Choosing your next steps at school

I understand that this is about the time of year that each cohort of pupils in each key stage begins to choose the subjects of the next stage. So KS 3 pupils will be selecting their GCSE subjects and KS4 their AS and A-level courses. Now let me say immediately, I’m not for giving advice. These selections are so personal and so significant that only the pupils and their advisors can take on that responsibility.

I will say what happened to me. Science, especially Physics and Mathematics, fell into my lap and especially by the stage of A-level, it couldn’t have been any other way. That doesn’t mean I don’t have some regrets. My inability to choose between the Arts and the Sciences earlier, meant that my O-level [aka GCSE] curriculum couldn’t fit in Biology; without that subject, it closed off some future science avenues and that is the problem – science disciplines especially are layered structures and understanding needs to be piled on brick by brick.

For me, while it is possible that I could have taken a different course, the outcome was probably unchanged. My choices fitted together like a glove. Unfortunately it is not always so today and pupils must look well ahead to make sure future pathways are not inadvertently blocked. I wouldn’t have liked to be setting about learning some complicated maths when my brain was more set in its ways!

So how do you do this? Fundamentally I assert that children have to treat their time out of class just as importantly as in class. They must experience as much as possible and try uncomfortable things just to find out who they are and what truly gives them satisfaction. There is much talk of fitting skills to the needs of the work force. Certainly this is true of classroom literacy (numerical, written and oral communication and, in today’s world, a facility with the computer and the internet) but equally true of non classroom-learned team work, interpersonal and other human skills.

Then we come back to the sciences and mathematics; truly no-one knows the content of the next wave of the economic cycle. Matrix, using the principles of the Wisdom of Crowds, has suggested it will be in the space of “clean and green”, “connected”, “health and vitality” and “safe and secure” and few would disagree. Each of these depends on a deep understanding of science, technology, engineering and mathematics and so those who favour these choices are unlikely to go wrong. Equally the modern world changes quickly; so a lively mind with a continued propensity for learning and self improvement is a great help.

One thing that was missing in my early career was business thinking. I was a pre-Thatcher student and it wasn’t until my establishment began to behave and perform commercially that I saw the true face of global business. Up to that point, I probably regarded it as an inferior intellectual pursuit with only money as its motivation. I learned from colleagues and peers in the CBI how wrong this was and began to enjoy my business interactions every bit as much (maybe more) than my science ones; so that’s my last thought.

Whatever you pick, don’t forget that it will have to be turned into cash if you are to have a good life; so pay attention to the entrepreneurship options that you will be offered along the line.

I travelled the world and helped with problems large and small along the way. I enjoyed 99% of it, especially what I do now. I hope your choices work out as well; good luck!

The Internet in 2010, boon or bane?

The internet and the World Wide Web are almost synonymous today but strictly one is almost twice as old as the other. Internet protocols (or how computers speak and work together) date from the time of Sputnik and might have remained a piece of cold war detritus had it not been for Tim Berners Lee and the international community at CERN in Geneva, seeking to find a way of collaborating across time and space on a global scale. Now it is ubiquitous but is it a blessing or a curse, to quote the BBC’s current series, ‘Virtual Revolution’. (You can catch up with the series on BBC’s iPlayer at www.bbc.co.uk/virtualrevolution).

It’s just been half term and, in our house hold, that means a certain young person’s bedroom vibrates with the sound of heavy machine gun fire interspersed with explosions and cries like “I’m pinned down behind this rock, you check behind the castle… too late! Reset.” It’s not always violence, mind you. Sometimes its guitar riffles and rock chords. The common factor is the computer and its broadband connection. In every instance, my wife’s son will be sitting in front of his big screen computer with headset on and concentrating with an intensity that his school work gets only rarely!

The counterpoint to this scene that triggered the thought was our contribution to the successful Engineers’ Week that I spoke of last week. We had a hundred or so children and their parents being entertained for the day with stories and activities based on the Titanic engineering achievements of our fore fathers. But almost all the kids were of primary school age. Not that there was anything wrong with that but the nagging feeling remains that children at the age when they are required to make crucial decisions about their (and all our) future, do so without a deep understanding of the key elements of today’s global infrastructure.

Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft and suppliers all over the globe have put to use all the computing and communications technology available to create such a set of exciting and absorbing worlds into which our children disappear for hours at a time, and for pocket money prices! So when we want to gain their attention, we have to begin by thinking that this virtual world is our competition and therein lies our quandary – is it a blessing or is it a curse?

I think it could be described as both. We can’t lose our core skills to the connected world – instead we should collaborate to reach new heights in the practical application of science. It’s easy for young people to get lost in the virtual world but we need to stress the importance of the link between the old and new practices – we can’t forget Northern Ireland’s manufacturing roots!
But it’s worth noting there is much we can learn from the younger generations’ love for the virtual world. The use of the Internet as a business tool has meant that business territories no longer operate within boundaries –to compete on a global scale we must embrace the technology such as video-conferencing and online file sharing applications as a means to working more efficiently.

This is Engineers’ Week

Did you ever wonder?
• How the water arrived in your taps and flowed away to the sea, when you were done with it?
• How does a thin Aluminium tube deliver you and your luggage from Belfast City Airport to a city hundreds or thousands of miles away for business or pleasure?
• How did our forefathers build and manoeuvre the biggest ships of their day?
This is the week to find out, as we and many engineering based industries and utilities in Northern Ireland, mustered by the Institution of Civil Engineers in Northern Ireland (http://www.ice-northernireland.org.uk/news_events/news_view.asp?newsid=2985 ), join with Engineers Ireland to demystify the inner workings of our society.
As well as empathy for human suffering and pathos, the recent Haiti earthquake disaster should remind us just how dependent we, in our dense urban environments, are on the generations of engineers and scientists that have combined their knowledge to make the things, we take for granted. Just imagine if an earthquake struck down town Belfast and 100,000 people had to take to Divis mountain for safety in the middle of the winter we’re just having. How soon before we were pleading for engineers to rebuild infrastructure and to help rebuild peoples’ lives?
The very best engineers are dedicated, practiced and open to risk taking. So how do you build these qualities? First you must learn some basics; the language of science and mathematics is a good start. Then you must try it, to learn the joy and the pain of building something. Team work and intercommunication are essential skills in this domain, for long gone are the days when one human being was up to the tasks required in modern civilisations. Ultimately, you must learn what others have learnt before, if you are not to make their mistakes or lose too much money reinventing the wheel, and then you can add your bit to the history of civilisation.
In some countries, this history of engineering is in your face. I think of Italy here. The rugged terrain and the needs of the Roman Empire created a breed of civil engineers who would let no mountain or valley stand in the way of their aqua- or via-duct. In our case, it’s a bit more hidden and a bit dangerous to allow the public in. We need events like Engineers’ Week to make things visible; so I hope as many families as possible will take the opportunities offered.
At the Science Park, we’re having a Titanic Family Day; so you can come along to the Titanic Dock & Pump-House @ Northern Ireland Science Park and get a taste of what a future career in engineering & science might be like and meet some of the people involved today. Families can take part in challenging and fun quizzes with engineering twist, enjoy some Street Theatre Performances and visit the Pump-House, with its state-of-the-art animation.
We hope you’ll have fun but most of all we hope you’ll understand better the role of the scientists and engineers in our society and maybe decide to be one!

History of NI Innovation in 100 objects

When I used to travel more than I do now, the thing I used to miss most about “being abroad” was BBC radio. Even lugging around a short wave radio with its variable reception and endless retuning between the wave-bands was worth the effort for a few minutes of the familiar trained voices. Now back home, it’s easy to join in the grumbles about this and that and then the BBC reminds us in a flash of brilliance, why we love it so. This time, it’s “The History of the World in 100 objects”, a radio programme accompanied by a spectacular web-site.

The project is a collaboration between the different elements of the BBC (local, national and international), together with the British Museum (and its local counterparts). The aim is obvious from the title and the Director of the British Museum, Neil McGregor, has begun to take us on the journey from hunter-gather, through the beginnings of farming, to the Industrial Revolution and on to the present day. The debates, to choose the final one hundred objects, must have been intense and with more than a few heated arguments, I would bet. Many early objects are obvious and wouldn’t have needed great discussion; the early axe and spear heads, especially the “Clovis point” and its significance for the population of North America and antler picks and plough shares would have needed choosing only on the basis of quality. Later on and with more choice, it must have been difficult.

