Factors Influencing Blockchain Adaption

Looking into the future - Right through Automation & Artificial Intelligence

Its no secret that Innovation & creativity is the ultimate source of competitive advantage. But success of any innovative idea depends on a number of other factors: An energetic leadership, Market growth, Significant investments pool, and a real "can do" spirit of the team.

As I write this article, there are thousands of articles being published on web - which state how robots and Artificial Intelligence will replace humans in workforce.

1. McDonald's is testing a new restaurant run completely by Robots 
2. Robot lands a Plane. 
3. Driverless Trucks will eliminate millions of jobs  
4. Smart Machines will cause mass unemployment  
5. Google's AI beats world Go champion in first of five matches  

Today's news is filled with the hype and fear of mass unemployment due to Automation. Today the hype cycle is almost at its zenith and in this background, I was asked to talk about what kind of jobs & employment opportunities will be there in future.

How automation will help mankind?

Automation is actually an innate feature of mankind. If we look into our past, we as a species have always come up with creative innovation to automate mundane tasks, and every time we did this, the civilization progressed by leaps and bounds.

The first ever automation was creation of canal system - thereby automating the transportation of water. This led to the rise of early civilizations in Indus River valley, Egypt, Babylon & China. Since then, civilization has been making a steady progress to automate simple, repetitive tasks.

Simple machines replaced human labor, trains & cars replaced horse drawn carts, Computers replaced clerks, and the list goes on and on.

From all our learning's, we know that if a task can be automated, it will be automated. There is no way a civilization will be able to stop automation. People have no pleasure in doing repetitive labor and the society will promote automation. Period!

And Yes, Today, People are being replaced by algorithms, machines and artificial intelligence.

What shall humans do?

As automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics grow in capability, humans doing simple, repetitive jobs will be pushed out of their jobs. So what will humans do?

The answer to this question can be found in history. When canals were invented, farmers found themselves with more time on their hands to increase the land area under cultivation. This led to more food production and this freed up people to create some of early classics of literature. Ramayana, Mahabaratha, Upanishads etc. were written during this time. People built massive temples, pyramids, palaces, forts, statues etc.

Industrial revolution also led to an explosion in arts - mainly paintings, writing of novels, poems, sculpture, building of palaces, classical music etc.

In 20th century and early 21 century, automation led to more creativity in terms of space travel, adventures, film making, music and new machines.

All this points towards only one direction. When humans are freed up from mundane tasks, they will use their free time to harness their creative potential.

Humans are innately creative. Machines, computers & Robots are not creative. Humans are far more creative and this creativity cannot be reduced into an algorithm & automated. This implies that the new generation of humans who are trained to be engineers, doctors, scientists and artists etc. will dream up new things to do, build and explore. Perhaps we may discover how to travel faster than light.

How to prepare for the new future?

The current education system is designed to create a workforce of yesterday, and people who do mundane, repetitive tasks and this education system will have to change first. We as a civilization will have to train the younger generation to be creative, develop expansive & divergent thinking. We need to nurture and flourish the creative side of humans and this will free up the younger generation to be creative and innovative.

Modern workplaces also have to change in a big way. Traditional hierarchical top down management system which pigeonhole people into narrow jobs need to be revamped. Silos need to be broken up and creative ideas must be fast tracked as quickly as possible. Businesses must be willing to take risks on new ideas. For example, Ford Motors recently fired its CEO - even after record breaking sales - because Ford as a business now needs a new business models - far from the one of building cars.

Cost of Failure - A major war & conflict

History also tells us the dark side of automation. Whenever automation ushered in a new era, lot of people had too much free time and when this was not utilized in a positive way, humans resorted to war and violence.

In fact, both world wars were in a way caused by industrial revolution. Industrialized European countries had surplus human labor and young population which had nothing much to do and the countries rushed headlong into a catastrophic war.

Today, we are seeing a massive surge in terrorism from people in Middle East and Pakistan. This is because their governments have failed to utilize their workforce in productive ways. Similarly, USA & China have increased their military spending in recent times - as they are not able to channel their enormous economic resources towards creative work.

