Mental health and its importance ..

Recently I happened to read an HBR article on mental health titled How to talk about your mental health with your employer. (click here). That was the time really I got to know how important is mental health to anyone's life, as much as physical health. 

Mental health includes our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. It also helps determine how we handle stress, relate to others, and make choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood and adolescence through adulthood - www.mentalhealth.gov (click here)

I have been very bothered about physical health, over the years especially backache that used to bother me every six months on an average. But never have I thought of how important mental health could be to a person's health.

Earlier days, around seventy to eighty years back, with a low standard of living in the country, the daily stress for individuals and families usually was on how to make ends meet. Any physical illness would put the family into great difficulties and hunger and require young members to stop education. 

But with improved standard of living, people are not stressed much to earn their daily food and have more leisure time and engage in more intellectual activities, mental health is an important thought that is getting into our minds. Our minds are in the search for more happiness and this search makes us aware of the drawbacks, wanting to achieve more and take care of our needs, in the process leading to more feelings of incompleteness and discomfort. 

These are the things I usually do when I need some relaxation and look after my mental health.

• take a brisk walk of a couple of kms around the house in the evening 
• walk to the nearest hotel or tea shop to have a coffee (especially while in hostel or staying as bachelor) 
• read something light, or reply to whatsapp messages
• planning for a small vacation
  
• write a blog on an interesting thought bothering me for sometime 
• call my siblings or father for a chat
• have a small cup of sweet yoghurt
• read Harvard Business Review for some insights 
• do some stretching exercises for the body, which also relaxes your mind
• be thankful to God for the many blessings received
  

Some others will have a different way to relax and feel free.

UK mental health foundation mentions ten points for mental health (click here), I find these points are very sensible, 

• eat good food, 
• ask for help, 
• take a break, 
• accept who you are 

are some of the interesting tips I found beneficial.

The US mental health agency Mental Health America (click here)  lists 31 tips for better mental health. Besides the above four , 

• spending time with a furry friend, 
• explore your neighbourhood, 
• sending a thank you note to someone from whom you have received some help
  
• taking 20 minutes sunshine 
  
• practice forgiveness 

are some of the other points that I found can really give one lot of mental peace and promote active mental health. 

Whatever be it, the Harvard article was very insightful and no wonder it is a great leader in personal and societal improvement suggestions and management. 

George.

Getting Prof. Willy Shih from Harvard to the Alliance classroom ..

Harvard Business School 1908 (Courtesy media room, HBS)

Over the years, all of us have been reading a lot of interesting articles from Harvard Business Review and have been documenting them. I do it in my blog. (click here). 

It was in one of those readings that I came across the interesting article by Prof. Willy Shih of Harvard Business School on the post-pandemic global supply chains. After going thru it, I decided that I will be one day asking my students to read such masterpieces and wanted my students also to get the same intellectual stimulation that I got from it. My sister, also from HBS, prods us to strive for greater heights and accomplishments. 

At the first opportunity, I asked my first sem MBA students of sections B and C to read the above article (click here), each of the 13 groups was also asked to write a 2-3 page write up and in addition, groups 1 and 2 had to make class presentations. The students willingly took it as a challenge and gave good 10 min presentations in the class, followed by a Q&A session. I had put the students into a loop of reading intellectually stimulating articles, taking the learning from it and internalising it in due course.

 

It was a good effort from the first sem students and who is a better person to be informed than Prof. Shih himself on what the students felt about his work. Prof. Shih was happy to hear of the student response and forwarded me links to some of his recent articles relating to the challenges faced by the post-pandemic global supply chains. I also shared my writing on the Hambantota port in Sri Lanks, south of India, slowly slipping into Chinese hands and how that would impact global supply chains (click here).

 

In our mail exchanges that followed, I asked Prof Shih of his willingness to do an exclusive online session for my students. Much to my disbelief, Prof. Shih immediately agreed to talk to my students and that is how we managed to get this illustrious personality with great global experience to talk to the future CEOs and supply chain managers of the world. I get to understand that Harvard professors do not generally interact with students from other Institutes across the world unless they have a very solid reason to do so. 

