Year: 2022

FOOD COMPANIES have played fast and free with society's food ever since Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. We are eating chickens at five weeks after battery farming, and we have been completely seduced by the toxic mix of fat, sugar and salt. We were switched to hydrogenated margarine from butter, to skimmed milk from whole milk. Flimsy nutritional studies have flip-flopped annually to support the latest processed trends. This has been a sad history of profits over health, sham over transparency. Time to get it right. View in LinkedIn

MCKINSEY identified several technologies that can reach 20-30 Bn in India by 2025. The Roosevelt Island initiative in NYC by mayor Bloomberg also bet on a basket of technologies to create a 2 Bn USD technology hub to generate buckets of future taxes and near-term construction jobs. The Barcelona KEY initiative is a similar initiative, set atop a 13 year massive investment on the Knowledge Revolution in Catalonia. The EU has been similar influenced to spend a large amount of cash on technology innovation to grow itself out of the Crisis. All these are bets on science and technology. http://m.economictimes.com/articleshow/20755956.cms View in LinkedIn

THERAPEUTIC VACCINES arrived with the vaccine against cervical cancer, Gardasil, a landmark approval. And there are vaccines in trials against many more diseases. Traditionally, vaccines were only against infectious diseases. But now they are being developed to train the body's immune system to watch for pathologic changes of the host's own body and mount an immune attack to destroy it. DNA vaccines can do this both with T cells and antibodies, and will be doubly powerful. Very exciting development a long time in the making. http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE95P14Y20130626?irpc=932 View in LinkedIn

JAPAN has a very unique culture and history, and according to this interesting article, they combine with the language to make Japanese leaders have a poor grasp of marketing as we know it in the West. An insightful read. http://m.adage.com/article?articleSection=guestcolumnists&articleSectionName=GuestColumnists&articleid=http%3A%2F%2Fadage.com%2Fcolumns%2Fpost%3Farticle_id%3D242775 View in LinkedIn

MISSION ABD VISION statements: a must read! http://lnkd.in/v_V2hP View in LinkedIn

SAUDI ARABIA is another culture investing heavily in innovation and entrepreneurship, cognizant that the wealth of oil has a finite life and that they need to build a sustainable alternative. The National Policy for Technology Incubation in Saudi envisages building 80 incubators creating 2,000 businesses and 19,000 jobs by 2025 (BADIR Program at Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology). View in LinkedIn

BARCELONA has no shortages of people who think big, and are tackling bold initiatives. I have lived in many places, but for a small city, it punches way above its weight. Like any place, of course, there is an old core of side-liners, Monday Morning Quarterbacks, and pessimists. But the sheer energy and vision of the movers and shakers is daunting. I sat in a brainstorming session today for one of these big projects, and we turned to selecting a site. Without hesitation, a number of buildings were selected, as candidates for public donations. Barcelona will be an innovation mega center. View in LinkedIn

SOME DREAMERS change the world. I recently met a man who was passionate about the big questions of the future. He was only interested in questions that would improve the lives of at least 1 billion people. How will you make fresh water to quench the planet? Can electricity be delivered wirelessly? Can we make a school for politicians? He was restless, passionate, controversial, refreshing. Impatient, bold, eager for a better planet. A remarkable encounter. View in LinkedIn

SCALE MATTERS for macro changes such as job creation, or turning round stalled economies affected by the Crisis. Timing also matters. The Great Depression in the US harnessed millions of unemployed people through President FD Roosevelt's WPA Program (The New Deal) that gave unemployed people public works jobs. 8 million jobs were created for 1.4 Bn USD (1935) per year. This massive and timely initiative was effective. In 8 years unemployment went from 20% to 2%. WW II caused a second and more massive jump in government spending, and effectively ended the Great Depression. Timing and scale. View in LinkedIn

FDA cracks down on illegal online pharmacies run by organized crime. View in LinkedIn