Video: Peter Diamandis: Abundance is our future

Peter Diamandis, Founder and Chairman of the X PRIZE Foundation, an educational non-profit prize institute whose mission is to create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity, in a talk at the TED explains why he thinks the world is headed for abundance.



Essentially Mr.Diamandis is banking on the explosive growth of human capital facilitated by technology (information age) through the following media

Technologies riding Moore’s Laws:
1. Infinite Computing
2. Sensor and Networks
3. Robotics
4. 3D Printing
5. Synthethic Biology
6. Digital Medicine
7. Nanomaterials
8. Artificial intelligence

Here are some noteworthy quotes

When I think about creating abundance, it is not about creating a life of luxury…it is about creating a life of possibilities. It is about taking that which was scarce and making it abundant. You see scarcity is contextual and technology is a resource liberating force. 6:34

It is not about being scarce it’s about accessibility. 8:17

By the way the biggest protection against population explosion is making the world educated and healthy 12:26

3 billion new minds would never been heard before are connecting to global conversation. What do these people want? What would they consume? What do they desire? Rather than having an economic shutdown we are about to have is the biggest economic injection ever. These people represent tens of trillions of dollars injected in the global economy 12:47

In spite of the restrictive role of governments, I share his optimism that people will find ways and means to circumvent them mostly through technological innovations.

(hat tip Professor Mark Perry)

Sunshine Industry: Video Games Media

One of the likely fastest growing applications of the information age would probably the video game industry.

From the Economist, (emphasis added)

OVER the past two decades the video-games business has gone from a cottage industry selling to a few niche customers to a fully grown branch of the entertainment industry. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), a consulting firm, the global video-game market was worth around $56 billion last year, and has grown by over 60% since 2006, when the Nintendo Wii console was launched. The gaming industry is more than twice the size of the recorded-music industry, nearly a quarter more than the magazine business and about three-fifths the size of the film industry. PwC predicts that video games will be the fastest-growing form of media over the next few years, with sales rising to $82 billion by 2015. The biggest market is America, whose consumers this year are expected to spend $14.1 billion on games, mostly on the console variety. Consoles also dominate in Britain, the fifth-largest gaming market. In other parts of Europe, and particularly Germany, PC games are more popular. China has overtaken Japan to become the second-biggest market, and is one of the fastest-growing, with sales rising by 20% last year.

How will the growth of video games be facilitated?

Again from the same article, (bold emphasis mine)

Now the ever-increasing computing power of mobile phones has put the means of playing games into the pockets of people who would never think of spending hundreds of dollars on a dedicated console or a PC. The simple games that came pre-loaded onto the mobile handsets of a decade ago have evolved into a subset of the industry in its own right, appealing to a more casual crowd who play them on trains, in airport departure lounges or while waiting for the washing to finish. Today’s smartphones pack far more computing power than the original PlayStation, and games are a big part of their appeal: the two most popular kinds of software on Apple’s App Store are games and entertainment.

The internet has played a crucial part in the rise of video games, enabling developers to get their products into their customers’ hands without the need for traditional shops or publishers. That has allowed small, independent developers to compete with the big firms who might spend tens of millions of dollars on developing a single title and as much again on marketing it. As a result the industry is becoming increasingly fragmented as its markets become more differentiated.

The internet has also become a games platform in its own right, making the hobby truly sociable by electronically linking gamers the world over. Millions of people spend many hours each week playing and working (sometimes the distinction is not clear) in virtual places such as “World of Warcraft” and “EVE Online”. Hundreds of millions more play free, simple, sociable games on Facebook, such as “Lexulous”, which is a bit like Scrabble, and “FarmVille”, a game with an agricultural setting. Increasingly the games themselves are free, but the virtual goods available in these online worlds—a stable for one’s electronic horses, say, or a particularly pretty shirt for one’s digital alter ego to wear—cost real money.

The internet will likely remain a hub for the introduction of many innovative applications due to its largely free market setting.

And video games, mobile commerce, mobile banking and digital healthcare or telemedicine are likely major growth application areas for consumers that will be powered by the rapidly exploding mobile internet platform as manifested by tablet sales.

Sunshine Industry: Telemedicine or Digital Healthcare

The emergent digital healthcare or telemedicine industry will likely be a sunshine industry.

The Reuters reports,

Mobile technologies will be increasingly deployed to enable people in Asia to monitor and manage their health, with the market expected to hit $7 billion by 2017, an industry official said.

In parts of Europe and the United States, diabetics can now have doctors monitor their blood sugar levels by punching daily readings into their mobile phones and doctors can provide answers to expectant mothers via short message services (SMS).

Jeanine Vos, who heads the mobile health unit at Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA), said such technologies are finding their way into Asia.

GSMA represents nearly 800 mobile operators around the world and 200 other mobile-related companies such as handset makers, software, media and Internet companies.

"We foresee that market opportunities can reach $7 billion by 2017 (from under $500 million now)...We are really at the start of a take-off," Vos told Reuters in an interview.

The figures were derived from a study conducted by GSMA and PricewaterhouseCoopers and will be released in full in December. Fifty-five percent of that amount would involve health monitoring services and 24 percent, diagnostic services.

Companies that stand to gain from the expansion of mobile technologies for healthcare purposes include mobile operators, device manufacturers, software developers and healthcare providers, Vos said.

Digital healthcare are evidences of how rapidly evolving technological progress has been permeating into vast areas of industries.

Although Asia has the demographic scale that should work to her advantage, telemedicine will be a global phenomenon. And I do hope that competition will lead to lower healthcare costs.

Besides telemedicine should substantially help improve the world’s life expectancy given that access to health information will become widespread. And as previously pointed out, telemedicine may reshape the global health industry.

And investors may handsomely profit from this promising field if they meticulously do their homework.

Telemedicine: Health Care of Tomorrow

From Teladoc.com (hat tip Prof Mark Perry)

1. You wake up one morning with sudden cold-like symptoms: stuffy nose, cough, congestion. You don’t want to miss time at work by sitting in an urgent care or ER waiting room. What to do?

2. Simply log in to your account or call 1-800-Teladoc to request a phone or online video consultation with a Teladoc doctor. You can use Teladoc from home, work, on vacation, or while traveling internationally. The average doctor call back time is 22 minutes.

3. A U.S. board-certified doctor or pediatrician licensed in your state reviews your Electronic Health Record (EHR), then contacts you, listens to your concerns and asks questions. It's just like an in-person consultation. There is no time limit to the consult.

4. The doctor recommends the right treatment for your medical issue. If a prescription is necessary, it's sent to the pharmacy of your choice.

5. Teladoc costs far less than in-person visits: $38 or lower, depending on your plan design. Teladoc charges the credit card you provided when requesting your consultation or your billing information on file. You can request a receipt for deductibles or reimbursement, if needed. The doctor updates your HIPAA-compliant EHR based upon the consultation. Teladoc is a qualified expense for HSA, FSA and HRA accounts.

6. At the end of every call, the doctor will ask if he's answered all of your questions, and we'll follow up to make sure you're delighted with the service.

I am hoping to see telemedicine flourish not only abroad but also in the Philippines soon.

I understand that the Philippine government has initiated telemedicine aimed at the remote areas. But I don’t think the government is the answer.

And yes this could be seen as a sunshine investment opportunity.

Nonetheless, considering the exponential growth of the internet in the Philippines, where usage now is about 6.3% of the population and growing...

Chart from Google Public Data

...digital healthcare trends will surely be headed in this direction.