Prof. Willy Shih

Prof. Willy Shih patiently waiting for the students to join 

Here are the details of the interaction of Prof. Willy Shih, Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Management Practice in Business Administration at the Harvard Business school, Boston with students and faculty of Alliance School of Business, Bangalore. 

 

Date and Time : 28 july 2021. 6.30 PM IST (9 AM EDT)

Topic : Post pandemic global supply chains. 

Yours faithfully was hosting the event .. Click here to the link for the event recording, 1 hour 7 minutes.

 

In short, though I am not exaggerating, it is a fact that the students could not have listened to a more insightful speech from anyone else on planet earth. There was lot of value in the 45 minutes Prof spoke and the other 17 minutes he answered their questions and answers. 

This is an experience I would not want to forget for many years to come.

 

George

Artificial Intelligence role play in the MBA class ..

On 30 July 2021 we did three role plays in the MBA sem 1 class, section B.

According to wikipedia, Role-playing is the changing of one's behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role.

Northern Illinois University has this explanation of role playing. Click here

Role playing is that allows students to immediately apply content as they are put in the role of a decision maker who must make a decision regarding a policy, resource allocation, or some other outcome. - serc.carleton.edu

Click here for my earlier writing on the Bloom's Taxonomy to effect great understanding in the learning process, Role play comes in the top create part of the pyramid and hence is very effective in ensuring student's creative and conscious participation in the learning process.

Objective : Understand how AI applications in daily routine activities in industry or elsewhere can help simplify matters and improve productivity

Procedure : There were 3 groups of 4 students each, the rest of the 45 students were taking online sessions from home. The 12 students carried out the role play.

The roles we assumed in the class were of participants who earlier had issues with carrying out the mundane functions in the manufacturing or office or home domains and demonstrated how AI helped to efficiently carry out the same processes timely at high productivity  and quality.

A. The first group showed how they had problems manufacturing computer displays in the shop floor. The manual processes were inefficient and resulted in errors which the quality manager often found and complained to the top management in the company. It was when they decided to call in an AI expert and succeeded in effectively shifting from manual control to AI based control, which saw all quality parameters being ensured resulting in high quality and increase in productivity of the shop floor and efficiency.

B. The second AI-based role play included students who were bored of the food they were eating. The menu had not been changed. That's when one of the students' friends was called to assist them in developing an AI software in which you can take photographs of all the ingredients you have and the algorithm would provide and assist you through the recipes based on the components you have. This enhanced the hostelers' daily lives because they could prepare quality meals of their choosing on their own.

C. The third group focused on a retail store. Earlier the store had problems with low sales and the store management decided to install AI systems. This system used eye tracking technology to monitor the activities of the customers and gave indicators to the store management what were the items that particular customer were looking at which would move faster than the other items in the store. The store was able to improve its sales by installing this system.. 

D. Gas filling - A major gas filling station of an oil company had lot of rejects and inaccurate gas filling done in cylinders, that led to inefficiency and customer complaints. With automation and in future AI intervention, the co. could improve the quality of the process, have less quality interruptions and large output and finally ensure customer satisfaction.

E. Google maps - Riding in Bangalore in the rains is a major issue as we miss the potholes. In spite of reminders, the corporation authorities do not complete the work on time. This leads to accidents and loss of productive time of the public and in extreme cases accidents leading to loss of life. An AI designed Google app that has mapped the potholes in Bangalore city, ensures safe ride of the two wheeler without causing any accidents

F. Online education interaction - Online sessions during the Covid times have been misused by some students faking the class attendance. It becomes difficult for the professor to monitor each student and at the same time ensure there is quality instruction happening in the class. By deploying an AI based application that monitors student logging in and out of the system, the teacher is able to have a control over who attends the session in full and who bunks in between.

