Abundance

Abundance: The Future is better than you ThinkBy Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler

Book Notes compiled by Jane Sigford

Chapter 1: Our Grandest ChallengeThe Lesson of Aluminum

In the times of Pliny he elder in the year AD 23 a goldsmith brought him an unusual plate—It was made of aluminum. The goldsmith explained the extraction process he used. However, because the emperor was worried that this would cause a decrease in the value of gold, he had the goldsmith beheaded.

This shiny metal was aluminum and this beheading kept the secret of extraction quiet for 2000 years. It reappeared in the 1800s and was considered the most valuable metal in the world.

Aluminum, behind oxygen and silicon, is the most abundant element in the Earth’s crust, making up 8.3 $% of the weight of the world

Today it is cheap, ubiquitous, and used with a throwaway mindset. It never appears in nature as a pure metal but is tightly bound as

oxides and silicates in a claylike material called bauxite. Bauxite is 5.2 % aluminum, extracting the pure metal is complex. The electrolysis process, an advanced technology made aluminum

plentiful. Speaking of new technology, now Abu Dhabi is creating a city called

Masdar to house 50,000 residents and 40,000 workers. This city will cause no waste or release any carbon. The city will cost $20 billion to build the first post-petroleum city. They will use solar—There’s over 5000 times more solar energy falling on the planet’s surface than we use in a year. It’s not an issue of scarcity, but of accessibility.

Currently, humanity uses 30% more of our planet’s natural resources than we can replace.

If everyone on this planet wanted to live with the lifestyle of the average European, we would need 3 planets’ worth of resources to pull it off.

If everyone on this planet wished to live like an average N. American, then we’d need 5 planets to pull it off.

OPL, One Planet Living, is an initiative based on 10 core principles to combat these shortages

Point is: through the lens of technology, few resources are truly scarce; they’re mainly inaccessible. Yet the threat of scarcity dominates our worldview.

Limits to Growth Many of our researchers have been preaching scarcity and doom and

we have adopted that mindset: Robert Malthus, Alexander King and Aurelio Peccei in Limits to Growth, Paul Ehrlich in Population Bomb.

There are now 7 billion people on the planet. By 2050 there will be closer to 10 billion.

Diamandis runs a foundation X PRIZE FOUNDATION that offers huge monetary prizes for the design and operation of large incentive-prize

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competitions to help solve some of the world’s biggest problems by using the social networking connections of millions of minds around the globe

Possibility of Abundance Humanity is entering a period of radical transformation in which

technology has the potential to significantly raise the basic standards of living for every man, woman, and child on the planet. Abundance for all is actually within our grasp.

African has skipped a technological generation (landlines). 70% of the population now has cell phones which gives them access to information, banking, etc.

Computational systems, networks and sensors, artificial intelligence, robotics, biotechnology, bioinformatics, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, human-machine interfaces and biomedical engineering will soon enable the vast majority of humanity to experience what only the affluent have access to today. P. 10

There are 3 forces at work to promote this abundance.1. DIY revolution—do it yourself backyard tinkerers can reach into areas

of genetics and robotics and circumvent governments and regulations because they have access to information, technology, and other thinkers. Example: Craig Venter who sequenced his own genome—ahead of the government’s completion of the Genome Project.

2. Money—high tech revolution has created a new breed of wealthy technophilanthropists who are using fortunes to solve global, abundance-related challenges. E.g. Bill Gates crusading against malaria, Mark Zuckerberg working to reinvent education, Pierre and Pam Omidyar—bringing electricity to developing world

3. Rising billion—very poorest of the world are a huge market for new goods and services. Because of Internet, microfinance, and wireless communication, the poorest of the poor is being transformed into emerging market force.

Chapter 2: Building the PyramidTrouble with Definitions

Must define both poverty and abundance. Poverty—absolute poverty (number of people under certain income

threshold) and relative poverty (comparing individual’s income compared to average income for entire economy.

Pyramid of Abundance: 3 levels 1: food, water, shelter, other basic survival concerns; middle level—catalysts for further growth like abundant energy, ample educational opportunities, and access to ubiquitous communications and information; highest tier—freedom and health, 2 core prerequisites enabling an individual to contribute to society.

Base of Pyramid Basic need—3-5 liters of clean drinking water per person per day and

2,000 calories or more of balanced and nutritious food. Need vitamins either through food or supplements. Need 25 liters of water for bathing, cooking, cleaning and a durable shelter with adequate reading light, ventilation, and sanitation.

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If we provide, one of these, particularly water, it acts like a row of dominoes that others challenges fall away resulting in a positive gain.

Upside of water Currently, a billion people lack access to safe drinking water. 2.6

billion lack access to basic sanitation. As a result ½ of world’s hospitalizations are due to contaminated drinking water. P. 16

Bacteria causing diarrhea—4.1 % of global disease, killing 1.8 million children a year. Right now more folks have access to a cell phone than a toilet.

Information—one of our greatest assets in defeating this problem. Also, there is perfect correlation—as you improve health, within half a generation, the population growth rate goes down.

