Thinklog Wargafikir

photo: oneeighty.co.nz Often, technology startups have trouble scaling up to profitable business venture from pilot scale. Majority of Tech startup failed at this stage. This is the phase often dubbed  the valley of death phase due to the very high risk in the venture. In the US, this phase is bridged by bold venture capitalists who embraced the risks while prospecting very high potential returns. In Malaysia normally the funding in this phase are covered by grants from government instead of the venture capitalists. Unfortunately this come with  problems  that results in less than optimum outcome. The problem is that the grant and soft loan from government does not help in terms of business viability and vitality that venture capitalists would otherwise lend. They don’t necesarily come with the resources with business acumen and tenacity needed to be injected into the new startups. They are rather like cushions and crutches that does not really prepare the startups for the business wor

An email piece send to colleagues 12/6/2018 Renewable Natural raw materials for Manufacturing Consumer Products - Towards Industry 6.0 (There are already several people coined Industry 6.0) but with conflicting visions. I am more keen towards positioning it with the one that identify sustainability and renewable materials) Sustainable production and consumption often cites the cradle to cradle approach, that is the natural resources used for consumption will eventually be recycled back to be reproduced. However with most modern materials, the process of recycling or rebirth of raw materials often involved  activities that consume energy, produce emissions and impact environment. For example, to recycle plastic, there need to be collection, sorting, pre-treatment, melting, reconditioning and manufacturing. All these require energy consumption. To recycle steel would require almost as much energy as had we produced it freshly from excavated ores. The use of naturally ren

The current obsessions with university ranking results in academia focusing on high impact scientific journal papers. Popular mode of operandi for scholars these days are to isolate your talent so that one can focus on producing the impeccable article that can be accepted in high impact journals. Signs of distress can be seen in other areas of duty, scholars becoming less enthusiastic in teaching, in connecting with people from other areas, in connecting with industry and community. I remember the days when academia were not burdened with the vision and obsession of higher authority to push for ranking and prestige. We love knowledge and pursuit of it because its valuable in it self, without considering it valuable to our own personal career advancement. It was easy for academia to meet and greet, chit chat over lunch or coffee, without worrying our time spent this way would turn into high impact article or not. IN any research proposal workshop these days, academia are asked to c