On a recent trip to London, it became clear that the British people are far less sensitive to surveillance cameras than we are in the U.S.

In fact, the number of cameras being installed in London is growing at a much faster rate than ever because homeowners are installing their own cheap security systems. Many people are genuinely scared and will share security camera footage on social media when the police don’t act fast enough. This is quite common.

In London, doorbell cameras and inexpensive DIY systems have become part of the overall surveillance network that is on track to exceed one million cameras by 2025.

Yet video cameras are only a small piece of the equation. Once we add sensor networks, audio recorders, sniffer tech, heat signature monitors, chemical analyzers, photoemission spectroscopy, thermal scanners, magnetometers, chromatography, and a wide variety of other forensic science tools to our street corners, flying drones, driverless cars, lamp posts, and sewer systems the amount of data we’ll be working with to better understand the nature of our cities will be staggering.

If we think of cities as living breathing organisms, where every facet of the city is expanding-contracting, flowing-trickling, inputting-outputting, and inhaling-exhaling, we begin to understand the dynamic nature of this kind of community.

There are lots of attributes that we’ll add to our wish list for the smart city of the future, but first and foremost, they will need to be “aware.” They’ll need to be aware of everything happening inside their borders. Awareness breeds responsibility and sets the stage for what comes next.

It’s all about flow. Smart cities will simultaneously aspire to be easy to live in, easy to work in, easy to travel in, and create easy ways to meet and connect with others.

At the same time, we’ll judge them by their liveliness, enthusiasm, vibrancy, spontaneity, impulsiveness, and their overarching aptitude for serendipity.

Not only will they need to offer great food and abundant forms of entertainment, but we will also want them to feel safe and free from criminal activity.

For business people, it’ll be a good investment. For talented people, it will have a way of amplifying their skills and abilities. And it will be both a great place to be a kid, and to raise a family.

Somehow a truly great smart city will not only make you feel like you’ve arrived, but it will just smell good, feel good, taste good, and have a way of exuding good karma!

Smart cities are all about the tools we have to work with!

Managing a Smart City through its Digital Twin

Cities will soon have their own fleets of drones, with scanning capabilities, to create digital models of their communities. As scanners, sensors, and resolutions improve, cities will begin creating increasingly functional digital twins of their streets, neighborhoods, and activity centers.

Having thousands of drones swarming over most metro areas on a daily basis may seem annoying at first, but the combination of new businesses, jobs, information, data analysis, new career paths, and added revenue streams will quickly turn most naysayers into strong industry advocates.

But for cities, digital twins will go much deeper than what’s viewable from above. This will mean digital twins of every power line, substation, sewage system, water line, emergency services system, Wi-Fi network, highway, security system, traffic control network, and much more. Done correctly, every problem will only be one or two clicks away from viewing on the digital twin master control center.

In short order, digital twins of cities will become treasure troves of data as the daily inflow and outflow of people, traffic, and weather become far better understood. This form of digital modeling will also give rise to search engines for the physical world.

Search Engines for the Physical World

Online search technology has framed much of our thinking around our ability to find things. In general, if it’s not digital and online, it’s not findable.

In the future, drones and sensors will replace much of the work of today’s web crawlers when it comes to defining our searchable universe.

Search technology will become far more sophisticated in the future. Soon we will be able to search on attributes like smells, tastes, harmonic vibration, textures, specific gravity, levels of reflectivity, and barometric pressures.

Over time, search engines will have the capability of finding virtually anything in either the digital or physical world.

We will soon see an explosion of smart city capabilities!

63 Examples of Smart City Capabilities

Most discussions about smart cities are masked in vague descriptions and ambiguous metaphors.

For this reason I’ve decided to put together a list of potential capabilities that smart cities could develop. With each of the items listed below, it’s easy to view them through the “too-intrusive lens” or “if this happens I’m leaving lens,” but every community will have the ability to determine their own feature sets, and how acceptable they’ll be to their constituents.

With the right kinds of sensors and technology, all of these questions can be answered.

Smart air monitoring systems

1. Full spectrum air monitoring to detect new forms of pollution, disease, toxic chemicals, insects, and other airborne issues.
2. Are telecom signals reaching dangerous levels?
3. What are the most dangerous allergens currently floating in the air and when do they pose a serious danger?
4. How have oxygen and CO2 levels changed?
5. Where is the source of air-flutters or air disturbances?
6. What is the source of specific kinds of air pollution?

Smart playgrounds

7. Monitor possible surface contaminants.
8. Scan for presence of animal feces, insects, snakes, and rodents.
9. Signal alerts for emergency situations, injuries, child abandonment, etc.
10. Are surface temperatures too hot or too cold?
11. Has there been any signs of vandalism?
12. Are the restrooms in safe and working order?

Smart transportation networks

13. Continually check for animals, birds, or other irregular objects that will interfere with the flow of traffic.
14. Automatically reroute traffic around problem areas.
15. Where are the wait times the longest?

Monitoring bird flow

19. Is the overall bird population going up or going down?
20. Are they flying higher or lower?
21. How have migratory patterns changed?
22. How has the mix of bird species change?
23. What abnormalities are showing up and why?
24. What is the overarching reason for these changes?

Smart delivery networks

25. The primary objective for smart delivery networks will be to automatically find the fastest delivery route.
26. Are there any dogs, trees, steps, or potholes that will interfere with a delivery?
27. Have there been any people or kids “messing” with deliveries in the area?
28. How have delivery times changed over the past week, month, year?
29. How long do packages typically remain outside before they’re taken inside?
30. What abnormalities are showing up that require further investigation?

Smart policing, fire protection, and emergency rescue

31. Whenever an emergency call comes in, first responders will activate their fleet of drones to “get eyes on it.”
32. When someone hits the emergency button in an autonomous vehicle, EMTs will quickly respond.
33. Monitoring systems that gauge unusual ground tremors can be used to better anticipate earthquakes and volcanic activity.

