Monthly Archives: April 2017

One Planet MBA shines a light on Women in Science and Technology

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Young girls in Europe take a great deal of interest in STEM subjects (science, technology, math) and that interest peaks at around age 11. According to a new survey, commissioned by Microsoft, by age 15, girls’ enthusiasm for sciences wanes and all but vanishes by the time they finish secondary school. Much of this is due to conformity and social expectations, and lack of positive female role models. “Not surprising”, says Stephanie Lindan, one of the recent graduates of the University of Exeter’s One Planet MBA programme. Having been featured as an Outstanding Woman in STEM by IBM, Stephanie may very well become the role model young girls need. Continue reading →

Discovery in the landscape by Hugh St Aubyn

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Part two of exploring creavity by Hugh St Aubyn

The theme of place continued in the talk through a discussion of another work by, Faye, carried out on a pilgrimage trail; the St Michael’s Way where visitors were encouraged to carry stones along the trail up a hill and leave them at the top with a view of the Mount. She asked the participants to imagine the stone represented an issue, problem, pain, or person that no longer served them. Carrying the stone accessed a ritual side of experience that spoke of hope, love, and purpose. This physical participation in the landscape helped change people’s perceptions by encouraging them to slow down, listen to the environment, and their reactions to it.

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Faye Dobinson, The Weight of Experience

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The One Planet MBA puts the Circular Economy model to work

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Circular Economy

Unilever sells some 400 brands across the world with 2016 revenues standing at some €52.7 billion. Despite the products’ vast popularity, much of its packaging ends up on landfills and oceans, not recycling bins. How can Unilever start reducing waste, especially from plastic, while putting the circular economy model to work? Gavin Warner of Unilever presented the challenge to the cohort of the University of Exeter’s One Planet MBA on Monday and by Friday the students were to present their ideas on how to repackage an item as ubiquitous as a shampoo bottle in order to create a solution fit for the circular economy. The quality of shampoo and its price, however, were to remain the same.

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Encountering the Unexpected by Hugh St Aubyn

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In discussions over the One Palnet MBA cohort’s trip to, St Michael’s Mount the theme of creativity was often talked about, Cornwall is known for its art scene and the arts play a vital role in the life of the local community and in attracting visitors to the area. We were lucky enough to make contact with the Newlyn School of Art who kindly provided one of their artist tutors, Faye Dobinson, to give a talk to the cohort about how artists respond to place. We spend a huge amount of our week applying cognitive learning and group work to challenges in sustainability, so spending a day in an area of outstanding natural beauty seemed like time we could connect with our felt responses to place.

Faye, talked about how there is a growing movement in art that sees humans as living in a landscape they hadn’t counted on. This landscape is a product of ideas, economics, urban, and spatial planning fuelled by an undercurrent of exploitation of natural resources. She asked us how we can rest easy in this landscape and how can we interrogate it? Faye described how she lets spaces unpack around her over time, as she gets to know different places and make artwork in them. Continue reading →

Thinking through the 4th Industrial Revolution

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“We stand on the brink of a revolution”, writes Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum. A revolution so profound, it will “fundamentally alter the way we live, work and relate to one another. In its scale, scope and complexity this transformation will be unlike anything humankind has ever experienced before.” It may seem like Schwab is overreaching at first, but Adam Lusby, lecturer and Circular Economy Research Fellow at the University of Exeter Business School, says that the Fourth Industrial Revolution is indeed characterised by how new technologies are fusing digital, physical and even biological worlds. “This disruption impacts all disciplines, economies and industries. It will challenge what it even means to be human,” he says.

In the intense, four-day module appropriately titled “Leading in the 4th Industrial Revolution,” Adam, the module’s creator and lead, covers everything from Artificial Intelligence, robotics, digital manufacturing, blockchain, cloud computing, mixed reality, augmented reality and much more. The standard model of a module was also flipped. Instead students have the preceding weeks to first immerse themselves into online content, watch videos, complete assignments and even produce videos of their own.  Only at the end of a five week lead in, the cohort gathers for a four-day “living lab” of hacking and immersion in technology including Raspberry Pis, NodeRed, and BlueMix from IBM.

Accenture’s latest research shows that the new relationship between human and machine and its impact could boost productivity by as much as 40 per-cent, profoundly changing the very notion of how work is actually performed. In the United Kingdom alone Artificial Intelligence could add an additional $814 billion to the economy by 2035. The growth of 3D printing is also set to skyrocket. Gartner projects that 3D printing will grow from $1.6B in 2015 to some $13.4B by 2018. Some 67% of manufacturing is already using 3D printing, according to PwC, and it will only get faster, and cheaper.
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