Pictures of the Future – Spring 2010
The latest issue of the research magazine “Pictures of the Future” includes reports on the green cities of the future, molecular detectives, and open innovation. The magazine describes the challenges that cities face as a result of growth and climate change and how innovative technologies can help them meet these challenges in a sustainable manner. The magazine’s second focal topic is devoted to explaining how scientists aim to use sensor and diagnostic technology in the future to obtain valuable diagnostic information from cells, proteins, and genes. The third topic, open innovation, refers to a global approach to sharing knowledge. For example, Siemens launches more than 1,000 research partnerships each year with universities, research institutes, and industrial partners in order to run joint projects and gather ideas for its own research. This issue is rounded off by interviews with experts such as Paul Pelosi Jr., president of the San Francisco Commission on the Environment, and the architect Daniel Liebeskind, as well as a discussion with the renowned author Dennis Meadows and with Lord Nicholas Stern, who became famous in 2006 as a result of the publication of the Stern report on climate change. The magazine can be ordered free of charge on the Internet.
Sustainable Cities as a Model for the Future
Cities account for 75 percent of global energy consumption and are responsible for 80 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions. In light of climate change, city governments, scientists, and companies are therefore discussing new concepts for sustainable urban development. Pioneering projects can be found in Asia, the Americas, and Europe. These range from new mobility solutions and more efficient concepts for storing heating and cooling energy to visionary ideas such as vertical gardens and methods for binding airborne carbon dioxide. The particular focus of this issue is the European Green City Index, which was drawn up for a study commissioned by Siemens. The study examined which cities have made the most progress so far in becoming green metropolises with the help of innovative technologies.
Molecular Detectives: Nanotechnology Save Lives
They are invisible to the naked eye, but dangerous nonetheless: pollutants in the air and in the water, dangerous germs in hospitals, and molecules in your breath or in odors that could be harbingers of diseases. However, these tiny threats cannot slip past state-of-the-art sensor and diagnostic technologies, which range from electronic sniffers that can detect pollutants in drinking water, power plant flue gases, and food to systems that can detect the presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria or markers for cancer and other diseases. In an interview, the Harvard chemistry professor Charles Lieber explains how it will be possible to equip living cells with nanoelectronics in order to create early warning systems against diseases.
Open Innovation: Looking Beyond One’s Own Lab
Barred laboratory doors are a relic of the past. Partnerships with leading international universities and institutes are indispensable for Siemens’ research and development activities so that the company can keep abreast of the times and integrate diverse cultures and research approaches. Open innovation is therefore the current buzzword. It refers to a new global partnership network that provides deep insights into the latest results of international basic research in areas such as the integration of electric automobiles into future power grids, the search for drinking water processing solutions, and the creation of optimal urban planning techniques. This cooperation results in global synergies that bring cost benefits, improvements in innovation, and other competitive advantages. The global sharing of knowledge is conducted for a vast array of different applications, ranging from customized infrastructure solutions and efficient environmental protection concepts for ever faster-growing Chinese cities to carbon capture and storage (CCS) systems for power plants.