards and regulations, for personal ownership rights.
Global Privacy Standards – Adoptable by every nation on earth.
Global Ethics Standards – Including courts for oversight.
Electronic Borders – For countries to monitor all the inputs and outputs through their borders.

How long before a real space elevator becomes technically viable?

B. Space Industries – Every major space project has a huge ground support team all hoping to be part of that next great interplanetary mission.

Space resorts
Asteroid mining
Space-based power stations
Space elevator
Colonizing other planets
Traveling faster than the speed of light
Satellite Shooters – To shoot satellites into space
Constellations of Floating Wi-Fi antennas, solar powered planes, floating balloons, cubesats, and more to provide Wi-Fi to the entire world

Architect Richard Moreta Castillo envisions a self-sufficient eco-resort called Grand Cancun

C. Ocean Industries

Floating island resorts
Floating farms – for grains, fruits, vegetables
Open ocean aquaculture mega farms – for raising underwater sea plants and animals
Floating countries
Underwater museums
Underwater arboretums
Ocean wave power generators
Freshwater factories – turning saltwater into freshwater

Imagining the weather command center of the future

D. Controlling Extreme Weather. We continually find ourselves the victims of forces of nature while it is entirely possible to mitigate the damage of extreme weather.

Controlling hurricanes
Controlling earthquakes
Controlling tornadoes
Controlling hailstorms
Controlling desertification
Controlling draught and famine
Controlling dust storms
Controlling extreme blizzards, rainfall, and flooding

The world’s greatest bridge projects are still on the drawing board

E. Grand Bridge-Tunnel Projects. When it comes to ground transportation we have several massive disconnects in our global transportation network.

Bridge across the Bering Straight – Connecting North America with Asia
Bridge across the Darian Gap – Connecting North and South America
Gibraltar Bridge-Tunnel System – Connecting Europe and Africa
Sweden to Finland Tunnel – Connecting Sweden and Finland.
Korea Japan Friendship Tunnel System – Connecting Japan and Korea
Taiwan Strait Tunnel Project – Connecting China with Taiwan
Saudi-Egypt Causeway – Connecting Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Sakhalin-Hokkaido Tunnel – Connecting Japan with Russia

$15B Artificial Island – The Pearl, located in Qatar

F. Extreme Physics Challenges

Terraforming Planets – Developing the formula for recreating human-friendly earth-like environments on other planets and moons.
Mass Energy Storage – Storing power from one day to the next is still far too inefficient. Think in terms of cities having a 2-week power reserve at all times.
Controlling Gravity – The single greatest force of nature is gravity, yet we know very little about it.
Sending a Probe to the Center of the Earth – We currently know very little about the center of the earth.
Controlling Time – Many possibilities such as manipulating time in short intervals, soas to know something 5-10 minutes before it happens.
Viewing the Past – How can we create a technology capable of replaying an unrecorded event that happened decades earlier in actual-size, in holographic form?
Instant Disassembling of Matter – Think in terms of a process where large boulders can be instantly disassembled into a pile of molecules, simply by breaking all the molecular bonds.
Whole Earth Genealogy Project – Automated project that scans DNA and builds a map of today’s genealogy, adding to it the efforts of past genealogies to create a grid map of plants, animals, and humanity.

When the data of the world is at your fingertips

G. Extreme Data Megaprojects

The Billion-Cam Video Project – What would it take to get people to connect 1 billion video cameras to the Internet? How will this change the world?
Whole Earth Law Project – Very few countries have their laws posted in a central repository.
World’s First Billion Internet of Things Operating System – Architecting over 1 billion devices talking to each other is a powerful position to be in.
Global Elections – When will we see the first global election with over 500 million people voting from over 50 different countries?
World’s First Billion Sensor Network – What advantages will be created when over 1-billion sensors are tied together?
Global Language Archive – Over 500 languages have less than 10 people currently speaking the language.
World’s First Billion Drone Operating System – Much like cellphones, drones will evolve around a common operating system.
Global Intellectual Property System – Including patents, copyrights, and trademarks.

Can we build a better human?