John Oldfield “Best way to control population is through increasing child survival, educating girls, and making knowledge about and availability of birth control ubiquitous.”

Pursuit of Catallaxy Next level after basic needs is education and

information/communication which raise standard of living and pave way for 2 of greatest abundance assets in history: specialization and exchange.

Energy provides means to do work; education allows workers to specialize; information/communication abundance not only furthers specialists to exchange specialities, thus creating what economist Freidrick Hayek called catallaxy: ever expanding possibility generated by the division of labor. Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, by Matt Ridley—2 individuals do not have to do same thing. That is what trade is about.

Energy is biggest game changer—people spend less time with burden of fuel gathering, children can go to schools and thus lower child mortality, enhance women’s rights, and lower population growth.

Reading, Writing, and Ready A profound change would be to teach every child basics of literacy,

mathematics, life skills, and critical thinking. Currently our educational systems are outdated—based on 19th century

with math and science at top, humanities in middle art on bottom. However, we now know creative ideas are ultimate resource and our current educational system does little to nourish this resource.

Current system built around fact-based learning—no longer necessary with access to Google.

With advent of smart phone, education needs to be decentralized, personalized, and extremely interactive. Decentralized means not controlled by autocratic govts. personalized—tailored to individual, and interactive—if you want more learning, you want more doing. Seymour Papert: “Love is a better master than duty. Using the laptop as the agency for engaging children in constructing knowledge based upon their personal interests and providing them tools for sharing and critiquing these constructions will lead them to become learners and teachers.” P. 21

Turning on the Data Tap

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Information and communication impact can’t be overstated. Cell phones produce change organically because of availability, particularly in isolated places like some countries in Africa.

Peak of the Pyramid Health and freedom at the top. Health and good health care are core

components of an abundant world. Acute respiratory infections are one of leading causes of serious illness

worldwide. At risk are young, elderly and immunocompromised. Diagnosis and distribution of health care of problems. Currently

technology known as lab-on-a-chip is under development which is packed into portable, cell-phone sized device that will all patients to take sample of bodily fluids and make diagnostic on the spot.

In developed world like in US medical costs go up another 8$ every year and 16.5 % of economy goes to health care. If we don’t used personalized technologies like lab-on-a-chip, we’re going to bankrupt the country. P. 23

Lab-on-a-chip can also gather data to monitor patterns and treat them quickly, lie flu outbreaks

Global market for personalized medicine is projected to read $452 billion.

Freedom Amartya Sen in his book Development as Freedom -- liberty moves in

lockstep with sustainable development. Jared Cohen reached out to Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey, to reschedule

its planned website maintenance so Iranians could keep tweeting which helped create the Arab Spring –called The Twitter Revolution” as one of top 10 Internet moments of the decade.

Bigger Challenge Many of these changes will happen in the next 25 years, but a large

share will happen in the next tenChapter 3: Seeing the forest Through the trees

Daniel Kahneman The way our brain works provides cognitive blocks for us to accept the

idea of abundance. Some of those blocks are cynicism, pessimism, etc. alSEE BOOK NOTES ON KAHNEMAN’S THINKING FAST AND SLOW

One bias is heuristics—cognitive shortcuts based on evolution but they may lead to errors.

Clarity is one possible error—We tend to miscalculate distance based on the clarity of visibility

Confirmation bias—affects our ability to see abundance because we search for information that confirms our preconceptions, not for information that offers new ideas

Negativity bias—our brain functions to give more weight to negative information and experiences than positive ones

Anchoring—we rely too heavily on one piece of information when making decisions

Cognitive biases often work in tandem which compounds the issue Bandwagon effect—tend to do or believe things because others do

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Psychological immune system—we tend to overestimate our own attractiveness, intelligence, work ethic, chances for success, chances of avoiding a negative outcome, impact on external events, impact on other people, and the superiority of our own peer group.

We also tend to underestimate the world at large. Human beings are designed to be local optimists and global pessimist

which is a big problem for believing in the idea of abundance.If it Bleeds, it Leads

The brain sorts information. First line of defense is amygdala which is responsible for primal emotions of rage, hate, and fear. When we are saturated with information, the amygdala looks for something to fear.

Attention is a limited resource and our tendency to fear compounds the attention we pay to negative information.

It’s hard to be optimistic when brain’s filtering architecture is pessimistic. P. 33

Good news is drowned out, because it’s in the best interest of media to overemphasize the bad.

Our brain is hard-wired so that our prosocial behaviors are slower-moving which includes the ability to demonstrate empathy and compassion.

It’s no Wonder We’re Exhausted Man evolved in a world that was “local and linear” but today’s

environment is “global and exponential” p. 34 we have to interpret a global world with a system built for local landscapes causing a “disruptive convergence.” P. 35 Therefore, sometimes our local and linear rains are blind to the possibility, the opportunities it may present, and the speed at which it will arrive.

Dunbar’s Number Robin Dunbar at Oxford University found that people tend to self-

organize in groups of 150 (US military units e.g.) While people may interact with thousands of people, they actually interact with only 150 of them. Called Dunbar’s number is the upper limit of interpersonal relationships the brain can process.