I know that, with my interests, I’d have been fighting for a higher presence of science and technology for example and for more from this corner of the world. It was a surprise to find a Northern Irish Gold Lunulae as the first object associated with us. Welcome and unexpected as it was, I thought it might have been the high quality flint axes and arrow heads, from Tievebulliagh in the Glens of Antrim, which were traded all across Europe. Titanic is represented, of course, but not by steel and rivets but by a ticket for passage. Later, in the twentieth century, as you might expect, we’re only there for our warring and our peacemaking! No mention of our contributions to technology, nor of our discoveries that paved the way to a modern understanding of the physical world, nor even of our contributions to medicine.

Perhaps this sounds like a grumble, but it’s not. The best thing about the BBC’s site, http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/explorerflash/#, is its “wiki” nature. It invites contribution and participation and I can see no reason why regions, cities, towns and even schools should not use it to build a history of and for themselves, to both advertise their wares and to build a sense of pride. So why not, in the County Down, show case their part in the origins of modern mechanical farming (Ferguson) or in high power batteries and the modern day race for low carbon transport (Drumm)? My list would include objects to represent the work of the late Alan McClay, the explorations of Francis Crozier, the American Atlantic Cable of William Thompson (aka Lord Kelvin), the Pelton water wheel at the Patterson Spade Mill, to represent his brother, a magnetron to represent Joseph Larmor from Co Antrim, etc etc.

Actually, it doesn’t matter what I would pick. What would you put on to represent our society and our history and to lead people into our future?

Facing the Challenges of the Next Decade

What a depressing start to the decade it has been!

The Ulster arm of Chartered Accountants Ireland published a survey report showing that most of their 500 respondents rated the economy’s prospects as poor or worse. Just 7% were optimistic about performance in the year ahead. Most of the pessimism (not ill founded) relates to the negative impact of public spending as the governments cope with the aftermath of the bank bailouts.

Sir Allen McClay, perhaps our greatest knowledge-based entrepreneur and champion of the economic value of learning, passed away. His achievements were considerable. Firstly, he built a large business making generic drugs out of patent. Then he transformed and magnified its value 10- fold, by adding innovative drug delivery using our skills in polymers. Not content with that, his next and sadly final, legacy to the economy is Almac and its intent to develop and own key drug synthesis intermediaries. I trust that a statue is in planning somewhere.

In the same week, the energy of our government is being consumed by deeds of another type. By chance I bumped into the media scrum the other day by the Lock Keepers Inn near Shaw’s Bridge. After bypassing them, it struck me that there must be few places in the world where one could live with a fine “wild wood” on a city doorstep. Here you can see with ease wildlife such as water railles, red squirrels, and herons. But soon, when the old lock and canal is restored, we’ll hopefully be able to travel from Belfast to Limerick by narrow boat and cabin cruiser. That could open up an even greater share of the international leisure market. Of course, there’s not much interest in that at the moment but time will tell!

Meanwhile the rest of the world rolls on. The East is powering up again, followed by the USA and behind them the Euro-zone, while GB is preoccupied by other things (like the long-gone Tony Blair and Alistair Campbell).

I think we would do well to lift our gaze and turn it outward. In the same week, my email news feeds are reporting on the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, frequently a harbinger of new trends in one of the key global markets. The BBC seems to have concentrated on 3-D television, and on the e-book offering (plastic logic) originating from Cambridge University which aims to take on Sony and Amazon.

I think they missed the rise of the East and of China in particular. By way of example, five key innovations (covering consumer electronics, connected health, computer standards and internet search) launched this year were from one location alone, the Zhongguancun Science Park, or Z-Park, near Bejing.

Z-Park was founded in 1988, just 10 years before our own Northern Ireland Science Park. It has close ties with international institutions such as Tsinghua University, Peking University and the Chinese Academy of Science. More impressively, it now houses over 20,000 high-tech companies from all over the world, including R&D centres of IBM, Nokia, Microsoft and Intel, and 200 other Fortune 500 multinationals. Twenty of Z-Park’s Chinese hi-tech companies are listed on the NASDAQ, including Sina, Sohu and Baidu.