H. Solving the Human Equation – No person should ever die… ever! If we can fix human aging, repair accidents, cure diseases, and modify deviant behavior, people no longer need to die. As a result, no person should ever die… ever! Is that our goal? And if not, why not?

Curing Cancer
Curing Diabetes
Curing Heart Disease
Curing Suicide
Curing Human Aging
Cloning or Printing Humans
Curing Deviant Behavior
Creating Super Humans

The 790 feet tall statue of Sardar Patel will soon be the tallest in the world
Creating the world’s largest statue

India has started to build the world’s tallest statue, the Statue of Unity. It will be a 790 feet tall tribute to Sardar Patel. By comparison, Crazy Horse Monument in Custer, South Dakota, which has been under construction for nearly 70 years, is only 564 feet tall.

Comparing the largest statues in the world

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel (or just Sardar, which means Chief) was the first Home Minister (the head of the Ministry of Home Affairs) and Deputy Prime Minister of post-independence India from 15 August 1947 to his death in December 15,1950.

Final Thoughts

In the past, megaprojects like the Pyramids in Egypt or the Great Wall of China became a lasting testament to human accomplishment simply because of the incredible amounts of human labor involved in the undertaking. But today it’s far more about the size, money, and significance of the project.

As I travel around the world, it’s hard to miss the sheer number of construction projects happening in every major city. If we only read newspaper headlines, it would appear megaprojects are primarily taking place in China and Dubai, but there are hundreds more that haven’t gotten nearly as much attention.

If we do increase our infrastructure spending to $9 trillion per year, as Parag Khanna suggests, megaprojects will rise in importance from roughly 8% of global GDP to close to 24% factoring in all the spinoff economies.

Over the coming decades we will begin the transition to megacity cultures, lifestyles, and economies. Megacities themselves will become more important than the countries they reside in.

With megaproject spending reaching unprecedented levels, any failures will have far reaching implications.

If your city, region, community, or country is not working on its own mega projects, it will certainly be left behind.

By Futurist Thomas Frey

Author of “Communicating with the Future” – the book that changes everything

View more on Thomas Frey's website »

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Published on May 24, 2016 12:25

Five Tough Questions: The Warsaw School of Economics Interview

The Warsaw School of Economics is the oldest, most prestigious, and top-ranked business school in Poland. Dr. Piotr Turek received his PhD in Economics there and went on to become a fellow futurist and new media expert in Warsaw where he works as a journalist, lecturer and mobile/web services expert.

In early January, Piotr contacted me and asked if he could interview me for a series of publications in Poland. When I agreed to the interview, I had no idea how tough these questions would be.

An edited version of the interview recently appeared on Futurist of the Year, a site designed to promote the study of futurology in Poland.

Since the answers submitted were more extensive than what they had room for in the magazine, I’ve included the long-form interview here.

Why should we study the future?
1.) Dr. Turek: In researching people to interview for this article, you instantly jumped out as one of the most respected futurists with deep insights into a variety of topics. Let’s begin with the topic of futurology and what it means to you. Why it is so important to study the future?

Frey: As a Futurist, people often ask me how many of my predictions have come true. I find this to be a rather uncomfortable question. It’s uncomfortable, not because my track record hasn’t been up to par (actually, a high percentage have come true), but because accuracy of predictions is a poor way of measuring the value of a Futurist.

In a world filled with MBAs and number crunchers, there is a constant push to reduce our analog world to digital analytics so we can accurately measure our return on investment.

But not everything is measurable in this way.

Thinking about the future is like a muscle in our brain that rarely gets used. Over time, our brains will atrophy and we lose our ability to think productively about what the future may bring.

At the same time, the world is shifting faster than ever. Our need to know about the future is no longer a luxury; it’s a functional imperative.

With this in mind, here are critical eight values that a Futurist has to offer:

Altered Thinking – The future is constantly being formed in the minds of people around us. Each person’s understanding of what the future holds will influence the decisions they make today. As we alter someone’s vision of the future, we alter the way they make decisions today. My goal is to help individuals and organizations make better, more informed decisions about the future.

