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Transform: Harnessing The To Transform The Lives of
Transform: Harnessing The To Transform The Lives of
Transform
Harnessing the Power of Energy
to Transform the Lives of
10 Million People
2 TRANSFORM: Harnessing the Power of Energy to Transform Lives
CONTENTS
TABLE OF
3.2. Energy enables greater mobility, fundamentally transforming the way we move
goods and people...............................................................................................................28
3.4. Energy enables better human functioning through Health and well-being,
extending lives and improving quality of life.......................................................................43
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- Peter Diamandis
The light bulb is an iconic emblem The light bulb’s evolution—from flame
of ideas and innovation. It is difficult to incandescent, fluorescent to LED—
to imagine the realities of daily living is emblematic of the progression of
before its invention, but consider energy-powered innovation. Successive
Thomas Edison’s vantage point: innovations were built on each other
he imagined an electrified world and have continued to refine lighting
before it existed, and he brought that technology in ways that harness energy
transformative vision to life. more efficiently.
For millennia, open flames from fires The lessons the light bulb offers to
and torchlights were supplemented with energy innovators are clear: Use
expensive candles and oil lamps that promising energy systems as the basis
exuded weak light and filled homes with for innovation. Focus on practical
smoke. The light bulb put electricity to inventions. Capitalize on the potential
use with revolutionary consequences: ecosystem of business that exists
It transformed lives by decoupling around important new innovations.
humankind’s work and rest schedules Create infrastructure if it does not
from the cycles of the sun. It made already exist. Think boldly—imagine a
our environment safer at night and transformed world, as Edison did, and
brightened our homes. It illuminated work to bring your vision to reality.
playgrounds for the human imagination.
When electricity became available
as a form of power in the 1800s, an
explosion of innovation began. This
innovation was fueled in particular by
“Energy is the only universal
the demand for better, more affordable
light. Thomas Edison’s famous bulb was
just one of many light bulbs invented at
currency: one of its many
that time, and it was not the first. But
Edison’s iteration made the light bulb
practical, and his business acumen
forms must be transformed
made it commercially viable. His vision
spurred the creation of lighting systems
for homes and entire cities, and his
to get anything done.”2
access to capital gave him the means to - Vaclav Smil
execute that vision.
Edison’s success created an entire
ecosystem of innovations and
businesses, including incremental
improvements to the light bulb and
the rapid electrification of homes and
workplaces. The electrification of
lighting in turn led the way for many
other inventions that relied on this new
system of grid-based energy.
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2.2. The efficiency of both energy generation
and energy consumption technologies have Current Energy
increased greatly in recent decades, yet too
much of the world remains in darkness Landscape
Trends
Technological advances in the way
we generate, transmit, store, and use Generation:
energy are undergoing a dramatic
transformation, with rapidly accelerating
• Plummeting costs for renewables
will continue.
change in all four domains. While this
year’s Challenge is focused squarely
• Fossil fuels remain a key part of
the energy mix, but are diminishing.
on how innovations
• There is growing consumer control
in the end use Battery technologies can help over how and where energy is
of energy—that
provide reliable and timely delivery produced.
is, the forms
experienced directly of electricity for various end-uses.
• Demand outstrips generation
capacity in many developing
by consumers—
markets.
can transform millions of lives, a brief
review of trends in energy generation,
transmission, and storage can help Transmission:
forward-looking innovators understand • Distributed energy systems are
how to capitalize on new opportunities emerging.
in the ways we use energy.
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How does the world generate energy? How does the world consume energy?
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2.3. The key to harnessing the
transformative power of energy lies in
democratizing innovation, making it more
accessible to all
Connectivity
Health Education
Mobility Agriculture
Water
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Case: Jana—Building
Business Models around
Internet for All
that access. The first generation of the Internet— to carry out detailed authentication
the Internet we know today—is really protocols. From securing land claims
Jana is one example of how an a system for sharing information. As to authenticating identity to ensuring
innovative business plan can fuel we all know, the Internet’s impact that musicians are compensated for
connectivity in new markets. on access to information has been their work, blockchain-based systems
astounding. To focus on just one have the potential to democratize
“Facebook is talking about lasers example, Wikipedia, a venture with 200 the authentication of transactions
from space and Google [is] talking full-time employees, engages a global in the same way the Internet
about giant blimps, which is great, network of 80,000 regular volunteers has democratized the sharing of
but the real way to impact the lives to create and curate a knowledge information.
of billions of people in terms of resource that reaches a half-million
mobile—particularly in rural areas—is users a month in an astonishing 288
to reduce their price per megabyte,” languages.
says Jana founder Nathan Eagle.
