Week 2- The rise and fall of great powers and human development.

In this lesson we looked back into time and see the great powers of past. We examined counties like  USA, China, Roman empire and Britain, examining why these great powers rise and fall. We looked at factors like the black plagues and the openness of the countries leaders to new ideas.

In the second half of the lecture, Prof talked about the Human development index, addition of happiness to the index and how the world has been coming together to fight global problems.

What I found interesting was the reasons for the rise and fall of great powers. Thinking about how just 1 strain of plague can destroy an empire or just by a change in attitude- becoming more arrogant can cause a fall of a great nation. On the other hand, the domination of successful countries can be done with a ship of crew with better weapons.

What I found interesting for the second part of the lesson was the fact that the world is actually coming together to fight common problems(or at least attempting to). Most of the goals does little to benefit richer participating countries. The Millennium Development Goals is a very good initiative for the poorer countries, however in it the only goal which actually might benefit the rich is Global partnership. the rest.. marginal benefit. I'm not sure how countries persuade each other to agree to these goals.. but it's a very good initiative.



Most importantly what I took away is this: You don't need much to rule the world. Just an idea can rule the world. Just like know how to operate a cannon can help you rule by coercive force. Knowing an extra something can bring you great influence.


In the next few lessons, I will like to further the discussion about great powers and how the world are shaped by their leaders. This is especially true for a more authoritarian type of government where the words of one really has a global impact- Nuclear crisis for instance.

Another topic I find very useful to discuss will be translating ideas into something greater. in class many great ideas have been shooting around, same with the facebook page. Are these ideas just "Oh that's interesting, good read, good entertainment" or could it be "Wow, that's really interesting, I can actually implement that in school or at home". The skills set to use concepts discussed to make actual change is what differentiates a talker from a doer. If just 1% of the ideas can be used, the world will be a much better place.

I would personally rate this lesson a 8/10. The concepts discussed went deep. Instead of focusing on the actions/events, we managed to discuss the underlying concept of their attitudes, being open/hungry as opposed to being closed up and not interest in learning new ideas leading to dominant player being a rising or falling star. 

Week 1- It all starts here

In our first lesson after the icebreakers and going through the coruse outline, we explored the idea of how fast the world is changing and the factors that contributed to the change watching "Guns, Germs and Steel"

"Whatever I learn might be outdated by the time I am year 3" This was the interesting observation which stuck in my head even after the end of the lesson. How can technology change so fast? I might be wasting my money in university! Well of course not. I will learn skills to ride the change and might even be an innovator.

The main take away points from the first lesson were that we have to be open to change and keep up to date with technology. Because technology keeps changing, we should not just acquire knowledge (as that keeps changing) but more cruicially develop the skills such as creative thinking, being able to see emerging trends and being entrepreneurial to cope with the evolving society.

A few weeks before the first lesson, I listened to a entrepreneur pitching his idea. This statement was in-sync with the concept I learnt in the first session. He said: "People are moving from an internet based society to an Apps based world". He was from a new start-up company trying to get fund for their application based game for Iphones, Ipads and Android systems.

I was taken aback after listening to that statment. Most of us are still trying to learn how we can fully utilise the internet and what we are learning is already moving on the downward trend. As of today, Apps have already overtaken internet and its usership will still continue grow and thus I will like to explore this idea that Applications are the new in thing and the possibility of making money from it.

 The diagram below shows a comparison between the usage of mobile Apps vs web consumption. It shows the upward trend of consumers spending time on Apps.

 Probably in the next "shift happens" video, we will likely see more about Apps.

I would rate the first lesson a 6/10. Although we went through interesting concepts like the speed of changes in the world, we had to go through the course outline which was fundamental but dry.