This is the true challenge for our next decade and to stand a chance of success (commensurate with what we need!), we’ll have to focus our energies, break down the silos and look upwards and outwards to find our goals.

Body Scanning

Following the terrorist ‘near miss’ at Detroit (with the now famous explosive underpants), demands rising for universal body-scanning at airports. So I thought you might be interested to read a potted history of the technology.

As with so many others, this technology has its origins in the UK and dates from the time of the Second World War. And as with so many others, it hails from the same place as high frequency radar, the Telecommunications Research Establishment (the forerunner of my alma mater in Malvern!).

During WWII, scientists found that – using the same microwave detectors as anti-submarine radar – they could take images of the ground with the magnetron (the radar source) turned off. The work was interesting but achieved little impact at the time. It was over-shadowed by radar and later on by what is now called thermal imaging, the same physics but performed at shorter wavelengths and with detector systems much more compact and less costly.

But as with all inventions, success depends as much on dogged determination as on intellectual brilliance. And so by the mid-nineties a large but transportable device evolved which was capable of giving good images of both near field, human scale, and distant, to several miles. With this device, the research team I was working with were able to image airfields in fog so that controllers could see their planes manoeuvring on the ground.

We also offered to test the technology at sea, where there was increasing fears of ship collisions with oil and gas platforms, though no sponsor could be found. We also took images of willing volunteers, including some of our more extrovert members of staff to show just how revealing the images could be! We could even see varicose veins but still we did not have great commercial success!

A Japanese company did hire us and our European partner to prepare a prototype body scanner for the 2002 Japanese Football World Cup but I never heard whether it was accepted or not.

So now, a decade later, the technology looks like it has finally come of age and, thanks to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, it may have found its niche. But what a long burn it has been!

No venture capitalist, however long sighted, could have tolerated such a negative cash flow for so long; this must be the correct role of Government funding. Now that the market is finally starting, there are competitors in each continent ready to steal the prize.

However, a quick trawl of the internet suggests that the UK is up there with the best and so maybe this time, if we can manage the commercial issues, our science and engineering pioneers have left a legacy of capability and competence that will give us a shot at the market; I sincerely hope so!

Did we do anything wrong or fail to do anything? With today’s hindsight, the only thing missing was what we now call the socialisation of the technology – carrying knowledge of its benefits into the higher levels of the decision-making classes. Too often our processes require the decisions of an entire chain of command, in which one weak link can cause failure. That’s what we’re trying to get right this time with all our good ideas in science and technology and that needs each of us to participate in the process.

How Do We Get Out of the Rut?

Now that the world economy is showing signs of recovery, there is no shortage of analysis and prediction. Pundits are good at looking back and apportioning blame but to what end? The only valuable result is to figure out what should each of us do as a result of it all.

The clearest outcome of the debacle is that the world’s centre of economic gravity has moved towards Asia and this could have many consequences for us, some quite surprising perhaps.

One is that we might see an emerging global economic system with some different values. For example, while superficially, Indian economic strategies don’t look terribly different from ours (knowledge and innovation led), they also emphasise the need to maintain and to grow her spiritual values. Asian members of the UN’s committee on global warming promote solutions that include personal restraint; do we really each need a 50” television asked one on the radio over the holiday? In the nineties, I used to be frequently in Japan; one conversation that struck me deeply was with some senior industrialists from leading Kiretsus. They regretted deeply having to power up their economy by using the latest technology to make attractive time wasters for their young consumers as opposed to its use for the important things in life, defence, health, energy, for example. It seems to me that the other Asian nations have taken note of this issue and have taken action to avoid the worst of it.

The second is geographical; the world is a sphere and so as Asia rises to match or supercede North America, the trade goes trans-Pacific. Much of our living has derived from the fallout from trans-Atlantic trade without too much effort (English speaking, cultural, even familial links, etc). Now we’ll have to work so much harder and against some of our deepest prejudices.

