Farhaneh's Profile

Great post, thanks for sharing! In conjunction with the initiatives you mentioned in setting up a technology office in government, I believe that the government should have a long-term plan to grow its technology office and decrease its reliability on technology consulting firms such as Accenture and other from Silicon Valley to handle crisis management once a mishap similar to this occurs. That is a typical example of how projects go over-budget and result in wasted taxpayer money.

Furthermore, as you mentioned a lack of leadership was clearly evident. For instance, the program could have been rolled out incrementally across the states, giving the technology team in the white house to trouble-shoot problems on a smaller scale.

Also as a frequent user of the Dubai E-gate system, I can attest to how efficient and fast it is, allowing me to spend more time in the duty free; everybody wins! You mentioned the role of e-government programmes; the UAE has overall been very effective in rolling this out in the past few years. If you live in Dubai, for instance, obtaining a driver’s license, health insurance or incorporating a company can all be done using your biometric card, with data available to all different entities through the e-government system. Thanks for the post Nikki!

What a great article, thanks for sharing! I wonder whether Caterpillar is prioritising its investments in connecting the 3,000,000 machines it has that are not connected? That way, it could at least compete with new machines in the market that are connected without having its current machines being left behind, generating even more losses.

Ben, thanks for the post! I think ZocDoc is revolutionising the way patients interact with their healthcare teams. One question I have is what happens to patients who have long-term conditions and would like to stick to their physician who knows their case very well? And, is the digital infrastructure available for all different doctors to have access to the patient’s history? Otherwise, a patient having to repeat their history at every doctor’s appointment can become very tedious and not a very good use of time.

What an eye-opening article! Monitoring crop across large landscapes has always been a huge challenge for farmers, especially for heat and water-sensitive crops such as almonds. In addition to the GPS technology and the HarvestLab that allows real-time nutrition analysis, I wonder how successful satellite technology has been in monitoring large acres of land affected by environmental issues? A new startup in the UK, called Rezatec, has launched a satellite imagery technology that provides high value data to farmers, such as plant growth rate, health and crop yield [1]. The emergence of these solutions looks promising.

[1] http://www.rezatec.com

I agree with the point Alejandra made on diversifying electricity options. In the long run, this is likely to pay off particularly as the weather in different regions of the country become more unpredictable as a result of global warming.

What a great article, thank you for bringing it to our attention! Given the many health risks associated with palm oil for it being highly saturated, do you think Nutella should be innovating its recipe altogether, replacing its oil component with an unsaturated alternative? Better for the environment and healthier!

What a great article – thanks for sharing! I applaud the initiatives the DoD is embarking upon to face the challenges of climate change, particularly when it comes partnerships with NGOs and other players. As I was reading the article, however, I couldn’t help but wonder 1) What implications would the denialism of climate change amongst politicians have on these efforts? 2) What role can the Department of Education play in educating youngsters about the implications of climate change?

What a great insight into the world of Google. I agree they should invest more in policy to expand renewable energy options. As I was reading the article, I couldn’t help but wonder if Google could also invest in innovating new ways of either creating or reducing renewable energy consumption, either on its own or by funding research through service providers.