The Change Agents

Scientist, by intention or not, is the most important catalytic change agent of our time. We all recognize that much of the present is the future that was created by scientific researchers of decades past. We can safely forecast that scientists will change our future.

No scientist alone can propose the whole science agenda for the 21st Century. It is however clear that many scientists can agree on some overarching goals that serve the future and that give us pause for reflection as they expand the frontiers of knowledge and uniquely see their own opportunity for discovery.

What scientists achieve is the understanding about the way nature really works. They use powerful methods of defining and solving problems. They use the method of multiple working hypotheses to ferret out the truth about how nature is and the way it operates. Scientists have the exhilarating opportunity and experience of being able to routinely walk each day where no footprints have ever existed before. They extend that paradigm to additional utility to not only enlarge our understanding and build our knowledge but to provide amenity in the form of new technology.

From Galileo to the cellular user in Gujranwala, scientists make social change occur abruptly, often inadvertently. As new knowledge is discovered, and foundational research impacts others around us, they create and alter the future and how everyone around us perceives it. Their research regularly leads to changes unimagined by our institutions struggling to adjust to them.

The highest priority of all science and social, economic and political institutions on this planet is to develop and establish a morally acceptable, politically stable and economically feasible decrease in the world human population of 1 billion persons during the 21st Century and to continue that decrease by another 1 billion during each of the succeeding 2 centuries. This is a daunting challenge, but one from which we cannot turn aside. All our institutions are driven by growth. Opposition to this population decrease will develop from the world capitalist systems whose only mantra is growth. The immense power wielded by that economic mantra and its leaders may draw the battle lines for the soul of the 21st Century.

Sustainable aquatic and land based agricultural production systems, sustainable energy production systems, sustainable industrial and post industrial production systems, sustainable habitation systems and others are areas of major needs for research that ultimately establishes a sustainable world.

The 21st Century will require our population to think for a living. Thinking skills have become the most important skills for the workplace. The employers and nations of the future will rise and fall in their competitive effectiveness based on their skill as learning organizations and the rate limiting factors for their future success will be the rate of learning of the populations engaged in productive work.

Our education systems must be understood as whole systems and changed even revolutionized to accept and optimize what we learn about learning in the first five years of life, our teaching adapted to the neurobiology of learning, our curriculum redesigned around creative problem solving as its core curriculum, ensuring lifelong learning becomes a societal norm, our cyber schools and virtual universities designed around how we learn and for no other primary convenience.

Healthier lives is the third overarching goal that seems to be a consensus among leaders of all the scientific disciplines as important for the 21st Century to make great strides. Since infectious diseases are once again worldwide scourge, we must provide worldwide treatment and preventive medicine successfully.

Ideas not yet thought of, will become multibillion-dollar enterprises in the 21st Century. This requires us to foster entrepreneurial education to ensure there is a sufficient population of business adventurers to make certain the public sees ongoing benefits flowing from it that they can understand, and new jobs are a benefit that is readily understood.

National and world security has been the most important drivers of the old social contract with science. We have still the need to defend the free from the rogues who have the power to take away freedom. As we see that military superiority is no longer the driver for the scientific future, scientists should reassess their need to be involved in its destructive exterminations.

Scientists can do so much more for the future of the world and its people and environment with all the challenges. Their role should be to support the very strong leadership and creative problem solving needed by the military and political institutions and durable new institutions that would lead to highly certain world stability. The rise of the concept of the nation-state requires it to defend its borders and culture. Evolving thinking into newer concepts that enhance cooperation more than pathologic competition may become worthwhile at some point in 21st Century.

Scientists can do everything to provide for a world of well-fed, healthier and fewer people, to provide that populations are economically secure and stable, to provide for our great-grandchildren an environment with as durable a future as our great-grandparents received when they were born, and to ensure the lifelong learning that provides all the self-actualization and inner peace we can want.

The role of scientists should be to lead the political system, not follow it, and do this via a long range vision that they develop, conceive and believe, so that it becomes compelling to the public and future resource allocators.

Scientists’ own future depends on effective development of appreciation for science by the political decision making institutions and science illiterate general population. They should not leave it to others to do what needs to be done. It is their future. It is their obligation. Their role has never been of watching the future happen. They are the change agents of future and they can make it happen. Asif J. Mir, Organizational Transformation

Preparing Students for 21st Century

How can we best prepare students to succeed in the 21st century? This is a question that should be of paramount importance to Pakistan’s educators, employers, parents and the public. Alas, this is nobody’s priority.

The accelerating technological change, rapidly accommodating knowledge, increasing global competition and rising force capabilities around the world, make 21st century skills essential. There is a forceful need for a calling on schools to change dramatically.

Today’s education system faces irrelevance unless we bridge the gap between how students live and how they learn. Schools are not even struggling to keep pace with the astonishing rate of change in students’ lives outside of school. Neglecting the fact that students will spend their adult lives in a multitasking, multifaceted, technology-driven, diverse, vibrant world, they are not equipping them to do so. They are seldom committing to ensuring that all students have equal access to this new technological world, regardless of their economic background.

We know more today than ever about how students learn. Our researchers and educators are not making the grades on mapping the remarkable territory of the human mind. They lack scientific insights that can inform educators about the cognitive processes of learning, effective teaching strategies for engaging students in learning and motivating students to achieve. We must incorporate understanding into classroom teaching and learning on a broad scale for preparing our future.