Closing Thoughts 

We as a civilization are at the cusp of a new revolution - ushered by Automation & AI. Will this result in a golden era of creativity & innovation or will it result in a catastrophic war?

I cannot predict the future, but I know for sure that if we invest in building a creative & innovative society - we can usher in a golden era, else we are doomed for a devastating war. 

Understanding the Business Benefits of Colocation

Digital transformation and the move towards private cloud is really shaking up the design and implementation of data centers. As companies start their journey to the cloud, they realize that having sets of dedicated servers for each application will not help them and they need to change their data centers.

Historically, companies started out with a small server room to host a few servers that run their business applications. The server room was located in their office space and it was a small set up. As business became more compute centric, the small server room became unviable. This led to data centers - which was often located in their office.

The office buildings were not designed for hosting data centers and had to be modified to get more air-conditioning, networking and power into the data center. The limitation of existing buildings created limitation on efficient cooling and power management.

But now when companies are planning to move to private cloud, they are now seeing huge benefits of having a dedicated data center - a purpose built facility for hosting large number of computers, switches, storage and power systems. These purpose built data centers are built with better power supply solutions, better & more efficient liquid cooling solutions and more importantly offer a wide range of networking connectivity and network services.

As a result these dedicated data centers can save money on IT operations and also provide greater reliability & resilience.

But not all companies need a large data center which can benefit from economies of scale. Very few large enterprises really have a need for such large dedicated purpose built data centers. So there is a new solution - Colocation of Data Centers.

For CIOs colocation provides the perfect win-win scenario, providing cost savings and delivering state-of-the-art infrastructure. When comparing the capabilities of a standard server room to a colocated data center solution, often times, the benefit from power bills alone is enough to justify the project.

These dedicated data centers are built on large scale in Industrial zones with dedicated power lines and backup power systems - that the power cost will be much lower than before. Moreover, these dedicated data centers can employ newer & more efficient cooling systems that reduces the over all power consumption of the data center.

Business Benefits of Colocation

Apart from reductions in operational expenditure, there are several other benefits from colocation. Having a dedicated team where people are available 24/7/365 to monitor and manage the IT infrastructure is a huge benefit.

1. Cost Savings on Power & Taxes
   
   Dedicated data centers are built in locations that offer cheap power. Companies can also negotiate the tax breaks for building in remote or industrial areas. In addition to a lower price of power, the data centers are designed to include diverse power feeds and efficient distribution paths. These data centers are dual generator systems that can be refueled while in operation as well as on-site fuel reserves, and have multiple UPS support in place.
   
   In addition to power costs, dedicated data centers will have engineers and technicians who will monitor the power levels, battery levels 24/7 so that the center has 100% uptime.
   
   Additionally, data centers have the time, resources and impetus to continually invest in and research green technologies. This means that businesses can reduce their carbon footprint at their office locations and benefit from continual efficiency saving research. Companies that move their servers from in-house server rooms typically save 90 percent on their own carbon emissions.
   
   
2. Network Connected Globally, Securely and QuicklyToday, high speed network connectivity is the key to business. And it is lot more difficult to get big fat pipes of network connectivity into central office locations. It is lot more easier to get network connectivity to a centralized data center. A dedicated data center will have many network service providers providing connectivity and often at a lower price than at a office location.
   
   Dedicated data centers also provide resilient connectivity at a fairly low price – delivering 100 Mbps of bandwidth might be hard at an office location and trying to create a redundant solution is often financially unviable. Data centers are connected to multiple transit providers and also have large bandwidth pipes meaning that businesses often benefit from a better service for less cost.
   
   Colocation enables organizations to benefit from faster networking and cheaper network connections.
   
   
3. Monitoring IT InfrastructureBuilding a dedicated data center makes it easier to monitor the health of IT infrastructure. The economies of scale that comes from colocation helps to build a robust IT Infrastructure monitoring solution that can monitor the entire IT infrastructure and ensure SLAs are being met.
   