Smart street lights

34. Smart streetlights will use a variety of sensors to monitor light, heat, wind, sound, moisture, pollution, magnetic pulses, harmonic vibrations, barometric pressures, and much more.
35. They will automatically change color spectrum to help people in rain, fog, full moon, etc.
36. Auto dimming will be used to let neighborhoods “go to sleep”.
37. What buildings and structures show the greatest heat loss in cold weather?

Mosquito tracking

38. Is the overall mosquito population going up or down?
39. How effective have recent efforts to control mosquitoes?
40. What new species are showing up and why?
41. What is the primary breeding source and how has that changed from year to year?
42. What diseases are they carrying and how has that changed?
43. What are the most dangerous areas of the city today?

Noise monitoring

44. Our world is filled with very distinct sounds and things like gunshots, screams, collapsing structures, and rushing water should all prompt further investigation.
45. Pinpointing the source of noise violations.
46. How has the mix of electric vs. gas-powered vehicles changed over the years?
47. Does the howling of wolves, coyotes, or other predatory animals mean that more have moved into the area? Should neighborhoods be notified?

Sewer analysis

48. Analyze urine and stool samples for abnormalities in color, consistency, volume and frequency.
49. How have people‘s diets changed?
50. What new pharmaceuticals are showing up in the sewer system?
51. Are there any traces of parasites, infectious diseases, blood, sugar, or illegal narcotics?
52. Are there any biomarkers present like urobilin, azithromycin, or sterols showing possible sewage contamination?
53. How has the volume of waste changed both seasonally & annually?

Sniffer tech

54. Sniffer tech will be used to detect the presence of a fire much like a community smoke detector.
55. Triangulate the source of toxic and pungent emissions.
56. How has the air quality changed and can it be tied to the weather?
57. Much like a bloodhound, precision sniffer tech can follow the trail of both a suspect and a victim.
58. It will also be used to track pollen levels, radon, ozone, and other forms of airborne pollution.

Landfill trackers

59. How has the volume of waste entering the landfill changed over time?
60. How has the mix between biodegradable vs. non-biodegradable trash changed?
61. What toxic materials are ending up in the landfills and what are their sources?
62. Testing for urine or bladder infections.
63. Detect early signs of chronic conditions like cancer, diabetes, or even highly contagious diseases like Ebola.

Our ongoing struggle to balance privacy with security and convenience continues!

Final Thoughts

Our idea of what a smart city is today will undoubtedly morph and shift over the coming decades.

To be sure, data privacy will be an ongoing issue. Smart cities are essentially radiating information and it is up to us to determine the best way to protect residents when the probing and analysis becomes too intrusive.

Data privacy and security issues are more sensitive in some settings than others, and privacy is only part of the equation. If we think of this issue as a three-legged stool, we quickly realize that we have to balance privacy with security and convenience.

Some initiatives such as coordinated traffic lights are high on convenience and low on privacy issues, making them no-brainers. Others, such as tracking people through private businesses will provoke a backlash because they undermine the need for business secrecy in private spaces.

If poisonous fruit has made its way into some of the local grocery stores, people will want to know instantly. This is the same if local mosquitoes are found carrying a dangerous virus.

Competing WITH privacy is far different than competing AGAINST privacy. When we add intelligence to our homes, communities, and our cities, we face a whole new set of decisions to determine the best path forward.

As humans, we are obsessed with trying new things, pushing the boundaries, and testing our limits just to make a difference.

In the end, every capability our smart cities have will come down to our own human-centered value systems and how it will prepare us for a better future ahead.

Read this Blog in Russian

Opening day for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge on October 23, 2018.

On October 24, 2018 the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge was opened to the public. This 34-mile long bridge-tunnel system, consisting of a series of three cable-stayed bridges, an undersea tunnel, and four artificial islands is currently the longest open-sea crossing on earth.

Started in 2009, the Hong Kong Zhuhai Macao Bridge cost $18.8 billion and is designed to last 120 years. The bridge also comes with a few unusual hi-tech capabilities to monitor drivers:

• It’s designed to survive an 8.0 earthquake and a collision with a super cargo ship
• It will slash the drive time from Hong Kong and Zhuhai from 3 hours to just 30 minutes
• As drivers cross the bridge their heart rate and blood pressure will be monitored. This information is sent to the bridge’s command center
• If a driver yawns more than three times in 20 seconds, the ‘yawn cam’ will raise an alert
• The entire bridge-tunnel system will soon have 5G capabilities

This nine-year construction project not only raises the bar of human capabilities, it sets the stage for a series of even more challenging megaprojects that will both redefine humanity and the world as we know it.

Why Megaprojects?

Gone are the days where people were impressed by projects costing $50-$100 million. We are witnessing an explosion in the number of $1 billion+ projects with some, like the Qiddiya, Al-Ula, Neom, and the Red Sea Projects in Saudi Arabia, likely to exceed $1 trillion.

But the ones we hear about today are merely scratching the surface of tomorrow’s super megaprojects and the massive undertakings that will happen over the coming decades.

There are several important reasons why this is happening.

1. Megacities

As people relocate from rural to urban communities and population clusters grow, so does the demand for major infrastructure improvements to help manage the traffic, water, sewage, power, and living strains of these growing economies. Leaders of megacities will be exercising their newfound clout in unusual ways.

2. Economic Growth

Wages paid to workers building infrastructure projects will improve the local economy to a point where other megaprojects become viable.

3. Global Awareness

More than ever, countries are competing with other countries to stand out. As global awareness improves, so does the desire to standout and impress the rest of the world. Megaprojects become a source of national pride and a status symbol for emerging economies.

4. Fear of Technological Unemployment

Our growing worries of jobs being automated out of existence are causing elected officials to search for new jobs, and megaprojects will rise in priority as a potential source of work for the future unemployed.

5. Self-Collateralization

Megaprojects have a way of collateralizing themselves through the sheer size and impact of the project. Even though many will be based on unprovable claims and flawed accounting, the spinoff economies alone will create an overpowering momentum to push them across the finish line.

The growing list of megaprojects include everything from tunnels, bridges, dams, highways, airports, hospitals, skyscrapers, floating cities, wind farms, offshore oil and gas rigs, aluminum smelters, global communications systems, aerospace missions, particle accelerators, entire new cities, and much more.

