2010-09-21

A possible Flight to UK spawns some thoughts.

We were talking about flyers lately..
Well, your wait is over. You can take a plane from Thessaloniki and try your luck at Dragon's Den (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/), for only 32€ one way till end of September.

Is your idea worth more than what you could ever dream?
Then get the plane to London and try your luck in the UK innovation arena.

Seriously now, Thessaloniki must have a route to London with a minimum fair. A lot of Greeks are studying in the UK, and a lot of successful Greek entrepreneurs  took their degrees from British Universities.

I mention  that with all due respect to Greek Universities. But we still have a long way to go..
It is true that Institutes like the Centre for Research and Technology Hellas (CE.R.T.H.), or Informatics and Telematics Institute (ITI - CE.R.T.H.) have quite an impressive record lately, and they capitalize on the great research work of Greek University Members.

But otherwise, our Educational Institutions lack the power to compete in the new era.
The World's TOP 100 University rankings  unfortunately do not include a Greek University. It doesn't really matter, you'd say, Greeks excel abroad. Well, it does matter. Because education mirrors the future of a country and our mirror is lying to us, saying we are still young and strong and beautiful.

Now, enough negative thoughts, let's get positive. What could we do to reverse the route?
We should consider making Universities a place where innovation and entrepreneurship flourishes, not an elephant graveyard (I sadly think of  old and rusty ideas waiting for a pension).
Now, education feeds research , research spins innovation and innovation brings value back to the country and back to education. Or not?
Anyway, that's the way it should be. I am not the person to show what has to be done. This is really the job of  Wise men and Education ministers. But I could propose some ideas, similar (why not) to what other Top institutions are already applying.
 
Take an Example:

The University I have made my final studies (EdUNI - Edinburgh Univeristy) has a great record in innovation and it even funds the E-Club (Edinburgh Entrepreneurship Club). Edinburgh University is at the Top of the UK institutions in Computer Science and IT field. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/table/2010/jun/04/university-guide-computer-sciences-and-it).

It takes innovation seriously and continuously tries to teach Staff and Students about how to become more linked to the Industry and produce real market value. I remember that it always brought  futuristic projects from Top Industry Enterprises and created beautiful challenges during the courses so that we could awaken our minds. But it was never raw data. We had to work with the market, with real money (funds) and with the competition of other groups that would also like to get to the prize first.

AN IDEA
So, let's try and post a challenge for Greek Universities now.
I will take a "Green Development" path - chic-  and propose something that is both innovative and brings a better future to the world. The last few weeks, I am intrigued by the possibility of a large scale project about building a cloud service (SaaS you may call it) that would collect smart meter data  from consumers, public organizations and businesses and would be able to get statistics about the use of electricity in our homes, businesses and organizations with the goal of making people aware of how much energy they spend and how they could minimize the impact to the environment.
I searched quite a lot and found hundreds, maybe thousands of small or big applications, but most of them are limited to only reading the data and producing stats.
Now, I think the innovation would be to be able to actively interact with all these smart devices, wherever they are and be able to turn them on or off. This eventually becomes a different challenge, since all the complexity of the networks comes in and new parameters have to be studied.
This massive network of devices is what some may call a subset of the "Internet of Things"  and great challenges come alive. But IT IS DOABLE. Google has launched the Google Powermeter which is a great project and could eventually become a gigantic collector and switcher of such devices. But the aforementioned network complexities must be thought, solved and executed.
What would this mean is a HUGE saving  in energy power, money and finally better control of our pocket. At the end, an important environmental impact that would help governments reach the targets about CO2 emissions till 2020 faster than they though.
The technology is there. The prices of such devices have to be dramatically reduced, reaching the point of less than 10$ for hardware per home. And they have to be SIMPLE, EASY to be installed by anyone and eventually AVAILABLE  at the Super Markets or newspaper stands.
When they become a commodity, everyone (in the Developed countries)  would buy such devices, plug them at a normal electricity plug at home, pair them to their Router / TV / Set-top-box or Mobile phone with WiFi or Zigbee or other means and  take control of their expenses.
Sounds futuristic or impossible ? Nothing is Impossible !!!

Don't rush and post comments about similar projects with the tag "already done"... I told you, I have seen hundreds of similar projects, but nothing quite touched me yet so to say "This is the one".  What is missing is the TOTAL solution up in the cloud INCLUDING the UNTROUBLED  REMOTE CONTROL. Show me where I can get my washing machine turned off from a cloud service with a nice Gui from my iPhone, Android or Blackberry and  tell me is costs less than 50€ to buy the solution for a year's period and I will quit this idea.



I can help you with some links about Greek (or not) efforts in this direction or otherwise nice products and services in the right direction.
http://www.intelen.com/corporate/
http://www.tendrilinc.com/
http://www.plugwise.com/idplugtype-g/
http://onzo.com/
http://www.greenenergyoptions.co.uk/
http://www.theenergydetective.com/home
http://www.britishgas.co.uk/iphone
http://gigaom.com/cleantech/10-energy-dashboards-for-your-home/
http://images.businessweek.com/ss/09/04/0414_home_energy_use/3.htm
http://gigaom.com/cleantech/faq-smart-grid/



But still, something is missing from all these... to complete the Picture.

Global simplified interactive connectivity might be the solution for some cents a month maybe?

And after you read them, think WHAT the missing LINKS are and e-Mail me with your startup plans :)

Just kidding ...


Be well


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