   
4. Better SecurityA dedicated data center and colocation will have better physical security than a data center in a office location. The physical isolation of the data center enables the service provider to provide better security measures that include biometric scanners, closed circuit cameras, on-site security, coded access, alarm systems, ISO 27001 accredited processes, onsite security teams and more. With colocation, all these service costs are shared - thus bringing down the costs while improving the level of security.
   
   
5. ScalabilityPlatform 3 paradigms such as digital transformation, IoT, Big Data, etc are driving up the scale of IT infrastructure. As the demand for computing shoots up with time, the data center must be able to cope up with it. With colocation, the scale up requirements can be negotiated ahead of time and with just one call to the colocation provider and scale of the IT  infrastructure can be increased as needed.
   
   Data centers and colocation providers have the ability to have businesses up and running within hours, as well as provide the flexibility to grow alongside your organization. Colocation space, power, bandwidth and connection speeds can all be increased when required.
   
   The complexity of rack space management, power  management etc is outsourced to the colocation service provider.
   
   
6. Environment friendly & Green ITA large scale data center has more incentives to run a greener IT operations as it results in lower energy costs. Often times these data centers are located in Industrial areas where better cooling technologies can be safely deployed - which makes it possible to improve the over all operational efficiency. Typically, a colocated data center often adhere to global green standards such as ASHRAE 90.1-2013, ASHRAE 62.1, LEED certifications etc.
   
   A bigger data centers enable better IT ewaste management and recycling. Old computers, UPS Batteries and other equipment can be safely & securely disposed.
   
   
7. Additional Services from Colocational PartnersColocational service providers may also host other cloud services such as:
   
   a. Elastic salability to ramp up IT resources when there is seasonal demand and scale down when demand falls.
   
   b. Data Backups and Data Archiving to tapes and storing it in secure location
   
   c. Disaster Recovery in a multiple data centers & Data Redundancy to protect from data loss incase of natural disasters.
   
   d. Network Security and Monitoring against malicious network attacks - this is usually in form of a "Critical Incident Center." Critical Incident centers are like Network Operation Center - but monitors the data security and active network security. 

Closing Thoughts

In conclusion, a dedicated data center offers tremendous cost advantages. But if the company's IT scale does not warrant a dedicated data center, then the best option is to move to a colocated data center. Colocation providers are able to meet business requirements at a lower cost than if the service was kept in-house.

A colocation solution provides companies with a variety of opportunities, with exceptional SLAs and having data secured off-site, providing organizations with added levels of risk management and the chance to invest in better equipment and state-of-the-art servers.      

Can India meet its 100 GW Solar Power Proposal?

Last week, In Paris UN climate conference 2015, India pledged to increase the amount of solar power that can be generated in the country to 100 gigawatts by 2022.

The same week, I got my LEED AP certification, so knowing all about India, I decided to write this article - to tell the reality of India.

100 GW of Solar power!

This is REALLY BIG promise, considering the fact that today, India's current capacity is just around 3 GW! That's more than 20 times India's current solar deployment. It's also more than twice the installed capacity in Germany & China. Germany has about 40 GW. China is little more than 40GW.

To achieve 100 GW, India will have to overcome some of the biggest challenges in terms of Investments and most importantly policy reforms.

To get to 100 GW by 2022, Solar Power installations must grow by 65% year-on-year!

Can India pull it off?

Technically and Financially, getting to 100 GW by 2022 is feasible. The total investment needed in Solar Panels (not including land and investments in Power Grid) is about US$ 75 Billion. (Assuming cost of panels will come down by 5% y-o-y.) Total area required for 100 GW will be around 30,000 acres.

Considering that India has plenty of funds - mainly in form of black money, and according to GFI's 2014 Annual Global Update on Illicit Financial Flows report, US $51 Billion flows out  of India annually and in last 10 years US $ 439 Billion flowed out of India.

We can make a reasonable assumption that given proper channels and opportunities, all that black money can be diverted to create solar power plants. Then we know we have funds to set up 100 GW of solar power!

Between 2012 and 2014, solar capacity increased from 461 megawatts to over three gigawatts in India.