In spite of their challenges, I’ve been focusing my attention on four major bridge-tunnel projects that will redefine humanity over the coming decades.

Bridges vs. Tunnels

For many decades, infrastructure proponents have argued the relative advantage/disadvantages of tunnels and bridges or a combination of both.

While bridges look far more impressive than tunnels, they pose a number of challenges when it comes to ships passing underneath, weather-related issues, and ongoing maintenance and repair issues.

Tunnels tend to be more expensive to build and operate, but will experience far less deterioration over time. While a 1,000-year tunnel is conceivable, a 1,000-year bridge is not.

Highway vs. Railroad vs. Tube Transportation

One key decision point with each of these bridge-tunnel projects will be whether to design it strictly for cars and trucks, trains, or whether it should also include provisions for future forms of Hyperloop-style tube-transportation.

As an example, the Channel Tunnel between Great Britain and France is only designed to accommodate a passenger train between the two countries. This means no cars or trucks, no cargo, and no provision for a potentially much faster tube-train.

These will be critical decision points moving forward. Each project below will have radically different use cases and traffic demands, and no easy answers.

Four massive bridge-tunnel projects will cause the world to connect in ways never before imaginable.

Four World Changing Bridge-Tunnel Projects

Our capabilities are growing. Every technological advance is giving us new capabilities with the ability to accomplish many times what we could even ten years ago.

For this reason, super engineering feats like I’m describing here are within grasp.

Even though there are many more bridge-tunnel projects that will have a significant effect, in my opinion, these are the four that will have the greatest impact on people everywhere in the world.

A bridge-tunnel across the Bering Strait is a challenging engineering fete in a cold unforgiving environment.

1. Bering Strait Crossing

Building a bridge-tunnel system across the Bering Strait will effectively create a ground transportation link between North America and Asia. While there are a huge number of obstacles around designing, engineering, and paying for it, the benefits will also be enormous.

The most likely design will involve a bridge-tunnel system crossing the relatively shallow Bering Strait between the Chukotka Peninsula in Russia and the Seward Peninsula in Alaska.

With the two Diomede Islands halfway between the peninsulas, the Bering Strait could be spanned by a bridge/tunnel network with one long 25 mile bridge connecting Alaska and the Diomede Islands, and a tunnel connecting the Diomede Islands with Russia.

History – The idea of crossing the Bering Strait was first envisioned in 1890 by William Gilpin, first governor of the Colorado Territory. He proposed a “Cosmopolitan Railway” that he imagined would link the entire world through a series of railways.

Two years later, Joseph Strauss, who went on to design over 400 bridges and was the lead Project Engineer on the Golden Gate Bridge, wrote his senior thesis about a Bering Strait railroad bridge. The project was presented to the government of the Russian Empire, but it was rejected.

In 1905, Russian Czar Nicholas II approved a railroad bridge-tunnel project, but everything fell apart with WWI and the Russian Revolution.

Several other proposals have arisen in recent years, and according to a report in the Beijing Times in May 2014, Chinese transportation experts were proposing to build a 6,213 mile-long high-speed rail line from Manchuria to the United States, a project that would include a tunnel under the Bering Strait and connect China and Russia to the United States and Canada.

Obstacles – The Russian side of the Strait, in particular, is severely lacking in infrastructure. No railroads exist for over 2,000 miles in any direction from the strait, and the closest unpaved road is 1,200 miles away. However, in 2008, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin approved the plan to build a railroad to the Bering Strait area, as a part of a 2030 development plan.

On the American side, Alaska is a vast state that also has very few roads. It’s estimated another 750 miles of highway would need to be built. The closest city of any significance is Nome, which is about 100 miles away. Currently there is no ground transportation between Nome and the other cities in Alaska. Overall cost estimates range from $65-$100 billion.

The Darien Gap represents the missing piece of the Pan-American Highway.

2. Darien Gap

In 1937 the countries in North and South America signed the Convention on the Pan-American Highway, an agreement to build a highway system connecting all of its member countries. Over the next couple decades, an elaborate highway system was built throughout both continents except for a 60-mile stretch connecting Panama to Columbia. This has become known as the Darien Gap.

The Pan-American Highway now consists of over 19,000 miles of roads ranging from Prudhoe Bay in northern Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina on the southern tip of South America, with only one short piece missing in the middle.

The Darien Gap begins in Yaviza, Panama and ends in Turbo, Colombia roughly 66 miles away. A number of alternate routes through the ocean that bypass the mountains and swamps are also possible.

Obstacles: The Darien Gap is an environmentally sensitive area filled with treacherous jungles, virtually impassable mountains, impenetrable swamps, and unfriendly wildlife including poisonous snakes, man-eating cats, crocodiles, caimans, biting ants, and venomous spiders. The worst of all are the clouds of mosquitoes carrying everything from malaria to dengue fever.

Many government officials are also concerned about opening a channel for drug traffickers between North and South America.

Several routes have been considered for the Japan-Korea bridge-tunnel.

3. Japan-Korea Undersea Crossing

The Japan–Korea Undersea Crossing is a proposed bridge-tunnel project to connect Japan with South Korea via an undersea tunnel passing over-under the Korea Strait using the islands of Iki and Tsushima.

The distance along this route is roughly 80 miles at its narrowest point, but the latest proposal is to construct 120-mile bridge-tunnel.

The first conversations about building this kind of infrastructure started in 1917, a little over 100 years ago. Since then a number of discussions have taken place with many high-ranking officials in both Japan and Korea expressing an interest in making it happen.

Obstacles: While each of these four bridge-tunnel project has its own challenges; this one is by far the longest distance. As new studies arise, cost and benefit projections raise a host of new arguments for and against the project. As some cost estimates now show it exceeding $90 billion, some doubt the wisdom of it ever paying for itself.

While the image shows what looks like an easy span to cross, the actual construction of a bridge-tunnel across the Strait of Gibraltar will require extremely sophisticated engineering.

4. Strait of Gibraltar Crossing

The Strait of Gibraltar is the narrow waterway separating Europe from Africa, a distance of roughly 9 miles. However, a number of geological issues make crossing this short stretch of ocean a very complicated engineering, design, and physics challenge.

