GoogleDocs for Innovation

I have been using GoogleDocs to share files with my Teaching Assistants since 2008. I have searched the web off and on over the last several weeks to try and find something newer, better, stronger, faster to support my Socio-Technical Innovation, and have come back to the site I know. My innovation revolves around creating better technology for harnessing the power of the sun, and then deploying that technology in creative ways to improve life.

One of the first areas I would like to exploit is the desalination of sea water. A solar-powered facility could purify and pump water potentially long distances, with periodic aggregation and redistribution sites as needed. In order to make solar power a viable long-term solution, the cost of power production must decline, while the durability of products must increase. This will involve getting together a team of scientists, engineers and materials experts in order to generate the flow of ideas that will lead to the next great solar power breakthroughs.

  

GoogleDocs is helpful in this kind of collaboration because (1) it creates a cloud-based file storage system with built-in ability to share or hide information. A major bonus of the system is the easy accessibility of files from any location with internet access. Files can also be downloaded for working offline, then uploaded when modifications are complete. (2) GoogleDocs keeps track of revisions, so you know who made the most recent changes to the documents. Because I have used this tool so effectively in my own work, I see it as a critical component of collaboration and innovation.  It is a great combination of technical innovation leading to superior, practical sharing of ideas across time and distance.

Ideally research would be funded by non-profit groups, and experts world-wide could collaborate to create improved solar power technologies for humanitarian purposes. The research could also be shared, and modified by those wishing to pursue profits from the new advances. In the long run, everyone can benefit from an open project to improve solar power options.

GoogleDocs

Biogenetic Medicine

In Technology's Promise, Halal speculates on a variety of potential future technological developments.  One area he discusses is biogenetic medicine.  The DNA mapping has already lead to the discovery of specific genetic markers for inheritable diseases.  Stem cell research holds the promise of potentially replacing diseased or damaged organs.  We can (and do) manipulate the DNA of crops to make them more hardy, pest-resistant, etc.  Bacteria and retro-viruses have been modified to offer methods of introducing specific DNA into a particular host organism.  Over time, DNA modification could be used to attempt to replace a specific genome sequence indicating high probability for breast cancer with a healthy sequence inserted at that point through some type of "infection" mechanism, so new cells would replicate with the healthy sequence rather than the unhealthy.  Such technological advances come with a host of ethical, moral, and environmental issues.  Aside from the basic "is it ethical to do this" questions, we also have a question of "is it advantageous to the planet as a whole to do this?"  If we prolong the lives of people on the planet now substantially and exponentially (by decades rather than the current incremental improvements in longevity) how do we ensure our population is sustainable with the resources at hand?  How do we modify and manage birth rates to keep from over-crowding our finite planetary options?  Or, do we need to explore similar growth in planetary expansion and settlement to avoid over-population and ecosystem destruction here on Earth?  Reaching further down this path, if we prolong life indefinitely, and restrict reproduction in order to remain sustainable, what do we give up in innovation and creativity?  If the next Einstein, Mozart, etc. is never born due to population controls, where do we get the next great innovation.  Do we run the risk of creating a stagnating society because fresh ideas and fresh energy do not come along every generation to replace our existing outdated thinking?

Curing sickness is good.  Prolonging life is good.  But I have to wonder, how do we know when too much of a good thing turns bad...