Unique Perspective – The future is unknowable, and this is a good thing. Our involvement in the game of life is based on our notion that we as individuals can make a difference. If we somehow remove the mystery of what results our actions will have, we also dismantle our individual drives and motivations for moving forward. That said, the future can be forecast in degrees of probability. By improving our understanding of what the future holds, we dramatically improve the probability with which we can predict the future.

Evidence of Change – Empirically speaking, forecasting the future is not done by staring at tealeaves of reading tarot cards (that is the realm of psychics). Rather, futurists take an inter-disciplinary approach and employ a wide range of methods, from the study of cycles, to trend analysis, to scenario planning, to simulations, to back casting. Futurists use data from the past and present, as well as other concepts and methodologies to understand how the present will evolve into probable futures. We also borrow freely from other fields, such as forecasting, chaos theory, complexity science, organization development, systems analysis, and sociology.

Connecting the Dots – Futurists come from a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives. What we have in common is well-researched big-picture-thinking, strong pattern recognition, and innate curiosity. Ideas that are routine in one industry can be revolutionary when they migrate to another, especially when they challenge assumptions and rewrite common knowledge among the rank and file.

Find Your Future Competitive Advantage – French novelist Marcel Proust once said, “The real act of discovery consists not in finding new lands but in seeing with new eyes.” The most successful companies don’t just out-compete their rivals, they redefine the terms of competition by embracing one-of-a-kind ideas in a world heavily steeped in “me-too” thinking.

Take Control of Change before the Changes Take Control of You – Are you changing as fast as the world is? Change is inevitable, but how you deal with change can vary greatly. In a world that never stops changing, great leaders can never stop learning. How do you push yourself as an individual to keep growing and evolving? Does your company push you in the same manner?

The Future is Where Our Children Live – Our desire to leave a legacy is a uniquely human attribute. However, our legacy becomes meaningless if we don’t have new generations of people to pass it on to. To many this may sound like an obvious statement, but to those in the business world, there is a constant battle being waged over the needs of the present vs. the needs of the future. It’s very easy to place short-term profitability ahead of long-term problems.

Every Avalanche begins with the Movement of a Single Snowflake – Our ability to tap into and leverage the power of the future is directly tied to the number of times we think about it. The more we think about the future, the more we expand our understanding of it. And the more we understand the future, the easier it becomes for us to interact with it.

Google’s Chief Engineer, Ray Kurzweil, believes machine intelligence will exceed human intelligence by 2029
2.) Dr. Turek: Do you agree with Ray Kurzweil’s prediction that a connection between brain and Internet will take place before 2030, and does this concern you in any way?

Frey: Over the past 30 years, artificial intelligence went through a couple major boom and bust cycles because the algorithms failed to live up to the hype.

Since 2012, a specific machine learning technique called “deep learning” has permeated the AI world, and we’ve made more progress in the past four years than in the preceding 25 years on several key AI problems including image understanding, signal processing, vocal comprehension, and understanding text.

Keep in mind that deep learning still isn’t true AI, the kind of sophisticated and adaptable intelligence humans exhibit, but it’s a giant leap forward on the path to getting there.

Futurists like Vernor Vinge and Ray Kurzweil began focusing on the exponential growth of artificial intelligence several decades ago. With ever increasing advancements in areas like nanotech, biotech, chemistry, and bioinformatics, they’ve predicted we will be able to create a race of superhumans with decision-making abilities far beyond our ability to understand them.

Through these early efforts the field of transhumanism was born, referring to a form of superhumans with capabilities far beyond what we can comprehend today.

My sense is that people are far more nuanced and complicated than researchers have ever imagined, and while we’ll create closer facsimiles to human cognition, we’ll never be able to achieve a complete AI mind with inorganic materials.

The “singularity” itself is a bit of a mystery. Some have predicted 2029, and others 2045, but the exact nature of the transformation being predicted is still rather fuzzy around the edges.

Will artificial intelligence become integrally linked to the human mind as in a symbiotic relationship? Will “boosted” humans have the same values, ethics, incentives, and levels of consciousness as people today? Can we also “boost” intelligence in plants and animals?