Land needed to set up the panels is not much either. 100 GW will require about 500,000 Acres.  Just by using the large reservoir area of big dams of India - like Nagarjuna Sagar, Tehri dam, Bhakra Dam etc, we can create more than enough space for solar power plans. So even after considering the fact that cost of building solar farms over  lake area is slightly expensive - but it makes up the fact that the Solar plants does not need agricultural land!

Moreover, setting up solar power plans over water reservoirs helps in reducing water losses due to evaporation and also increases the efficiency of Solar PV panels.

In short, we have all the land needed to create 100 GW of Solar power, and we have the funds. But do we have the right policies?

Great Indian Dinosaur Park!

Just take a walk around any Indian cities and look out for power distribution cables. It often looks like this:

The image is also a perfect reflection on the state of Indian power distribution utilities. None of the utilities have performed regular auditing of their power losses and it shows in their balance sheets.

Currently, power supply distribution is a monopoly of several state government owned companies - popularly called as "escoms".  These escoms are badly managed, corruption ridden organizations - which have no business sense. These utilities have racked up $55 billion in losses over the past six years, the cumulative losses in these power utilities has not yet been fully accounted.

Development of Solar Power by private sector will only aggravate losses to state owned power utilities. Currently, farmers in most states do not pay for electrical power. Indian farmers who get free electricity to power irrigation pumps.

The free power to farmers accounts for 20 percent of India's electricity consumption and accounts for roughly $10 billion of the losses on state owned utilities. Consequently, industries in India are charged at very high price for electric power and if these industrial users move to solar power, the losses to state owned electric utilities will only increase. Therefore state owned electric utilities have no motivation to allow "net metering".

The national power grid is also a government owned monopoly of Power Grid Corporation of India - which is yet another dinosaur!

The power grid is already under tremendous stress, and the installed grid capacity is less than generation capacity. As a result power hungry states in the southern parts of the country are not able to draw power from states which has surplus capacities.

Adding 100 GW to this decrepit grid is not possible. Also one must note that peak solar power is available only for a short duration of the day and it completely disappears at night. This massive power fluctuations can disrupt & destabilize the grid adversely.

The intermittent nature of renewable energy sources like solar power presents a range of challenges to utilities, depending on their grid's size and design. If Solar PV cells are providing a substantial share of the grid's power and suddenly cloud covers a large Solar PV plant, the power generation drops by 40-50% in less than a minute. This rapid power loss can cause the frequency of the grid's alternating current to drop well below 50 hertz, damaging customer equipment or even causing a blackout.

In short, Indian utilities' ragged infrastructure and financial woes have deterred investment in both clean and unclean power generation. In many cases, utilities have no money to buy solar power from private plants - even when there is demand for electric power.

The Great Indian Policy Challenge

A. Policy Challenge-1: Power Utilities

The biggest challenge India to developing solar power is its policy framework. The onus of connecting all of the 100 GW of solar power lies with various state power utilities - who have absolutely no incentive to do so.

As a solution, Messrs. Sivaram, Shrimali and Reicher suggest creating a federally administered fund to buy power from solar generators when distribution companies aren't in a position to do so, thereby reducing risks to developers. Such a fund was outlined as part of a 2010 national solar program. Even after 5 years - the policy is not yet implemented.

Today, not all Indian states currently have mechanisms for customers to sell self-generated solar power back to the grid and it is unlikely that the various state governments will change their policies to align with the fedral/central government vision and policy.

B. Policy Challenge-2: Land acquisition

Today, setting up a 1 GW of solar power requires 230 acres of land. For 100 GW, it will require 500,000 acres which investors will have to acquire without government assistance. Given the fragmented land ownership in India, it means negotiating with 30-50 persons per acre of land! Moreover there are innumerable restrictions on acquiring agricultural land.

Further more, land area needed for the solar power plans are under the control of various state governmental agencies: Ministry of agriculture, Ministry of Irrigation etc. In short there are more than 100 agencies that govern the area!

This implies that private developed developers will face difficulties acquiring land and getting permissions to build the necessary transmission lines.

C. Policy Challenge-3: Pricing Challenge

For any business investments, investors must have a clear idea of expected returns. Given the rapid decline in the cost of solar power generation - the cost of solar power has already fallen beneath the cost of power generated from imported coal, and could soon be cheaper than power from domestic coal.