Educators in other countries have focused on improving student achievement—the perennial top priority of their public concern. They have established rigorous academic standards, assessments and accountability measures—a concerted effort that has involved educators, employers and community members. Schools in the West are responding with strategies to improve teaching and learning. They are now closing a gap between knowledge and skills most students learn in school and the knowledge and skills they need in typical 21st century. They are thus encouraging development of curriculum and assessments that reflect 21st century realities.

Literacy in the 21st century means more than basic reading, writing and computing skills. It means knowing how to use knowledge and skills in the context of modern life.

The nation needs a compelling vision for education capable of inspiring leaders, teachers, parents and students alike. Clearly we must work together to help schools fully address the educational needs of the 21st century.

A broad-based public-private partnership needs to be forged contributing to improving education in several distinct ways. It should synthesize research, insights and best practices about 21st century knowledge and skills into a powerful vision and sharing this information broadly. It should also define a framework and create a common language for understanding and promoting 21st century skills. The education leaders should be provided with tools, examples and a strategy for action, not rhetoric. It should also build consensus in the public and private sectors about the nature and need for 21st century skills.

We need to increase emphasis on the additional knowledge and skills students need for the 21st century. This is an opportune time to align standards, assessments and accountability measures with 21st century skills.

We can build momentum with following flight of stairs: 1) Embrace a powerful vision of public education that includes 21st century skills. 2) Align leadership, management and resources with educational goals. 3) Use this tool to assess where schools are now. 4) Develop priorities for 21st century skills. 5) Make sure students have equitable access to a 21st century education. 6) Begin developing assessments to measure student progress in 21st century skills. 7) Collaborate with outside partners. 8) Plan collectively and strategically for the future.

There are also some key elements for fostering 21st century learning. Emphasize must be laid on core subjects. Knowledge and skills for the 21st century must be built on core subjects that are mathematics, science, languages, civics, government, economics, arts, history and geography. The focus on core subjects must expand beyond basic competency to the understanding of core academic content at much higher levels.

As much as students need knowledge in core subjects, they also need to know how to keep learning continually throughout their lives. Learning skills comprise three broad categories of skills: information and communication skills, thinking and problem-solving skills, and interpersonal and self-directional skills. The challenge should be to incorporate learning skills into classrooms deliberately, strategically and broadly.

21st century tools must be used for developing learning skills. In a digital world, students need to learn to use the tools that are essential to everyday life and workplace productivity. Skilled 21st century citizens should be proficient in information and communication technologies literacy.

Teaching and learning must be in a 21st century context. Students need to learn academic content through real world examples, applications and experiences both inside and outside of school. In the networked environment of the 21st century, student learning also can expand beyond the four classroom walls. Schools must reach out to their communities, employers, community-members and of course parents to reduce the boundaries that divide schools from the real world.

21st century content should be taught and learnt. There are three significant, emerging content areas that are critical to success in communities and workplaces: global awareness; financial, economic and business literacy, and civic literacy. Much of this content is not captured in existing curricula or taught consistently with any depth in schools today. An effective way to incorporate this content is to infuse knowledge and skills from these areas into the curriculum.

The use of 21st century assessments that measure 21st century skills must be practiced. Schools need high-quality standardized tests that measure students’ performance of the elements of a 21st century education.

Economic, technological, informational, demographic and political forces transform the way people work and live. These changes together with the rate of change will continue to accelerate. For survival and to thrive in 21st century, our schools must adapt changing conditions. Asif J. Mir, Organizational Transformation

Planning for Future Disasters

Sooner or later, civilization is going to be disrupted by more natural events. Manipulating our natural and constructed environments is a prerequisite for surviving these disasters. Once we strip doomsday fears from the emerging spate of disaster-threat discoveries, a deep environmental challenge emerges: Nature's cycle includes periodic disruptions that could toss humanity backwards.

Besides planet-killing asteroids and calamities, other natural events may be serious threats in the future. They comprise floods, huge volcanoes, seismic disorders, equatorial drift, and repeated meteor cascade. They are sustained that might prompt loss of infrastructure, disorder of agriculture, or pollution caused by industrial debris.

Using the power of upcoming technologies we can overcome doomsday. Space telescopes, DNA analysis, sedimentary analysis, and application of engineering to archaeology are improving our ability to understand past and future planetary threats. Scientists have started interpreting old evidence in a new light.

To outlast future we need to transform our ecology. Even though we are not capable of unfolding, exposing, or protecting ruthless natural phenomena, it is crystal clear that ecologists need to take them unswervingly.

Ecologists oppose the use of biotech application for hindering the environmental equilibrium, causing danger to humanity, and playing God with natural systems. The opposing view is that organic farming is inherently inefficient and risky, and it forces the destruction of forests to put more land into production. If we consider the two positions from the standpoint of surviving mass natural changes, however, both sides take on a fundamentally different look.

To have a sustainable society we need a culture with enough staying power to endure and with the capacity to preserve its collective memory. The Egyptians did it for 3,000 years; no one else has come close. We are at the beginning rather than the end of that road.