Because the nuclear family has replaced the extended family in our society we tend to fill the 150 slots with people we have daily “contact” like movie stars on t.v. such as Lady Gaga. We tend to treat those people as friends and feel like we “know” them.

The concern is What is truth?

Chapter 4: It’s Not as Bad as you ThinkThis Moaning Pessimism

Kahneman describes “loss aversion” We are more sensitive to what we perceive we lose, than to what we perceive we gain. We are more afraid of being worse off, than happy or moving toward being better off. That’s why certain news items explode and people react e.g. flu epidemics, acid rain effects.

Matt Ridley—optimism rather than pessimism is sounder philosophical position for accessing our species’ chances at a brighter tomorrow in his book The Rational Optimist

Saved Time and Saved Lives

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Saved time by using light, better transportation, etc has saved us tie and lives over the years.

We humans are living longer, wealthier, healthier, safer lives and have increased access to goods, services, transportation, information, education, medicines communication, human rights, democratic institutions, durable shelter.

Cumulative Progress Culture is ability to store, exchange, and improve ideas. Specialization

encourages innovation because not every person has to do everything, allowing for more creative and exchange of goods and services.

We can now trade in a different kind of good—information. Trade is a zero-sum game, says Dean Kamen. However, “if you have

an idea and I have an idea, and we exchange them, then we both have two ideas. It’s nonzero.” P. 46

Best Stats You’ve Ever Seen Hans Rosling—TED presentation “Best Stats You’ve Ever Seen” Watch

it!!!!! Gap between rich and poor is lessening. Gap between West and the

rest is closing.Part Two-Exponential Technologies

Chapter 5: Ray Kurzweil and the Go-Fast Button

Curve on a Piece of Paper Moore’s law—Gordon Moore described Moore’s law which states that

every 18 months, the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubles, which essentially means that every eighteen months computers get twice as fast for the same price. His law has been extended to technology in general, not just transistors.

Exponential growth in technology is happening. Ray Kurzweil realized that technologies will be outdated by the time

they get to market. To be really successful, we need to anticipate where technology will be in 3-5 years and base designs on that.

Google on the Brain Kurzweil found that dozens of technologies followed the pattern of

exponential growth e.g. expansion of telephone lines in US, amount of internet data traffic in a year, the bits per dollar of magnetic data storage.

Plus, what also grew exponentially was that they grew regardless of whatever else was going on in the world.

He forecast demise of Soviet Union, that a computer would win the world’s chess championship.

By using Moore’s law the average $1000 laptop should be computing at the rate of the human brain in fewer that 15 years.

The faster computers help us design better technologies. Humans will begin incorporating these technologies into our bodies: neuroprosthetics will augment cognition; nanobots will repair ravages of disease; bionic hearts will stave off decrepitude.

We also need to know where these expanding technologies will overlap.

Singularity University

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SU was founded to work with overlapping technologies and train in growing fields of biotechnology and bioinformatics; computational systems; networks and sensors; artificial intelligence; robotics; digital manufacturing; medicine; and nanomaterials and nontechnology. These 8 fields are potential sources of abundance.

Chapter 6—The Singularity is NearA Trip through Tomorrowland

Craig Venter—mapped his own human genome before the federal gov’t completed the Human Genome Project in less than one year for under $100 milling when the gov’t spent $1.5 billion. –

His next success-creation of a synthetic life form. His goal—to create a new kind of synthetic life that can manufacture ulta-low-cost fuels. Working on a novel algae that can take carbon dioxide and water and create oil or any other kind of fuel.

He has also spent 5 years sailing his research yacht around the globe scooping up algae—he has built library of over 40 million different genes to call upon for his future biofuels.

He’s thinking about engineering food crops with fiftyfold production improvement over today’s agriculture.

The type of biotechnology is critical to creating world of abundance.Networks and Sensors

Vint Cerg-chief Internet evangelist for Google—future of networks and sensors. Considered one of “fathers of Internet.”

Image a huge network connecting trillions of devices each with its own IP address, each accessible through the Internet. Suddenly Google can help you find anything—no such thing as stolen property anymore.

Cerf creating next generation of Internet protocols (called Ipv6) with room for 340 trillion trillion trillion unique addresses—50,000 addresses

Artificial Intelligence We have prototype cars right now with AI that can drive themselves. If

the experts have it right, around 2020, we will have autonomous vehicles operating on public roads—depending on laws that may slow things down.

Robocar evangelist—this will save lives and accident costs AI—also for diagnosing patients teaching children will be backbone for

new energy paradigm. Right now IBM has 2 chips to move this way—First integrates electrical

and optical devices on same piece of silicon which communicate with light which could accelerate supercomputer performance a thousandfold. # 2 is SyNAPSE—brain-mimicking silicon chip—able to play game of Pong, control virtual car on racecourse, identify image drawn on a screen.

Robotics Scott Hassan—intent to build a personal robot. Have discovered 2

things: robots harder to build than expected and more expensive. Scott open sourced project to make use of hundreds of minds. Obama announced National Robotics Initiative. Robotics are way to

transform American lives.