This rapid drop in solar PV panels will create project financing challenges. So apart from a purchase agreement, the solar power plants will need tax benefits and capital grants. A currency-hedging facility would help to attract foreign capital.

In rural areas, Indian government also subsidizes fuel for gas lamps, making solar even more uncompetitive. Reducing fossil fuel subsidies would lift energy prices that this would make rooftop solar plants more attractive for millions of rural households.

D. Policy Challenge-4: Petty Politics  

As a first step in policy reforms, government will have to revive & pass the long-pending Renewable Energy Bill in 2015 or latest by summer of 2016.  This Bill, if ratified by Parliament into an Act, should increase RPOs to 15 percent and provide routes for financing, such as infrastructure funds and green energy bonds.

NDA led central government has so far failed miserably to pass any major bills in parliament. The NDA government has so far shown no political will to pass even minor bills in the parliament. Currently, the government is struggling to pass the GST bill - for which there is a general consensus!

In India, power utilities are owned by local state governments. Given the petty politics that our leaders engage in, there is no chance that all the states will agree with the central/fedral government on solar/green power policies and agree on a national level green policy.

This implies, hitting the target of 100 gigawatts of solar by 2022 will require more fundamental reform in every aspect of power sector and that needs political consensus. This is the biggest challenge India has.

Policy Challenge-5: Roof Top Off Grid solar Power

If there is one good success story in solar power in India, it is in rooftop solar water heaters. India has the largest install base for roof top solar water heaters. Rooftop solar water heaters has been one of the rare successes. Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has been able to provide subsidy to individual buyers and encourage manufactures.

However, when it comes to rooftop solar PV cells, the plan is to generate only 3 GW of power via rooftop solar PV plants. Solar panels and batteries for powering appliances in a single homes or a small group of users, stand to bring enormous benefits to millions of in India who have limited or no access to the electricity grid.

As on today, rooftop solar power can now match or beat the grid rates for commercial and industrial consumers in many states. Unfortunately, very few of these people can afford to setup even the simplest solar technology and there are no easy financing options.

In rural areas, Indian government also subsidizes fuel for gas lamps, making solar even more uncompetitive. Reducing fossil fuel subsidies would lift energy prices that this would make rooftop solar plants more attractive for millions of rural households.

In India there is potential to produce upto 40 GW of power from rooftop installations and having a good policy framework to attract individual house owners to invest in solar PV panels will be a good step - but the current policies are not aligned for this.

Closing Thoughts

Producing 100 GW of solar power requires political commitment and lots of smart interventions. Government needs to increase its spending on power infrastructure which includes national power grids, power exchanges and spot power markets.

To reach 100 GW of Solar power by 2022 requires making solar power a national priority - something akin to Kennedy's race to the moon.

Right now, 100 GW of solar power looks like a pipe dream - an overambitious target that has no detailed plans and allocated budget.  There is a big mismatch between the goal and the road map and there is no clear strategy to achieve it.

Technically, India is capable of setting up more than 500 GW of solar power in next 10 years  - provided there is political will and policies to support it.

With the 100 GW announcement, Narendra Modi's government got the whole world excited and talking about it. If the government can follow it up with policies, investors will follow with their money, set up manufacturing plants and creating thousands of jobs.

India's push towards renewable energy has a lot going for it. It is like a mythological story in many ways. We now need to take a pragmatic view of this story and ensure that the 100 GW plan goes beyond just the talk.

IoT is about to change Human Behavior

Internet of Things (IoT) is no longer a futuristic science fiction stuff. It is here and is slowly but surely changing our lives. As the technology matures and the prevalence of connected devices increases, it will change our lives in several profound ways. IoT would have an impact greater than that of World Wide Web!

I would say IoT will be one of those things that will fundamentally change the way we live on this planet:

 - Just like our ability to harness fire put humans on path to civilization,
 - Just like our ability to read & write helped create complex civilizations,
 - Just like Newspaper and Telegram created a global economy,
 - Just like Internet & WWW created a knowledge economy,

IoT will fundamentally change the way humans live, behave & interact in the society.