Sustainable development is a controversial term with contradictory definitions. It is often interpreted to mean advancing economically without destroying the ecology we depend on. Enormous amounts are being spent for ensuring sustainable development, but somehow the importance of mega-disaster survival has been overlooked in our culture.

It is not likely that sustainable urban development could survive inundation by a once-in-5,000 years flood. Earthquakes, which produce tsunami and volcano fire in the US, and some countries of the Far East of Southeast Asia might tear down our technological foundation. A heliacal inclement weather would flatten many space stations in orbit. Moreover, if the Gulf Stream moves south, the agriculture in Europe can’t sustain.

Earthquake-resistant designs, flood canals, and wind resistance are part of modern cities now, but these innovations cannot handle the kind of super-threats referred to here. Food production and delivery systems need to be able to withstand enormous climatic stresses and recover in a few years. Genetic manipulation combined with microcomputers could help preserve our food supply in times of crisis.

The spiritual aspect of our futures is complex, yet basic to our ability to take the next steps. Science fiction and theological writers give us glimpses into that state of affairs, but have not yet paved the way between now and those futures.

Our understanding of pre-history requires far more investment. We need to find out more about natural events that occurred just prior to the beginning of modern history, 5,000-en-25,000 years ago. Theories about this period suggest that planetary disruptions may cause cyclical rather than linear evolution of civilizations. If true, this throws conventional understanding of history on its ear. Some physical clues exist, but we need to separate science from pseudo-science in this arena.

To carry each of these first steps forward will require institutions to take on the imminent danger of disastrous threats—by recognizing their existence, and by allocating much more resources to singling out their nature and where they will probably strike.

The good news is that the tools are emerging and we have the possibilities in our hands. We are nevertheless unwilling to see the time limit that we confront. Even though watching bright-hued live transmission of a planet striking the Jupiter only some years ago, a lot of even now turn down the probability that if it could happen to them at all.

It's healthy to be skeptical of doomsday fears. Yet the discovery of big natural risks may alter our perception of Armageddon. Adapting to those risks may be our greatest challenge.

It seems pointless for a human society to struggle 5,000 years only to have its accomplishments destroyed by a stray meteor storm, ice age, or inundation. For humanity to be truly sustainable we must protect ourselves from natural catastrophes that exterminated the dinosaurs and other species in the past. Asif J. Mir, Organizational Transformation

Living Longer

Human aging is being controlled and researchers have proven that human cells can be created and in this century people will begin to live 100, 200 or even 300 years. Mice are already living 50% longer with the help of genetic inventions. Thanks to the human genome project, scientists are closer to identifying ways to decelerate human aging. Contrarily, with incompetent, insufficient, and laughable healthcare system in place, Pakistan seems to continue grappling with policy lapses. Due to factors related to high fertility rates, high illiteracy, high mortality, and above all uncreative methods of policy planning, Pakistan stands as a stranger to such a milieu. Its policymakers don’t even sense the world passing through a profound transformation. They lack their understanding for making decisions to understand forthcoming breakthroughs and strategically plan for new environs.

The rapid pace of technology and medicine are quickly posing the prospect of banishing aging and disease, and yes even most causes of death. Some of the most extreme but very possible aspects of technologies such as molecular manufacturing and nanomedicine promise continual cellular maintenance that will alleviate aging altogether and make it impossible for disease or toxins to injure one's body or take one's life. Present anti-aging treatments do not slow aging and do not extend life span more than quitting smoking, exercising, eating vegetables, or heeding ordinary medical advice does. While all over the world we have seen improvements in health and life spans, Pakistan has large gaps and much effort needs to be spent in narrowing that gap.

Although vainly wrestling with high female mortality at younger ages and during the reproductive years, Pakistan claims a life span of 65. This predominantly seems farce when almost one-half of women receive no antenatal care during their pregnancy and 72 percent receive no postnatal care at all.

The advancements in longevity can be generally attributed to improvements in sanitation, the discovery of antibiotics, and medical care. Despite tall claims, Pakistan’s record on these areas is hopeless. Now, as scientists make headway against chronic diseases like cancer and heart disease to extend anti-aging even further, such diseases in Pakistan are greater than ever and basic healthcare service is inaccessible to a vast majority.

There are theories on aging. The programmed theories hold that aging follows a biological timetable, perhaps a continuation of the one that regulates childhood growth and development. The damage or error theories emphasize environmental assaults to our systems that gradually cause things to go wrong.

Lengthening life expectancies in the industrialized nations are bringing about substantial changes including large increases in the number of elderly and in their proportion in the population. Such changes have occurred, for example, in the type of economic activity, housing, social services, and population make-up of the communities. With growth in the health care system and changes in the service mix provided, the elderly continue to consume more health care per capita and need different services.

Health care institutions, including hospitals, which are widely expected to experience increasing demand as the elderly population grows; organizations will provide home-based medical care and other types of assistance, allowing the individual to remain in their own residence; and a variety of assisted living facilities, ranging from adult day care to residential care to nursing homes.

Of greater concern, the already awful health care industry of Pakistan finds itself ill prepared to handle significant increases in the number of the very elderly. Today, there are almost 9.7 million senior citizens. When it has no policy in place for this population today, it has no concern for tomorrow. Neither public nor private sectors are equipped financially to deal with the problems caused by aging population. When a society starts aging, its economic vitality becomes inferior to that of young societies and sluggish economic growth reduces its opportunities to become well heeled. Thus, in Pakistan an aging population will become a heavy public burden, forcing its people to bring down the cost by establishing large institutions so that, by virtue of economies of scale, they could manage to provide the elderly with the most basic care and medical needs.