Some of the differences between a human mind and an artificial one can be found in the emotional value we place on things around us. For example, we may value the softness of a nice pillow because it is comfortable around our head, and while artificial intelligence can duplicate the value, it can’t understand why.

Similarly, artificial intelligence can be designed to take initiative when certain criteria is met, such as cleaning a floor once it is dirty, yet it still can’t grasp the reasoning behind it.

AI cannot intuitively feel anxiety, stress, anger, or fear. Humans can be plagued with hundreds of physical and psychological conditions like insomnia, claustrophobia, kleptomania, xenophobia, or narcolepsy, all of which are considered a flaw in the human condition. But these failures are what make us who we are.

Without failure there can be no motivation for improvement.

Our drive and motivation comes from our own insecurities, and without this wide range of physical and emotional shortcomings, the only initiatives AI will be able to muster will be the well-calculated kind.

At the same time, what’s the point in replicating flawed humans? Our current advantages over machines involve things like adaptability, resourcefulness, our ability to make ethical decisions, and our desire to leave a legacy. But for how much longer?

Over the coming decades the achievements of machine intelligence will continue to hockey-stick its way up the exponential growth curve

However, no breakthrough technology is without its unintended consequences, and this one is no exception.

In our rush to solve all of life’s major problems, and we each have our own utopian image of the good life, our drive for solutions will leapfrog us directly onto the lily pad of perfection. It will be this drive for perfection that will be our undoing.

Ironic as it may sound, perfection is an imperfect concept.

Each of us has been born and raised with all of the foibles and limitations of being human. A typical day involves forgetting where we’ve put our keys, stubbing our toe, getting angry at the wrong person, and dropping a plate full of food. And those are just the little things.

We are indeed intelligent beings, but for all of our limitations, the intelligence we possess doesn’t seem hardly enough.

That said, AI is on the verge of becoming a powerful tool in our lives. In much the same way computers and machines are being leveraged to improve our capabilities today, AI will be integrated into our lives in thousands of different ways.

I love the question that Caltech Professor Kip Thorne likes to ask. “A thousand years from now, what things will be possible, and what things will not?”

Only time will tell.

Will we be able to protect intellectual property in the future?
3.) Dr. Turek: Over the next 15 years we will run into a number of dicey issues concerning the intellectual property rights of artists and proper payment for their work? What are your thoughts on this?

Frey: Our society places great value on creativity, originality, and discovery. History books are filled with talented people who figured out how to “zig left” when everyone else “zagged right.”

Recently, a company called Qentis unveiled a computer program capable of generating every possible combination of words on a single page, effectively preempting any future copyright claims.

Using a similar system, the company can also generate every possible combination of musical notes on a page giving them a priority claim to every “new” musical score.

Likewise, a software company called Cloem has developed a program capable of linguistically manipulating the claims on a patent filing, substituting keywords with synonyms, reordering steps, and rephrasing core concepts in order to generate tens of thousands of potentially patentable “new” inventions.

In much the same way computers are capable of generating every possible combination of lottery numbers to guarantee a win, patent and copyright trolls will soon have the ability to play their game of “fleecing the innovators” at an entirely new level.

More importantly, it confuses the concept of originality, and compromises the contribution of an individual if a version of every “new” idea already exists.

Naturally there are steps that can be taken to prevent this kind of abuse, like adding video proofs of the creation and statements from witnesses. But once artificial intelligence enters the picture, the deceptions will become even harder to sort out.

How beneficial would a global currency be?
4.) Dr. Turek: Do you think we are headed for just one world currency, or maybe none, and we return to exchange goods for barter?

Frey: The future of banking will be mobile, happening in devices we carry in our pockets, built into jewelry, and on our wrists, not in fancy office buildings.

In less than five years, smartphones, watches, and other devices will replace credit/debit cards, wallets, lenders, stockbrokers, and insurance agents.

There is a good chance that we will have a default global currency arise from the cryptocurrency movement.

The primary purpose of a global currency will be to have a stabilizing effect on other currencies. However, it will not operate to the exclusion of others. There needs to be multiple currencies to serve as a form of checks and balance for the global economy.