Let illustrate this with an example.

Let's say there is a construction on a major highway in the city. One hundred years ago, information of this construction would be published in newspaper - which very few people would read, and the local administration would put up big hoarding all around the construction site - requesting commuters to take alternate routes, and a local policemen would manually redirect traffic.

Percentage of people who knew about the advisory - 5%
Percentage of people who heeded to the advisory - 1%

The rest 99% would still drive on the same path and get redirected by local police.

With the advent of Radio & television the situation did not change much. With better communication technology, more people were now aware of the construction, but did not know

Percentage of people who knew about the advisory: 20-30%
Percentage of people who heeded to the advisory:  1-5%

The rest 95-99% would still drive on the same path and get redirected by local police.

Internet and World Wide Web along with  Social Networking tools improved the level of awareness, but people would still pile up at the construction point and choke traffic, and we still needed police to redirect traffic.

Percentage of people who knew about the advisory: 50-80%
Percentage of people who heeded to the advisory:  5-10%

While we now have all the tools to send out information, we as humans still have limited capability to absorb information and act on it.  So even with instant communications, real time traffic map service and social networks, people behavior hardly changed.
Studies done on the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and Katrina show that people now have awareness - but still do not act on those information!

But IoT is about to change this.

With the advent of GPS Navigation systems, users can now chart out their driving path so as to avoid the construction area. So with IoT,

Percentage of people who knew about the advisory: 100%
Percentage of people who heeded to the advisory:  50-80%

The next generation IoT does even bettwe, with the advent of self-driving cars, the information about road constructions will be consumed by the car and it will reroute its path to avoid construction site, thus avoiding unnecessary traffic jams and wasted time/fuel. Thus with second generation of IoT,

Percentage of people who knew about the advisory: 100%
Percentage of people who heeded to the advisory:  100%

First Generation of IoT

While IoT is no longer a futuristic pipe dream, the technology is still maturing. The  technology has evolved a lot ever since Simon Hackett and John Romkey operated a toaster via the Internet in 1990. Technology evolved quite a bit since then and today we have Smart thermostats such as Nest, or fridges which can display Tweets!

Today, there is much wider prevalence of connected devices - which collect lots of data from the surrounding environment. But these are essentially the first generation of IoT.

Collecting information and presenting information is just a proof of concept of what role IoT can play in our daily lives. Devices such as smart watches or Fit-bit bands can collect a whole lot of information on a person's daily activity. But it does very little to change the person's behavior.

Very few people can change their actions and behavior based on the information presented to them. I would say less than 1% of people changed their exercise pattern because of Smart Bands/watches.

First generation of IoT was all about collecting data. But data was not an end in itself.  Consumers are already overwhelmed by data. Some systems were able to present data in a meaningful way in form of actionable information for people to act. For example, smart baby monitors can alert parents when the baby's breathing pattern changes. But then all mothers are still very anxious and would not change their sleeping patterns - even after knowing that their baby us being safely and actively monitored.

First generation IoT did not make life better, rather it added tremendous complexity with yet another gadget that consumes attention and feeds our obsessive-compulsive disorders.

Smart products today still have big challenges in making users interact with the products and take actions.

The first generation IoT was still far away from creating meaningful experiences.

Second Generation of IoT

Second generation of IoT is just around the corner. Few systems are already being deployed and tried - but these are just the beginning. Smart systems today react to all the information coming from connected systems in a meaningful, purposeful ways.

For example, Smart insulin pumps can alter the quantities of Insulin being pumped into body based on real time blood sugar levels.

The second generation of IoT goes beyond collecting & presenting data. It has to simplify life through automation. Connected devices have to remove tedious chores from our daily lives, allowing people to concentrate on more important stuff.

Second generation of IoT has to provide the ability to control things automatically - which we otherwise would not. For example changing the building thermostat settings to match with power savings plans or based on real-time power supply data - when grid loads increase beyond a point, smart gird can tell all connect smart buildings to lower their power consumption. Smart buildings will then react to this request by changing the temperature & lighting settings.

