Demystifying Exponential Technologies with 4 Easy-To-Relate Examples
We all have noticed how fast everything is evolving around us. Our smartphones are now more powerful than the Apollo 11 guidance computers. Even our USB-C charger has more computing power than the best computers used to send astronauts to the moon decades ago.
Those technologies that are rapidly accelerating through time, increasing in performance and scalability, and decreasing in cost, are called Exponential Technologies. I’m sure you have heard about or even used some of these technologies in your day-to-day:
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)
Network and Computer Systems
Robotics
Autonomous Vehicles
3D Printing
Blockchain
Data Science
Digital Biology and Biotech
Nanotech
Digital Fabrication
The power of exponential technologies is that they’re being used to tackle some of the world’s greatest challenges. Problems that we’ve been experiencing for decades and that we haven’t been able to solve in a definitive manner, until now.
I discovered the potential of exponential technologies in Silicon Valley, back in 2011. I found out that technology, as a system, was better and faster than politics at creating massive change and penetrating every corner of the world. That’s when I took a leap and co-founded Matternet, the pioneering company behind the creation of drone delivery systems that could allow us to leapfrog roads and connect the entire world.
Back in 2014 and 2016, we partnered with Ministries of Health, with Nobel laureate organization Doctors Without Borders, and with UNICEF, to start using drones to move critical healthcare items in Bhutan, Papua New Guinea and Malawi. Specifically in Malawi, we piloted drone delivery to solve the logistical challenge of swiftly delivering antiretrovirals to help with HIV/AIDS care in rural districts.
Matternet launch in Malawi in partnership with UNICEF.
Aiming to leapfrog roads in the developing world first, brought me to one of the most amazing realizations in my early days as an entrepreneur: That we could not only provide transport infrastructure to 1 billion people living in hard-to-access areas, but that we could also bring them to market.
Imagine the economic benefits of unlocking over 1 billion untapped consumers that are currently disconnected from the global economy, and that require and deserve the same quality goods and services that you and I have access to. People who never thought that a better life could reach them, and that they were deserving of a decent life with access to basics.
It was then when I discovered my power to create change, and that I was ultimately in charge of creating the reality that I wanted to see in the world.
From then, I didn’t want to only leapfrog roads. I started wanting to also leapfrog healthcare systems, education policy, and everything that wasn’t quite working for everyone. Most importantly, I started to feel an overwhelming urgency to leapfrog governments’ decision-making systems, which led me back to my first passion (governments), and my new moonshot (Glass).
Even though I come from a non-technical background as a lawyer and government procurement expert, working at the intersection of exponential technologies and digital systems has allowed me to grow into tech and given me a way to create massive, positive change, today.
Just like me, anyone can learn about exponential technologies and leverage them to further their work and to create powerful solutions that the world needs right now. Here are four examples of how other organizations around the world are leveraging and using exponential technologies:
Skysource, a startup that is creating water from thin air for communities that don’t have access to fresh, clean water. Their team developed a high-volume water generator that can be used in any climate and extracts a minimum of 2,000 liters of water per day from the atmosphere, using 100% renewable energy.
Kitkit school and onebillion, two startups that develop open-source software for children with no access to education, so they can teach themselves basic reading, writing, and arithmetic within 15 months.
Impossible Foods, the fast-growing startup developing plant-based substitutes for meat products. Thanks to Synthetic Biology, they create products that help turn back the clock on climate change and stop the global collapse of biodiversity.
ICON, a construction technology startup that uses 3D printing robotics and software to solve problems in the construction industry, with houses up to 50% cheaper than the conventional construction processes. This tech startup is providing housing to 50 families in a remote part of Southern Mexico, in what could become one of the world’s first 3D-printed communities.
What used to be only in the hands of governments and big corporations, is now knowledge, tools, and capabilities that we all have access to in the form of exponential technologies. People like you and I can use them to create better solutions and fix what doesn’t serve us, faster than ever before.
And I firmly believe that we can harness the power of exponentially advanced technologies and make them work for “the rest of us”, for the many and not only for the few.
Share with me: Which exponential technology could you use right now to make your idea come to life or augment its impact?
Stay hungry,
Paola