Over the past few weeks I’ve become enamored with the power of financial friction. This could involve everything from adding a tenth or hundredth of a cent charge to every email sent, social media “likes,” video downloads, views of copyrighted photos, and much more.

Even though it may not seem significant, there is a huge difference between “free” and “0.1 cent.”

Tiny charges, much like the rest of life’s sandpaper, tend to give us clarity between what’s significant and what’s not.

The reason this has become such an important topic today is because transaction costs have plummeted along with the cryptocurrency invention of distributed block chain ledgers, and the possibility of creating “nano-payment” networks is opening the doors to thousands of new fractional payment models.

The traditional way of providing online services like email, news, or uploading photos has been to pass the cost of operating these services on to advertisers.

But that could change.

Over the past decade, micro payment schemes have created successful business models around charges less than $1. As an example, Google’s AdSense charges advertisers as little as a few cents for every click of their ads.

It’s only recently, with the introduction of Blockchain technology, that we’ve been able to consider much smaller charges, even less than a penny.

In the past I’ve been an ardent advocate of simplicity, but over time my thinking has changed. Automation enables complexity, and the intricacy of complexity is what opens the door for unusual new business opportunities.

As a way of expanding our thinking in this area, here are 8 short scenarios with brief explanations.

When it comes to e-books, would you rather pay $7.99 for the entire book or a tenth of a cent for every page you read? With this type of model it would be very easy to run the analytics and determine which chapters, sections, and pages most resonate with readers.
If you received a tenth of a cent for every “like” on Facebook, but also had to pay a tenth of a cent every time you “liked” someone else’s page or photo, would you be making money or losing some at the end of each month? How could this Lilliputian economy be translated in other areas?
For photos with a copyright, whenever someone clicks to expand the image, their account would be debited a tenth of a cent. In this scenario, the owners would be incentivized to having their photos show up everywhere to increase exposure.
As a blog reader, every time you click “continue here,” you would be sending a tenth of a cent, or multiple tenths for every page viewed, to the writer. Would this incentivize more blog writers?
Would you be willing to pay a tenth of a cent for every page you view on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn just to avoid all the ads being directed at you? The amount you pay would be in direct proportion to how much you use these services, but still a relatively small amount.
Should every text message come with the option of paying a tenth of a cent to keep your service ad-free?
When it comes to videos, should a pay-per-play charge of a tenth of a cent be added to every YouTube, Vimeo, Vine, Twitch, or Viddy play. Should people posting videos have that option for remuneration?
Similarly, does it make sense to add a tenth of a cent charge for every episode of RadioLab, NPR, Freakonomics, or TED podcasts.

What role do banks play in our future?
5.) Dr. Turek: What kind of banking products and services will be relevant in the future and how do you envision banking to evolve in developing countries between 2020 and 2030?

Frey: There are approximately 2.5 billion people in the world who do not have access to traditional banks, yet nearly half of them have a mobile phone. These phones have enabled some of the poorest economies to leapfrog the wealthier countries because they don’t have to worry about their legacy infrastructure.

As an example, people in Africa are three times more likely to use mobile money as their counterparts in Europe and the U.S.

In fact, nine African nations now have more mobile pay accounts than traditional bank accounts.

Kenya is an example of how mobile money can dramatically transform a country’s economy. In 2006, less than 30% of adults had access to formal financial services. Today, thanks to M-PESA, that figure stands at over 65%.

M-PESA was originally designed as a system to allow microfinance-loan repayments to be made by phone, reducing the costs associated with handling cash and thus making it possible to offer lower interest rates. But after pilot testing it was expanded to become a general money-transfer system.

Launched in 2007 by Safaricom, the country’s largest mobile-network operator, it is now used by over 17 million Kenyans.

One study found that in rural Kenyan households that adopted M-PESA, incomes increased by 5-30%. In addition, the availability of a reliable mobile-payments platform has spawned a host of start-ups in Nairobi.

In 2014, the service processed over $20 billion in transactions, a figure equal to more than 40% of Kenya’s GDP.

The M-PESA experiment has paved the way for fintech startups like Abra in other countries.

Much of the fintech revolution happening in the tech world offers tools for improving the economy of developing countries.