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Digital Manufacturing and Infinite Computing 3D printing is now used to make everything from lampshades and

eyeglasses to custom-fitted prosthetic limbs. A 3D printer that works in zero gravity can print spare parts when

needed at the International Space station 3D printing drops manufacturing costs precipitously because it makes

new prototyping possible. P. 69 Now we can make several prototypes with little additional cost without having to build several prototypes to see which works

Infinite computing—because of the cloud, information is accessible anytime, anywhere, by anyone.

Medicine We are developing Lab-on-a-Chip technology which makes diagnostics

accessible to people who have a smartphone. The difficulty will be having access to doctors.

Besides LOC, we have artificial intelligence where you can have conversations with someone through AI and will be able to use this technology in their own homes.

Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology Nanobots—can replicate themselves over and over. Nanocomposites

are now considerably stronger than steel and created for a fraction of the cost.

Single-walled carbon nanotubes are being used to boost power conversion efficiency in solar cells.

Nanotechnology has potential to enhance human performance, to bring sustainable development for materials, water, energy, and food, to protect against unknown bacteria and viruses, and even to diminish the reasons for breaking the peace [by creating universal abundance]. National Science Foundation p. 72

Are you Changing the World? There was no place for someone to learn about all of these

breakthroughs. That’s why Singularity University was created. Each year graduate students are challenged to develop a company,

product, or organization that will positively affect the lives of a billion people within ten years.

Part ThreeBuilding the Base of the Pyramid

Chapter 7Tools of Cooperation

Roots of Cooperation Interested in the next 2-3 decades and the 3 forces that will accelerate

change and abundance: 1) coming of age of DIY innovator; new breed of technophilanthropist; expanding creative/market power of the rising billion.

New technology creates greater opportunities for specialization, which increases cooperation, which leads to more capability, which generates new technology and starts the whole process over again.

From Horses to Hercules

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First cooperative tool—transportation revolution. Went from horses to planes, trains, and automobiles that allowed transportation of information goods, and services in real time.

2nd cooperative tool is information and communication technology with its 8 contributions:1. connectivity—with cell phones even the world’s most remote village

is connected2. increased diviision of labor—greater connectivity produces greater

specialization which allows all of us to participate in global supply chain

3. scale—message go over vast networks reaching millions of people in almost no time at all

4. replication—online training or production specifications can reach distant outlets instantaneously

5. accountability—increased audits, monitoring and evaluation6. Internet’s ability to bring together buyers and sellers7. Use of social networking to build “communities of interest” 8. Education and training—curriculum updated almost instantaneously

and immediately availableGold in Dem Hills

Open source software such as Linux has brought together minds from all over the world to solve problems in a way that has never happened before.

Not necessary to have “knowledge scarcity” anymore when through the Internet there is access to minds from all over the world to bring the brightest minds to work on the world’s hardest problems

If we were to forgo our t.v. addiction for just one year, the world would have over a trillion hours of cognitive surplus to commit to share projects.” Shirky, p. 83.

Affordable Android Healthiest global economy is built upon the exchange of information,

p. 83 Film industry and example. Hollywood used to make the best films

with brightest stars. In less than 25 years digital technology has rearranged these facts.

On average Hollywood produces 500 films per year and reaches worldwide audience of 2.6 billion. Average length of the films is 2 hours so Hollywood produces 1000 hours of content per year.

YouTube users, however, upload 48 hours worth of videos every minute. That means, every 21 minutes YouTube provides more novel entertainment than Hollywood does in 12 months to an audience of 129 million view a day.

So in 21 days YouTube reaches more people than Hollywood does in a year.

We saw this in Arab Spring, which enabled radical transparency and transformed the political landscape.

Chapter 8: WaterWater for Water

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70% of worlds’ water is used for agriculture. An egg requires 120 gallons to produce. There are 100 gallons in a watermelon. Meat is thirstiest requiring 2,500 gallons per pound.

443 million school days a year are lost to water-related disease 35 gallons to make one microchip Energy requires 20% of our nonagricultural water in US

Dean vs. Goliath Dean Kamen—440 patents; a DIY innovator; invented first portable

infusion pump capable of automatically delivering the same exact drug dosages that had once required round-the-clock supervision.

Has invented a machine to purify 250 gallons of water a day using the same amount of energy it takes to run a hair dryer.

He has entered into negotiations with Coca-cola to build, distribute, and use its supply chain to help maintain the Slingshot (his water purifying device) so that clean water is available in Africa.

Slingshot is built to serve 100 people, not large-scale urban deployment

Prophylaxis Population is linked to fertility. Urbanization actually lowers fertility

rates Issue is that the most fecund population on the planet is the rural poor.

It takes lots of hands to do farm work and infant mortality is greater as well.

Of the 1.1 billion people in the world without access to safe water, 85% live in the countryside. Of the 2.2. million children that die each year from drinking contaminated water, the vast majority are rural as well.

A water-purifying device such as Slingshot can also be a family planning device, therefore.

