Cement, Energy and Environment

T oday, we are on the cusp of an augmented age where technology is redefining the possibili es of what a human can truly be capable of. Sensors, networks, Ar ficial intelligence, Robo cs, digital manufacturing, Nanomaterials, 3D Prin ng , Augmented reality, Machine Learning and Big Data are rewri ng the rules in Ligh ng Industry. AI is one of the most important things humanity is working on. “It is more profound than, electricity” Says Google's CEO Sundar Pichai.If you don't sacrifice for what you want, what you want becomes the sacrifice ! Amazon didn't kill the retail industry. They did it to themselves with bad customer service.Ne lix did not kill Blockbuster. They did it to themselves with ridiculous late fees.Uber did not kill the taxi business. They did it to themselves by limi ng the number of taxis and with fare controls.Apple did not kill the music industry. They did it to themselves by forcing people to buy full-length albums. AirBnB did not kill the hotel industry. They did it to themselves by limited availability and pricing op ons. Technology by itself is not the real disrupter. Being non-customer-centric is the biggest threat to any business. The Changing world order as seen today-Oil of the future- data It is no denying that so ware has disrupted and will con nue to disrupt most tradi onal industries in the next 5-10 years. Data is the biggest oil. UBER is just a so ware tool, they don't own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world! Ask any taxi driver if they saw that coming. Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don't own any proper es. Ask Hilton Hotels if they saw that coming. A century ago, the resource in ques on was oil. Now similar concerns are being raised by the giants that deal in data, the oil of the digital era. These tans—Alphabet (Google's parent company), Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microso —look unstoppable. They are the five most valuable listed firms in the world. Their profits are surging: they collec vely racked up over $25bn in net profit in the first quarter of 2017. Amazon captures half of all dollars spent online in America. Google and Facebook accounted for almost all the revenue growth in digital adver sing in America last year. Facebook now has a pa ern recogni on so ware that can recognize faces be er than humans. In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans. Amazon will soon know when you need lightbulbs right before they burn out. You tube knows how to keep you staring at the screen long past when it's in your interest to stop. An adver ser in the future might know your sexual preferences before they are clear to you. (And they'll certainly know them before you've told your mother.) Let's take an example. Today an increasing number of people are reading books on Kindle or other devices. What many people don't know is that while you're reading, the book is also reading you! The e-reader is capable of following you as you read. It knows which pages you've read quickly, or slowly, where you stopped reading and when you started again. Given all this data we'll soon be able to precisely iden fy any problems and flag them to the author. And this is only the AFTER LED WHAT? WELCOME TO WORLD OF CONNECTED LIGHTING Devashish Ganguli, Havells India Ltd 66