The next big innovation in IoT will be to create user experience in ways that it makes lives richer by seamlessly eliminating mundane activities. One must create systems focused on meeting a conscious or an unconscious need. For example self driving cars - which meets the need for transport whenever without the hassle of driving.

Today, Airlines and aircraft's are using data from IoT to change the flight parameters to create better fuel efficiency and better passenger comfort - all without pilots actions.

Closing Thoughts

Developing this second generation IoT systems will certainly require a different ways of thinking. This also presents a tremendous opportunity to enhance human experience and enhance life in ways that were never possible before.

Smart systems must be able to understand our intentions and desires and then act independently to create those experiences. When IoT and Smart systems can take real time, meaningful action - without human interaction, IoT will become mainstream.

Second Generation of IoT will not be centered around the product. Instead, it will be centered around user experiences, while hiding all complexity of technology.  Second generation IoT does away with all the unnecessary interfaces and enable customer to concentrate on more important tasks. When IoT products (sensors, actuators), the network, the apps - will all work seemlessly - it will ehance the customer experience - without "Experience of the product"

How IoT will help Sustainability

Any one who has a car today will have experienced a traffic jam and once a while, while waiting in the traffic jam, there will be a thought: How to eliminate this traffic jam and help environment by better use of technology?

Several of today's startups are working on latest technology that may do just that.

In my previous post I had mentioned about How IoT is helping build sustainable buildings. But there is more to technology built on top of IoT which will profoundly change the way we live - and thus reduce energy consumption by increasing energy efficiency.

Cars are the BIGGEST users of energy today. It is no wonder, a lot of innovation and new technology is being developed to improve energy utilization in cars. Some of the innovations that we have already seen are:

1. Hybrid Cars that run on electric motors and fossil fuel engines
2. Electric Cars that can be charged from Solar panels
3. Uber's network of cars, where Internet connects the drivers to customers
4. Google's self driving cars

Now the stage is set for the next revolution:  A network of connected cars, connected buildings and smart traffic management systems.

The idea of self driving electric cars integrated with Uber like technology will enable commuters to share rides - thus eliminating waste. The idea of one person driving alone in a car will soon be history!

To enable such a system where self driving taxis can be hailed via smart phones will require lots of new technologies driven by IoT in form of Smart/Intelligent cars, Traffic monitoring systems on roads such as cameras, Vehicle speed detectors, Intelligent traffic monitoring and management via smart traffic lights, Smart parking spaces  & recharge points - which broadcast empty slots to self driving cars, Air quality & pollution monitoring and broadcasting system - which will guide hybrid cars to switch over to electric mode in polluted areas, Commute demand management systems - which will automatically determine the best possible commute options,  etc.

I am sure there will several other technologies that will emerge in the next decade.

On November 30th, amidst the backdrop of the COP21 Climate Change Conference in Paris,  a group of high-powered tech executives announced Monday the formation of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition and its intention to push investment to pioneering climate change technologies, there can be some real change in energy efficiency in the enterprise with technology available today.

IoT and the always connected network forms the backbone of this new technological breakthroughs - that will create build a sustainable world. IoT forms the eyes, ears & senses of this new technology, while the wireless networks from the interlinks that connects the people, the business and the cities together and provides relevant information for insights on what needs to be done to reduce energy consumption in real time.

Linking vehicles, commuter traffic and air emissions to air quality is giving traffic management the right data to manage for optimal efficiency: Reduce operational cost, greenhouse gas emissions and the environmental footprint.

The key value will come from raising the efficiency. Today people who drive their cars & big SUVs around normally use it for 5% of the time and at 20% of the capacity - i,e ~99% of all the available transport capacity in cars & automobiles are being wasted!

This will have to change and technology sector will drive this change to create a sustainable cities.

Similarly, almost 100% of sunlight falling on cities are being wasted! Developing more effective and efficient solar photo voltaic panels can eliminate the need for fossil fuels in cars.
New technology can change the way we consume energy and lead us to a path of greener and a sustainable future.

Closing Thoughts

Today, cars form the biggest polluters in the planet, and with new technology based on IoT and connected world and renewable energy, we can change the way we commute and this will help in a big way to reduce pollution and create a sustainable world.