In 1979 the governments of Spain and Morocco appointed a joint committee to investigate the feasibility of linking the two continents that resulted in a much larger Euromed Transport project.

Over the years a number of tunneling projects have been proposed, and governments in both Africa and Europe would love to see it happen. But so far no one has come up with a complete plan for dealing with all of the extreme engineering challenges and the necessary funding.

Obstacles: As proposed, the tunnel would be 25 miles long, roughly 1,000 feet underground, and take 15 years to complete. Cost estimates range from $10-25 billion.

Final Thoughts

Each of these projects has been in discussions for decades, but what has changed is our exponential growth in capabilities.

While things like this seemed extreme in the past, each new technology breakthrough makes difficult projects of the past seem infinitely more doable today.

Countries themselves are being judged by their willingness to tackle super difficult megaprojects, and the scientific prowess they can bring to the table.

My prediction is that construction on each of these projects will begin within the next decade, and the interconnectedness of the entire world will radically change as a result of it.

In June 2015, I was asked to be one of the featured speakers at the EDAILY 6th Annual World Strategy Forum along with Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales and Nobel Economist, Thomas Sargent. The theme of this event was entrepreneurship.

Even though South Korea received the highest possible ranking in the 2015 Bloomberg Innovation Index, the country is better defined as a “fast follower with great secondary innovations” rather than one that spawns “unicorn companies with primary innovations.”

In just a few short decades, this tiny country has gone from being dirt poor and technically primitive to one of the wealthiest and most technically advanced in the world. Framed around a super aggressive culture that permeates virtually every aspect of Korean life, the entire country seems determined to not only reach the top, but go far beyond what anyone else dreamed possible.

Now, as they approach their 10th anniversary, editors at the EDaily Forum have asked me to once again weigh in on the future of Korea.

Q1: In 2015, while attending EDAILY Strategy Forum (then World Strategy Forum), you predicted that North Korea’s barrier may fall due to an accidental cause. How would you define an accidental cause in this context? I believe I was referring to unanticipated or unexpected causes. An accidental cause would be things like disease or freak accident such as the malfunction of a nuclear weapon.

North Korea, in its present state, is of very little interest to the rest of the world. It has a tiny economy, poorly educated population, emotionally scarred people, and few assets to boast of. The only reason people around the world pay attention to it is because of a seemingly deranged leader making threats, launching missiles, and demonstrating a willingness to create mayhem and destruction just to prove a point.

Last June’s meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump, South Korean President Moon Jae-in, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore went a long way towards unmasking the “crazy man” behind the curtain.
Since North Korea’s conciliatory moves did not yield the anticipated softening of sanctions that Kim Jong Un hoped would happen, he’s effectively been reduced to a not-so-scary-guy throwing a tantrum. His recourse is to either become truly scary, bow to the demands of the U.S., or something else.

Traditional chess moves are not likely to unlock this stalemate.

Two wildcards at play are the U.S. elections in 2020 and Kim Jong Un getting a taste of the global spotlight and wanting to carve out a permanent place there.

The traditional democratic process leading up to the U.S. election is being replaced by a far more volatile, less civil “war room” approach to influencing elections. With global awareness rising, and news coverage instantaneous, we will be witnessing an entire new level of gamesmanship taking place.

While it was far easier to castigate Kim Jong Un when he was still the “evil overlord” behind the curtain, he can now be molded and remolded from bad guy to good guy back to bad guy to fit whatever narrative is needed at the moment.
At this point I can imagine literally hundreds of scenarios where North Korea becomes a pawn in a much larger game. Naturally, many big questions remain as to how and when will things change, and in what way?

The Arch of Reunification, the southern gateway to the city of Pyongyang.

Q2: In the past, you made the prediction that Korean reunification may come about in the near future. Do you still feel that this prediction holds true?

Even though I would put the probability of a German-like reunification at less than 50%, it’s still too early to say it won’t happen.

Keep in mind, there is a wide range of options as to how North Korea can reform and reunification is only one of the possibilities.

As an example, a new leader could make them a “friendly neighbor” like Australia and New Zealand, or they could become an “economic toy” for either the U.S. or China, or a global refugee camp for the UN, or a global dumping ground for rare earth mineral waste, or a religious colony for fanatical isolationists, or something we simply can’t imagine.
For these reasons, it’s important that South Korea takes a leadership role in deciding the fate of their fellow Koreans.

Q3: Negotiations between North Korea and the United States on the theme of ‘denuclearization and the lifting of sanctions’ are a prerequisite to the issue of the Korean reunification. On this front, no progress has been made since the failure of the second Hanoi Summit in April. Is your prediction about Korean reunification still valid under the current circumstances? If so, on what grounds is it still valid?

The true value of a prediction is that it forces people to think deeply about a situation in the future and draw their own conclusions. Naturally, our understanding of the future changes over time, so I’m glad you’re asking these questions.

Issues like the ‘denuclearization and the lifting of sanctions’ tend to be more background noise when the decision makers are asking far more self-serving questions like “what’s in it for me?”

While we hear terms like “doing things for the greater good” and “helping the underprivileged” bandied about, there’s always another agenda at play. Keep in mind, just as every movie needs a “bad guy” to make it more interesting, every world leader needs an opposing “bad guy” to make them look good.

When it comes to dictators being removed from office, virtually none have lived to talk about it. There may be a small opening for Kim Jong Un to make the transition from “evil dictator” to “global peace advocate,” where he willingly steps down, and is offered a key position at the UN, lives on his own island with plenty of money, and spends his time trying to resolve global conflicts, but that may be a stretch. And there may not be enough forgiveness in the world for that to happen.

We currently have no one who has made the transition from being the “face of evil” to the “face of global hope and inspiration.” But there’s always a first time.

The other thing to consider with reunification will be what to do with the people who have been in leadership positions in North Korea. Many have been operating like Mafia bosses with little regard for human life. People like this will have great difficulty assimilating into a more peaceful culture.