Getting Roomier at the Bottom Solution to clean water is not just Slingshot but is a combination of

ideas. Another is disaster readiness. During Katrina it took 5 days to get water to refugees in the Superdome.

Designed a small bottle, called Lifesaver, to clean and filter water for disaster relief for such things as the tsunami. But it can produce 25000 liters of water enough for a family of 4 for 3 years.

Also nanomaterials are now being used to eliminate contaminants to clean up waterways, contaminated aquifers, and Superfund sites.

IBM and Central Glass have developed a nanofilter capable of removing salt and arsenics which used to be impossible.

40% of Earth’s population live within 100 kilometers of a coast, combination of nanotech and desalination holds greater promise.

Reverse osmosis holds greater promise. It is nanotechnologies that hold such promise for the future.

Smart Grid for Water To solve water problem our biggest opportunity is in information and

how to reduce waste 70% of our water is used for agriculture yet 50% of the food produced

gets thrown away 5% of our energy goes to pump water, but 20% of water streams out

holes in leaky pipes.

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If we had a smart grid we could save the US 30-50% of its total water use.

Computer-assisted irrigation would utilize precision agriculture to conserve water. Could lower water use by 35-40%

Solving Sanitation When it comes to indoor plumbing, not much has changed in very long

time. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have given 8 universities funding to

help bring toilet technology into 21st century If we remove feces we solve an enormous portion of global disease

burden Toilets account for 31% of water use in US. Leaks from pipes are the

biggest waste.Pale Blue Dot

Carl Sagan “This distant image of our tiny world…underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.” P. 99 So today bring on the efficiencies, take shorter showers, eat less beef, do all that we can to preserve a currently limited resource to protect our pale blue dot. p. 99

Chapter 9: Failure of Brute Force Feeding the world remains an issue. 1 out of 3 children show stunted

growth from malnutrition in developing countries. Iodine deficiency is single leading cause of mental retardation and brain damage. Lack of vitamin A kills a million infants annually.

Toxic herbicides and pesticides have destroyed our waterways. Yet we have seen miraculous change in ability to produce food.

Currently we farm 38% of the land in the worldCooking for Nine Billion

Genetic Engineering foods is powerful; stops erosion, makes better use of water and reduces herbicide use

We have 1st generation of GE crops. Soon we’ll have versions that can grow in drought conditions, saline conditions, nutritionally fortified, that act as medicines and can increase yields.

Gates Foundation—led effort BioCassava Plus to take cassava, one of world’s largest staple crops, fortify it with protein, vitamins A and E, iron, and zinc and make it storable. It will improve the health of the 250 million people for whom it is a daily meal.

Author and activist Michael Pollen called for open source movement for GE groups.

Distribution is still a problem and we have to figure that outVertical Farming

Vertical farming is using spaces in the city to grow crops in buildings, up the sides, etc. Reducing use of water, herbicides, because it’s indoors. It will make use of rooftops, etc.

They are immune to weather; crops can be grown year round. Eliminate need for fossil fuels that are used for plowing, cultivating, etc.

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70% of us live in cities—vertical farms are clearest path toward ending hunger and malnutrition requiring 80% less land, 90% less water, and 100% fewer pesticides.

Integrate a few technologies—aquaponics for closed-loop protein production; robotic crop harvesting to lower labor costs; AI systems attached to biosensors for better environmental regulation; continued development of biomass energy systems; betterment and continued integration of waste recycling systems—and we end up with gold standard of sustainable agriculture. P. 109

Protein Cattle are energy hogs, and land hogs—using 70% of all agricultural

lands and covering 30% of all land surface. Ranching produces more greenhouse gases than all the cars in the world and is the leading cause of soil erosion and deforestation

Disease is another issue. Tightly packed herds of animals are breeding grounds for pandemics.

Danger is increasing because developing nations want to eat more meat.

Now we can have in-vitro meat and aquaculture—farming our fish. Aquaculture is now fastest-growing animal food production system

supplying nearly 30% of seafood. Cultured Meat

Now have ability to have cultured meat—grown from stem cells which allow us to have meat that has no danger of harmful bacteria. It is nutritionally fortified and allows us to use and reforest the land that is currently devoted to ranching.

Can protect and reforest the rainforest as well.Between Now and Then

We have aquaculture, GE foods particularly with cotton, corn and soybeans.

Golden rice (rice fortified with vitamin A) is about to clear regulatory hurdles and enter food chain. P. 113

Cultured meat and wide deployment of vertical farms probably 10-15 years out

Also we are using push-pull farming which has farmers plant specific plants between rows of corn that push some insects away or pull in beneficial ones.

Tough Row to Hoe Have long chain of sustainable intensification backed up by

agroecological principles, GE crops, synthetic biology, perennial polycultures, vertical farms, robotics and AI integrated agriculture, upgraded aquaculture, and a booming business in cultured mean.