The health sector of Pakistan offers an inadequate remedy for the serious problems of an outdated and basically unsound system and hence needs an offensive. People must be offered a vision of a revitalized health care system that provides incentives for increased quality and technological innovation, while at the same time, reducing costs. Pakistanis need a system that gives them control over healthcare decisions, while encouraging them to set aside the resources they need to purchase this care.

The policy makers of Pakistan should keep themselves abreast of technological advances and management strategies by constantly scanning the literature and media, interviewing authorities, and drawing on other sources to identify emerging trends. These trends then need to be analyzed to select those that are most significant.

It needs to begin to prepare now for what will be a very different future. The key questions it needs to think about include: What is it that we should be asking? What is it that its policymakers need but do not get in their human development courses? People should be asking about connections -- connections between existing mindsets and human development. These connections simply are not made in most textbooks available for use in human development courses. In fact, effective change requires more than knowledge of human development. Effective change also requires the ability to devise strategies that take advantage of that knowledge … strategies for connecting research and practice. Asif J. Mir, Organizational Transformation

Homes: Upcoming Trends

The home of most value in the future will not use technology primarily to automatically control the environment. It will help its occupants learn how to control the environment on their own.

People spend more time in their homes than in any other space. The home ideally provides a safe, comfortable environment in which to relax, communicate, learn, and be entertained. Increasingly, it is where people connect with friends and family, conduct supplementary business, manage resources, learn about the world, and maintain health and autonomy as they age. People invest extraordinary amounts of time, money, and emotional energy to mold their homes into living spaces that meet their needs.

Unfortunately, homes today are ill suited to exploiting the pervasive computing applications being developed in laboratories. Most homes do not easily accommodate even the simplest new technologies, let alone embedded sensor infrastructures and ubiquitous display technologies. Perhaps, homeowners generally believe that computer devices make life more complex and frustrating rather than easier and more relaxing. They are wary of the aesthetic, financial, and cognitive challenges of bringing new technologies into their homes.

If we are to believe most movies, television, and popular press articles that mention home life in the future, we will have complete control over our spaces at the touch of a button. In fact, our homes will be so fully automated and “smart” that we will rarely have to think about everyday tasks at all. We will spend nearly all our time in the home engaged in leisure activities because digital and robotic agents will have taken over the mundane chores of day-to-day life.

Technology will require human effort in ways that keep life as mentally and physically challenging as possible as people age. Environments shall be created that help people live long and healthy lives in their homes; reduce resource consumption and integrate learning into their everyday activity in the home

Computer technology shall be ever-present but in a more subtle way. Information will be presented to people at precisely the time and place they need it. The pervasive technologies to empower people with information will help people make decisions; they will not be stripped of their sense of control as psychologically and physically debilitating.

There will be an environment that uses pervasive computing technology to save energy by automatically controlling the heater-vent-air conditioning system. The environment’s embedded sensors will infer context such as where people are, what they are doing, and what the inside environmental conditions are. The home will contain computer-controlled appliances, windows, and blinds.

To reduce resource consumption homes will be designed that control environmental conditions. The home’s occupant will inform the system via some type of user interface that he or she wishes to stay comfortable while saving as much energy or money as possible. The home will then use a set of optimization algorithms to simultaneously maximize savings and comfort by automatically controlling the systems, windows, and blinds. For instance, on a day when the temperature is predicted to shift from warm to cool, the home might determine that the optimal cooling strategy is to shut down the AC and automatically open a set of blinds and windows so as to create an efficient cross breeze.

There appear to be many situations in which the automatic system might succeed in optimizing temperature comfort yet fail in “doing the right thing”: something noisy is occurring outside, someone is smoking outside the window, someone in the home is allergic to pollen and the pollen count is high, it is raining outside, it is too quiet for a person reading when the hum of the air conditioner is off, someone did not want the blinds open because it throws glare on a computer screen, and so on. No matter how hard the system designer tries to program contingency plans for all possible contexts, invariably the system will sometimes frustrate the home occupant and perform in unexpected and undesirable ways.

In the home of the future, the windows include a tiny light that is either embedded in the window frame (for example, a light-emitting diode) or projected on the window using display technology (for example, an IBM Everywhere Display). The home’s embedded sensors and optimization algorithms compute a strategy for cooling the home by opening a particular set of windows, but they do not proactively implement the strategy.

Imagine that the light on the window subtly illuminates. It does not interrupt the home occupant. When someone in the home notices it, he or she knows the light means “it might be a good idea to open this window right now.” The home thereby unobtrusively informs the user of actions that might be taken to conserve energy or money. In this way, the home teaches the occupant, in an unobtrusive way, how to achieve the optimal settings. The home can take a similar approach when the goal is to improve health or introduce learning into everyday life.