In China the system has gone a bit further. (click here) During school hours the headband through embedded AI informs the class teacher who is getting distracted, how long and to bring those students back into attention. Should AI be so intrusive ?

Learning : The exercise helped the students to visualise a poorly performing situation (with manual interventions and hence low effectiveness) and then plan the improved situation with the application of AI based systems that led to overall improvement.

Usually inside the class the students get to know the theory or the tools to solve but their minds are not primed to believe that all these AI theory, apps, tools etc are being taught with the primary objective of getting the students understand the nitty gritty of AI applications and come out with exciting creative solutions and apps to help solve our common day to day problems.

Now they have got an idea of what is possible with AI and what is not possible. 

George.

Jeff Bezos too joins Richard Branson in Amazonification of space

Courtesy Aljazeera
Amazonification of space - New York Times ..

The world's richest person Jeff Bezos of Amazon too has returned from space on 21 July after a 14 minute  ride to an altitude of almost 114 kms. The rocket had a perfect landing back on earth, without any damage. The capsule which had the 4 astronauts also had a smooth landing a couple of minutes later, the capsule landed on a parachute.  

Nowlet us try to understand what are the benefits to mankind now that two humans who have not had any heavy training in space travel and by virtue of being rich enough to own space exp[l;oration companies had the good fortune to go to space and return.

Richard Branson from UK did it in a plane VSS Unity that was taken to a high  altitude which got detached from the mother vehicle and drifted to space like any ordinary plane. It did a smooth landing in the New Mexico desert as did the mother plane. US based Jeff Bezoz instead took the rocket route, his rocket New Shepard, taking the capsule which housed the astranauts to a 12 mile higher altitude, upto 62 miles altitide before releasing it.  As I mentioned before, the rocket made an excellent landing back on earth, as did the capsule a few minutes later. 

Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos now have demonstrated to the world that even space is within human being's reach. Click here for my earlier writing when Branson hit it to space a week back.

How does private space flight benefit humanity ?

• Space Tourism is opened up for humans. 
• Humans can now think of having private human settlements in space like the International Space Station. 
• Manufacturing organisations can now think of expanding their manufacturing bases to space too which can bring more accurate manufacturing processes like casting and 3D printing.
• Biotech companies can think of preparing food in space aboard space stations
• Pharma companies can research into how pharma molecules can be prepared in weighlessness
• Patients with incurable diseases can be taken to space to find how these patients would respond to treatment under weightlessness
• to understand how long time exposure to space conditions can affect our body, bones. brains, nervous system, natural immunity etc and how it affects other animals too.

The learning is great and can immensely benefit humanity. Let us hope we share the spoils of this space race with every living being on earth.

George..

Why is China getting battered with heavy rains and floods ?

 For the past three days we have been hearing extreme climate events that were happening around the world, floods in Germany and Belgium, extreme heat wave in Western Canada, heavy rains in Mumbai and now heavy rains and floods in central parts of China.

Floods in China ..

Why have these events suddenly started happening in China and other parts of the world. Climatologists, environmentalists and scientists are mentioning these are the negative impacts of climate change, the extreme events that happen. The floods that happened in Kerala for the past three years during August - September have not been erased from people's minds. 

When the impact was localised in Kerala or to some parts of Asia, the world neglected these events and tended to discard them as one off events. But now the scenario has changed. The extreme events are being felt across the world, developed and developing nations alike. 

In China for the past three days, the impact has been severe.  China received the rains it receives in a year in just three days. The Zhengzhou area in the Henan province has been the worst hit. Almost 25 people have lost their lives. This is an indication to the whole world that extreme events due to climate change is for real and can batter the planet earth into the future unless we change our basic view of the environment and the planet around us.

