Co-Evolution of Technology, Markets and Institutions - the Case of Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Technology in Europe

The birth, growth and maturity of industries, sectors and technologies have spurred the curiosity of researchers as well as managers and policy makers for a long time. Intriguingly, the emergence of a new industry is a complex process including many different actors and with a high level of uncertainty related to technology, institutions and markets facing the actors involved. Empirically this book analyses a case study of fuel cells and hydrogen technologies in Europe, a set of inter-related technologies that has a large economic and environmental potential. These technologies can provide energy to a diverse set of products, ranging from powering cars and buses, or consumer products like a laptop or cell phone, to heat and electricity for buildings. Energy conversion within these technologies is furthermore emission free which hold the promise to change the mode of transportation and for electricity production to become more sustainable. While there is a tendency to approach technological change with a long time perspective, focusing on the shift between different phases, this book will fill a gap in the literature on technological change by focussing on the formative, or early phase. The thesis approaches the formative phase by analysing how the different actors in Europe strive to create stability in technology, market and institutions, so that the emerging technologies can evolve to a growth phase and new markets be formed

Big Data, Small Credit: The Digital Revolution and Its Impact on Emerging Market Consumers

This research report sheds light on a new cadre of technology companies who are disrupting the credit scoring business in emerging markets. Using non-financial data -- such as social media activity and mobile phone usage patterns -- complex algorithms and big data analytics are forever changing the economics of how we identify, score, and underwrite credit to consumers who have been invisible to lenders until now

Rade, Development, and the Broken Promise of Interdependence: A Buddhist Reflection on the Possibility of Post-market Economics

Bhutan's stated intention of keeping the value of happiness central to the development process is a suitable counter to the values and karma that prevail in most development strategies and ideals. Given present day realities of unprecedented, accelerating changes and paradigmatic shifts in economic, political, and social practices, any successful strategy for integration into global development processes must be creative in nature. It must, in other words, consist of an ongoing improvisation that is at once virtuosic and virtuous and that brings both greater resolution and resolve into the development process. In this essay the author wants to contribute to this effort by considering the broad landscape of development and trade concepts and practices and their implications for the trajectory of innovations needed to insure that development processes and greater economic interdependence are, indeed, liberating. The auhtor starts by reflecting on the context of present day patterns of development, raising some issues related to history and scale in assessing the effects of increasing global interdependence. He suggestes that present day patterns and scales of globalization have both generated and been generated by the extremely rapid and practically irreversible commodification of subsistence needs—a commodification that (paraphrasing Ivan Illich) has the effect of institutionalizing entirely new classes of the poor. Beyond a critical threshold and unless redirected—that is, informed by radically different values—present day patterns of interdependence will continue bringing about the conversion of communities that have been faring well into aggregates of individuals in need of welfare. Unchecked, the promise of globally extended, deep community will be broken

A New Consumerism: The influence of social technologies on product design

Social media has enabled a new style of consumerism. Consumers are no longer passive recipients; instead they are assuming active and participatory roles in product design and production, facilitated by interaction and collaboration in virtual communities. This new participatory culture is blurring the boundaries between the specific roles of designer, consumer and producer, creating entrepreneurial opportunities for designers, and empowering consumers to influence product strategies. Evolving designer-consumer interactions are enabling an enhanced model of co-production, through a value-adding social exchange that is driving changes in consumer behaviour and influencing both product strategies and design practice. The consumer is now a knowledgeable participant, or prosumer, who can contribute to user–centered research through crowd sourcing, collaborate and co-create through open-source or open-innovation platforms, assist creative endeavors by pledging venture capital through crowd funding and advocate the product in blogs and forums. Social media- enabled product implementation strategies working in conjunction with digital production technologies (e.g. additive manufacture), enable consumer-directed adaptive customisation, product personalisation, and self-production, with once passive consumers becoming product produsers. Not only is social media driving unprecedented consumer engagement and significant behavioural change, it is emerging as a major enabler of design entrepreneurship, creating new collaborative opportunities. Innovative processes in design practice are emerging, such as the provision of digital artifacts and customisable product frameworks, rather than standardised manufactured solutions. This paper examines the influence of social media-enabled product strategies on the methodology of the next generation of product designers, and discusses the need for an educational response