The labor and material cost ratio is irrational today. This will be altered in making future homes. More money shall be devoted to materials, design, engineering, safety, and technologies in the home. Borrowing from recent innovations in the automobile industry, an integrated “chassis–infill” construction system shall be developed capable of rapidly installing with minimal labor. In one integrated assembly, composite beams and columns provide structure, insulation, sensor arrays, lighting, signal and power cable raceways, and ductwork. The beams use special connectors that lock together easily. Infill sections that form the structure’s interior and exterior walls are then “snapped in” to the chassis structure without requiring skilled labor. Finally, interior finishes are snapped on to cover joints and wiring raceways.

The resulting structure will be easier to change than conventional housing, require less expensive labor during construction, allow more money to be spent on higher-quality materials and technologies, and easily accommodate sensing infrastructure and new output technologies. Asif J. Mir, Organizational Transformation

The Wars of Future

From the strategic use of deceleration against a military apparatus, which relies on stepping up hostilities to the rediscovery of suicide as a threat to inter-change-based societies, the latest changes in the conduct of war are nearly always characterized by asymmetric strategies. It is therefore predictable that future wars will be predominantly asymmetric.

Asymmetrical warfare, the salient feature of the new wars, is based to a large extent on the different velocities at which the parties wage war on each other. Asymmetries of strength are based on a capacity for acceleration, which outstrips that of the enemy, whereas asymmetries of weakness are based on a readiness and ability to slow down the pace of the war. This strategy generally involves a considerable increase in the casualties suffered by one’s own side.

The dramatic superiority the US military apparatus has achieved over all potential enemies in the last two decades is largely due to its capacity to exploit the various opportunities for accelerating the pace at the different combat levels.

The future wars will hardly be a linear extension of the trends of the twentieth century. Greater material resources and a more advanced technological development alone will not automatically tip the scales between victory and defeat. The enormous superiority of the United States in military technology is no guarantee that the USA will emerge victorious from all the wars it seems ever more ready to wage.

It will be an asymmetrical competition between high-tech and low-tech weapons. Since 9/11 we are aware that mere box cutter’s knives, if used to hijack airliners so as to crash them into buildings and cities, can serve to shake a superpower to its foundations. In that case, however, it was not deceleration alone, which enabled the terrorist operatives to attack the USA but a combination of speed and slowness. The infrastructures of the side attacked were exploited by a clandestine group, which was able to go about preparing the attacks quietly and calmly, and then turned aircraft into rockets and jet fuel into explosive.

Current trends suggest that in future large sections of the population may well see their sole chance in waging wars and emerging successful. Growing environmental risks, such as water shortages, increasing desertification and rising sea levels; a greater global inequality in the distribution of consumer goods, in educational opportunities and in living conditions; the imbalance in demographic rates and the related waves of migration; the instability of the international financial markets and the dwindling ability of States to control their own currency and economy; and, finally, in some parts of the world, the rapid disintegration of States — all these are sufficient grounds for assuming that many people will see violent change rather than peaceful development as a better chance to assure their future. Thus the use of force for a better future will become the key element of their political reasoning and they will be ready not only to fight for vital resources but also to begin asymmetrical wars with superior adversaries.

Precisely because of their advanced socio-economic development, these superior adversaries are themselves highly vulnerable and, however great their military superiority, they cannot eliminate this vulnerability. The aim of the US in its various projects to establish a missile defense system is to make itself invulnerable. Such missile defense systems are of course no longer directed against the Soviet Union but against enemies who, though small and relatively weak, pose a serious threat through their possession of nuclear warheads and a few delivery systems. In principle, war has become not only politically but also economically unattractive for the developed countries. The costs outweigh the returns.

Most of the wars with warlords are not fought by well-equipped armies but by the hastily recruited militias of tribal chiefs or heads of clans, plus the armed followers of warlords and the like. Above all, the weapons used in the new wars are cheap — small arms, automatic rifles, anti-personnel mines and machine guns mounted on pick-up trucks.

Two factors play a crucial part in the emergence of the new wars: the ability to finance them from the flows of goods and capital generated by globalization and, more important still, the fact that they have become cheap to wage.

The future wars will be fought only partly by soldiers and, for the most part, will no longer be directed against military objectives. Civilian targets are now taking the place of military objectives in many areas, starting with towns and villages overrun and despoiled by militia leaders and warlords and extending to the symbols of political and economic might that were targeted by terrorist commandos on 9/11. Even the means used to carry out these attacks are less and less of a genuinely military nature.

The term civil war is the symmetrical opposite of the term international war; the asymmetrical antonym is transnational war, i.e. one in which the boundaries drawn by the States no longer play a role. This type of war crosses national borders without being waged as a war between States. It is characterized by a constant switching of friends and foes and by a breakdown of the institutional authorities (such as the military and the police) responsible for ordering and having recourse to the use of force. In this context, acts of war and criminality become indistinguishable and the war drags on with no prospect of a peace accord to end it.

The future wars to a large extent will not be waged with massive firepower and tremendous military capabilities. They will tend to go on smoldering with no clear beginning or end, while the dividing line between the warring parties on the one hand and international organized crime on the other will become more and more blurred. For this reason, some people are already disputing the fact that such situations do indeed constitute war. Asif J. Mir, Organizational Transformation

Up and coming Fashion

Fashion is really just starting to interact with the world of information technology (IT). Today there are already ‘cool’ gadgets and wearables, but in future, we will see whole new domains where fashion can play a key role. The biggest of these is the duality of appearance - where we may appear one way in the physical world, and have a whole range of digital appearances in the augmented reality and virtual environment worlds. This will lead to many people designing for themselves.