Today there are 2.6 billion smartphone subscribers in the world and that will grow to over 6.1 billion in 2020. Smartphones will replace the need for many of today’s banking services and will open the door to a variety of new payment technologies as well as new banking options.

As an example, where bank transfers today still take two to three days, Bitcoin technology makes it possible to transfer money instantaneously and securely from person to person. This is inspiring startups, like Abra, to offer a more convenient and affordable ways to move money.

Abra is the world’s first digital cash peer-to-peer network.

The basic premise behind Abra is that anyone should be able to send money from his or her smartphone to any other person via their phone.

If a user wants to send $5 to a friend, all they need is the recipient’s phone number. If the recipient doesn’t have Abra on their phone, they will receive a text message telling them to install the app.

The app also takes care of currency conversions so that the value is never subject to the fluctuations of the price of Bitcoin or traditional costs in currency exchange.

Abra enables users to store money digitally on their phone, send that money to any phone number in the world and then, using a network of Abra tellers or traditional banks, exchange that digital money for cash. Since all money is stored on the phone, Abra never touches the money.

The only cost for their service comes from funds transferred to traditional bank accounts or converted to cash.

The Abra app currently works with users and banks, in the US and the Philippines, with plans to expand into India and other parts of Asia over the next couple years.

With $436 billion USD in remittances flowing to families in developing countries in 2014, the market opportunity is significant.

Final Thoughts

The people of the world have an “unfinishable mandate” to continually stretch, grow, propagate, and master not only the world around us, but also the entire universe.

The human race is genetically pre-dispositioned to push the envelope, color outside the lines, and reach for things that will forever be unreachable.

As individuals, there will be some who are content to find inner peace and live a minimalist lifestyle. But as a race, we will be driven by a need to make a difference, be admired for our accomplishments, and create moments of triumph in our otherwise pale existence.

We have only taken the first step in a trillion mile journey. The next few steps, in my opinion, will be nothing short of spectacular.

By Futurist Thomas Frey

Author of “Communicating with the Future” – the book that changes everything

View more on Thomas Frey's website »

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Published on May 02, 2016 06:11

Fourteen New Dimensions for Rethinking the Cruise Ship Experience

My wife Deb and I recently got back from a 10-day Princess Cruise through the Panama Canal, a fabulous experience, but one that could have been greatly enhanced with better technology on the part of the cruise line.

To illustrate this point, on the 2nd day of the cruise we ran into some people who thought it would be great if I could give a talk on the ship. So I sent a message to Susan the cruise director, the lady in charge of all the entertainment on the ship, that I’d be willing to give a talk.

Since there is no cellphone service on the ship (or texting), this involved me writing a note and handing it to someone at the passenger services desk. Two days later I received a phone message that I responded to with a request for a meeting.

Another two days went by and I received another message telling me a couple different times and places where we could meet. I picked the earliest meeting time and managed to catch about 3 minutes of her time. She was very pleasant and cordial and responded favorably to the idea of me giving a talk, and said she’d let me know.

I then followed up with a 3rd handwritten message clarifying that I wasn’t looking for any compensation and suggesting three different titles for my talk.

Keep in mind the main source of information on a ship is a daily bulletin that gets distributed to every cabin in the evening highlighting the next day’s activities. On this cruise line it’s called the Princess Patter.

Finally, on the second to the last day I received a phone message late in the afternoon saying I was approved for giving a talk, but I would have to respond within an hour because the Princess Patter went to press at 5:30 pm.

I didn’t get the message until an hour too late. When I called back I reached Simon, the assistant cruise director, and he apologized for the late notice but since they hadn’t heard back from me my talk was left out of the final day’s agenda.

Whether or not I was given the opportunity to speak on the ship was not important, but the process highlighted some critical fault lines in the industry’s business model. Keep in mind, this exchange involved seven full days of handwritten messages and voice mails, and it all boiled down to a one-hour time slot that crept up without warning.

Needless to say, person-to-person communications on ships like this has been atrocious, but that is on the verge of changing in a big way. And these changes are opening the door to entirely new business models.

