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With a new problem emerging every week that impacts billions, search giant Google has been working on solutions for some of them.
Mohammad Gawdat, VP, Business Innovation at Google [x] and works on Project Loon, which aims to use high-altitude balloons to provide affordable internet access to the 5 billion people worldwide with no access believes that innovation is responsibility of everyone and not restricted to certain companies or to a few persons.
Mo (as he is known) has co-founded more than 15 businesses and serves as a Board Member for several startups said that all those who get an adrenal rush watching sci-fi movies will be happy to know that several of the technologies that they liked are already reality. He said that the pace of technology innovation is taken for granted, with innovations happening on a daily basis.
"We do not realise how fast our world is going, we do not realise the opportunity of innovation we can do. Everything that we see in the sci-fi movies has already happened today, but we tend to ignore it," he said while addressing the conference at the 23th Nasscom Leadership Forum.
For those who believe in everything that they saw in Star Wars, teleportation is already happening. "3D Printing may not be what teleportation was, but it can create an item today by scanning in 3D and printing it. We are printing chocolate and other things. We are also printing organs. I think we need to start thinking that what is possible goes beyong our limited imagination," he said.
He urged that innovation is the responsibility of everyone and is not restricted to a certain companies or people. "Everyone is trying to say that its not my responsibility to think of innovation. At Google we have decided that there is a huge opportunity when you try to solve major problems that affects the life of billions of people. With Google [x] we try to look for problems that impact a billion people around the world," he said. According to Gawdat, Google finds a problem a week that needs a solution.
The helium balloon, which is used to solve the problem of connectivity that impacts about 4.5 billion people across the globe, is one such solution -- one that Gawdat is confident will become commercially available by 2016. Google has said in the past that it will like to bring these in India too, for connecting rural India.
The other problem that Google is working on is to provide clean, renewable energy by using Wind. Google acquired a start-up called Makani, which is working to accelerate the shift to clean, renewable energy by developing energy kites, a new type of wind turbine that uses lightweight electronics, advanced materials, and smart software to generate more energy with less materials—all at lower cost.
"We are not using anything that you do not have access to. We have a prototype that has being tested for year-and-a-half and we hope to be in production in 2016," said Gawdat.