Floods in Germany

Another reason for the sudden surge in waters with the cities, subways getting inundated and submerged have been the breach of the many water storage dams in central China. China which had about 23,000 large dams in 2019 increased the number to 98,000 in 2020, as per a report by the news agency WION. There are 11 dams in the Mekong river downstream of which lie the countries of Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. China dries up the rivers flowing through it's territory by damming the rivers and puts the countries downstream at great risk of water shortage for irrigation and power generation in those countries. World media feels this is part of the muscle flexing exercises of China to bully it's neighbours. 

The floods that China have seen is of their own making, it has only itself to blame for the terribly awful situation it finds itself in now. But disaster, loss of life, damage to property is heart wrenching anywhere in the world it happens. Lets hope we earthlings are able to collaborate, work with each other to help sustain the environment, build an amicable and just society and ensure our children and grandchildren are left to inherit a neater, greener, safer and just world in future.

The important question to the whole world is when will China get back to its feet ? World manufacturing is dependent to a large extent on Chinese manufacturing companies. As HBR Professor Willy Shih notes in his Oct '20 HBR article (click here), Global Supply Chains in a post pandemic world, when the world was getting back to its feet courtesy China, the next big disaster has happened. How long more the world will have to wait for a rebound ?

George. (picture and info courtesy BBC, NYTimes, WION..)

Ola's massive push in the EV 2 wheeler sector ..

Ola company is gaining lot of attention these days. It is trying to electrify the world of urban mobility. The question is how, where and when.

First of all Ola is building the world's largest scooter facility in Hosur Tamil Nadu on a 500 acre plot. Btw, Hosur also has TVS and Ashok Leyland factories in the Krishnagiri district in Tamil Nadu.

This Ola plant is to start production from the middle of 2021. At full capacity the 20 million production capacity of this Ola plant would be about 15% of the global scooter production.

For Bhavish Agarwal, 35 year old 2008 IIT Bombay engg graduate who is the CEO, it is a great opportunity to ensure shared, sustainable, safe, accessible mobility to the urban masses. Is this guy set to change the face of urban mobility in India for ever ? First he took us away from private ownership of vehicles to shared vehicle and now he wants to take us back to private ownership with a different technology ..

Why electric scooters and why this large number ?

2 wheelers have been the mode of transport of the common man throughout the world and India is no exception. With the increase in cost of petrol, even this mode was getting bit unreachable for the masses. Ola enters the Indian market at the right time. 

Electric 2 wheelers will be a big hit with the Indian population which still has a major portion still not able to afford a 2 wheeler, forget a 4 wheeler. The high cost of vehicle and of the fuel, petrol is the biggest deterrent for most of the people these days. In India, the present number of scooters  for a population of 1000 is just 160 comparing with 600 for Vietnam. That's a long way to go ..

The good thing about the Ola plant in Hosur, Tamil Nadu is the size. It will at full production manufacture 20 million ie, 20,000,000 EV scooters annually, besides motorcycles and 4 wheelers too in due course. Manufacturing to scale of this magnitude is sure to bring down the unit manufacturing costs. Besides it can also spur an array of innovations in the manufacturing sector in India.

The manufacturing plant is about 43 acres in area under one roof, the largest in the world. The first phase of production at an investment of INR 2400 crores, of 2 million annually, though supposed to be out by June has been delayed a bit and it is hoped will be open in the very near future.

The plant has an employment potential of 10,000 people  and is being financed majorly by venture capitalists SoftBank of Japan and Tiger Capital, the New York based venture capital fund.

As a management student, one is interested in understanding the risks associated with this investment. Entirely funded by venture capitalists, who are looking at the future prospects of this mobility mode, the risk is equally shared by Ola and the venture capitalists, who have done their due diligence before committing INR 2400 crores to this project. 

The support from Tamil Nadu govt for this project, besides Tamil Nadu being the automobile hub of the country, can give a lot of push to successful, high quality low cost manufacturing possible from this state which is already blessed with enough technical manpower in this area. 