We can have abundance in food production.Part Four

Forces of AbundanceChapter 10: DIY Innovator

Stewart Brand Published first Whole Earth Catalog in 1968 which was a paradigm shift

in information distribution. It embraced personal technology and

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credited with inventing term “personal computer” Stewart singlehandedly responsible for American culture’s acceptance of personal computer. P. 120

His marriage of self-reliance and technology helped shape DIY innovator into a force for abundance. He said “information wants to be free” and he also believed that business could be a force for good. P. 121

Homebrew History Fred Moore—realized power in networking. Started Homebrew

Computer Club for tech hobbyists, included Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. Members hared secrets and transformed big business and big science.

Power of Small Groups Par I DIY innovators can now tackle problems that were once solely the

purview of big govts and large corporations. Burt Rutan e.g. –built aircraft and outperformed gov’t in making a

manned space flight with SpaceShipOne. Maker Movement—

Chris Anderson—started nonprofit online community called DIY Drones. Used opensource to make heap drones. He revolutionized drone field

DIY Bio Drew Endy—biologist. Founded international Genetically Engineer

Machine competition—worldwide synthetic biology competition aimed at high school and undergraduate students—Aim was to build simple biological system from standardized interchangeable parts and operate them within living cells—called BioBricks

They created an algae able to consume oil spills, for example. We have an era of “garage biology”

Social Entrepreneur Social entrepreneurs are DIYers taking on big gov’t social programs.

Using social networks there are organizations such as Kiva that loans money to small business on person- to-person basis in developing countries as a microfinance agency.

KickStart, Martin Fisher and Nick Moon, give people the technological means to lift themselves out of poverty—developed everything from low-cost irrigation to inexpensive presses for creating cooking oils

They have outperformed HUD for more than 2 decades.Chapter 11-Technophilanthropists

Have revolutionized industries with PayPal, advertising on Google, and commerce with eBay.

Instead of robber barons such as Carnegie, we have people such as Jeff Skoll, 1st president of eBay. He has awarded more than $250 million to 81 social entrepreneurs working on 5 continents. p. 136

“impact investing” whereby investors back businesses that generate financial returns and meet measurable social or environmental goals.

Have hands-on approach—they also bring human capital to bear on issue.

The new breed of technophilanthropists was billionaires before the age of 35 and turned to philanthropy right afterward. They want to make a difference with their lives.

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Don’t have to get re-elected or suffer tyranny of shareholders.How Many and How Much

Naveen Jain—founded InfoSpace and Intelius—co-chair of XPRIZE Education and Global Development Advisory Group—focusing on reinventing education and health care in developing world.

Gates and Warren Buffet—2 richest men in world—announced “Giving Pledge” which asks nation’s billionaires to give away half their wealth to philanthropic and charitable groups within their lifetime or at their death.

Paul Allen Steve Case, Mark Zuckerberg, Dustin Moskovitz have all signed on.

These technophilanthropists are still young and can make even more money and more of a difference.

Chapter 12: Rising BillionWorld’s Biggest Market

The poorest people—4 billion people occupying lowest strata of economic pyramid have tremendous purchasing power if given the right tools and things to buy.

Adding phones to this strata has reduced poverty. Adding 10 new phones per 100 people, 48 million graduate from poverty.

Education at this level, information!!, helps empower and reduce poverty. 200 million people learned that diarrheal disease which kills 660,000 people in India each year can be prevented simply by washing one’s hands. This helps people stay in school, work, and reduce poverty.

For the first time this group’s voice is being heard and ideas are being created

Quadir’s Bet Iqbal Quadir—Grameenphone transformed life in Bangladesh by

creating cheaper phones and putting them in the hands of the BoP consumers (Bottom billion)

Created banking system where there had been none before because of mobile banking which has experienced exponential growth in developing countries such as Kenya.

This empowers the individual like never before.Resource Curse

Using information to use crowdsourcing of tiny jobs—known as microtasking—give the poor access to novel revenue streams that further break poverty cycle.

The free flow of information enabled by cell phones replaces need for free press and, as recent events in Middle East bear out, can have serious impacts on spread of democracy. p. 147

Today’s mobile device is the new personal computer. P. 148 [What is the ramification for education? } question mine

The World is my Coffee Shop Coffeehouses became vehicle to share information in 18th century. Idea sharing works really well in cities because urban spaces are

perfect innovation labs.

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The more complicated, multilingual, multicultural, wildly diverse the city, the greater its output of new ideas. [coincides with Richard Florida’s discussion of what makes creative cities.]

But the influence of the city is pale in comparison to the influence of the World Wide Web. The net is allowing us to turn ourselves into a giant, collective meta-intelligence. P. 149

Renewable energy, wireless, etc may hold the keys to addressing the environmental challenges from the top to the base of the economic pyramid.

The influx of intellect from the rising billion may turn out to be the saving grace of the entire planet. P. 150

Dematerialization and Demonetization Today’s greatest commodities aren’t physical objects, they’re idea. Fastest-growing job category is the “knowledge worker.” P. 151 Can reshape markets by making goods more accessible and profits in

the pockets of the consumer as on ebay.Part Five—Peak of the Pyramid

Chapter 13—EnergyEnergy Poverty

Energy is arguably the most important lynchpin for abundance. Enough solar power hits one square kilometer of Africa’s deserts to

produce the equivalent of one and a half million barrels of oil or three hundred thousand tons of coal.

