My estimate is that over 300,000 people will read this white paper, 80% of whom will not have heard of me. Context might help, as the material will get very strange very fast once we get into the core arguments, and I want readers, including the 33,000 or so who read my social media, to enjoy the process. If you have an enjoyable experience, you’ll be more likely to participate in the calls to action, and that is ultimately the purpose of researching, writing, and rewriting this paper.

The book lists practical and compelling reasons for the expected end of the Embargo and travel restrictions, such as: – the recent discoveries of oil and gas (which could be worth over $1.5 trillion); – opportunities for billions in US agricultural sales; – over 200,000 jobs for Americans within a decade; – increasing US GDP (at a time of stagnation); – ending the expenses of the embargo (many hundreds of millions); – and ending the global PR nightmare. A must-read book and call to Action for America!

Drawing upon his unique access to top management at Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, Verizon, IBM, Cisco, Psion, Microsoft, and other key players, he profiles those who are vying to be among the first to cash in on the wireless revolution while holding their own against brilliant upstarts, government regulation, and the threat of extinction by competitors who appear from virtually nowhere, at any moment.

Watch the Economist Innovation Awards Ceremony 2010, which was held on October 21 in London, and had a special new category for the invention that would most impact the next decade. This was awarded to 4G, represented by Alex Lightman.

The Economist magazine is, for the first time, having a Reader’s Choice awards contest. I believe 4G Networks deserves your vote because it is the innovation that will be the most influence the world over the next decade, from 2011 to 2020.

Here’s the list of candidate technologies, which was selected out of hundreds (thousands?) suggested, as written by The Economist.

Full disclosure: I wrote the first book on 4G, and I’ve been invited to give the equivalent of the Oscar acceptance speech if 4G wins. However, even if I wasn’t in this happy position, I would still write this note and still say exactly the same things.

• 4G networks Fourth Generation wireless networks will bring broadband to the developing world and make it ubiquitous in the rich world, by enabling people to have broadband internet access on mobile devices.
• Electric cars Electric cars have the potential to change the automobile industry and make an enormous contribution to efforts to reduce pollution.
• Geoengineering Efforts to engineer desired changes to the earth’s climate will help to counterbalance or reverse the potentially catastrophic negative effects of climate change.
• Graphene electronics The properties of graphene open up possibilities for superfast electronics.
• Personal genomics Analysis of a person’s genes has the potential to drive personalised medicine, showing people what diseases they may be prone to and even preventing these before they cause problems.
• Private space-launch services Opening up space to the private sector will help enable ambitious space missions like a manned mission to Mars and make the dream of commercial space travel available to more people.
• Randomised trials of aid and development schemes Rigorous experimental testing of interventions could promote development and make aid delivery far more efficient.

Here is my candid and personal view of why 4G Networks should get your vote and win, and why the others do not deserve to beat 4G Networks.

* 4G networks

Fourth Generation wireless networks will bring broadband to the developing world and make it ubiquitous in the rich world, by enabling people to have broadband internet access on mobile devices.

1. Ubiquity – ONLY 4G networks could possibly be in use by EVERY single adult on earth by 2020. There could be seven billion 4G devices in use by 2020.

2. Utility – 4G networks (which I define as those that will provide 20 Megabits/second wireless broadband Internet including Internet Protocol version 6 support), can allow for MILLIONS of applications and MILLIONS of videos to be made available to EVERY human being.

3. Communication never reaches saturation. We have a nearly infinite desire to reach out and connect with people. As my 4,500 or so friends on Facebook indicate, and other people in a similar position, we are experiencing an EXPLOSION in the number of people we are able to keep in touch with.

4. Presence – with 4G devices, people will know whether you are available to talk, text, video chat, do an Augmented Reality tour, or anything else you can think of.

5. Empathy or “Walk a mile in another man or woman’s moccasins” – with 4G wearable devices that have cameras looking out and looking at where your gaze is directed, you will be able to see and hear things almost exactly as someone (anyone, if they also have the device) does, enabling us to better develop what Jeremy Rikfin calls, “The Empathic Civilization”. None of the other innovations proposed is an empathy amplifier.