The third is in team-working. The East (possibly because of the issues surrounding rice agriculture) has a strong culture of community before (or at least on a par with) self. The protocols of home, social and business life have been worked out over many generations to provide a system that enables a unique mix of socialism and capitalism on every scale that provides an intense competition for our brand of personal capitalism and state moderated socialism.

Meanwhile, back home, many are still experiencing the down side of the recession, unemployment. Proportionately not as many as in past recessions of similar depth it’s true, but loss of livelihood has to be one of the worst disasters that can befall a person. And the worst news is that there will be continued job loss before the world recovers. It seems to me that one of our new business values that could emerge from the mess is each taking some responsibility for my neighbour’s job. Not in a patronising hand-out kind of way, but putting something back, through NISP Connect for example.

Christmas Quiz: How well is NI Connected?

Connectivity and Connectedness: it’s been a bit of a theme this year. Many of my columns have focused on Ulster men and women at the centre of world newsworthy events etc. So just how well were you paying attention? Or how well did we tell it?

Here are some of the science and technology snippets from 2009. The question is with which events is little Northern Ireland connected directly?

1. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva successfully switched on. This, the world’s most expensive physics experiment ever, designed to create heavy particle collisions at energies approaching those at the beginning of time (at least according to “The Standard Model” of Physics).

2. After a long courtship and much speculation in the business pages, technology companies Yahoo and Microsoft finally combined their forces to take on the might of Google in the connected world of the 21st Century.

3. The Guinness World record for the most watched film premier has just been smashed by ‘The Age of Stupid’ through the power of the internet. A virtual audience of some thousands joined the physical audience in London to enjoy the Oscar-nominated film offering a stark message on climate change.

4. Twitter became one of the most powerful social networking sites in the world and a definite favourite among media people and politicians. There is hardly an event anywhere in the world that is not relayed immediately and powerfully in the 140-character tweets from those involved.

5. ‘Avatar’, James Cameron’s first movie since ‘Titanic’ has been called the future of cinema, with its stunning 3-D effects best seen on an IMAX screen and mixture of live action and animation perfectly blended.

6. Rwanda’s dream of becoming a high-tech country is about to take-off again. The fibre-optic data pipeline linking Kenya to Europe and India will soon arrive in Kigali, cutting wholesale internet costs by up to 90%. The city’s own fibre optic network will then offer some of the fastest connections in Africa. Rwanda has joined the global one laptop per child program. Around 100,000 children have access to low-cost computers, and the government wants to extend that to more than one million children over the next few years.

7. At the time of writing it looks as though a compromise agreement is set to be unveiled at The Climate Change conference in Copenhagen. Progress has been made and the conditions have been set for discussion to continue in 2010.

The answer*, of course, is all of them bar the last. Even there, Northern Ireland has made enough announcements of projects this year (Biomara, Atlantic Arc, Spirit of Ireland, Smart Grid etc) that it could have offered a goal of being carbon free by 2050 and stolen the headlines.

Maybe we’ll be ready for the next intergovernmental conference.

*
1. Steve Myers (CERN) and James Stirling (Cambridge University)
2. Toby Coppel
3. Dairmaid Lynch and Richard Jolly (Switch New Media)
4. Blaine Cook (Twitter Technical Director)
5. Greg Maguire (ILM and ZooGloo)
6. Sinclair Stockman (independent tele-communications consultant)
7. You, the reader, whether you like it or not!

Becoming an Innovative Community

“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good,” as they say. Positive community reaction to the current set of disasters through flood and tempest in Cumbria and Fermanagh reminds us of the best of the human spirit. Neighbour begins to help neighbour. Church and community halls, normally locked up, are thrown open to take in the dispossessed. Families, pubs and hotels share their food to keep the elderly and the young from starving.

DETI Minister Arlene Foster, guided by Matrix (the NI Science-Industry advisory group), reminded us the other day that it’s the same for the economy. Communities working together are much stronger than a set of isolated individuals. Accordingly, she has already announced a set of measures already taken to create the environment for “Industry-led Innovation Communities” or IICs, in the jargon. Now I have to declare an interest, for I serve on Matrix and I’ve been asked to chair the sub-group of the advisory panel on IICs. As you may guess, it’s a task I relish.