“For example, more than half of the In the next phase of the Internet, the
smartphones in Brazil don’t have underlying architecture may manage
a data plan because it’s just too transactions rather than information.
expensive . . . And even though the The name for this adaptation is
price of megabytes is projected to blockchain. This new architecture is
halve by 2020, typical consumption already enabling the creation of an
is expected to go up 6x.” array of new business opportunities
that bypass traditional intermediaries
for transactions, such as banks,
notaries, and various government
agencies. It instead relies on peers
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Photo credit: Artemis
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Case: pCell—Personal
Connectivity Everywhere?
pCell is one possible contender. This access to the same network. Artemis
wireless innovation from Artemis claims that this results in a dramatic
appears to upend conventional increase in the spectral efficiency of
understanding of the underlying LTE and Wi-Fi systems, with signals up
architecture of connectivity. to 1,000 times faster. The innovation
Current energy-powered The ongoing rapid growth in the
seems to break information theory—or,
at least, to suggest that Shannon’s
innovations in connectivity number of connected devices poses Law was asking the wrong question.
reliability and bandwidth challenges Beginning with a technological
may prove to be as for the underlying communications discovery in a university setting,
architecture. Cellular networks are pCell’s path to commercialization has
revolutionary as the invention traditionally shared spaces with a taken more than a decade. Artemis
of the microprocessor. cellular antenna that provides coverage
with a single signal, or cell, shared by
Technologies, founded in 2011
by QuickTime and WebTV creator
all who connect to it. This arrangement Steve Perlman, has incubated its
divvies up bandwidth into small development.
increments to avoid interference.
pCell is a useful reminder that
Called an “elegant solution to a transformative technologies can follow
persistent problem,” pCell’s technology a winding path to commercialization.
embraces interference; signals get Artemis’ business model was first built
stronger as interfering waves combine. on a notion of licensing pCell to wireless
By exploiting interfering radio waves, carriers and Internet service providers.
it creates an unshared “personal cell,” Announcements of field testing in 2014
or pCell, that follows each individual aroused significant media interest
device and allows each user full access (and skepticism). Artemis signed a
to the spectrum. pCell inverts the major agreement with Nokia Networks
existing paradigm—a comparatively and licensed spectrum from DISH
small number of large cellular towers— Networks in 2015, and the company has
by building out a system that instead continued to innovate its business plan.
uses a large number of small cellular
towers. With the latter approach, users
in densely populated areas would not
experience service disruptions from
having to compete with others for
READ MORE
Transportation has traditionally In most places today, the mass transport • Dramatic improvements in battery
of goods and people is dominated by technology have pushed back the
required a huge infrastructure four technologies that are more than a boundaries of automotive transport,
century old (trains, automobiles, trucks, turning electric-powered vehicles
investment, as well as bicycles) and one that is more than 50 (EVs) from the ugly ducklings of the
years old (containerized shipping). In this automobile market to some of the
substantial energy consumption, decade, energy that’s being harnessed in most sought-after consumer goods.
to fuel mobility. Both elements new ways is transforming each of these
technologies. As new technologies create
By so doing, EVs have helped shift
the trajectory of the entire industry.
are beginning to change. new options, norms and models for (Although EVs currently comprise
mobility are changing rapidly: only 1% of all new vehicle sales
globally, recent analyses suggest
• Gains in solar-power technologies that EVs could account for 30% of all
are beginning to fuel cars, bicycles— new light-duty vehicle sales by 2030
even our roadways. New varieties and 54% by 2040.)
of electric-assisted bicycles are
expanding the range of the world’s • Autonomous transportation is
most efficient form of transport. an emerging trend that, as it
Private bicycle-sharing programs are matures, will continue to reshape
growing rapidly, transforming transit transportation dramatically in urban
in cities. and rural areas alike. Careem
is already demonstrating how
the efficiency gains of Uber-like
ridesharing might be extended even
further with driverless pods.