What is the lesson for the other entrepreneurs of India at the massive risk Bhavish is undertaking. With great risk appetite, the Ola EV scooter case spearheaded by Bhavish is a lesson automobile manufacturers world over is looking with awe and admiration. How a young lad of 35 years is rewriting automobile dynamics in India ?

Will he be able to move with the same momentum when the global EV leader TESLA enters the Indian market maybe in a few years time. Would Bhavish have set the ground for a tough fight between an established global EV player and a new player in the Indian domestic market ? What does this Make in India for the world entail for the global EV market ? 

Click here for an interesting video from CNBC to listen to..

George. (picture courtesy Ola, the info in this article has been taken courtesy CNBC)

Virgin Galactic's flight to space .. Congrats Branson and Sirisha ..

The space above 50 miles or 80 kms kms is theoretically space, with passengers experiencing total weightlessness. Russia and then US conquered outer space sixty years back. For the first time, billionaires are opening up a business frontier.

Virgin Galactic mother ship VSS Eve and space vehicle VSS Unity

World's richest person Jeff Bezos and Amazon Executive Chairman with his Blue Origin has been in intense competition with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic and  Elon Musk's SpaceX, to be the first to commercially fly passengers to space and open up space tourism. There are almost 1.3 million people waiting to go to space. 

Sirisha Bandla, 34 ..

While SpaceX has been successful in carrying commercial cargo to the International Space Station at 408 km altitude (on 11 July 2021), no private citizen has ever flown to space. 

 

The above three companies are out to send commercial passengers to space. 

View of the inside of the VSS Unity at 80 kms altitude

In a test run, the third Indian lady to fly to space  Sirisha Bandla will make a 2 hour trip to space to 80km altitude, aboard Virgin Galactic's Spaceship 2 - VSS Unity with 2 pilots, Richard Branson and 2 other Virgin Galactic employees starting at 9 am EST (6.30 pm IST) today, 11 July '21.  

Officially Sir Richard Branson, 70, Astronaut

The flight was a massive success. It touched down as beautiful and as planned at the exact location in  New Mexico.

Soon private passengers can fly to space and come back, experiencing weightlessness and experience upto 6G body drag while in descent.

 

On 11 th July Sir. Richard Branson at age 70 years becomes an astronaut. 

 

This shows that if you have the willingness, passion and ready to do hard work, even at age 70 one can fly to space and experience the thrill which may be only less than 100 people ever in the history of humanity of 100 million years and 108 billion people ever who have lived on this planet. 

 

Thank you Richard, you have shown that age is not limit to intuition, passion and scientific discovery. We have felt really elated at your passion to take up such initiatives at this ripe age of 70 and continue to motivate your employees and fans around the world. The 34 year old Indian born Sirisha is another pride for India.

Sir Richard Branson experiencing weightlessness

A big salute Sir !!

  Jeff Bezos is to fly to space in his Blue Origin space vehicle New Shepard on the 20th of July, in about a weeks time. Richard Branson has actually beteb Jeff Bezos and his brother to space. They are also going with a 82 year old lady and a commercial paenger who has earned his right to go with them for a price of $29 million.

Though Virgin Galactioca vehicle VSS Unity has been the first to carry a passenger to space, Sir Branson, others were crew trained engineers and mission specialists. The Julky 20 flight by Blue Origin will also carry a commercil passenger and will be the first in tyhe wold to do so.

Just a 3 min rendezvous in space with the Blue Shepard capsule and rocket

While VSS Unity was carried aboard the spaceship VSS Eve as a plane, Blue Origin will go up as one vehicle, a rocket, the Blue Shepard, the rocket ejecting the capsule at a height of 62 miles above the earth\s surface (app 100 kms above earth). The rocket will eventually land on earth (same as the Virgin Galactic Mothership VSS Eve).

Blue Origin flies 12 miles higher into space than VSS Unity

The beauty is that the cost of this trip for both Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin, will just be the cost of the fuel and rent of the space vehicle, as no parts of the space vehicle burns out on reentry or is disposed into the ocean. All parts are recovered and this makes a trip to space very cost effective in the near future.