If you need convincing of the power of the community over the individual, the next time you play a quiz-based game at home play the best individual against the rest as a team, or read “The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations” published in 2004, by James Surowiecki. Nine times out of 10 the group will win over the individual (unless of course they fall apart by bickering something extraneous to the goal). Therein lies the trick.

Those nations that have not had all the natural advantages that we possess (a temporate climate, decent land and no shortage of shelter) have developed finer honed skills in community management than we. It is often said that the powerful Japanese keiretsus evolved from the management style of villages – where a successful rice paddy depended on an irrigation system that no individual could possibly afford or manage.

As a result, the village evolved a system of community decision-making in which the agreement each day was to collaborate or to compete. The key was that none could do anything until unanimity was reached. Under this model, Japanese companies are notoriusly slow to decide – but fearsomely quick to implement. (Having said that, the Japanese style is not without its drawbacks and it is often said that it over-suppresses the maverick thinker and risk taker, who can produce the unexpected breakthrough.)

In the Northern Ireland ‘village’, we might enjoy the best of both worlds – Eastern collectivism and Anglo-Saxon risk-taking. We don’t necessarily have the large corporation with the single governance pyramid; rather we are a myriad of small and micro businesses. And consider the sum of our parts… key sections of planes, crucial elements of drugs and drug delivery systems, mining and quarrying technology, rapid transit vehicles, critical hardware and software for the world’s telecommunications systems and the software behind some of the most famous banks and payments systems; all are ‘Made in Ulster’!

With this basis on which to build effective Industry-led Innovation Communities (and providing we can ‘collaborate to compete’ and ‘compete to win’), we ought to have a great chance to achieve the goal of a prosperous peace.

SAP and Intel – life in the clouds

Intel is a lead innovator of the processor chips that power everything from computers to cars, from medical instruments to missiles and everything in between.

So far so good. But unfortunately for Intel, they left themselves a little exposed. A blindspot arose in the East where “simple” memory chips with a lot lower margin began to emerge. As this occurred, Intel continued to focus on “complicated” memory chips with higher margins. People nearly forgot you needed both and so, I guess, herein lies the general thrust behind the “Intel inside” campaign.

Intel’s involvement with its partners is so much more than just sticking a chip inside. I first came across their partnership way of working when my displays team from Malvern was asked to join a Ford/Jaguar team in producing a “Convergence Car”. (This was a concept car demonstrating the coming together of communications, computing and content).

The only partner Ford/Jaguar insisted on was Intel and they had a team of two working with the rest of the engineers “inside” the Convergence Car. The end result? Malvern (and Intel) was part of the winning team and they all got little gold model Jags to celebrate! Intel’s impressive inside technology left a strong impression on me and the Malvern team.

Now Intel’s inside again – this time they’re embedded with SAP’s research centre down at the Science Park. This truly is an exciting development for us and for Northern Ireland for lots of reasons. For example, consider how the software market has been opened up by the anti-trust actions of the past few years. The result is a new phase in software development. Take the release of Windows 7 – this represents the beginning of the battle which is being fought under banners like: ‘Cloud Computing’; ‘Utility Computing’; and ‘Network Computing’. I’m not expert enough to explain the detail (too ignorant, is probably nearer it) but essentially the days of the standalone device are over for all but the most unusual of applications.

So how does this affect us? Most of us own computers to communicate, to shop or to entertain ourselves. And much of what we want and need comes, seemingly free, from out of the ether or the ‘cloud’… this is SAP’s bleeding edge and Intel are on board. This is great news for the consumer and even better news for local technologists. SAP is a great collaborator generally – so we can look forward them sharing frontline viewpoints on all the topics and markets of the day, like connected health, smart grid and digital media.

But, of course, Microsoft isn’t going to take all this lying down and, what do you know, they’re here at the Science Park as well. Now, when behemoths battle, passive bystanders can get caught as collateral damage but agile active parties can profit. As shown in the NISP CONNECT £25k Awards, agile companies are out there. Ideas from our research centres are as good as any in the world. And these three companies – SAP; Intel; and Microsoft – are routes to market for bright ideas.

There are clear opportunities here. To realise them, all we need is energy, determination and money. Can we do it? Yes, we can!