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Photo credit: SolaRoad
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Solar Roadways
As more populations reach new levels of Though largely still in the R&D phase,
prosperity, more vehicles are expected the world’s first solar-powered roadway
on the road, which creates an obvious was piloted in France in 2016. Other
question: How can we sustainably projects have explored different solar-
fuel an additional one billion cars by powered transportation pathways; the
2035? One potential solution is to SolaRoad, which was tested in the
power vehicles of the future through Netherlands in 2015 for use on bike
the electrification of the transportation paths, reportedly generated far more
sector. power than was anticipated.
Solar roadways are one idea being Solar roadways face several cost,
tested as a way to transmit power to engineering, and maintenance
vehicles and to the lights and signs challenges before they can achieve
that accompany roadways. Specially wide-scale deployment. The kilometer-
designed arrays of solar panels would long test bed in France cost $5.2
be laid flat and provide energy to the million; there are one million kilometers
vehicles and people traveling across of roads in France and more than six
them. million in the U.S. Even with a targeted
deployment, the high upfront costs
Solar roadways are one idea being could mean an increased payback
period for investors. Furthermore,
tested as a way to transmit power to
laying the panels flat (rather than being
vehicles and to the lights and signs angled toward the sun) seems to lessen
that accompany roadways. their ability to generate energy. New
technology breakthroughs may increase
the product’s attractiveness, such as
the ability to prevent the accumulation
of snow and ice, or including
microprocessors in the panels to allow
for communication between the panels,
control hubs, and vehicles.
READ MORE
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1/3
Safely processing, shipping, and between actors in the supply chain and
distributing the food we produce is a consumer behavior drive the majority of
significant logistics challenge. It’s also food waste.
a large market. Cold-chain services
for perishable food distribution are Building end-to-end cold-chain
valued at roughly $190 billion globally systems helps move perishable food
and are projected to grow by more safely to consumers. The maturation
than 40% by 2022. Improving how we of proper cold-chain storage systems
store and distribute food is an essential has yielded significant benefits in
component of ensuring food security. developed countries; the WHO
Problems with food distribution are one identified refrigeration as a major factor
significant driver of global hunger: while in the reduction of stomach cancer by and shippers along the supply chain
great gains have been made in recent nearly 90% in the United States since with its small sachet inserts that can
decades, an estimated 795 million 1930. But infrastructure challenges have be slipped into shipments to inhibit
people still lack access to adequate limited the expansion of these systems ripening.
food. in some developing countries. Creative
solutions include using new energy In addition to preserving what we grow,
Reducing food loss is a major vector for technologies such as renewables to we also must ensure that food is safe
improving the efficiency of our global power modular cold-storage units. The to eat. New applications of energy
food production chain. It’s estimated East Africa Fruit and Farm Company, can improve the safety of our food.
that 30% to 40% of all food grown based in Tanzania, touts significant RF Biocidics uses radio frequency to
is lost or wasted every year. In low- reductions in post-harvest losses (from eliminate pathogens in food. By using
income countries, food loss and waste 48% to 10%) through the use of cold electromagnetic waves instead of
stem from challenges with harvesting, storage driven by renewable energy. conventional thermal processing, food
storing, and distributing food. In higher- Hazel Technologies, a U.S.-based can be treated in packaging without the
income countries, lack of coordination startup, focuses on providing growers use of chemicals.
Refreigerated
Harvest at Farm
Warehouse
Fresh Food Retailer
(Restaurant/
Post harvest Transport (Air/ Franchise)
Precooling/ Transport (Truck)
Sea/Truck/Rail)
Packing
Retailer
(Supermarket)
Distrubution
Centre
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Case: ColdHubs—
Preserving Harvests with In developing countries, nearly half the leveraging renewable energies to tackle
food harvested spoils due to lack of food-storage challenges in developing
Solar Power refrigeration. An estimated 470 million countries.
farmers in Africa, Southeast Asia, and
Latin America lose up to one-quarter of Started by Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu, a
their annual income from crop spoilage. farmer and entrepreneur, ColdHubs is
ColdHubs, located in Nigeria, is styled as a “plug-and-play” solution to
on-site food storage. Modular, solar-
powered walk-in units allow for off-
Photo credit: ColdHubs
grid storage of perishable food. Solar
panels mounted on the roof feed energy
to high-capacity batteries that fuel a
refrigerating unit.
