Discover the latest Podcast from HBR. Curt Nickisch, a senior editor at Harvard Business Review, interviews Square's co-founder Jim McKelvey on discovering and defending innovations. HBR IdeaCast 730 (March 17, 2020)
"Jim McKelvey says that most companies that think of themselves as innovative are really just copycats. True innovation, he argues, is about fearlessly exploring novel solutions and dramatically expanding markets. Doing so also helps startups defend their innovations against industry giants, as Square did against Amazon."
McKelvey is the author of the book “The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time.”
Biochar is a Powerfully Simple Tool to Combat Climate Change
What is Biochar?
"Biochar is a solid product obtained in the pyrolysis of biomass. It is a carbon-rich and porous material that can be used for a wide range of applications, among which soil improvement, remediation, and pollution control take the most important roles.
As a product, biochar differs from charcoal, which is produced at lower temperatures and considered as solid fuel, containing a high quantity of volatile matter. Because of higher process temperatures, the chemical structure of biomass changes and content of hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen in biochar is significantly decreased in relation to carbon. In contrary to charcoal, biochar is also not phytotoxic.
Biochar is mainly used in agriculture to enhance soil fertility, improve plant growth, and provide crop nutrition. As a result, it improves the overall farming productivity. It has also gained considerable attention in livestock farming as an animal feed."
The carbon in biochar resists degradation and can hold carbon in soils for hundreds to thousands of years. Biochar is produced through pyrolysis or gasification — processes that heat biomass in the absence (or under reduction) of oxygen.
In addition to creating a soil enhancer, sustainable biochar practices can produce oil and gas byproducts that can be used as fuel, providing clean, renewable energy. When the biochar is buried in the ground as a soil enhancer, the system can become “carbon negative.”
Biochar and bioenergy co-production can help combat global climate change by displacing fossil fuel use and by sequestering carbon in stable soil carbon pools. It may also reduce emissions of nitrous oxide.
We can use this simple, yet powerful, technology to reduce carbon emissions.
Learn more at https://www.biochar-international.org/sustainability-climate-change/
From the Cornell Chronicle (By Melanie Lefkowitz, July 16, 2019)
More than 70% of fresh water is used for agriculture. However, irrigation technologies are not often smart and water is often overconsumed. Chao Shang, Wei-Han Chen, Abraham Duncan Stroock, and Fengqi You have developed a robust predictive model of irrigation that could save 40% of the water consumed.
Previously, Stroock’s group developed sensors to determine when plants are thirsty. But sensors alone are insufficient because growers don’t need to irrigate if rain is on the way. Considering the weather prediction is better but not ideal, Chao said, because forecasts are often wrong, and the uncertainty of a forecast may be greater than the expected rainfall. The researchers’ method uses historical weather data and machine learning to assess the uncertainty of the real-time weather forecast, as well as the uncertainty of how much water will be lost to the atmosphere from leaves and soil. This is combined with a physical model describing variations in the soil moisture. Integrating these approaches, they found, makes watering decisions much more precise. Chao Shang, Wei-Han Chen, Abraham Duncan Stroock, Fengqi You. Robust Model Predictive Control of Irrigation Systems With Active Uncertainty Learning and Data Analytics. IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, 2019; 1 DOI: 10.1109/TCST.2019.2916753
The NASA Spin-off company BeeHex provides retailers with automated 3D printing cake decoration robots.
Source BeeHex
Deco-Pod is an autonomous cake decorating system built for in-store settings. Based on our industrial systems, Deco-Pod brings the durability and precision of high throughput equipment to retail. Consumers will be amazed to their cake, cookie, or cupcake decorated rapidly with any message or design they want! (Source BeeHex).
By mid-January, Tesla’s market capitalization had reached $107 billion, and it surged past the giant German automaker Volkswagen to become the world’s second most valuable auto company behind Toyota.
What is the secret behind Tesla's success?
Lou Shipley's article provides us with interesting cues. However, former McKinsey&Co consultant, Michaël Valentin offers us a new look at Tesla in a book. Michaël Valentin contends that Tesla has invented a new productive system, like Toyota created one a few decades ago. He calls it TESLISM. For example, Tesla development and production model is highly integrated. Functions are highly integrated. Teams are co-localized on the factory floor and together they solve problems using a scrum approach.
Plant and animal selection have been used for centuries to identify varieties or breeds that were more productive or better suited for specific production conditions. NGOs, such as the WWF, consider plant genetics has a necessity to feed a growing population on a planet with bounded resources. Climate change, characterized by extreme wheater conditions, required new varieties that are, for example, adapted to drought conditions. While there is a future demand for new varieties, the consumers have often been watchful about the technologies involved in the production of new varieties and suspicious about bioengineering technologies, such as those involved in GMOs. In France, consumers have been reluctant to buy GMO products and regulators have often followed the consumers. Since 1999, there is an EU moratorium about GMO production and the importation of GMOs. In the USA, the GMO issue is more about consumer information.
During the last two decades (From 1987 to 2019), a CRISPR-Cas9 has emerged as new gene-editing technology. Gene editing produce and GMOs are different. Genes from other organisms are incorporated in many GMOs, such as Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) crops (e.g., cotton, tobacco, corn, potato). Bt produces a crystal toxin resistant to certain insect pests. Gene editing mostly affects existing genes in a plant variety. CRISPR can knockout a gene, that is the gene is made inoperative. It can Knock-in a gene, which is to repair it. CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) affects the gene expression (like the Knockout process) but not the gene itself. Similarly, CRISPR activation (CRISPRa) activates the gene without affecting the gene itself. The video from Nature provides explanations about CRISPR technologies.
Summarizing: GMO and CRISPR differ. While bioengineering GMO add an exogenous gene into a plant or an animal, gene editing affects only the genome of a plant or an animal.
Should gene-edited new food products be regulated? The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced that it does not plan to place additional regulations on gene-edited plants that could otherwise have been developed through traditional breeding prior to commercialization. However, the FDA is quite reluctant to adopt the same position as the USDA for the Animal. Opponents to the FDA claim the agency is afraid to face litigation from anti-GMO groups.
While the controversy grows about the risks of gene-edited plant or animal, it seems that the consumer opinion is not taken into consideration. Therefore, it appears that little has been learned from GMO recent history/controversy including the lack of regulations about labeling. The question naturally arises: If GMOs / Gene-edited products are really safe, why do food companies keep hiding them from the consumers.
However, some companies like Zbiotics proudly announce that their product is bioengineered.
ZBiotics™ is the world’s first genetically engineered probiotic to break down a toxic byproduct of alcohol called acetaldehyde. The formula? Three years of research and development, plus a dash of water and natural flavor. Most commonly acetaldehyde is associated with the rough feelings you get the day after drinking.