Along the way, electronics will continue to shrink in size to a point where it no longer significantly need affect the form of the object that carries it. Form and function will be separated at least as far IT is concerned.

Fashion is often at the forefront of technology usage. Many new materials and technologies are used in textiles and accessories when they are still too expensive or primitive for other uses. Technology development is accelerating quickly and shows no sign of slowing down in the foreseeable future, so fashion designers will have a lot of fun over the coming years. The next decades will see the gradual convergence of nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive technologies. Typical results will be materials with different tensile, thermal and optical properties, integration of IT into fabrics, and linkage of our bodies to the network for medical and communication purposes, via clothing or skin-wearables.

Thin, flexible displays are becoming available already, and we will undoubtedly see them built into clothing with increasing frequency. This will be both for body adornment and functional uses.

A wide range of electronic devices can already be built into clothes and this will increase. New fabrics are already being developed to provide power generation - using solar power, electromagnetic, thermal and mechanical means.

Storage technology is improving extremely quickly and we may expect massive amounts of storage to be available in very small volumes, so that people can take all their files, music and videos with them - integrated invisibly into small devices or clothes.

Haptics technology (the technology of enabling the remote sensation of touch) will also become available as part of clothes. A variety of electro-responsive materials exists already, albeit sometimes in primitive forms (for example, muscles wires, polymer muscles, shape memory alloys, etc), and these will progress quickly into routine fabric technologies.

Clothes will be part of the ambient intelligent environment we will inhabit in a few years’ time. There will be myriads of chips all around us - in building infrastructure, furniture, gadgets, clothes, foods, packaging, even on our skin and inside some peoples’ bodies (for medical and security purposes).

Chips in the environment or on our person will offer processing, storage, sensing identity and communications. The resulting smart environment will know who we are, what we are doing, where we are, to the nearest few millimeters, and all about us, subject only to our own preferences and privacy or security laws.

Chips will be physically very small, so have it in their power to be hidden anywhere, and any functionality that won’t physically fit into a device can be accessed via the smart environment. This means that fashion designers can add a wide range of functions to something without needing to change its design.

Various sensors on and about our person will monitor our behaviors and physical characteristics, and respond accordingly. One of the areas that computers may want to go in with other people’s digital bubbles is that of personality characteristics. An ego badge would alert us to other people that are likely to be of interest to us so that our social and sex lives would improve. A related device is the active contact lens, which uses tiny lasers and micro-mirrors built into a contact lens with circuitry and power supply, to raster scan a high resolution image onto our retinas. This is called direct retinal projection.

Any computer generated images could be superimposed on what we see in the real world. We would be able to modify how we see other people so when you meet people you could change how they look. Come hell or high water, beauty will quite literally inhere in the eye of the beholder.

We will not be limited by the properties of physical materials, or have to have the same appearance for everyone looking at us, nor even have the same appearance all day. Our appearance can be different to each viewer and different each time they look at us. So fashion designers will need to design virtual fashions, and these will need to be dynamic and context sensitive. Through and through, dual appearance dictates dual fashion.

One of the accessories that we might need in such a world is the digital ‘aura generator’. This will act as a sort of wireless web server that radiates our digital appearance into the nearby space. It is almost like the hologram generators that science fiction fans will recognize from Red Dwarf. The main difference is that it will make us look different to different people.

With increasing assistance expected from AI in all walks of life, we should expect that people would often want to design their own clothes - making most of the artistic decisions and letting the computer sort out the technical stuff.

As local production becomes more widespread, self-design may become very popular indeed. How much this affects the market for professional fashion designers will thus depend on how much relative skill and creativity they really have, as well as on how much effort people can be bothered to invest in designing themselves.

These developments bring us to the heart of how fashion will change. Such future is near at hand when we will have to worry about both our digital appearance as well as our physical looks. And on that account indeed our digital appearances can be infinitely diverse. Asif J. Mir, Organizational Transformation

About Pakistan-China Relationship

Out and out, good neighborly relations not only aid and abet regional peace but also cohere world peace at large. Sustaining from the last quite a few decades, the tried and true Pakistan-China bonds of friendship have not been scrutinized much as a case study. As a consequence the classic example of unprecedented model in international relations could not be brought to the fore.

Inspired from the associated dynamism that this model offered, I singled out ‘Pakistan-China Boundary Settlement’ as the subject matter. While carrying through this work, as a sine qua non, I cut across some such mines of logical information, which were rare and inaccessible to few and far between.

I picked out China as a subject of thought in my authorship, centering on the evolution and growth of Pakistan-China relations.

Word for word, this paper dissertates about the unparalleled and distinctive features of Sino Pakistan relationship. It arguably asserts that the relationship between a bigger and smaller nation based on bilateralism is indeed exceptional and unprecedented. Despite firm external opposition, this relationship has not just withstood elegantly, it has also sustained warmth and fervor.

China’s economic assistance to Pakistan has always been altruistic, with no strings attached and devoid of any expectations of a quid pro quo. In times of need, China has always come up to the expectations of Pakistan and provided crucial support. World is beholden to its admired role during the 1965 Pakistan-India war followed by its creditable diplomatic support in 1971 war.

