Understanding Systems of the Future - PowerPoint Presentation

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Slide1

Understanding Systems of the Future

Ahti Salo, Aalto SCI

ahti.salo@aalto.fi

30

th

Anniversary of the Systems Analysis LaboratoySlide2

“You

can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only

connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. .. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”Steve JobsSlide3

“

To the wisest and most careful men of our greatest institutions of

science and learning I have gone … asking each to forecast what will have been wrought a century from now.” “The prophesies will seem strange, almost impossible … yet they have come from the most learned and conservative minds in America.”Slide4

“Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world.”Slide5

“Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance …

photographs will reproduce all of nature’s colors”Slide6

“Grand opera will be telephoned to private homes and will sound as

harmonious as though enjoyed from a theatre box”Slide7

“Air-ships

… will not successfully compete with surface land and

water vessels for passanger or freight traffic”Slide8

“

Every

river or creek with any suitable fall will be equipped with water-motors, turning dynamos, making electricity”Slide9

“Mosquitoes, house-flies and roaches will have been exterminated”

DDTSlide10

In hindsight

Statements postulated as optimistic visions

Many were strikingly accurate (mobile phones)Technological discontinuities largely missed (fission, transistors, DNA, …) Errors in judging the economic viability of technologies (aviation)Some aspirations offend our values (killing all insects)Slide11

Where Do We Stand Now?Slide12

Many systems are becoming ever more interconnected and volatile

Kimmo Soramäki, Financial Network AnalysisSlide13

We are able to collect and analyze absolutely huge volumes of dataSlide14

We still live in a world where economic and political disruptions occurSlide15

In this changing world, models provide

the

universal language for capturing the essence of dynamic systemsSlide16

Models allow us to combíne data, expert judgements and value statements …Slide17

… and thus help us choose actions for achieving our objectivesSlide18

In fact, models have become so pervasive that they may go unnoticedSlide19

But at the other end of the spectrum, they inform far-reaching decisions that impact the lives of our children and grandchildren

Tommi Ekholm, VTTSlide20

There are exciting opportunities for those who

possess advanced modelling skills

have an open questioning mindwish to mark their contribution by making changes for the betterSlide21
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“

Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to

those who prepare for it today.”Malcolm XSlide23
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Acknowledgements

- http://en.wikimedia.org

- http://commons.wikimedia.org- https://www.flickr.com/groups/freeuse/ - www.google.com (for images with permissions for non-commercial reproduction) Thank you !