Energy and water are deeply Teams are asked to consider how you
intertwined. Some of our earliest might use energy to:
innovations involved harnessing water’s
energy. Water is essential to human life • Create more clean water with
in all phases of energy production, and new technologies
energy-powered innovations are the • Conserve water resources with
critical underpinning of our water supply improved stewardship
and treatment systems. • Enable wider access to clean
water resources
Discussions of water today are
often focused on scarcity; by 2025,
1.8 billion people will live in water-
scarce conditions. New energy-driven
Water is essential to human life in all
innovations are needed to transform phases of energy production, and
how we collect, store, and transport energy-powered innovations are the
water so that all people will have
access to this vital resource. As new
critical underpinning of our water
technologies help with clean water, supply and treatment systems.
water conservation, flood prevention,
pollution control, data collection, and
infrastructure planning, a holistic view of
how water touches our lives is needed.
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CASE: wAmrit
—Using Nanotech to
Create Clean Water
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Case: Learning from
Earlier Innovation Attempts
3.5. Energy provides pathways The health and human experience dimension of
transformation encourages teams to think about how
to better human functioning, energy-powered innovations can drive advancements in
extending lives and improving diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, and quality-of-life medical
quality of life applications. New frontiers of health knowledge enabled by
energy-powered technologies are transforming the range of
opportunities for extending human health and functioning.
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way to prevent genetic diseases from one example of how a social enterprise Bluetooth hearing aids are an example
becoming diseases of poverty, says can help empower more consumers of a low-cost approach to deploying
expert bioethicist Josephine Johnston, with frontier medicine. technology at scale, especially when
is to extend access to these services to integrated with smartphones that can
more consumers. be used as assistive listening devices.
WEARABLES AND
At the risk of repetition, teams should Other creative wearable innovations
OTHER AUGMENTATION
not attempt to field new discoveries translate various types of energy
that require a professional lab and Energy-based technological inputs into sensory outputs. The
a multimillion-dollar R&D budget. breakthroughs have broadly enabled us Sensory Substitution Vest translates
However, there’s considerable work to overcome many sensory disabilities, audio captured by tiny embedded
to be done to take the existing but access to these empowering microphones into a grid of vibrational
breakthroughs in genetic and technologies has been unequally patterns. (Over time, a wearer’s brain
bioengineering and find ways to extend distributed because of cost barriers. learns how to “hear” the vibrations from
them to more consumers. “What’s One in 20 people have some level of the interactive cloth.) LeChal Shoes
missing in the conversation is how disabling hearing loss, but of the 300 translate haptic inputs for the blind; the
we adopt all of these technologies to million people around the world who shoe insoles, which connect to a mobile
a society that considers well-being need hearing aids, each year only an app integrated with Google Maps,
for all,” says Eleonore Pauwels, a estimated seven million—most of them vibrate to tell users when and where to
bioethicist at the Wilson Center. “There living in the U.S. and Europe—are able turn in order to reach their destination.
is already an access problem. But what to afford them.
about when we’re editing out diseases?
A number of wearables are particularly
Who will pay for CRISPR? We are
promising, as they offer more
looking at much more disruption in the
future.”
affordable solutions to those with
hearing impairments: Bone-conducting
“Somewhere between
Extending access to genetic knowledge headphones can transmit sound in 600 million and 1 billion
is a start. Startup Genome Medical is ways that bypass auditory deficits.
people need help with their
hearing, depending on the
degree of hearing loss.
Contrast that need with
the fact that the traditional
hearing aid industry is
selling only 10 million
products per year.”
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Case:
Smart Contact Lenses
READ MORE
Solar Toilet
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Case: Transcending
Language Barriers with
Real-Time Translation
3.6.2 Advances in connectivity and machine
learning are creating the potential to extend
human cognitive capacity
It’s the Tower of Babel come to life: the
9.5 SDG target: Encourage innovation and substantially ability to translate spoken language in
increase the number of research and development workers real time could facilitate cross-cultural
communication and collaboration like
never before.
