Giorgi's Profile

A great article and the exhibits are super helpful ! In the age when our generation is often skeptical of established companies like Toyota, using open innovation can be very effectively leveraged by start ups to come up with products that are distinct and really stand apart from what we have seen traditionally. I think letting community members vote on the design decision can serve two purposes: generating buzz and ensuring buy-in from the members. And it is a very cost efficient way to do both. However, I still think a certain level of control should be retained by the company and allowing participants to sell products directly would erode value.

Very insightful and interesting article ! I think contests and other interactive ways to get smart people involved are extremely important for technology companies. Although BIG tech is indeed influential and intimidating in terms of sheer numbers, they got to where they are very fast. It is quite possible that a brilliant idea conceived in one of the garages will challenge their dominance. I believe the companies realize that and try to counter it by acquiring companies they see as potential disruptors. Those acquisitions can be quite costly and open innovation is a sensible alternative to ensuring that companies stay on top of latest trends and sport potential disruptions way ahead.

Great article. I got to watch the construction process from my office window for several months and the inefficiencies of the process immediately drew my attention. After talking to people that new a thing or two about construction, I realized that construction process has not changed much for a long time and is still using archaic approaches. To your point of how ready is the ecosystem to embrace change, I think it is all about sense of urgency. I believe 3D printing technologies will soon replace old ways in markets were resources are severely constrained and efficiency is the only way to survive. The rest of the market will be late adopters.

This is a very interesting topic, especially since the term does get mentioned quite a lot without really being explained. The CLIP approach especially resonated with me and I am excited to see whether it will enable transition from prototyping to mass production. To address your question, I believe Adidas should go all in with CLIP, because it will enable the company to gain long-term competitive advantage through offering customized products at a level unheard of before. And it also does not hurt that Adidas is a large company able to overcome significant R&D costs. I also agree that marketing campaign will be crucial when the company gets to mass manufacturing. I believe the company should focus on the innovative and functional side of the product in short-term, but in medium-term it should emphasize the personalized nature of the product and aspire to create an emotional bond with target customers.

This article touches on a very important issue – human augmentation. Since for now we are quite far away from developing anything that resembles general AI, it is logical to use the machine learning technology for enhancing human performance. This can be done through identifying relatively routine tasks that technology can easily outperform humans at and outsourcing those task to technology. I believe Babylon Health is trying to do just that. However, I am still skeptical about using machine learning algorithms without human supervision and without a clear understanding of the decision-making process. You mention that the digital doctor outperformed real doctors on average, but averages can be highly misleading. Given my scant knowledge of the issue, I understand that designers of machine learning algorithms themselves often times struggle to explain as to why has the AI reached a certain decision and those decisions often seem quite bizarre to humans. To conclude, I believe transparency of the technology is of paramount importance for this startup to succeed, especially given that we are dealing with people’s health.

A very hot and interesting topic indeed ! I believe that the cost of opening an Amazon Go is negligible compared to the potential these stores have. Especially so, considering the fact that the costs are fixed and Amazon has significant experience with economies scale. Another important factor to be considered is the speed with which technology is diffused and made affordable – nowadays we are buying flying drones as presents for our kids, which was unthinkable of ten years ago. Hence, technology and costs will not stand in the way of cashier-less shopping experience. However, I do buy the social interaction argument and it still remains to be seen how will human interaction develop in the era of advanced technologies.