What's Emerging Mid-May 2022
A newsletter on interesting stuff that is emerging around the world so you can think about strategy
Welcome to our mid-May version of the newsletter.
In the next few weeks, Paul will continue running a project on how to maximise the adoption of new irrigation technologies in the Dairy and Cotton industries via the use of Sense Maker narrative collection techniques. He will also be continuing work with Vision Australia on their 10 year vision and strategic planning and working with the General Melbourne Cemetery Trust on strategy. He will also continue a scenario project with the New Zealand veterinary profession on the future for veterinary science. He will also be speaking at the Australian Veterinary Association Conference at the Gold Coast in May, an agriculture conference on the future of plant protein as human food, and a CEO Institute Group at the MCG. He is helping to organise a conference on the future of the farm later in the year and has joined a new global research project led by Simon Wardley from the UK. More on that later. Lastly he will be working with a business looking at new teaching platform models for universities.
Please Contact Us if you want to talk about any of these approaches for your organisation or industry or want a presentation for your organisation or conference.
The Emergent Futures Team
Paul has also started a pro-bono project with 100 Story Building as a lead Partner for Social Venture Partners Melbourne which will involve a comprehensive business model review.
As part of that engagement we have a special offer:
Special Offer
100 Story Building is running a fund raising effort to rebuild their resources during their COVID recovery phase. They provide fantastic programs and services raising the literacy, confidence and sense of belonging to community of children from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The response to the fund raising effort has already been fantastic, at the time of writing this newsletter they had raised $106,390. Paul has already donated to the fundraising effort and now we are offering a free foresight and strategy engagement utilising Wardley maps to any organisation which donates $250 or more to this fantastic cause. This offer includes 2 sixty minute sessions for up to 3 people looking at a strategy problem of your choice plus a visual map of the landscape(s) you face that you can use to communicate with your colleagues and a set of possible strategy recommendations.
All you have to do is to donate and notify us at info@emergenfutures.com and then we can send you instructions and possible times for your first session. You get to donate to a really worthy cause and improve your strategic thinking at the same time.
You can donate here. Donations are tax deductible
In case you missed it. The most popular link from the last edition:
Want to cut your chance of catching COVID on a plane? Wear a mask and avoid business class
Paul: an important read given the rising number of cases as we head into winter. Apparently there was a problem with the link in the last newsletter to this story even though it worked in testing. That should be fixed now...…. Read more
What are we Writing About?
Paul’s presentation to the Complementary Medicines Association Innovation Day is now up on our website. Go to our HOME PAGE and scroll to our latest work to access it.
What’s Emerging
Pan-coronavirus vaccine pipeline takes form
Dozens of ‘universal’ coronavirus vaccines are in development. But will new technology platforms be able to overcome immunological unknowns?...…. read more
Swarm of Micro Flying Robots in the Wild
Paul: Depending on your point of view this is either an amazing or a terrifying view of the future
Grow your own, without the digging; Germans snap up pre-planted veg plots
Would you love to grow your own vegetables, if only you had the space, and there wasn't so much digging and, frankly, manure? Germany may have just the thing.Pre-planted vegetable gardens, rented for a season, were already growing in popularity as a source of recreation during the coronavirus pandemic, and a surge in food prices has now driven demand even higher.....…..Read more
Snapchat’s Dress Up feature turns your phone into an AR shopping mall
Snap’s plans on this front are more ambitious than most. It’s trying to take the whole shopping experience — you see a shirt you like on a stranger, figure out what it is and where to buy it, try it on, buy it, wear it, return it because everything looks better on Ryan Reynolds than you, rinse and repeat — and funnel it through Snap’s AR camera....….. Read more
Mouth Haptics in VR using a Headset Ultrasound Phased Array
Pau: I was not sure how to react to this but we have been having deep conversations with Vision Australia about the future of AR/VR and its impact on the low vision and blindness community. As they pointed out Deafblind people communicate with touch including touching the face and other haptic methods as you can see here so there are interesting possibilities.