Energy-fueled gains in connectivity COLLABORATE MORE CLOSELY ON
increase the range of opportunities KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION
for making full and effective use of
the spectrum of human intellectual Increasingly, impressive gains in the
capabilities. This can take a frontiers of our knowledge about the
variety of forms, including building human condition have been driven
business models that leverage the by a consortium of actors working
complementarities between human collaboratively. The cell atlas is an
and machine learning, creating ongoing attempt to comprehensively
new ways to collaborate, and map the 37.2 trillion cells in the human
instrumentalizing the ways that the body. This ambitious effort could Photo credit: Waverly Labs
full continuum of neurodiversity can lead to more sophisticated models of
contribute to the betterment of all. human biology and striking advances
After several years of buzz, Waverly
in pharmaceutical development.
Labs will soon launch its Pilot
BALANCE HUMAN AND MACHINE Similarly, the BRAIN Initiative—a
earbud, which aims to provide
INTELLIGENCE public-private “Grand Challenge”
real-time translation in 15 different
collaboration between foundations,
languages. With $5 million in pre-order
Computers can increasingly do more researchers, and governments to
crowdfunding, the Pilot is scheduled to
of what was regarded as the domain coordinate scientific efforts—has
ship in fall 2017. Other incarnations are
of human intelligence. From gains yielded significant findings as to how
already here: Bragi recently debuted
in information processing, pattern the brain processes and encodes
the Dash Pro earphone with similar
recognition, and prediction, advanced information.
real-time translation, and Google
computing has moved into areas Translate continues to offer near-real-
requiring language comprehension and Leveraging the full range of human
time translation powered by advances in
intuition, and even creative expression. intellectual capacities will require
Artificial Intelligence.
Energy-powered innovation has continued improvement of how we
underpinned these advancements in coordinate research efforts. For
These developments are thrilling, but
digital; it’s time to think about how example, administrative drudgery
they prompt even more questions.
we can leverage complementary is one barrier that often keeps
Many consumers—even in wealthy
energy applications in the new balance researchers from maximizing their
countries—will find the roughly $300
between machine and human learning. contributions to scientific progress,
price point out of reach. How can we
and the current system for matching
marry technological innovation with
As technology advances, high-level research talent with research needs
low-cost paths to reach more people?
social intelligence skills may become is inefficient. Faculty members often
How else might we collapse invisible
even more important than advanced manually search, screen, and select
but persistent obstacles and unleash
quantitative knowledge. Computers candidates in low-tech and low-
greater collaboration?
can’t (yet) understand the human yield ways, like posting to limited
condition, making social intelligence— distribution listservs.
skills such as empathy, leadership, and
collaborative teamwork—increasingly New platforms enabled by digital
essential. innovations make it possible to imagine
designing more efficient solutions
and even more efficient business
arrangements. For instance, cloud-
networked research laboratories allow Could new
virtual biotech startups to dramatically
cut fixed overhead costs like full-time platforms
employees and lab space. This enables
ventures to be more nimble and flexible
encourage
about how they spend R&D dollars more efficient knowledge
to achieve new breakthroughs. Other
technological breakthroughs, such as sharing and collaboration
efforts to provide real-time translation
devices, will continue to break down
in other professional
traditional barriers to collaboration. domains?
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5. Energy-powered innovations
are augmenting our ability to
lead meaningful lives
and shape it
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• Community interaction:
Businesses work hand-in-hand with
local communities and develop a deep
understanding of local norms, culture,
and social issues.
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AUTHORS
AHMAD ASHKAR
Chief Executive Officer and Founder
Hult Prize Foundation
KARIM SAMRA
Chief Operating Officer
Hult Prize Foundation
PHILIP AUERSWALD
Policy Design Lab
CARALEIGH HOLVERSON
Policy Design Lab
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Special thanks to the following individuals for research and editorial support:
Sharon Benzoni
Timothy Bushman
The Hult Prize Foundation has compiled research for this case from known and credible sources. The
authors have attempted to use accurate information as much as dynamic data can be accurately measured
and reported. The authors explicitly disclaim to the extent permitted by law responsibility for the accuracy,
content, or availability of information located throughout this case or for any damage incurred owing to use
of the information contained therein.
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