6. Shareable – as the Grameen bank has proven in Bangladesh, an entire village can share one mobile device. With a 4G device, many people can be doing parallel sessions because of all that extra bandwidth.

7. Cost – the Boston Consulting Group cost curve rule of thumb (heuristic) is that for every doubling of aggregate production volume, marginal cost of production falls by 10%. 4G is new, but it actually can build upon the massive experience curve of 1G, 2G, 3G, and the unlicensed band technologies, etc. to have cost fall asymptotically towards zero. With subsidy or with innovative business models, the cost actually WILL be approximately zero.

8. Social Superorganism – 4G is the only technology of the seven up for a vote that can transform humanity into something different, something I call a Social Superorganism, in which we have so much bandwidth with so many people in use so much of the time that we effectively become, from multiple objective, quantifiable measures, one single united being.

9. Health – 4G will enable massively expanded sharing of high resolution 3D medical scans and other medical records so that any doctor anywhere in the world can in theory offer treatment and advice to any sick or injured person, or even for preventative care.

10. Peace – It is my personal vision and prediction that if the entire world were provided with 4G communicators that there would be so much interconnectivity that the world would experience an unprecedented era of peace, even as we experience “peak everything” (oil, uranium, fresh water, population, etc.)

I hope I’ve made the case for 4G and that you will go to http://www.economistconferences.co.uk/innovation/readersawardcastyourvote

and vote for 4G!

But what about the other candidate innovations? Here’s my (admittedly subjective) take on these:

* Electric cars

Electric cars have the potential to change the automobile industry and make an enormous contribution to efforts to reduce pollution.

1. Old news – Electric cars are a 110 year old innovation. I’m not even sure what they are doing on the list. There are new technologies, such as batteries, software and chargers, but these are not what’s being voted on.

2. Not ubiquitous - There are between 660 and 880 million cars out in the world, and 50 million new ones each year. Of these fewer than 1% are electric. While this will grow, over the next ten years, we will  have tens of millions of electric cars not billions or even hundreds of millions.

3. Required Smart Grid upgrades will slow adoption: Even if governments gave them away for free, the electrical grids need to be upgraded for charging. An electric car on a 4 hour charge uses as much electricity as three average households in San Francisco. SF has about 333,000 households. Adding 111,000 electric cars could potentially double the peak electricity usage, which is not so easy to do in a short period of time. And SF is powered by Pacific Gas and Electric, the utility that is so progressive that it gets more of its energy from renewables (40%) than any other utility. Try doing electric cars in Africa, South Asia, or Latin America in places were the electric grid can be down for large parts of the day.

4. It’s just driving. Driving is itself not an innovation.

* Geoengineering

Efforts to engineer desired changes to the earth’s climate will help to counterbalance or reverse the potentially catastrophic negative effects of climate change.

1. Vaporware. Where’s the conscious geoengineering that does what the descriptive line above says? Doesn’t exist. 4G actually exists.

2. It does exist, as humanity’s big environmental damage. The only geoengineering in the world today (and likely to be during the years 2011-2020 in question) is related to environmental problems: deforestation, desertification (think Sahara doubled), climate change. I’m sorry, but I don’t think that’s an innovation. I think that’s a catastrophe in the making, and not worthy of an award.

3. Law of Unintended Consequences – how do we know that a massively expensive geoengineering project won’t make other problems worse, even if it works as advertised.

* Graphene electronics

The properties of graphene open up possibilities for superfast electronics.

1. Computational closure – do we need higher resolution on our paper maps? How about the maps on Mapquest or Google maps? I don’t. I think maps are pretty much finished. I also think that where we are going without graphene electronics is fast enough. There is a limit: the speed of light. And fiber optics and computers are already up against the light speed limit right now.

2. Too far upstream. Graphene electronics is interesting and relevant for, say, Samsung or Intel or Cisco, but it’s not going to actually make a big impact for the end user. It’s an innovation limited in relevance, for the most part, to manufacturers, and not to other stakeholders.

3. What will it actually change? Not that much that wouldn’t have changed anyway.

* Personal genomics Analysis of a person’s genes has the potential to drive personalised medicine, showing people what diseases they may be prone to and even preventing these before they cause problems.