Q4: The main agenda of EDAILY Strategy Forum, on its 10th anniversary this year, is the diagnosis on the unstable political climate surrounding the Korean peninsula and the search for a political and economic answer.

What is your prediction on the regional situation of Northeast Asia with a particular focus on Korea, and what would you say are the necessary preparations for the future?

From my outsider perspective, my sense is that Korea’s political climate will begin to stabilize somewhat after the U.S. elections in November 2020. However, there are several “elements of change” that may cause the instability to continue.

Korea’s biggest challenge over the coming years will be its super low birthrate. While the problem is currently being masked by people migrating from rural parts of the country into the big cities, declining numbers of school kids, college students, and entry-level employees will soon transition into massive shifts in the supply and demand equation. This will hit home especially hard with declining valuations of real estate.

Based on current birth rates, the last Korean will be born in 2300 when the entire population of the country will be less than 50,000.

Naturally, major changes to the immigration policy will help, but low birthrate problems are also unfolding in many other Asian countries like Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Russia, and China.

When it comes to other issues, we’re only scratching the surface of problems with deepfakes.  Deepfakes use artificial intelligence to mimic people’s faces and voices. This allows hackers to make politicians and celebrities appear like they are saying things that they’re not, in a manner that is indistinguishable from reality.

Our greatest danger in society has always been devious people, but with AI, 5G, and a plethora of emerging technologies that can essentially turbocharge the acts of underhanded people, anyone wishing to make someone look bad, whether it’s a company, a country, religious group, a race of people, or a specific community, can do so in highly deceptive ways.

Q5: In the past, you mentioned that the use of drones will allow for an influx of information into North Korea, bringing forth Korean reunification. But drone technology has been in use for a long time, and recurring predictions of commercial drone use in logistics and transportation are made difficult in the face of regulation. If this trend of regulation continues, do you feel that North Korea will be able to keep itself shielded from the wave of change?

The people of North Korea are poised for a shift in global awareness with estimates as high as 40% using smartphones. While they have very limited usefulness in their present state, it’s only a matter of time before hackers figure out ways to pierce the national cloak of secrecy.

As an example, several companies have announced plans to launch satellite networks to basically create a global Wi-Fi network.

In 2015, a proposal from Samsung outlined a 4,600-satellite constellation orbiting at 1,400 kilometers (900 miles) that could provide a zettabyte per month capacity worldwide, an equivalent of 200 gigabyte per month for 5 billion users of Internet data.

Starlink is a SpaceX satellite constellation development project based in Redmond, Washington. They have announced plans to launch 12,000 micro satellites starting in 2019. Similar proposals have come from Amazon, Telesat, and OneWeb.
This type of technology will literally put every North Korean smartphone user just one hacker app away from a peeling back of the national cloak of secrecy.

I find it confusing that anyone would want to be the leader of a zombie nation-state, and indeed Kim Jong Un has made a number of tiny moves to “open the window” to the outside world. But it may happen faster than he planned.

Much like water that always flows to the lowest point, telecom signals will find a way to infiltrate the creaky dome of silence North Korea is trying to maintain.

Q5-1: What influence do you think the 4th Industrial Revolution will have on the political climate surrounding the Korean peninsula? Please consider both good and bad.

As we become more dependent on technology, we create more breaking points. That means more things can go wrong.
With more decision points to contend with, we naturally have to automate some of them to make our lives more manageable.

So we’ve gotten good at automating things like the temperatures in our houses, our lighting, humidity, background music, coffee pots, and security systems.

Now we’re attempting to automate other areas of our lives such as the cars that drive us, how packages get delivered, who we date, and how and what we receive as news.

The next step will be to automate things like project management, mediation processes, legislative decisions, and even court rulings.

However, it’s important that we still continue to struggle with these decisions. As AI enters more and more of our democratic processes, we run the risk of overlooking key problem areas and their unintended consequences. AI should remain a tool, and not become a governing mandate.

Korean manufacturing is struggling.

Q6: With the rapid advancement in various technologies, such as AI and 5G networks, which represent the 4th Industrial Revolution, the industrial landscape itself is changing. With this change, so too is the landscape of jobs and employment shifting.

Considering that manufacturing is still the foundation of the Korean economy, how would you say that future jobs in Korea are likely to be affected?

Korean manufacturing has grown quickly since the 1960s, spurred in part by the wig industry that was driven by African-American consumers in the U.S.

In 1965, Korean wig makers joined together and convinced their government to outlaw the export of raw hair. This ban meant that other manufacturers could only buy pre-made wigs and extensions. In other words, Korean hair could only be manufactured in Korea. Six months later, the United States government created a ban on any wigs that contains hair from China, and Korean wigs began to dominate the global marketplace.

This “taste for being a global player” quickly transitioned into other industries. Focused initially on wigs, textiles, and footwear, Korean manufacturing moved into steel, heavy equipment, ships, and petrochemicals in the 1970s, and electronics and automobiles in the 1980s.

During this time, Korean businesses excelled at the “fast follower” approach where they would spot a promising but proven industry, and quickly learn to dominate that industry. However, with the rate of change increasing, being a fast follower is no longer very effective because other countries are learning to do the same thing, but with far cheaper labor.
Being a trailblazer focused on the cutting edge of technology is not a comfortable position for most people, especially when there’s no “cutting edge culture” to support it.

Startup entrepreneurs that immerse themselves in bleeding edge technology tend to lead a risky life marked with an ongoing series of failures. This lifestyle is not for the faint of heart.

Being a “first mover” is not something that can be taught in college or traditional schools because it involves a level of introspection, what some call a “gut check,” to sense whether they’re on the right track.

This is similar to shifting from textbook fighting to street fighting, where people make up the rules as they go.
While there are still several niches where Korea can excel as a “fast follower,” industries evolving at a somewhat slower pace, the country would be far better served to immerse itself into startup cultures and celebrate its failures as well as its victories.

To be sure, Korea will still be manufacturing things 20, 30, and even 50 years from now, but it probably won’t be the same reliable source of jobs and income until it somehow manages to engrain first mover thinking into its cultural DNA.