Disney+ adds more subscribers than expected, weeks after Netflix’s count fell.
Paul: I always thought that this space would be a bloodbath, the question was one of timing and then who might survive. The time seems to be now but who wins is still an open question.....….. Read more
Snapchat says 4 million people have used its "Run for Office" tool
Over 4 million people have used Snapchat's in-app technology that helps young users find local political races to run in..…. Read more
Hedge funds driven by AI outperform hedge funds that rely mostly on human input
A new study has found that hedge funds with the highest level of automation outperform those that rely more on human involvement. During the period that was studied (2006 to 2021), the AI-based hedge funds generated average returns of about 0.75% per month, vs. about 0.25% per month for the human-guided hedge funds.........….. Read more
Plants grow in lunar soil for the first time, as NASA plans for life on the Moon
Scientists have used lunar soil collected during Apollo missions to grow plants for the first time. The results have been deemed promising enough that NASA is envisioning hothouses on the Moon for the next generation of lunar explorers.....…..Read more
Electric trucks are coming: Volvo opens orders for heavy duty, Volta targets US market
The range of Volvo electric trucks includes the Volvo FH, Volvo FM, and Volvo FMX, and all are being produced at the CO2-neutral Tuve plant in Gothenburg, at least initially, and will join its range of electric medium duty trucks...….….Read more
This 3D printer turns sawdust into beautiful, real wood products
Forust’s innovative machine—a winner of Fast Company’s 2022 World Changing Ideas Awards—repurposes some of the nearly 100 million tons of sawdust generated annually in the U.S., and could potentially save tens of millions of trees.…… Read More
U.S. ammonia prices rise in response to higher international natural gas prices
The U.S. price of ammonia, the primary source of nitrogen fertilizer, has risen by a factor of six in the past two years, and most of these increases have occurred since March 2021.Paul: another key factor in what happens to the food supply.....…. Read more
Hyundai’s world-first flying taxi port opens, charged up by Australian tech
Australia’s Tritium is making a another big splash on the global stage, this time with a world-first flying taxi hub called “Air-One” that was opened in Coventry on Monday by Hyundai partner Urban-air Port. The flying taxi hub, also known as a “vertiport”, aims to help tackle congestion on the ground and is being billed as part of the future of zero emissions transport..….. Read More
Newly-developed lensless camera uses neural network and transformer to produce sharper images faster
Digital cameras typically require lenses to focus incoming light on an image sensor. While technology has continually improved, allowing for more compact camera systems, they are nonetheless limited by physics. A lens can only be so small, and the distance between the lens and a sensor so short. This is where 'lensless' cameras come in. Unburdened by the physical limitations of optical design, lensless cameras can be much smaller........……. Read more
Business Tips
How CEOs can improve hiring at their company
Chris Bakke says every year he finds a list of things to fix and improve and a list of things to congratulate the hiring team for tackling so well by applying for jobs at his won company…… Read more
Time to upgrade your PC? These versions of Windows 10 just got their last ever security patches
"As of May 10, 2022, the Home and Pro editions ofWindows 10, version 20H2, and all editions of Windows 10, version 1909 have reached end of servicing. The May 2022 security update, released on May 10, is the last update available for these versions. After that date, devices running these editions will no longer receive monthly security and quality updates containing protections from the latest security threats," .……Read more
How to get back expired or lost Qantas frequent flyer points
Assuming your account has been inactive for 18 months, and you log in one day to find that all your Qantas points have vanished, is there a way to get them back?
Fortunately, Qantas offers a mechanism for returning all of your missing points: it’s called the Qantas Points Challenge. As long as you contact Qantas within six months of your points expiring, the Qantas Points Challenge will reinstate all of your expired Qantas points provided you earn 2,500 Qantas points within three months.....…. Read more
Microsoft Surface Pro 8 for Business review
Paul: Just like this author I use my iPad Pro a lot for work and nearly exclusively when on the road. Here is an interesting comparison for those thinking about what to buy ...……Read more
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