1. I have two words for this innovation: Terry Grossman. Grossman, the co-author with Ray Kurzweil of Fantastic Voyage and Trascend, runs a medical practice and longevity clinic in Colorado. He wrote a very interesting piece in H+ magazine this summer, which more or less debunks the idea that personal genomics will have a significant impact on health care.

http://hplusmagazine.com/editors-blog/rethinking-promise-genomics

2. This is a very narrow area for a minority of people who will make use of it a few times a decade, at most. 4G, in contrast, will be used by most of the people in the world most of the time for most of their activities.

* Private space-launch services

Opening up space to the private sector will help enable ambitious space missions like a manned mission to Mars and make the dream of commercial space travel available to more people.

1. Doesn’t really change anything. I want to go into space as much as anyone. I even have said that I want to die on Mars. But will spending millions of dollars on me to get to Mars actually impact life on earth all that much? Will having your rich friends in Beverly Hills who took Virgin Galactic out into space, and took pictures, and came back, actually change your life? I don’t think so.

2. It’s for rich people. It will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to go into space. This means, from 2011 to 2020, that we are talking about tens of thousands of people who will be able to go on joyrides.  I want to do it. I plan to do it. But I don’t kid myself that flights into orbit and back will actually make a difference to the entire world.

3. It’s not for poor people. Gandhi said, “Consider the poorest person and ask yourself whether your next action will make any difference to that person.” We could spend hundreds of billions of dollars on a few trips to Mars, or a few hundred trips outside the earth’s atmosphere. A few thousand people could join the 100 mile high club or whatever it will be called. But this would not make a difference to the billions of people who are poor, and possibly illiterate, starving, ill, injured, and just want to get a slightly better price for their cucumbers or otherwise want or need to communicate.

* Randomised trials of aid and development schemes

Rigorous experimental testing of interventions could promote development and make aid delivery far more efficient.

1. I don’t even get why this is here, since we’re talking on a planetary scale. We’ve had hundreds of countries trying thousands of different aid projects over a period of centuries, and we have mountains of data, information, knowledge, and expertise about this. I don’t see this as an innovation, unless you imagine that the US and UK or other nation that is supposed to do the randomized trial as a nation with blinders on, that does not simply look at what other nations have tried. If you are in the US, and want to know what works with health care, look at what Cuba has done in 126 countries over the last 50 years, and see what has worked, and what hasn’t. This is not an innovation, this is common sense.

2. A wise person learns from the mistakes of others. A fool doesn’t even learn from his own. This is another way of saying the first point.

In conclusion, I think that 4G is not only better than any of the other innovations proposed, but it’s better (given the criteria of most impact over the next decade on the entire world) than all of the other innovations (or purported innovations) COMBINED.

I hope that I’ve sung for my supper, and given you objective grounds to vote for 4G networks

http://www.economistconferences.co.uk/innovation/readersawardcastyourvote

Thanks for your support for 4G!

Respectfully,

Alex Lightman

BBC World Service – Programmes – Trying to swim from Cuba to Florida 30 years after first attempt

Time to End the Embargo on Cuba?

Obama administration preparing to loosen rules on Cuba travel

Pharmaceutical Industry

Petraeus Builds a Case for Success in Afghanistan

I think the claims of poor qualifications of the doctors in this article are erroneous. As for the people needing to bring food and linens to hospitals and clinics, so what? The medical care is free. Why, in a country were milk costs $16 a gallon (I saw this with my own eyes in stores), would the hospitals stock up with (very expensive) food, when their budgets are so low?

Cuba’s Cash-for-Doctors Program

Having seen Cuba deal with an embargo, I don’t agree with the last line of this article that Venezuela’s economy would collapse if it didn’t sell oil to the US. Venezuela could simply sell to other countries, and take out the cost of transportation. There is still a shipping glut, so it’s conceivable that the Venezuela could eat the cost of transportation, and sell farther away, which would mean that the US would have to pay more. China needs reliable supplies of oil.

However, to return to the start of this post, I’m not so sure the US really wants a Venezuelan reminding the OPEC countries that they were able to increase oil prices 400% by embargoing the US in ’73-’74.

