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The media is filled with reports on the economic crisis.
Gloom and doom dominate our perspective on the future.
But one man thinks that everything will turn out fine.
More than that, he is confident that within a short amount of time
all the inhabitants of our planet will have all their basic needs met:
food, energy, clean water basic healthcare and education.
He is convinced we are close to a world of abundance.
But what will the world he envisions look like?
Why does Peter Diamandis think all the stories of coming shortages are nonsense?
And how fast will we see the developments
that have brought Peter Diamandis to his convictions?
This is what awaits us:
This is Backlight: On a future of abundance.
abundance
Imagine: A world with plenty of food, water, energy
and other basic neccesities for every person on the planet.
This seems utopian,
unrealistic, especially in times of economic crises.
According to Peter Diamandis however,
author of the book Abundance and founder of the X-Prize Foundation
that reality is close at hand.
Peter Diamandis discusses the convergence of several developments
that paints a radical new picture of the future as we're imagining it.
The technology needed already exists and is ready to be implemented.
It's really very simple:
The price of solar energy is in such rapid decline,
energy could be nearly free of charge within twenty years.
When energy is nearly free of charge,
new possibilities emerge to face the coming water crisis.
We already know how to convert seawater into fresh water.
It currently costs a lot of energy,
but in the field of energy especially, a revolution is taking place.
When energy and fresh water are abundant,
it will be possible to grow food in areas where it is currently impossible.
In the middle of the desert, for example.
But when solutions to most of our problems are so close at hand,
and already available, why is that we don't see them?
Why do we mostly see a future wherein one crisis is overshadowed by the next?
Peter Diamandis is not only known for being an author,
He founded, among other things, the X-Prize Foundation
An organisation that awards large cash prizes for technological innovation.
Besides this, together with renowned futurologist Ray Kurzweil
he founded a university in the heart of Silicon Valley.
Here, on campus of the Nasa Ames research center
an exclusive club meets regularly.
During these meetings at the Singularity University
they discuss which technological revolutions are in front of us
and how they will impact the world.
The visitors at Singularity University
have a different outlook on the speed of technological developments than most of us.
An outlook that doesn't come natural to most people.
Some technologies develop exponentially
a lot faster than we would be inclined to think.
Therefore prices decrease exponentially also.
Now imagine this happening to one of the technologies
that impact nearly every aspect of our lives:
What then, are the consequences?
In the field of energy especially, technological developments are speeding up.
Take solar energy, where energy returns are rapidly increasing
and the cost of electricity produced with solar energy decreases rapidly.
Here, at Alta Devices, a producer of a new generation of solar cells
the company is ready for the impact they will have.
Now that the price of solar energy is in rapid decline,
new and interesting applications suddenly become possible.
Imagine a situation wherein the price of solar energy continues to decline
at the current rate, and electricity is practically free of charge
what other large scale problems suddenly become solvable?
In the desert of Qatar, an hourlong drive away from the capital of Doha
the Sahara Forest Project is found.
Here, in between a large industrial complex and an endless desert,
fresh water, produce and energy is produced.
For a country with almost no fresh water sources
and hardly any food production, this is a revolution.
Norish citizen Joakim Hauge put together the Sahara Forest Project.
He explains how using only solar energy and seawater
all the things scarcely available here can be produced.
Deploying a new combination of existing technologies
the Sahara Forest Project is producing fresh produce in the middle of the desert
using seawater and solar energy.
And when you can produce fresh water and food in the desert
new possibilities to prevent a food crisis emerge.
The Sahara Forest project casts a cursory glance
into a possible future with food and fresh water in the middle of the desert.
So Joakim Hauge looks beyond the dangers of a coming food and water crisis.
The combination in Qatar is still in a trial phase.
But in Australia a company called Sundrop Farms built a greenhouse
producing fresh produce commercially using only seawater and sunlight.
The Australian greenhouses are seeing large expansions this year.
Equally ambituous plans exist to implement this technology in North Africa.
At Singularity University research is being done which technologies
will be emerging exponentially in the foreseeable future...
and any consequences these may bring about.
These images show a gathering at the University
discussing developments in the medical field.
Doctors, surgeons and representatives of medical companies
contemplate expected developments in the healthcare industry.
They do so in unconvential ways:
Doctors are working on their own computers and robotics
to gain an understanding of the possibilities.
Within the healthcare industry,
internet, smartphones and the possibilities of storing large amounts of data
are opening up entirely new applications
that will fundamentally change the ways in which think about our health.
Belgium born Walter de Brouwer heads a startup: Scanadu.
He's developping an app that you use to monitor your own health.
Exponential technological developments are not limited to the field of healthcare.
The manufacturing of almost every material product is on the verge of going digital
turning everything on its head.
One of the largest manufacturers of affordable 3D printers is in Geldermalsen.
Here the machines are made that will enable anyone to produce anything for themselves.
Things that seemed out of reach until very recently
are now a very real possibility.
These items are a small selection of the many forms that are possible.
They include forms that are almost impossible to produce
this is an example: it's almost like a fabric.
These are all seperate parts that were printed together.
so this was not assembled, but it behaves like a fabric.
The unique aspect of a 3D printer is that within this source material
anything can be made.
So the applications are more or less *** territory.
Where on the one hand they could be part of a 3D scan,
or they could be mockups of the latest invention
which you could then print, to try yourself
or even pass them along to your friends.
and new innovations can be introduced with really a lot less ballast
compared to how most companies are working on innovations today.