The Great Vacation Debate

Whenever I mention something about lack of cell service or bad Internet on a ship, Deb always responds by telling me that I’m supposed to be on vacation and I shouldn’t be thinking about work.

While I understand the need for “braincations,” and no, being off the grid is not going to kill me, I also know that most of the world is not wired that way.

In fact, the entire cruise industry has been slow to capitalize on the massive market for working vacationers; a market that constitutes the vast majority of today’s leisure crowd.

It’s also an enormous adjustment for hyper-connected families to step onboard and readjust their thinking to work with such primitive communication tools. On ships carrying 2,000+ passengers it’s easy to lose a family member or friend several times a day.

Better communication systems will also shift the market away from the 70-year-old floating-assisted-living model to more active Gen-X and Gen-Y crowds looking to reimagine their lives.

To this end, many cruise lines have already begun the process of equipping their ships with high bandwidth communication systems.

Why is the Internet so Expensive on a Cruise Ship?

Generating a reliable satellite signal to a moving ship is no small task. Not only do cruise lines have to lock on to a constantly moving signal in some of the most remote corners on earth, but they also need sufficient bandwidth to accommodate several thousand passengers at once.

Many have already begun the Wi-Fi upgrade process while others will be installing new equipment later this year. Here are three examples:

Royal Caribbean provides high-speed Internet on all of its 25 ships for $20 per day. They also offer a service called VOOM, which allows guests to stream videos and music for an extra $15 a day.
Norwegian Cruise Line has also expanded Internet on all 13 of its ships for $29.99 a day, but there’s a catch. The Wi-Fi plan must be purchased for the entire trip, which means Wi-Fi will cost $300 for a 10-day cruise.
All of Viking River Cruise ships offer complimentary Wi-Fi. Access to a faster service - which is needed for video streaming - is available for $11.95 a day.

What kind of experience would you like to have on your next cruise?

Fourteen New Dimensions for Tomorrow’s Cruise Experience

Each level of bandwidth improvement comes with a vast new learning curve, one that will require several years to rethink service options.

The lack of Wi-Fi has also created a generational market gap with Gen-X and Millennials less inclined to spend a week or two without Internet.

Yes, cruise ships do offer luxury-class service, food, and entertainment. Some of the newer features like waterslides, robotic bartenders, climbing walls, Jumbotron movies under the stars, and indoor ice arenas all have their appeal, but as with all high dollar experiences, next-generation customers are eager for something new.

Diverse communities create diverse interests and younger people are less interested in old school relaxation and far more interested in being engaged, learning new skills, and adding some new dimension to their lives.

With that in mind, here are fourteen new features, made possible by better connectivity that could easily be added to cruise ships over the coming years:

1. ) Makerspaces – Equipped with laser cutters, welders, 3D printers, potters wheels, and jewelry making equipment, a well-furnished makerspace has the potential to radically transform the onboard experience. How-to classes can teach people the fundamentals of using specific pieces of equipment as well as making things they can show to their friends.

2.) Videographer Studios – With smartphones replacing the need for elaborate cameras and editing skills, virtually every passenger has the need to improve their videographer skills. Keep in mind, video posted on social media have the potential to radically amp up the marketing reach of the personal cruise experience.

3.) Video Game Tournament Centers – A 2015 study showed that 42% of Americans play video games at least 3-hours a week with the average age being 35 years old. Not only is it important to have the bandwidth to play online video games, but having a dedicated facility for onboard tournaments will also ensure maximum engagement for a large percentage of today’s young people.

4.) Hacker Spaces and Hacker Classes – Every person connected to the Internet has a different level of proficiency. The online skills needed to be proficient in even rudimentary aspects of the web like word processing, texting, and social media are constantly evolving. Hacker spaces can serve as both training centers and entry points for newbies as well as rich technical environments for more advanced users.

5.) Make Your Own Beer, Wine, and Spirits Distilleries – Micro-breweries, micro-distilleries, and winemaking are quickly becoming part of urban culture and having the facilities to both teach the skills and taste the end product can easily become an engaging feature of every new cruise ship.