We have also witnessed with grateful heart the generosity demonstrated by China in the boundary demarcation with Pakistan in Northern Areas that virtually ceded 1250 sq km territory and relinquished its ripe old age claim on Hunza and surrounding territories. Over and above, Pakistan’s claim on all the Passes along the Karakorum Range was also recognized by China. In point of fact, China is the only country that really made Pakistan self-reliant in industrial sector. It did so not through economic aid but transfer of technology. Its technical support in establishing a sound base for rapid industrialization is simply superb. Last but not the least, China was the first and foremost country that ruptured the so-called nuclear blockade imposed on Pakistan under US pressure from 1976 onward and installed Nuclear Power Plants in the country.

Backwards and forwards, despite considerably under Western predominance, Pakistan never compromised its support for China. Indeed, it was Pakistan’s unswerving diplomatic support that helped China in squatting at the right and proper place in the United Nations. And who can disremember Pakistan’s via media role in founding American – China diplomatic relations in late 70s?

In the post cold war era, China is no more depending on few friends and extending relations with every country across world, courtesy its foreign policy based on bilateralism. Both, history of China and its national character demonstrate that they never give up friends and benefactors. Heaven be praised! Pakistan proudly stands tall in Chinese perceptions.

I also focus on China’s internal dynamics and shed light on Chinese political system, present constitution, confronting challenges, and its emergence as a potential global Power of the 21st century. Asif J. Mir, Organizational Transformation

Nothing for it but . . .

Ever since independence technology has sneaked in tardily. Paradoxically, these years have produced equally strident laments concerning the state to which Pakistan’s education has sunk. The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and a people.

When information technology was approaching in the sixties the US changed the school curricula for preparing students for the future. Contrarily we continue to turn our eye from the need to adopt new technologies and consequently our students are not being prepared (IT students included) to live in a competitive world.

We have managed to survive without adoption of IT for forty years. It will be impossible to continue to exist even for a day if we failed to adopt the approaching technologies. For instance Nanotechnology—examining the world at a millionth of meter and utilizing the ability to manipulate our universe at a molecular or atomic perspective—has united scientists across developed world in the belief that the worlds of medicine, computers, biotechnologies and eventually all manufacturing will never be approached in the same way again. We can’t afford to respond as laggards and follow the same doom which ancient civilizations faced. They perished for resistance to new technologies.

In ancient Greece then, all of the energy sources in use today, with the exception of nuclear power and hydroelectric power (both used exclusively to produce electricity) were known, available, and in limited use. Why then did it take so many centuries for energy sources and technology to come together to produce the Industrial Revolution?

From ancient Greece into the early Renaissance technological development was not only frowned upon, it was downright discouraged. People with money did not invest in it. It was socially unacceptable for the elite to involve themselves in what they considered a degrading activity.

The Greek philosophers, for all of their delving into how the world was made up and how things worked, had a strong aversion to the development of technology. They called it banausikon, meaning, fit for mechanics. It was considered a filthy business beneath the dignity of any intelligent, thinking person. Aristotle held that industries that earned wages degraded the mind and were unworthy of the free man. He would not stoop so low as to attempt to verify by measured observation his reasoning concerning physics or dynamics. As a result, some bad science went unchallenged for almost 2,000 years.

The Museum and Library at Alexandria, established in 290 BC by the rulers of Egypt, was a research facility that attracted scientists from around the known world. Researchers would use valves, expanding gases, solar thermal power, cams, screws, pulleys, levers, springs, siphons, and cogs—the basics for an industrial revolution. They developed double-action pumps and a compressed air cannon. It was there that Hero demonstrated a steam reaction turbine in 60 AD. The Library at Alexandria could have been an ancient model for Silicon Valley, but the research did not lead to improved manufacturing processes, better machines for industry or agriculture, or even for increasing wealth. Rather it was used to amuse royalty or to amaze worshipers in temples.

A valid argument can be made that metallurgy, manufacturing processes, and transportation facilities were too primitive to allow for exploitation of energy and technology at that time. But, absent the social barrier to technological development that existed, it is likely that the great minds, the available wealth, and the power concentrated in the likes of Alexander the Great, and the Roman Emperors could have laid the groundwork for a much earlier development and diffusion of technology.

We are accustomed to resist technological change with full force. We not only refuse to recognize it; we close our eyes to evade it. The attitude that we demonstrate confirms our nasty characterization as a nation of laggards.

Embracing technology is a laudable objective for which our society must aspire. It should provide a classic demonstration of the principles of the Technology Adoption Lifecycle and attempt to explain the pros and cons of investing in new technology. It must transform itself as innovators, early adopters, and not as laggards on a technology adoption timeline.

We should inculcate education of technology at every level of learning. If we claim to know more about how people learn, if we have better tools for facilitating learning, why do so many studies of technology in education show no significant difference from traditional methods? Why are we producing graduates less able to cope with the issues facing them?

Making matters worse, the criteria for success have changed. Our institutions were designed not for an industrial society. Now we've entered the Information Age. Increasingly, even blue-collar jobs require critical thinking, rather than monotonous task performance. To meet these demands, our graduates need different competencies than we typically provide. Intuitively, one would expect technology to be a powerful tool for meeting these new requirements.

