Tackling Poaching through Social Innovation

Recently a tech company based out of San Francisco named Pembient announced an ambitious idea to decrease the negative impact of rhinoceros poachers: flood the market with a large amount of synthetic rhino horn at 1/8 of the price[1]. The company has developed the capability to 3D print synthetic rhino horn using keratin and rhino DNA. The main reasons behind people’s demand for rhino horn are rooted in cultural and historical medicinal practices. The history behind rhino horn consumption begs the question: what makes Pembient think that their synthetic horn will be widely accepted when it hits the market? The potential problem Pembient could encounter comes from their lack of design thinking. Design thinking, as discussed by Tim Brown & Jocelyn Wyatt in the “Stanford Social Innovation Review,”[2] negotiates an innovation’s intended effect with the intended community’s knowledge and experience through constant adjustment of the finished product through prototyping.      

Considering that the black rhino has gone extinct within the last decade and currently all other species of rhino are classified as being endangered, 3D printed technology would address a very real environmental and societal need. Though this innovative idea may seem beneficial at a glance, the impact of its development and distribution are worrisome. The effectiveness of the innovation hinges upon it being widely accepted in the market as rhino horn. Though DNA tests point to the synthetic product being identical to real rhino horns, there is no comparison between the look and feel of the synthetic and real horns. 3D-printing a product could result in a different structural layout of the cells and by extension the aesthetic of the piece. Furthermore, flooding the market with rhino horns only seems like an effective strategy at first glance. Pembient could inadvertently increase the demand for rhino horn by making it more readily accessible in the areas it will be introduced. The reasoning behind Pembient’s idea is also worrisome. By going through the trouble of synthesizing a rhino horn, the company could be unintentionally perpetuating the non-existent medicinal benefits of rhino horns.

Pembient is well-intentioned with their product, but often times good intentions do little to contribute to the effectiveness of an innovation. Moving forward with the development and distribution of the product will prove to be the most significant aspect of Pembient’s product. The company will have to be attentive to consumer’s reception of its product and respond accordingly. Overall the theory behind the product is promising. If the market accepts the synthesized rhino horn as a perfect substitute for the real thing, then flooding the market with rhino horn at a lower price could be an effective strategy to curb poaching. If Pembient finds success with the distribution of this product, then the applications could carry huge implications for the countless species that are poached every year for their perceived, yet often non-existent, medicinal benefits.

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[1] http://www.techtimes.com/articles/60656/20150615/engineered-rhino-horns-spell-end-poaching.htm

[2] http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/design_thinking_for_social_innovation/

Potential limitations of the McKinsey Institute’s “Disruptive Technologies”

The McKinsey Institute’s 2013 report, “Disruptive technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy,” identifies twelve general categories of technology with the greatest potential for high rates of advancement, multi-sectorial impact, high economic value, and high-magnitude impact. The methodology by which the authors arrived at their conclusions include qualitative methods like interviews and literature reviews as well as quantitative modeling based on current rates of technology diffusion.

The value (and accuracy) of such forecasts deserves its own debate, but for the sake of brevity I will point out one particular phrase that raises a flag:

“We do not take into account less tangible barriers such as cultural resistance or political opposition, as these barriers could potentially be overcome by 2025” (p. 13).

This assumption is worthy of considerable scrutiny.  As we have discussed in class, most innovations diffuse at a slow rate. For example, it took over 200 years for James Lind’s simple cure for scurvy to be widely implemented because of credibility and acceptance issues. Many of the technologies in the McKinsey Institute report could face similar barriers.

Automation of knowledge work:  Fear that such innovation could take jobs away from low- and lesser-skilled workers could be an insurmountable barrier for such advancements. The benefit of such technology to suppliers could be offset by the reduced spending power of the newly (if only temporarily) unemployed. Such fears are summarized in this excerpt from “Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future.”

Internet of things: with the renewed emphasis on privacy and surveillance brought about by Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, the idea of a network of devices that “monitor” humans, so to speak, is an unsettling concept for many. As The Guardian reported in April, some fear that such technologies will take the power to control private information away from consumers and put it in the hands of companies and governments.

Advanced robotics: Artificial intelligence alarmists have captured the attention of science fiction junkies for decades, but in recent months a handful of industry leaders including Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Stephen Hawking have expressed concerns over this technology.

Autonomous vehicles: Self-driving cars and trucks will likely face trust issues similar to those faced by artificial intelligence. Even though autonomous vehicles have potential to dramatically reduce driving accidents, a 2014 poll found that 65% of Americans think self-driving vehicles are “a dangerous idea.”

Advanced oil and gas exploration and recovery: Opposition from environmental advocacy groups could present a challenge to the expansion of new energy extraction solutions like hydraulic fracturing. A report released this week by a British NGO concluded that “fracking” poses significant health and environmental risks and proposed a moratorium on the practice in the UK and throughout the EU until a more sound regulatory structure is implemented.

With these obstacles in mind, and with the story of past innovations as our prologue, then we may expect these technologies to advance at a somewhat slower speed than the McKinsey Institute has predicted.

Construction volumes and disruptive technology

Over the next forty years, the volume of urban construction for housing, office space, and transport services over could roughly equal the entire volume of such construction to date in world history, according to National Intelligence Council's "Global Trends 2030" publication.

According to archaeologists, urbanity began in Uruk roughly 6,500 years ago, and if we want to step further back into human history, the first shelters were constructed by our biological predecessors homo heildelbergensis roughly 700,000 years ago out of wood and rock.

Therefore, the amount of construction over the next forty years has the ability to drastically further human civilization's history of modifying our environment to sustain itself. Which include altering the paths of huge bodies of water, collapsing delicate ecosystems, spitting CO2 into the atmosphere, and hasty deforestation. Will humans' cumulative alterations of the environment over the past hundreds of thousands of years also equal that of the next forty?

In 2013, McKinsey Publishing released "Disruptive technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy." In this report, energy storage, advanced oil and gas exploration and recovery, and renewable energy were three of the twelve disruptive technologies highlighted. By McKinsey's projections these technologies could result in a 40% price decrease in vehicle battery packs, 1.2 billion people will gain access to electricity, 3x efficiency of US gas wells, 2x efficiency of US oil wells, 85% price reduction in solar energy, and 19x more solar and wind energy generation since 2000.

These are all technologies that would completely spellbound any citizen of Uruk and 19th century industrial pioneers alike and would have greatly reduced the frequency and scope of previous human environmental deterioration.

According to MIT research labs, however, our future is still bleak. In this graph the solid line represents compiled data concerning world environmental resources and pollution from 1900 to today. The dashed line represents projections for world collapse made by Club of Rome, a think tank, published in the 1972 book Limits to Growth. Currently, world human behavior has not deviated greatly from Limits to Growth's projections. As seen below by the graph published on September 1, 2014 by The Guardian.

In conclusion, with the National Intelligence Council's projections for widespread construction by 2030, will the disruptive technologies laid out in McKinsey's report be able to combat the trend outlined by MIT researchers. In areas most likely to rapidly urbanize, such as Africa, how can we actively spread these environmentally sensitive technologies to disrupt current trends and proactively prevent the environmental damage that resulted from historical industrialization and development?