Q7: You predicted that two billion jobs will disappear by 2030, but also that new opportunities will arise. But some speculate that the number (or quality) of new jobs will be less than the jobs that will disappear, leading to the overall reduction in job opportunities with the 4th Industrial Revolution. What is your view on this matter?

Counter to what I predicted earlier, we are automating tasks out of existence, not entire jobs.

Twenty years from now we will still have teachers, doctors, nurses, and lawyers, but the work they do will require vastly different tools. So it begs the question, is this the same job?

Over the past 120 years, cars have been designed around the operational side of the vehicle, primarily driving. As car dealerships began to spring up around the world, the relationship between the buyer and salesman turned cars into a status symbol, and design features and the overall appearance of the car quickly rose in importance.

Today, however, the entire automobile industry is in the midst of a major transition. As a mature industry that touches the lives of billions of people around the planet, changing from driver to no-driver vehicles will cause massive ripple effects to sub-industries, service industries, and even tangential support industries that have no direct connections to any part of the automotive world.

Car ownership will change. Land use policies will change. The way cars are sold, services, cleaned, paid for, and maintained will also change.

Virtually every job related to the automotive industry will be affected in some way. Parking lots, garages, traffic cops, traffic courts, gas stations, tire shops, emissions testing, drivers licenses, traffic cones, weigh stations, guardrails, stoplights, and DUIs will all begin to disappear.

With very few actual use cases to guide our thinking, car designers are doing their best to guess at how people will interact with the cars, vans, trucks, and buses of the future.

To make matters even more challenging, the way people interact with the cars of the future will continually change along with the changing ratio of drivers-vs-no-drivers on the road.

As the number of driverless vehicles reach 5%, 10%, 20%, and 50% we will begin to see a number of usability shifts take place, as both comfort and convenience improve and as we develop higher levels of trust in both the vehicles and the overall system.

However, when it comes to jobs, we will still have plenty of work for the lower skilled workers. AI will require monitoring, drones will require overseers, and IoT devices will require checkers, replacers, testers, cleaners, inspectors, maintenance people, trainers, customer relations, and quality control.

It sounds easy to automate a job out of existence but it’s not. In the past, the onus of a clean vehicle has always rested on the shoulders of the driver. However, no driver means no one to clean the vehicle.

Designing a self-cleaning car is a far different challenge than designing a self-driving car.

It sounds easy to have robotic arms pop out of the floor that will quickly vacuum, wipe down, and disinfect all the surfaces. However, this is an extremely complicated set of tasks.

What if the departing passengers left something behind? Perhaps it’s a purse, phone, or set of keys. More likely it will be a half drunk bottle of water, candy wrapper, or piece of trash. How does the robot know if the item is valuable or not, and how will it respond to each new situation?

None of these are insignificant issues, and the artificial intelligence incorporated into an operational system like this will take years to perfect.

Q8: You have recently been appointed as the adviser at a local M&A platform company that specializes in blockchain technology. In Korea, due to the limited application in cryptocurrency, blockchain technology has been identified as a source of speculation and is subsequently not received well in the public’s eye.

What was behind your decision to accept this advising role, and how do you view the future potential of blockchain technology in Korea?

I always laugh when I’m reminded that there is a “very fine line between visionaries and fools.” Indeed there is!
Both blockchain and cryptocurrency are in the early formative years of development, but I see them as true game changing technologies over the coming decades.

Keep in mind the cars we drive today have been in development for the past 120 years. It’s taken that long to get to cars this good.

Early cars were referred to as the “toys of rich people” and “keep them out of my town because they scare my horses.”
With every new technology we have to work our way through the “crappy stages” before we get to the good stuff. And most of our emerging technology today is pretty crude, including blockchain and cryptocurrency.

That said, I have taken on several advisory roles around the world because each one opens a window into the growth of an entirely new industry.

GBC, the global M&A platform based on blockchain you referred to, has all the makings of becoming a world-class company competing on the global stage.

I view this as an exciting new business and a learning opportunity to help us understand the ramifications stemming from next generation mergers and acquisitions.

Korean steel processing faces new forms of competition.

Q9: The Korean economy faces a much gloomier outlook compared to the last time you visited the ‘6th EDAILY Strategy Forum (then World Strategy Forum)’ in 2015.

Thanks to the semiconductor boom from 2016 to 2017, the Korean GNI surpassed the $30,000 mark. However, the recent downturn in semiconductor business is casting a long shadow on domestic economy forecasts.

Of the various businesses boasting a promising future that you have pointed out, what industry should Korea focus on, given the circumstances?

Korea is a country that is rich with talent, and very good at spotting, and creating, new trends.

While the semiconductor industry has been a solid business in the past, with chip designs coming from foreign engineering firms, and the manufacturing equipment imported from Germany and Japan, it was only a matter of time before competition would arise from countries with lower cost labor.

However, the coming decade will be filled with dozens, even hundreds, of emerging technologies like synthetic biology, CRISPR, quantum computing, mixed reality, smart blockchain, artificial embryos, search engines for the physical world, neural mesh networks, zero-carbon natural gas, cloaking tech, smart privacy, borophene, real time language translation, dynamic architecture, genetic-based robotics, neuromorphic computing, and much more.

Since each of these embryonic technologies will require years of research and study, and the people working in the field will have enormous sway over its adoption curve, it becomes important for Korea to focus on several tech areas that mesh well with its existing talent base.

It’s also important to develop a strong entrepreneurial culture willing to test out derivative technologies that is well funded, empowered, and willing to take risks.

Q10: You have been giving lectures all around the world. What is the unique characteristic of EDAILY forum? In what direction should it be improved for the future?

EDAILY has done a terrific job of staying on the cutting edge of the future, however the future is a relentless beast and customer expectations are constantly changing.

One way I think about the future of news is that it will be interactive, where we have an ongoing conversation about the news throughout the day. Over time, it will learn what topics we’re interested in and how we like them presented.

It will even allow us to change the personality of the newscaster from famous people we’ve come to admire to personalities that reflect a certain outlook. One day you may want a more deep thinking introspective personality and the next you may want one that is more cheerful, humorous, female, male, conservative, progressive, or something else.