We are entering a world in which jobs are requiring technological competency--a world in which they must continue to update their occupational and technological skills in order to be successful. We must enable them to become technologically competent. We must take advantage of the capacity of technology to enhance our traditional classroom presentations and to engage our students in active learning.

Pakistan’s decision-makers must focus on new challenges and issues instead of waiting for emergencies to react. They need to focus more on policy than management issues. They need to be knowledgeable about what rest of the world is doing to achieve change. They should know that change and implementing technology often go hand in hand. The key to success in both is a thorough, inclusive planning process. The disregard of new technologies by ancient civilizations offers us a choice: to embrace new technologies or perish.(www.asifjmir.com)

Technical Education

In Pakistan technical education and vocational training systematization focuses on the development of human resource in terms of skill up-gradation, which is demand-driven, meeting the current needs and hence unapt, obsolete and not futuristic.

Although the market and its needs ought to be taken into account, they cannot be the sole guideline for vocational training systems and policies. Markets have short-term views and reasons which if followed unconditionally, may lead to decisions apparently correct for immediate purposes but counterproductive in the long term. The necessary matching of training supply and demand at micro level must not be taken as a substitute for serious long-term policies and preparation our youth for up and coming technological changes.

Pakistan’s technical institutions should contribute to the strengthening of industry and to the full and sustainable development; promote technical education for industries of today and tomorrow; and impart vocational training in line with modern technologies.

In the coming decade we will see body amplifiers that expand human endurance and strength. We will see novel devices that do not rely on wheels, where our own limbs are augmented, where we can traverse very rough terrains with a very high metabolic economy or efficiency. The forecast is that people for certain situations will not want to use wheels anymore, because their legs, augmented by technology, far outperform wheeled vehicles. The technologies—from carbon nano-tube microprocessors and self-driving cars to biosensors and quantum cryptography—are works in progress. Each development holds the promise. The question that can be asked: Are we preparing our workforce for such changes?

A great revolution is coming next—Nanotechnology is a revolution more radical than the industrial revolution is probably occurring. All scientists unanimously agree that this is going to be the largest breakthrough of 21st century.

The present economies are largely based on the scarcity of (materialistic) products. This kind of economy will therefore quite likely disappear almost completely. Within ten years nano-products will dominate a multi-trillion dollar market. All conventional industries will be turned to obsolete chunk.

India prepared its workforce in IT. Pakistan focused on supplying unskilled labor to Gulf and did not adopt IT in management and production functions. It is once again ignoring the upcoming technologies.

Demographic factor is another catalyst for strategic change. Today, national and global demographic changes are a potential catalyst for a long-term systemic imbalance.

According to the Employment Policy Foundation of the USA, a systemic labor shortage is expected to transform the workplace over the next 25 to 30 years as the gap between aging population and entrants of college-educated workers widens due to the senior population’s mass retirements. If the US economy continues to grow at three percent per year—the economy’s consistent average since 1948 — the workforce will have to increase by 58 million employees over the next three decades if the same rate of productivity is maintained. Yet, if the current population trend continues, the number of workers will only increase by 23 million. This trend would create an overall US labor shortage of 35 million workers. Most of these projected shortages are expected to involve workers having specific skills. To counter this systematic shortage the US will import skilled labor force from Asia and Africa.

Europe’s total fertility rate is about 1.4—well below the 2.1 replacement level. Over the next 15 years, West European economies will need to find several million workers to fill positions vacated by retiring workers. European countries will thus accommodate growing immigrant populations (chiefly from Muslim countries). Otherwise they will face a period of protracted economic stasis that could threaten the huge successes made in creating a more United Europe.

The aging of Japan’s work force will reinforce dependence on migrated workers from South East Asia.

The demographic structures in the West and Japan over the next decade produce considerable challenges to education planning and vocational training in Pakistan. Herein lies a potential training challenge for preparing the workforce meeting the technological needs of those countries.

Migration has the potential to help solve the problem of a declining work force in the USA, Europe and, to a lesser degree, Japan and probably will become a more important feature of the world of 2020, even if many of the migrants do not have legal status.

The likely emergence of Pakistan as a new major Asian player—similar to the rise of Germany in the 19th century and the United States in the early 20th century—can transform the geopolitical landscape, with impacts potentially as dramatic as those of the previous two centuries.

Is Pakistan ready to prepare its workforce for meeting the needs of USA, Europe and Japan? How Pakistan exercises its growing power and whether it relates competitively in the international system depends largely on the way it plans (or plans not in the slightest)?

Pakistan must prepare workers for offshore employment. It needs to develop a workforce at par with the workforce of industrialized countries; respond to the industry demands of today and of the future; prepare workforce to meet the demographic gap of the West; push a program to modernize the system of technical education and vocational training; increase the supply and productivity of skilled labor in key sectors of the economy; increase, relevance, internal efficiency and quality of existing technical education and vocational training; and least but not the last, improve the opportunities for gainful employment in the formal and informal sectors of the economy.

According to Neil Edmunds, former president of the American Vocational Association, those who will lead vocational education into the 21st century must be shareholders in a unifying vision; these leaders must understand the broad scope of vocational education. They must be skilled communicators; they must be as comfortable outside the educational setting as within it, moving easily among people from government, education, and business. The question: does Pakistan offer this leadership? (www.asifjmir.com)