Africa has 9 times the solar potential of Europe and an annual equivalent to one hundred million tons of oil. When coupled to its vast reserves of wind, geothermal and hydroelectric, the continent has enough energy to meet its own needs and export surplus to Europe.

Bright Future Technology now has a way to turn ordinary windows into photovoltaic

panels. Making solar energy cheap enough for our rooftops is goal of US

Energy Sety Stephen Chu. Solar and wind are sources of electricity but represent only 40% of

America’s energy needs. Remainder is split between transportation (29%) and home and office

heating/cooking (31%) Of the fuel used for transportation, 95% is petroleum based while buildings rely on both petroleum and natural gas.

To end our oil addiction, we need to displace this remaining 60%. The oil and gas industries are very well funded and very entrenched. P. 161

Synthetic Life to the Rescue Biofuels, particularly ethanol is disaster—caused considerable

environmental damage and replaced millions of acres of crops produced for food therefore driving food prices sky-high.

Now Exxon developing biofuel from algae. Algae can produce 30 times more energy per acre than conventional

biofuels. Virgin airlines already using partial biofuels mix of coconut and

babassu oil.

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In July 2010 Solzyme from San Francisco delivered 1500 gallons of algae-based biofuels to US Navy and won a contract for 150,000 more gallons

Holy Grail of Storage It doesn’t matter how heap solar energy becomes if we don’t figure out

how to store it. Aquion Energy is building a battery that releases energy evenly,

doesn’t corrode, is based on Earth-abundant elements, and, literally, is safe enough to eat.

Nathan Myhrvold and the Fourth Generation Myhrvold was Microsoft’s chief technology officer. Nuclear power—current reactors are Generation II. It’s Generation Iv

that is of interest—it was developed to solve the problems of safety, cost, efficiency, waste, uranium scarcity, and threat of terrorism.

Generation IV can even shut themselves down without human intervention

Myrvold wants a demonstration unity up and running by 20220.Perfect Power

How we distribute power is very important. Today we see balkanization

Cisco has made commitment to build Smart Grid, to solve this issue In next 7 years smart grid will use IP-connected sensors and will

monitor energy use and manage demand. So What does energy Abundance really mean.

Solar power—pollutant free. The new frontier is that we can have energy dispersed by need that is non-polluting and even solve global warming.

Chapter 14—Education

Sugara Mitra “self-organized learning environments—computer workstations with

benches in front of them. Found out that if “grannies” were put by terminals to assist, test scores improved by 25%.

SOLES are bottom up. The work is collaborative. Kids need access to information and “grannies” to support.

One Tablet Per Child Seymour Papert—kids learn best by doing, especially if it involves a

computer. Negroponte believes every child loves the Internet and two, market not

really interested in low cost computer. Negroponte learned that if computers are involved, truancy drops to

zero. OLPC influence continues to grow, particularly in underdeveloped countries. May not have same effect in US because students here see their education as irrelevant.

Another Brick in the Wall Current education worried about standardization and conformity

instead of around creativity such as that advocated by Dr. Ken Robinson Out of Our minds: Learning to be Creative . He says we are

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headed in exactly the wrong direction with nat’l standards and Common Core.

Tony Wagner and Robinson say we are teaching the wrong stuff and it isn’t sticking. P. 180

Industrial model of education in memorizing facts is no longer necessary. We have Google

21st century is media rich and we need to use it so that learning becomes addictive

James Gee Meets Pajama Sam Games outperform textbooks in helping students learn fact-based

subjects such as geography, history, physics, and anatomy. Also improves visual coordination, cognitive speed, and manual dexterity.

Interactive games are great teachers of collaborative skills. We need to find ways to make learning a lot more like video games

and a lot less like school. New York—New School for Design has curriculum based on game

design and digital cultureWrath of Khan

Impact of Khan Academy and flipped classroom is very powerful. Check out the free Khan Academy website.

This Time it’s Personal We need to change how progress is measured. We have to change

these tests. Students perform better when coached by someone who cares about

their progress—Teachers are needed. We need to turn teachers into coaches and change our classroom

management techniques. Soon we may have AI tutors. Better-educated people live longer and have healthier lives and create

a more stable free society. We need to educate girls, which will help raise standard of living,

reduce birth rate, and improve economics. Chapter 15: Health Care

Life Span Industrial Revolution started the increase toward longer lives Information technology now also increases that trajectory

Limits of Being Human Learning takes time and practice. The brain processes at a limited

pace. In medical school, knowledge is increasing so quickly that 5 years after

graduation, half of what one learns will probably be wrong but no one knows which half.

No matter, we are never satisfied with our health care. 57 countries don have enough health care works. US will be short doctors by 2025 as well.

Watson goes to Medical School Now have computers who can complete diagnoses remotely. IBM’s

WatsonZero Cost Diagnostics

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Tape can now record information XPRIZE offered $10 million to first team able to demonstrate a

consumer-friendly low cast mobile device able to diagnose a patient better than a group of board certified doctors.