Personality packages will be downloadable and we can download as many as we’d like.

Naturally there will be no one-size-fits-all formula for reporting the news, but by making it more interactive and hyper-individualized, it will come across as far more relevant to those who are invested in it.

South Korea, finding new ways to connect.

Final Thoughts

For me, it was Korea. Great food, great passion, and an unwavering determination to be the best of the best. More than virtually any other culture, they spend their time thinking and planning for the future.

But the future is never a destination, always a journey. Even with significant challenges ahead, the next chapter for this great nation will prove to be even more exciting than the last.

Great communities are founded on great ideas. At the same time, our most admired communities become a magnet, attracting the brightest minds. The relational effect is clear: Bright minds make a community great, and great communities attract bright minds.

In the future, communities will be designed around ways to stimulate new ideas using such things as creative environments, imagination sparkers, and inspirational architecture.

They will also be designed around new ways for people to meet people. Future communities will be judged by their vibrancy, their interconnectedness, and their fluid structures for causing positive human collisions.

The city of the future will form around multiple dimensions of human connectedness, the interfaces created between people and their surrounding community. A well-connected community will be a vibrant community where ideas are exchanged, energies are exchanged, and people become extremely loyal to the networks that connect them to the rest of the world.

While it is now easy to communicate with people all over the world, we can only physically interact with people and places locally.

For this reason, I’d like to step you through seven new developments that will add to our overall connectedness. So in addition to things like shopping malls, schools, hospitals, parks, concert venues, theaters, recreation areas, museums, and libraries that define our cities today, we are on the edge of raising the bar for how we define the nature of community.

Holographic overlays will help simplify the gameplay for the audiences.

1. E-Sports Arenas

Recently, Philadelphia announced plans for a 65,000-square-foot Fusion Arena, an electronic gaming arena that will host home games for the Philadelphia Fusion. They are a professional nine-person team in the newly formed 20-team Overwatch League.

This announcement followed similar press releases for Santa Ana, CA; Arlington, TX; Las Vegas, NV; Seoul, Korea; Burbank, CA; and Honolulu, HI.

It’s estimated that the eSports audience will grow to nearly 600 million gamers in 2020 with revenues exceeding $1.3 billion

Look for hundreds of this type of eSports arena to pop up over the next decade beginning in Asia, Europe, and North America.

Once tournaments get more established, I would expect much larger stadium size venues to appear, with some seating football and soccer-size crowds of 80K-100K.

Mini airports will soon become a common feature in most cities.

2. Mini Airports

When flying drones started entering our consciousness a few years ago, a number of drone pioneers focused their attention on vehicles big enough to transport people.

Today, following the maiden voyage of the first Volocopter flight in Dubai, September of 2017, several companies have announced their intentions to compete in the soon-to-emerge drone taxi industry.

No one disagrees with the vast number of problems that will need to be solved before it becomes a staple of our transportation mix; yet, the overwhelming allure of this prospect has attracted a growing number of our best and brightest seeking to make a name for themselves in an industry where the sky is literally the limit.

In just a few years air taxis will be common in most major cities and along with them will come a new kind of infrastructure – mini airports.

During the first stage of development, planners and entrepreneurs will carve out a number of helipads in addition to ground-based landing pads around cities. These will most likely be small sections of existing parking lots.

As traffic grows, and the number of landing and departures grows from tens to hundreds a day, single landing pads will grow into multiple pads with waiting areas.

Over time, crude landing areas will evolve into sophisticated terminals for managing passengers as well as the street-level and air traffic surrounding each of these mini airports.

The speed of this evolution will largely depend on pricing. With private planes still costing many times the cost of a first class ticket, that option has never made its way into mainstream consciousness. If flying drones can somehow lower the cost to 2-3 times an Uber drive across town, it will grow quickly.

The character of a community will be defined by the unique tournaments it hosts

3. Tournament Centers

Somewhere in between convention centers, rec centers, and sporting arenas is new type of facility designed around competitions.

Most cities host a number of tournaments each year ranging from athletic competitions like softball and basketball tournaments to more intellectual endeavors such as chess club tournaments, spelling bees, or debate forums.

The complete range of contests that take place within a city each year can be truly impressive, and the overall economic impact of these ventures has not been overlooked. From an economic standpoint, some cultural events can make or break a city budget.

But more than the underlying economics of tournaments are the fluid social environments that are evolving around us. With populations becoming more transient, people want to be able to “plug in” wherever they happen to be and this need will begin to coalesce around a “place” specifically designed for tournaments.

In much the same way large conventions and group meetings have been formalized with the construction of convention centers, and recreational activities coalescing around rec centers, a new breed of facilities designed around contests and competitions will emerge – tournament centers.

Tournament Centers will be developed using various configurations to draw attention to the city and its cultural identity. A city along a river may include facilities for managing fishing competitions, while a city in the mountains may have provisions for mountain climbing competitions.

Yet, most of the physical structures will be designed around easily configurable open spaces, and a resident team of tournament designers who will earn their stripes by organizing a complete year around assortment of competitions.

Tournaments will range from volleyball to badminton, from bridge to poker, from hot air balloons to marathons, and from scrabble to robotics. The variety of options will only be limited by a community’s imagination.

Since each contest will have its own group of loyalists, fan clubs, and organizational dynamics, each event will involve a communication structure that ties directly into the group’s core user community.

From an entertainment standpoint, it will be easy to find out about all of the upcoming tournaments taking place. For visitors, it will be an easy entry point to become familiar with a local culture.

How easy is it for you to sponsor a memorial for a loved one in your city?

4. Memorial Gardens

Great cities in history were known for their grand parks with their flowing masterpieces of floral design. But today’s parks are often little more than freshly cut grass and trimmed trees, with a playground thrown into one corner for the kids.

For most cities, parks have deteriorated into rubber stamped open space, boiled down to the bare essentials of grass, trees, sidewalks, playgrounds, and benches – nothing memorable, with little to inspire the mind.