Understanding consumer demand for new transport technologies and services, and implications for the future of mobility

The transport sector is witnessing unprecedented levels of disruption. Privately owned cars that operate on internal combustion engines have been the dominant modes of passenger transport for much of the last century. However, recent advances in transport technologies and services, such as the development of autonomous vehicles, the emergence of shared mobility services, and the commercialization of alternative fuel vehicle technologies, promise to revolutionise how humans travel. The implications are profound: some have predicted the end of private car dependent Western societies, others have portended greater suburbanization than has ever been observed before. If transport systems are to fulfil current and future needs of different subpopulations, and satisfy short and long-term societal objectives, it is imperative that we comprehend the many factors that shape individual behaviour. This chapter introduces the technologies and services most likely to disrupt prevailing practices in the transport sector. We review past studies that have examined current and future demand for these new technologies and services, and their likely short and long-term impacts on extant mobility patterns. We conclude with a summary of what these new technologies and services might mean for the future of mobility.Comment: 15 pages, 0 figures, book chapte

Launching the Grand Challenges for Ocean Conservation

The ten most pressing Grand Challenges in Oceans Conservation were identified at the Oceans Big Think and described in a detailed working document:A Blue Revolution for Oceans: Reengineering Aquaculture for SustainabilityEnding and Recovering from Marine DebrisTransparency and Traceability from Sea to Shore:  Ending OverfishingProtecting Critical Ocean Habitats: New Tools for Marine ProtectionEngineering Ecological Resilience in Near Shore and Coastal AreasReducing the Ecological Footprint of Fishing through Smarter GearArresting the Alien Invasion: Combating Invasive SpeciesCombatting the Effects of Ocean AcidificationEnding Marine Wildlife TraffickingReviving Dead Zones: Combating Ocean Deoxygenation and Nutrient Runof

Frontier Capital: Early Stage Investing for Financial Returns and Social Impact in Emerging Markets

This report outlines the importance and promise of serving low- and lower-middle-income (LMI) populations -- essentially, the groups situated between the very bottom of the pyramid and the existing middle class. As we detail herein, LMI populations have huge unmet needs and face quite a bit of instability -- challenges that can be addressed by innovative business models. We believe companies serving this demographic represent an under-tapped opportunity, both for financial returns and for outsized impact. The LMI segment represents a major market opportunity. For example, in Latin America and the Caribbean, the purchasing power of the LMI population is estimated at $405B. In South Asia, it is estimated at$483B

Biotechnology and Poverty Reduction in Developing Countries

sustainable development, technology, food, health, agriculture

Emergence of the Biosimilar Sector and Opportunities of Developing Country Suppliers

As biologic products begin to come off-patent, a market is emerging for biosimilars (also known as biogenerics or follow-on biologics). Firms from emerging countries such as India and China have dominated the production of active ingredients in pharmaceutical industries all over the world and are now developing capabilities in biosimilar production. This emergence of a new market dynamic is disruptive to current key players as it has potential challenge their current dominant hold over the market, while for firms from developing countries it creates a sea of opportunities. This rise of biosimilars and capabilities for cheap production in developing country firms has potential to transform patient care in developing countries as well as advanced countries. This paper reviews study data collected at Innogen and the most recent literature to understand how the sector for biosimilars is evolving and the opportunities and challenges faced by emerging suppliers. The aim of the paper is to identify the gaps in the current literature and opportunities for further study in this area

Property and the Construction of the Information Economy: A Neo-Polanyian Ontology

This chapter considers the changing roles and forms of information property within the political economy of informational capitalism. I begin with an overview of the principal methods used in law and in media and communications studies, respectively, to study information property, considering both what each disciplinary cluster traditionally has emphasized and newer, hybrid directions. Next, I develop a three-part framework for analyzing information property as a set of emergent institutional formations that both work to produce and are themselves produced by other evolving political-economic arrangements. The framework considers patterns of change in existing legal institutions for intellectual property, the ongoing dematerialization and datafication of both traditional and new inputs to economic production, and the emerging logics of economic organization within which information resources (and property rights) are mobilized. Finally, I consider the implications of that framing for two very different contemporary information property projects, one relating to data flows within platform-based business models and the other to information commons