It’s also worth pointing out that Chavez was elected. The US says Cuba has to hold elections to get the embargo lifted. I have NO doubt that if free elections were held that one of the Castros would win if he ran. If neither ran, it’s entirely possible that someone who hated the US and was more aggressive would win. How could someone be pro-American and run for office in Cuba, given how the US has treated the Cuban people? A Chavez in Cuba would be the best the US could hope for, but should expect worse. My advice: lift the embargo first and play nice, and then have elections, if you want a pro-US government in 10 years onwards.

Venezuela’s Chavez threatens U.S. oil supply cut | Reuters

So, BRING ON THE CRITICISM of Fidel Castro, Cuba, Cubans. Please tell me in the STRONGEST terms possible why the US embargo is Cuba is a GREAT policy, and why we should keep it in place, and even what Cuba should be required to do before any part of it should be lifted (American travel, medical equipment sold without requirement of responsibility for end use, etc.) Go ahead, change my mind. Show me the error of my ways, and how wrong headed my thinking is!

Chris Grayson, Alexander Muse, Silence Dogood…bring it! I honor your intellects and integrity, and am I’m happy to accurately represent your quotes.

Newsweek

The reputation damage from Landis comments about Armstrong taking a hormone is all out of proportion, and in this case the punishment doesn’t not fit the crime. It’s absurd to say that money, carbon-fiber frames, etc. are not performance enhancements, but that a hormone is a drug and therefore Lance is a terrible person because he’s a druggie. Landis, you suck.

People want jobs, but they should be thinking how to make something awesome in the Experience Economy, starting small and scaling it up. The age of jobs is over. It’s now the Age of Projects. One big tip: most of the top 50 grossing movies are science fiction, but almost none of  the top grossing plays (you could call Starlight Express, Cats, and Phantom of the Opera if you wanted) and none of the top music tours are science fiction. Someone should get a clue from the success of Walking  with Dinosaurs and put science fiction on tour.

Baby Eater, T-Rex Star in $250 Million ‘Walking With Dinosaurs’

1. Because the US has rules that effectively stopped Cuba from getting medicines and water filtration equipment that would help to maintain optimal world class health standard. (Used to be part of embargo, but food and med can be exported…if the US company gets license, and promises it won’t be used by military, which is impossible to be in control of after a sale is made, so this point is mostly window dressing).

2. And then there’s this: “In May 1981, an epidemic of Dengue Fever killed 158 Cubans – 101 of which were children. A CIA agent later admitted to bringing the virus to Cuba.” Read more at Suite101: The US Blockade of Cuba: Cuban-American Relations and American Embargo

Dengue Fever Showing Up In Central Florida

1. Walk, jog or run an hour a day, even if you have to split it up.

2. Do Crossfit. Nothing enables the average person to see so much progress towards so many fitness measures. Yes, World of Warcraft, has virtual measures, but WoW might as well stand for World of Weight-gain.

3. Get a health assessment from Karen Kurtak or someone like her. Read Transcend or Fantastic Voyage, both my Ray Kurweil and Dr. Terry Grossman, and get useful supplements for nutrition or fitness support rather than weight loss.

4. Replace your couch near the television with a treadmill, Concept2 rowing machine, or spin bike, and make yourself exercise while eying the boob tube or YouTube.

5. Have some dumbbells and a wobble board near your TV or computer, and every so often do some clean and jerks, curls, arm raises, shoulder shrugs, or thrusters (best), and play with the wobble board daily and have fun improving your balance.

“I’ve long felt that many so-called weight-loss supplements on the shelves of pharmacies and health stores are useless. Now two new studies back up my view – and, at a conference in Sweden, the researchers even went as far as to say these products should be banned. I agree with them. I’m angry they’re on sale at all, when manufacturers should be aware they don’t work and pharmacies stock them – and that they benefit from a loophole in the law.

The studies, one from Britain and the other from Germany, show that the supplements, often derived from plant extracts, are no more effective than dummy pills. No science.

When UK researchers reviewed studies on nine weight-loss supplements containing ingredients from bitter orange to green tea extract, they found no evidence that any of them worked.”