With a growing resentment towards sameness, and a move towards personalization and hyper-individuality, perhaps a better approach is the idea of memorial gardens where the community decides on a particular theme and becomes integrally involved in creating its own distinctive features.

Adding to the possibilities is a way for people to leave memorials for their loved ones. Rather than spending money on a tombstone in a cemetery that few people ever see, the money could be better spent on a statue, fountain, park bench, bridge, fountain, sculpture, or fire pit with a memorial plaque.

Since a growing number of people are choosing cremation over caskets, they are still looking for a “place” to visit their loved ones. By adding a stylish memorial plaque, every new feature would be paid for by the sponsoring entity or individuals.

Memorial gardens will range from active to passive on the community involvement scale, but with each new development, the host city will set into motion a long-range plan for people to rally around.

With their numbers exploding, new types of coworking will emerge for freelance project teams

5. Freelancer Colonies

As a next-generation type of coworking facility, freelancer colonies are an evolving organizational structure designed around matching talent with pending work projects. With a growing number of “gig workers” looking for their next project, freelancer colonies become a “place” where new projects are continually percolating.

Each freelancer colony will be formed around one or more project managers, and a staff that is focused on landing new projects. As new projects take shape, managers will reach out to their trusted networks of free agents to tackle the critical components of each undertaking.

Colonies will develop their own standard operating procedures with consistent agreements, payment processes, legal structures, management software, and methods for resolving disputes. Over time they will be rated on their ability to complete tasks with specific ratings on efficiency, quality of work, and how well they treat the talent.

The driving forces behind freelancer colonies are more than the fact that it is a good idea. Rather, it is being driven by a combination of technology, emerging culture, and governmental systems that make it the logical next step in the evolution of work.

Most will be organized around a topical area best suited for the talent base of their core team. As an example, a team of photonics engineers will attract projects best suited for that kind of talent. Likewise, a working group of programmers specializing in computer gaming applications will serve as a magnet for new gaming projects.

In some instances, large corporations will launch their own freelancer colonies as a way to expand capability without adding to their headcount. Staffed with a few project managers, the company will use the colony as a proving ground for experimental assignments best performed outside of the cultural bounds of existing workflow.

Companies are always looking for ways to circumvent the escalating costs of adding staff, and project-based work done in freelancer colonies becomes a logical option.

With mobile retail, every day brings a new set of vendors and a new experience.

6. Driverless Mobile Mall Shops

The idea of mobile mall shops started when I was thinking about rural communities. In most small towns the customer base is too low to warrant a full-time presence and permanent storefront. But a one-day-a-week traveling shop in five or six communities might be a perfect arrangement.

For this reason, it’s not a stretch to envision a new form of shopping center that caters to mobile businesses. With a stationary common area at its core, the mobile mall will be a central gathering place where a variety of businesses can “doc,” “plug-in,” and set up shop.

RVs, trucks, vans, and other large vehicles can be converted into traveling dental offices, tax preparation centers, chiropractic clinics, and retail storefronts. As they pull into place, merchandise and service areas will expand into a common area creating an “open bazaar” feel for the shoppers.

Most of the traveling storefronts will be one or two person businesses, nomadically traveling from city to city on their daily business adventure. Others will work a regular circuit, showing up on the same day each week, building a loyal customer base.

When your shopping experience is defined around fine craftsmanship.

7. Maker Districts

With so many retail stores closing, consumers are left with fewer options for out-of-the-home forms of entertainment as well as a pent-up demand for meaningful experiences. This collision course of trends is creating the perfect storm for a new kind of retail experience – Maker Districts.

Walking through an active, vibrant shopping district where people are baking bread, spinning pottery, brewing beer, making jewelry, cutting and designing stained glass, decorating cakes, molding with pewter, and sculpting with clay, will give every visitor their own one-of-a-kind experience.

In addition to the sights and smells, having musicians performing mood-stirring music will help form a different ambiance, character, and vibe with every visit.

In this environment, creative people are both the entertainment and the proprietors of the shops.

A maker district can best be described as a cross between an artist colony, farmers market, woodworking shop, music festival, bakery, brewpub, and brainstorming session all happening in the same space. It’s all that and more.

Here’s why I see Maker Districts entering your lives in a big way.

With online storefronts flourishing, the need to run down to the local store and pick something up has been replaced with a few clicks of the mouse and a delivery guy knocking on your door a couple hours later.

But consumers are getting restless. As mind numbing as it might have been to run to the store and pick up a bag of flour, there was always the chance of running into someone unexpectedly.

Coffee shops have largely replaced retail stores as the next best place to hang out. Most are busy, noisy places, but fresh coffee is constantly being brewed and people love to feel like they’re part of the maker experience.

The maker experience comes in many different forms, most of which are on the opposite end of the spectrum from coffee.

There are several reasons why Maker Districts are on the verge of turning traditional retail on it’s head.

First, people love to watch things being made. Every source of creation is also the source of inspiration.

Second, small mom and pop businesses have a vested interest in building their community. No, they probably aren’t the most sophisticated, tech savvy business people, but artisan products don’t need to compete on price, and they only need to earn enough for a comfortable lifestyle. These are people that are doing what they love, not changing the world.

Finally, from a real estate standpoint, the time it takes to refill an empty big box store with a Maker District can be a fraction of the time it takes to bring in another large-scale retailer. Cities will love having sales tax revenues replaced quickly and neighbors will love being part of the new experience.

Final Thoughts

The role of the city is changing. While most cities are focused on being “smarter,” “greener,” better connected, and having the most iconic architecture, few are paying attention to “what’s missing.”

Each new dimension of community connectedness is adding to the overall human experience.

Even though much of today’s technology is giving us super-human abilities and virtually everyone can now think-faster, know-faster, and do-faster than ever before, every new technology requires skills, talents, and understandings that are hard to quantify.

A fully engaged community, with participatory openings, endless networking occasions, and entirely new paths for moving dreams to reality will open the doors to new opportunities that have yet to be imagined.

The people of the world have an “unfinishable mandate” to continually stretch, grow, propagate, and master not only the world around us, but also the entire universe. And it all begins with rethinking our cities.

Once again, I’d love to hear your thoughts.