Written by Peter Ide-Kostic and Kristina Svobodová
Internet collaboration is entering all spheres of our lives thanks to technology. Many different sectors are affected by the developments, such as manufacturing, design, funding mechanisms, or even communications and transport. STOA’s last workshop on 27 January dealt with broad range of these ‘information age’ topics. This workshop was part of a project to assess the impact and potential of collaborative internet and additive manufacturing technologies.
What insights and predictions for the future did we gain from the panelists – top experts in co-creation, data science, cryptocurrencies and bioprinting?
1) The Collaborative Economy, with its increased level of co-creation and social innovation, creates a need to measure economic value in new and different ways (beyond conventional indicators like GDP). For example, Intellectual Property Rights issues become more complicated when co-creating and therefore need to be better addressed than under current legislation.
2) Additive manufacturing can improve the world. With it, we will have access to more designs and be able to produce objects with physical properties impossible to reach via traditional manufacturing processes. This has impacts such as the production of lighter and more reliable cars or building cheaper and better insulated houses. Additive manufacturing and 3D printing will certainly allow much quicker and much cheaper prototyping.
3) Human tissue has already been bio-printed – lungs, liver, kidneys or bones… In 2014 a Boston team printed a kidney that functioned for 4 hours. Major use for these techniques will not be in replacement of organs yet but more for testing of new pharmaceuticals. However, barriers to this technology remain, such as patenting issues related to the use of ‘ink-jet printing’ and ‘stem cell’ technologies.
4) Although many may think so, Bitcoin isn’t strictly anonymous. Digital signatures are used to confirm or deny transactions. Bitcoin protocols can be used for other purposes. This ‘blockchain’ could be used for crowdsourcing, and also to create sound contracts, since it builds on a distributed consensus mechanism. However, currently Bitcoin has a programmed limit of about 7 transactions per second, while VISA’s limit is more than 40,000 transactions.
Watch the video from the workshop here or read more in the presentations of panelists:
- Co-creation: Prof Frank Piller (Aachen University, Germany)
- Crowd-funding: Oliver Gajda (European Crowdfunding Network, Brussels)
- Big Data: Prof Yike Guo (Imperial College London, UK)
- Open Data: Tom Heath (Open Data Institute, UK)
- Additive manufacturing and 3D printing: Louis Turner (Asia Pacific Technology Network, UK & Asia)
- Bio-printing Dr Beverley Vaughan (Stevenage Bioscience Catalyst, UK)
- Bitcoin: Peter van Velkenburg (Coin Center, USA)
- Bitcoin privacy & security: Elli Androulaki (IBM Zurich, Switzerland)
For more information about the project:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CollaborativeEconomy
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CollaEco
Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/