However, se still need to be able to treat and cure the patient. Getting medical workers to all is an issue.

Paging Dr. Da Vinci to the Operating Room We are using robots to diagnose in the battlefield with a telepresent

physician standing by. The robots are skilled enough to assist orthopedists with delicate procedures such as knee replacements

Robots do allow surgeons to operate remotely. Robo Nurse

With aging baby boomers we are looking at using robo nurses to help boomers stay in their homes and provide medical care that is cheaper than home health care workers. Right now they are looking at a robot costing around $1000. Which is cheaper than a person

Mighty Stem Cell Stem cells are going to be able to be used to correct chronic

autoimmune diseases such a s rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, and scleroderma.

One of next major challenges is to grow one of the most intricate organs in the human body—the kidney.

This fast-moving field will impact almost every clinical areaPredictive, Personalized, Preventive, and participatory.

P4 (predictive, personalized, preventive, and participatory) is where health care his heading.

Combined with cheap, ultrafast, medical-grade genome sequencing with massive computing power we will able to be more predictive.

Every newborn will have genome sequenced and we will be able to predict tendency to diabetes, cancer, etc. and turn off those genes so person is not affected by this disease.

Will also be able to turn off gene for obesity. Participatory—each of us will be the CEO of our own health. The

mobile phone will be transformed into a major control center. To monitor what we eat, drink, how much we exercise, etc.

Age of Health Care Abundance A few of these technologies will first make their way to less

bureaucratic regions of developing world rather than bureaucratic USA. Chapter 16: Freedom

Power to the People Freedom is at the peak of the pyramid and where this book must get a

little philosophical Freedom is an idea and access to idea It’s a state of being, a state of consciousness, and a way of life. What’s within our scope are economic freedom, human rights, political

liberty, transparency, free flow of information, freedom of speech, and empowerment of the individual

Wikileaks is an example of how information and communications promote political liberty and greater transparency.

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There are difficult issues such as the Great Firewall of China but the ordinary citizen has power unlike any time in history to have himself heard and have access to global audience.

One Million Voices Jared Cohen. Wanted to visit Iran. Although he was now allowed

access to some things, he looked and saw the youth taking advantage of Bluetooth and accessing information around the world. When asked, the young people said the older generation didn’t even know what blue tooth was so they were able to use mobile phones easily.

Oscar Morales—activist in Columbia who was able to organize A Million Voices to turn the war

Twitter was pipeline to Arab Spring.B its not Bombs

Internet is also fantastic recruiting tool for Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al Qaeda.

During Arab Spring, Egypt tried to shut down the Internet to quell revolt so that now we talk about Web 2.0, we also see Repression 2.0.

But we can make progress together.Part Six: Steering Faster

Chapter 17: Driving Innovation and BreakthroughsFear, Curiosity, Greed, and Significance.

There are 4 major motivators that drive innovation: 1, curiosity, 2 fear, 3. Desire to create wealth, and 4. Incentive

First flight across Atlantic was curiosity. Several died trying Power of Incentive Competition

XPrize puts out challenge in the form of money to create something that will affect many people. Setting out the challenge creates a mindset that anything is possible.

Power of Small Groups Large or medium-sized groups are not built to be nimble or to take

large risks [schools for example—note mine} [This agrees with Clayton Christensen—note mine]

Small groups consistently outperform larger organizations when it comes to innovation

Power of Constraints Actually putting a time line on a prize liberates a constraint because it

focuses energy and creates a clear target Fixed-Price Solutions

Best way to predict the futures is to create it yourself and Diamandis believes there is no better way to do just that than with incentive prizes. P. 226

Chapter 18: Risk and FailureEvolution of a Great Idea

Sir Arthur C. Clarke says, “In the beginning people tell you that’s a crazy idea, and it’ll never work. Next, people say your idea might work, but it’s not worth doing. Finally, eventually, people say, I told you that it was a great idea all along.” P. 227

Demonstrating great ideas involves a considerable amount of risk. The road to abundance requires significant innovation and significant

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tolerance for risk, for failure, and for ideas that strike most as absolute nonsense. P. 229

Upside of Failures Failure is not a disaster It took Einstein a thousand tries to make a

light bulb.Born Above the Line of Supercredibiltiy

Need to announce ideas in fashion of supercredibility, not doubtful, so that people buy in.

Think Different Apple launched Think Different campaign. You need to be a little crazy

to change the world, and you can’t really fake it.Chapter 19: Which Way Next

Adjacent Possible Adjacent Possible means that each new combination opens up the

possibility of other new combinationsPursuit of Happiness

Abundance is not a zero-sum game and we must go away from that mindset. Abundance is a plan and a perspective

Our perspectives shape our lives The best way to predict the future is to create it yourself.

Afterword: Next Step Join the Abundance HubVisit website www.AbundanceHub.comVideos.AbundanceHub.comFacebook page www.AbundanceHub.com aTwitter @AbundanceHubSingularityU.org

Reference SectionThere is a huge reference section with charts and graphs about the topics in the boo

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