One day I too will fly to space .. If Blue Origin also succeeds in flying to space and returning to earth and each of them do it 5 times a month, it will take 3000 years to service these 1.3 million people.

A fear of the world, though unfounded, is whether Bezos be as lucky as Richard Branson ? Will his rocket capsule Shepard bring him back to earth from the brink of space from 100 km altitude ? Let's hope for the best .. 

George (pictures courtesy Virgin Galactica and Wall Street Journal)

Changing the system of bartering our data for free Internet services ..

Most of us have been freely using Google email and then Google drive, Blogger, Google docs etc for free over twenty years, by bartering our personal data and usage data to Google in exchange for our free use of their services. Along with the millions around the world we have bartered the right over our personal data for  the benefits that would accrue for us in the Internet and cloud economy. Our free use of ZOOM for web conferencing, Whatsapp for instant messaging, sharing of data over social media like Facebook are other famous examples of bartered exploitation.

For all these years we have not tried to understand the commercial value of this data we are exchanging with these Internet giants. It is high time we did a commercial analysis of this bartered transaction.

The other day while going through the Harvard Business Review chanced upon an interesting write-up by Gillian Tett of July 2021 which stated with all conviction that the barter system which existed in the Internet needs to be changed once for all, lest it bring unequal benefits for some countries and communities over others and subjugation for other economies for decades into the future.

The interesting question to ask here is how do we get to monetise this barter system in totality that would improve the GDP of individual countries and of the global economy too and help countries realise better returns in the long run.

Clcik here for the article in HBR of July 2021 titled The Data economy is a barter economy by Gillian Tett. 

How would this benefit the global individuals, the countries and global economy in general ?

The individuals could decide the quanity, quality and time period of this barter, ie. find the usage of their data by corporates and decide for how long this monetisation could happen giving the individuals the rights to switch between the different service providers at their sweet will. This improves the competitive usage of the free data for benefit of mankind. The countries could think of another product in their trade basket, data that could bring monetary value in exchange that could be used to improve the basic services offered in other areas of human existence in the individual countries. 

By giving the freedom in the hands of the individuals to switch between deciding the entities that could use their data, could promote better and fair competition between the corporates of the world competing with each other to monetise their user's data. 

Each user now has a unique identity on each of these services mentioned above. But arriving at a commonly arrived global unique data for each global inhabitant would enable a better and just distribution of the benefits accruing from sharing Internet usage and personal data of the global citizens.

Global bodies and organisations should strive to establish a unique global Identification number. It also shows that we are moving away from regional differences and becoming a global body integrating our beliefs, customs and practices, possibly also leading to a centralisation of our governing practices.

George..

Are venture capital firms really helping startups ?

Whenever we think of innovation and startups, the first image that comes to our mind is regarding the idea, the innovation related to it, the potential market and finally the startup capital. While angel investors are very tough to come by,. most startup and entrepreneurs rely on venture capitalists.

Bob Zider mentions the six myths regarding VCs that most people have namely

1. VC is the primary source of startup funding - no there are others too, angel funding, crowd funding etc. Recently in a case that involved finding costs to finance medical treatment for a 1 year old kid in Kerala India, an amount of 18 crores, almost $3 million was raised by crowd funding in a matter of 6 days.

2. VCs take big risks with startups - actually with the hefty 2% fee they charge on their funding to the startups, they are much better off. often the owners of the VC fund may put up less than 2% of the total corpus. In effect, the risk by the VCs is very less. They cover their risk well.

3. VCs offer great advice and mentoring - the opinion here differs. There are a group saying that VCs do offer great advice with their vast experience while an equal percentage says that they are not helpful. However VCs considering their vast exposure and experience, everyone agrees, VCs are potential sources to offer great mentoring and advice to the startups.

