Bits, Bricks and Business Models; Lessons from MIT
We live in the digital economy. Big data influences policy decisions. Innovation is law. Technology unlocks previously unimaginable connectivity and access to information. We have developed an impressive array of tools to address the world’s pressing challenges. Yet, somehow, income inequality continues to spike, violence tears communities apart and the environment is being ravaged mercilessly by global consumption. Something is missing in our approach.
What?
This is the question I held last Friday while stepping into Bits and Bricks, MIT Senseable City Lab’s forum on smart cities. The theme of the forum, Bits and Bricks, centered around the spatialization of virtual systems via the Internet of Things that is shaping the future of how industries, from utilities to transportation, operate and engage their stakeholders. The digital “bits” are embedding the physical “bricks” of the urban environment and are opening unprecedented opportunities for creating value for citizens. My hope was that the speakers, panelists and attendees would be able to give me a sense of how exactly these technological innovations could be implemented to catalyze transformative change. Perhaps these groundbreaking technologies are the missing link. True to my hope, the speakers delivered. Sort of.
The forum was held in a seventh floor conference hall at MIT’s Sloan School of Business, fitted with floor-to-ceiling windows proudly displaying a front-row view of the the Boston cityscape across the Charles River. The conference hall buzzed intermittently with the chatter of the well-dressed attendees as the forum moderator, a wildly gesticulating Englishman, ushered us to turn to our neighbors and share our thoughts after each presentation. Mostly we had just enough time to introduce ourselves, explain our respective companies and exchange business cards before the next presentation began. Regardless, it was an engaging way to at least attempt to process the topics that forum’s speakers that guided us through, starting from utilities to buildings, through transportation and to responsive environments.
The second session of the morning was highlighted by Anita Arjundas, the CEO of Mahindra Lifespace Developers Ltd who spoke on buildings. “70% of urban India is yet to be built,” she told us to frame the challenge faced by her native country. The unique opportunity of such a colossal task, she argued, was that India could by-pass several stages of urban development that had occurred in the West and instead begin directly incorporating the efficiency-driving bits into the bricks of future urban communities, improving quality of life and reducing energy consumption from the beginning. The technology to do so already exists and Mahindra, she continued, had already begun tackling the problem of transforming slums into affordable housing units complete with modern amenities. This sounded promising. Yet try as they might, her company could not develop a financially viable solution. Arjundas, however, remains hopeful and left an aspiration hanging in the air as she stepped off the stage.
“The private sector can play a role in affordable housing if a sustainable business model is developed.”
Later in the afternoon the mayor of Calgary, once the voted the best mayor in the world, took the stage. An amiable, portly man and an eloquent speaker, Mayor Naheed Nenshi shared examples of how Calgary was already integrating bits into the city’s bricks. Sensors along streets measure how many bikes pass through on a given day to encourage cycling. Towers collect the sensory information from the bluetooth signals from passing cars to improve quality of traffic systems. The city, he explained, had an enormous amount of data points that it was amassing. The problem, though, was figuring out what to do with the data, how to make sense of it and how to allocate resources to the execution of data-informed policies.
“We have the data. We have millions of data points. Literally,” he lamented. “It’s the interpretation that’s energy-consuming.”
As speaker after speaker took the stage, I frankly was surprised at how few actual examples of successful, large-scale impact was being made from the marvelous technology produced by brilliant minds. The theme that began to emerge as the day unfolded was consistent across the board.
The challenge lies not in developing more technology or accumulating more data. The challenge, instead, lies in translating what we already have into real-world impact.
What I learned from the room full of the MIT community’s best and brightest is that we lack the systems that can bring the technology innovations we already have to the citizens that need them most. We lack the business models that can deliver value at scale. And therein I found the answer to my question. The missing link, revealed at last.
To address our most pressing social challenges, we must leverage the existing capabilities, innovations and assets we already have in new ways through business models that can effectively and sustainably deliver value to communities. In so doing, we can catalyze transformative change.
Monday Civic Innovation Briefing: Entrepreneurship ← P R E V I O U S
