Derek Cheng's Profile

This is a great way to re-think about our learning at HBS. This article mentioned that lots of teaching and learning can be conducted via digital platform, but as you mentioned in your essay, it just make the education more liberalized. I believe the peers and classmates are one of the major reasons for people to attend top schools. So the form of education might change but the value of the education will always be there.

It’s really interesting to see how the “traditional industry” like Girl Scouts get digitalized. The digitalization saves a lot of volunteering time and is really helpful for the NGO. But does it also mean that the Girl Scouts’ skill and course need to be changed too? For example, with the smartphone, the ability to use compass and read maps are less important. Maybe the digitalization also changes the nature of the Girl Scouts’s “Business model”. It’s a really fascinating topic!

Instacart is a great business model of sharing economy. However, the competition in this space seems quite severe. For examples, Google express or Amazon Fresh are all targeting this segment. Is it possible that these tech giants can copy the business model of sharing economy in supermarket? The Instacart’s CEO said it’s competitive advantages over other competitors are the relationships with the current supermarket chains, and this might be true for other smaller players. Nonetheless, is it possible that Google and Amazon quickly build up the relationship with other grocery shops? This article is really good to help us understand more about this market!

The payment situation in India is really similar to the situation in China. Chinese people skip from cash payment directly to online payments (alipay, wechat-pay) without using credit cards. I believe the online payment system and the digital currency have huge potential in the developing country as it not only facilitates the transaction but also collects huge valuable transaction data. The payment company can use these data as customer rating and credit rating, which is highly underdeveloped in emerging countries like India. Payment is a great way to link the current gap in the financial system.

It’s super interesting to see Apple’s initiatives in SmartHomes and using iPhones as a starting point to connect different home appliances sounds like a great idea. I think it would also be interesting in seeing other competitor’s move. For examples, can google done the same command thing by connecting search engine with the appliance? Or is a third-party app developer is better to connet the smart homes. This is a really interesting topic! Thanks for sharing!

Airline is one of the industry that consume most energy and seeing how JetBlue solve this problem is really interesting! Your suggestions on Invest in alternative modes of transportation is something I have nerver thought of before. This kind of measure might help alleviate the problem as the short-haul flight also consume lots of energy. Are there any airline already taking this kind of measures? Thank you for your sharing!

It will really impact our lives if we can’t ski any more! The skiing resorts that depend heavily on the natural environment are the 1st wave of companies that will be impacted by the Climate change. The skiing resort start to take some measures to combat the climate change but it seems really hard for the skiing resort to solve this issue sololy. And of course the artificial snow are way worse than the natural snow. Thank you for sharing!

This is really interesting! McDonald as one of the most influencial food purchaser really have huge impact on the environment and it’s good to know that they start to take initiatives toward the climate change challenge. And if they can shift the current negative preventive measures to more positive measures that will be really powerful. With their scale and relationship with the suppliers there are definitely a lot to do. And maybe they can also modify their menu to incorporate some enviromental friendly food, which will also be a good education to the children. Thanks for sharing!

This is really interesting. I didn’t notice that Panama canel will be influenced so heavily by global warming. And the area around Panama Canel are really precious that we all have to help preserve. However, this can’t not be solved by the government of Panama sololy. Is it possible that the Panama government impost more green tax in all the ships and use these funds to reserve the area around the Canel? Thank you for your sharing!

This is really interesting! The sustainable AWS can really attract more customers who are more environment-conscious. And AWS, as the global leader in cloud computing can also demonstrate to other cloud comuputing players that being Green can also be efficient. Curretly there are more and more smaller player entering cloud computing; however, the Infrastructure as a service require scale economy to become more efficient. AWS can also acquire smaller cloud computing players to increase the scale economy and efficiencies. Thank you for your sharing!