6.) “Quantified Self” Center for Personal Analysis – Our ability to accurately measure the inputs and outputs of the human body are increasing exponentially with every new sensor and wearable device added to everyday living. These devices, along with data analytics machines, can be leveraged to provide a hyper-individualized health analysis offering a range of plans for improvement.

7. ) New Product Expos – Companies are always seeking new ways to introduce a new line of products. Whether its food products, household gadgets, Internet of Things devices, software, hardware, or something else, people are continually fascinated by cutting edge products. This will open the doors for sponsorship arrangements with companies who otherwise have little connection to the cruise industry.

8. ) Floating Garden Centers – Rather than just looking at plants and flowers on a ship, many are interested in learning about the species and how to grow them at home. Ships are well positioned to become working laboratories for aquaponics and hydroponic operations, and a significant percentage of passengers would love to be engaged in this type of experience.

9.) Drone Training Facilities – The emerging field of flying drones has captured the imagination of hobbyists and working professionals alike. Operating without the restrictions of defined airspace and country-to-country restrictions, ship-based drones can be used for entertainment, pilot training, photography, surveillance, remote lighting, drone rescue, and much more.

10.) Cannabis Cooking Classes – In much the same way gambling is not legal while ships are docked, the open seas can open the doors to recreational marijuana in much the same ways Colorado and Washington are exploring today. This would open the door to cannabis cooking classes, new types of lounges, alternative health courses, and much more.

11.) Escape Rooms – One of the fastest growing team-building exercises and family entertainment are escape rooms and the intricate layers of puzzle pieces and clues teams need to filter through to find a way out. Based on the notion of living through a real life video game experience, participants find themselves challenged in new and exciting ways.

12.) Treasure Hunts – The online world provides an entirely new dimension to treasure hunts with physical and virtual clues making the final destination all the more rewarding. Answers or clues can be hidden anywhere on the ship and real-time tracking can provide team members with instant feedback of their progress.

13.) Onboard Competitions – With all the new possibilities, a natural extension of these activities will be to stage competitions to uncover the best of the best. Contests can range from drone races, to building makerspace jewelry boxes, wine tasting, beer tasting, best short videos, ship-to-ship video game competitions, and more.

14.) Collaborative Work Spaces – For those who don’t have the luxury of being off-grid on their cruise, the quality of workspaces matter. Collaborative environments are natural conversation starters as well as fertile territory for discovering new friends and business contacts.

Much like other cities, cruise ship struggle with managing their waste. But oceans create far more environmental complexities than land-based cities.

Much like cities, cruise ships struggle with managing their waste, but oceans create far more environmental complexities than land-based cities.

Sustainability as a Competitive Advantage

With mounting pressure from environmental groups, the cruise industry has been working to remedy many of the ecosystem hazards being left in the wake of international waters.

Along with a new generation of highly connected passengers comes a level of transparency and scrutiny the industry may not be prepared for.

With today’s class of cruise ships, a 3,000-passenger ship can generate as much as 210,000 gallons of waste and sewage and 1 million gallons of gray water from showers and drains in a typical week according to the EPA. In addition, there are discharges of bilge water that may contain oil, grease and other contaminants.

The wastes from these “floating cities” pose a threat to fragile ecosystems, to sea life, and even to people enjoying a day at the beach.

While Disney is making the strongest effort to correct these problems, other cruise lines are also making progress. As sensor technology makes pollution issues increasingly transparent, the entire industry will soon be held to new accountability standards as customers continue to “vote with their pocketbooks.”

Final Thoughts

Until now, cruise ships have been operating like upscale third world countries, just now entering Internet age. Their true potential has yet to be discovered in this new digital friendly environment.

From a business standpoint, being on the cutting edge of creating exciting new cruise itineraries is now being counterbalanced with the nuanced opportunities for experiencing the oceans with an increasingly Internet savvy clientele.

In addition to being a floating resort, next generation cruise ships will operate as a working laboratory as companies experiment to unlock the ultimate cruise experience for every one of their passengers.

By Futurist Thomas Frey

Author of “Communicating with the Future” – the book that changes everything

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Published on April 21, 2016 10:49

Fourteen New Dimensions for Rethinking the Future Cruise Ship Experience