The key to growth of societies anywhere in the world has been
adapting to new trends and innovative technologies. This is the theme of the
book Abundance by Diamandis and
Kotler. The journey is about the past, present and possible future
on a wide range of needs and issues for the survival as well as
progress of mankind. It is also about a viewpoint that keeps
sanity and allows to lay foundations for dreams far beyond the daily
grind for the average spectator (and commenter) of current state of
affairs of the world.
The authors assure the reader that even though there is pessimism
on the surface, there is more to celebrate for! The challenge is about
"seeing the forest through the trees" (title of chapter three). It
lays the path for how to think beyond and better on whatever might be
happening around. The book lets the grownups view the world through the lens of
“youthful spirit". It is a catalyst to dust off negative
thinking due to the uncertainties people face in day to
day lives, and act on issues that matter.
Part III of the book is about the basics of survival as anyone
learns in elementary school - clean and clear water to drink and food and
shelter for everyone of the world. The difference is about the stories
told by the authors such as the one about Ethos (bottled water
project) and how a McKinsey consultant made great strides of progress
to bring water and sanitation to several people in South Africa.
People can look forward to as well as be prepared for exponential
growth in every walk of life. Supercomputing, cloud computing, AI, and natural language
processing seem to be yet another set of alphabet soup to the
consumer of today's technologies on the surface. Imagine the
convergence of these technologies with the personalization and
localization privileges that mobile devices get - the stories of
possibilities can go beyond current debates on health care and
experiences. The advances with accurate medical diagnosis and increase
in life spans with the help of cheap and affordable medical data
products ranging from x-ray machines to the DNA detection are just an
introduction to the topics to think on healthcare. The future of
education has endless possibilities with technologies. In the
chapter, the authors cover Khan
Academy, Mitra's
granny cloud and provide glimpses into the
possibilities. Grand vision of quality education on a massive scale to
create generations of enthusiastic learners for life seems to be possible
with all the necessary ingredients.
The authors have given due importance to the "Dangers of the
exponentials", a chapter in the Appendix. The grave dangers in every area
are touched upon which include what we hear in the news often on cyber crime,
bioterrorism, unemployment due to advancement of technologies. The emphasis of
the book is on abundance. This perspective makes it different than the style
adopted by Scott Snyder in "The
new world of wireless" where the positive and negative scenarios are
discussed side by side, stressing the need to make the right choices.
On a personal note, I come from Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh. Osman
Ali Khan was the last Nizam of Hyderabad. He established the Osmania University
as well as the several monuments and museums of Hyderabad. Every day the
tourists of Hyderabad start off their visit to the College of Arts,
Osmania University. When the tourist guide explains the greatness of Hyderabad,
we are reminded that this last king was the wealthiest man of the world in 1937
(according to the Times magazine) and that he gave away considerable
portions of his wealth back to his city (city of the people, since 1947). It caught my attention in the book on the
perspective of the authors that he gave away a major portion of his wealth
to his city which is local. I
could see how the authors connected with their extensive research
spanning over a long period of time when I read this and found how
the paragraphs that followed, lead to Bill Gates. Gates
decided to fight for vaccines and his impact is
certainly global. It is more than just global. The ways of the fight for vaccines is what made a huge difference. This is just an example of the reach
of "technophilanthropists" (chapter 11) the authors want us to remember
and appreciate how far we have come as mankind in distributing wealth and the
types of charity that is happening around us.
A note on the references - most of the sources are from worldwide,
large scale organizations such as United Nations
(UNDP, WHO, FAO), governments and universities as expected. There
are also graphs retrieved from blogs, Wikipedia and Hans Rosling's
Gapminder - reminding us that it is both big and small that contribute towards
knowledge and growth. My vote goes to Moore's
law projected over the next century showing the exponential
growth of computing. This is one of the several graphs that the authors refer
to from Ray Kurzweil's The
Singularity is Near.
My favorite topics have always centered on data and
information. Whether it is about Data
Science or Data
journalism there is much to look forward to and expect in all walks of
life with the help of data transformed to information that allows us to visualize
at a glance the greatness around us with the help of technologies. In my
view, this is the spiritual (high order thinking) approach to be taken by
everyone to enjoy and participate in the "abundance" around us. This
is a history book retold and is a "how to develop thinking and
action that matters" book for everyone. I follow the news on
technology developments and understand that we are at cross roads, not sure of
which direction things take shape with technologies, say in the next decade or
two decades. No single perspective resolves the matters that are of concern and
affairs of the world today. However, recognizing that it takes preparation to
assimilate good news and maintain a positive outlook for long
term is as important as it is to handle the daily routines. Desire to find the center of
gravity amid chaos and confusion is important. This book serves the purpose.