These bracelets for example,
normally these would need to be assembled which means you need human labor.
Whereas you can now press a button and it comes out of your printner.
You can make larger objects, you can produce with more detail
you can make them quickly
You can make them from all kinds of different materials
and you can make them in your own living room
and costs are declining while the possibilities will only increase.
The possibilities are really virtually endless.
Other manufacturing processes carry a lot more limitations than 3D printing.
It could be a concept you download from the internet.
It could be something you drew up yourself, it could be a 3D scan
There are many different ways to obtain your 3D file
and with a single push of a button you're then able to print it.
To give a very practical example,
say you're missing a simple part of a coathanger to organize your closet
small items that may break or were missing from a kit:
You'll now be able to simply print extras.
- IKEA parts?
Yes, here we'd print an IKEA part
and it's really as simple as pressing a button.
We're really working on making this even easier than printing a document
so that making a 3D print is as easy as a few clicks on your mouse.
- It's obviously faster than going to IKEA and asking for small parts.
Yes a lot faster, definitely.
I'm very confident that virtually everyone will own a 3D printer.
Within 5 and 15 years it will be commonplace.
There are so many products that currently we cannot imagine having
that thanks to 3D printing will be available.
Here we're making the future means of production.
This is where the software is being developped
and the electronics and the different mechanicals.
This is a digital production technology.
And this ensures firstly that the technology is becoming cheaper
because the technology within the printer is becoming cheaper.
But also because people are able to work together on a global scale
due to the advance in communication technology.
So all this becomes a self-reinforced phenomenon
which gives us exponential growth.
The fact that this is digital brings with it fundamental changes:
No longer do you have to ship physical items
you can send the digital file.
The costs of distribution remain zero until the moment you've produced it.
There's no need to keep things in stock. You simply produce exactly what you need.
Last week we started moving into a new production space.
We've been expanding significantly...
in terms of the space we've been using before.
We outgrew the previous space that we only recently moved into.
By now we've acquired this new space that opens up a lot of new possibilities.
Please come in.
Right now I'm foreseeing the "Wikipedia effect", so to speak
where anyone can contribute something that then becomes available to everyone
will be applied to the physical world.
So that when digital production is ubiquitous
this means everyone will be able to cooperate on physical objects.
Not everyone will design something, even though it will be incredibly simple to do so
but even 1% of the global population participating in the creative process
the opportunities will be endless.
We're also manufacturing parts of the 3D printer itself.
As soon as mass production kicks in, this won't be necessary anymore.
In this case however, for the first few printers, we're printing our own parts.
So we're using the UltiMaker to make more UltiMakers.
Well, this is our new production room.
- Will this be large enough for the coming year?
Maybe the coming year, but after that I expect it to be too small.
Now that we're all part of one large network
and have free access to information, new scientific discoveries are speeding up.
In academic disciplines like astronomy the non-initiated, laymen and amateurs
suddenly play a much bigger part.
Anyone can participate:
This is how a teacher from Heerlen made a significant astronomical discovery
formerly reserved only for professionals.
Hannie had no real knowledge of the stars.
She had never even looked through a telescope.
Hannie discovered a light-echo in a form professional astronomers had never seen before.
The phenomenon was named after her, and is now known as Hannie's Object.
This is Hannie's Object, that green frog so to speak, which is what it looks like.
This gas cloud right here.
The black hole contained within this galaxy is what lit it up.
Hannie was browsing her idol's Brian May website where she saw Galaxy Zoom:
a project where anyone can help professional astronomers
classify photos of galaxies.
Brian linked to it on his website, saying you could be helping astronomers.
And the photos on the site were actually were very beautiful.
So yeah, that I found that interesting.
You click classify,
and this is what that looks like.
A photo appears on your screen, this photo here
it shows a galaxy, here in the middle
and you're asked to answer these questions.
The first question is whether you see a circle or are you seeing shapes like these.
There is somewhat of an arm visible here, so you click that.
Let me just scroll down a bit.
This is what I got on my screen.
So I was supposed to classify this galaxy in the center here.
And then I noticed this blue smudge here.
I was later told it was more likely that a lay person would have discovered this
because a professional astronomer would likely be focussed on the galaxy in the center
because that is what is being researched
and the rest of the photo would have likely been seen as noise, as uninteresting.
Whereas being a lay person, you're not really sure of what you're looking at
so you're looking at the entire picture, and you notice this little smudge.
And maybe you're a little bit more open to those things.
That's what people told me.
After a year such a photo has been seen maybe sixty times
so you know statistically the data will be valid.
Because so many people are helping, they have their answers a lot quicker.
With help from millions of internet users like Hannie,
scientists will have results sooner.
For Hannie, her discovery not only meant lecture invitations from all over the world
but also a mention in countless publications.
This actually is Brian May's book.
It's called the Cosmic Tourist.
And Hannie's Object is one of the destinations in it.
It's kind of interesting to see an English book and see "Hannie's Voorwerp" in there.
Now that innovation is no longer the exclusive domain of experts
new inventions arise in the most unexpected of places.
This is how a high school student, using only his internet access
make a discovery that shakes up the medical establishment to its core.
It earned him a prestigious prize for young scientists.
Jack Andraka at 15 years old did what the pharmaceutical giants
with billion dollar budgets couldn't:
He developped a new test that detects several forms of cancer
easier and cheaper than existing tests.
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