4. VCs generate spectacular returns - Kaufmann's Foundations has invested in about 100 startups over the past 20 years (as reported in the HBR study referred below) and returns from 20 of them have been barely 2-3%, while 60 in this 100 actually failed in generating promised returns. 

5. In VC, the bigger, the better - What has been observed in VC funding over the years is that when the VC funding becomes large and exceeds $250 million, the VC performance is hit. The valuable lesson from the HBR study given below is that startups that require funding in excess of $250 million, do not give enough returns.

6. VCs are Innovators - this is totally wrong, the VC funding scenario has not changed over the past 20 years, devoid of innovation. Funds are structured, capital raised and partners paid just like it was done 2 decades back.

Click here to read an interesting article from HBR Dec '98 by Bob Zider, titled How venture capital works ?

Click here for a more recent article in HBR May '13 by Diane Mulcahy titled Six myths about venture capitalists, which made interesting reading. 

In one of my discussions with startup founders, I was told the golden rule, start small, scale fast. Execution is the key .. 

For example, Amazon which was started in 1994, in 1995 received $8 million in venture funding from Kleiner, Parkins VC. By 1999, this $8 million generated returns of more than 55,000 %.  (click here for the Amazon startup story from www.fundable.com). These are exceptional stories. More often than not from general experience, the HBR study says that only about 20% of VC funding entities are able to generate returns of more than 2-4% required to pay off the VC funds.

These days Amazon has set up a $250 million Alexa VC fund to finance potential improvements and innovations to its AI assisted smart speaker echo, which is quite focused and giving pointed returns.

Finally the four mantras for startup success, outside the VC impact are as below (click here)

1. stay focused on your differentiators

2. stay hungry

3. stay humble and 

4. sty frugal

Very valid advice to all the budding entrepreneurs out there waiting to convert their startups to the top unicorns of the world.

George.

How technology is turning the world upside down ?

As carmakers increasingly prioritise electric vehicles, cars are becoming electronic devices 

Bindiya Vakil, Tom Linton, Why we are in the midst of a global semiconductor shortage,  Harvard Business Review, Feb, '21.

The modern electric cars are full of semiconductor chips, be it the music console, or the battery charging control or locking system or the auto drive circuit, modern cars are full of integrated circuits. It was very shocking to read the above statement, that modern EVs are no more mechanical engineering devices, they are electronic devices running on solar energy and tyres. 

The other day I was listening to a talk by Jeff Bezos at an MIT lecture hall. He was introducing Amazon, the world's largest e-commerce  portal, he founded as not an e-commerce company but as a Computer science company.. Selling goods is nothing great, but enabling the data and information to the customers to place orders, to the suppliers to transport the goods, to the transporters and warehouses to decide what to communicate, store and dispatch, etc are all outputs from running queries on databases. If the database fails, the whole system fails. 

Amazon works on the strength of its databases and the output got by the queries to these databases. Similarly ther modern day EVs are just electronic devices working on semi-conductor chips right from navigation control to lasers to security to music console , etc.. what not..

If any of these chips or integrated circuits fail, the whole vehicle comes to a standstill. The global transportation, financial system, farming and agricultural system, the educational system, the crypto currencies, entertainment systems, the telecommunications, data storage etc are all marvels of digital technology and Internet Communication Technology (ICT). Wherever we look around, we find microprocessor based integrated chips on silicon wafers controlling our lives to the core. Very soon we will find robots and AI controlling healthcare too. 

If in the past, fertile land (Silicon dioxide based sand) contolled the growth of civilization from cave dwelling to city dwelling with all modern developments, the next growth of humanity is going to be bnased on Silicon based semiconductors housing millions and millions of integrated circuits. 

It is said that annually, the world FAB facilities produce around a trillion Integrated Circuit (IC) chips, ie. about 138 chips per capita and we are edged to moving ahead with more and chips controlling what we see, read, feel, communicate and learn and how we move.

Technology is definitely turning the world upside down. Are we moving in the right direction, are we going to a centralised control of human civilization on earth ?

George..