HeartyHarvard's Profile

This is a fascinating article on technology that will likely have a huge impact on the construction industry. Additive manufacturing has the potential to reduce costs in what is a very costly industry, through reduction of labor and material costs. This could have a big effect on housing in underdeveloped areas. I agree that a key question is around regulation, and whether or not it will be an obstacle for the advancement of additive manufacturing in construction. While there may be some concerns around the efficacy and safety of this technology, I believe regulators will approve the use of this technology as they will understand that it would substantially increase housing accessibility.

Thank you for a very interesting and insightful article. While it is expensive for BIA to do 3D printing in-house, I do believe that vertical integration will set BIA apart from their competitors. The more they can bring in-house, the more they can build up capabilities in this type of technology and manufacturing and one day go on to replace parts of the process with additive manufacturing. For this reason, I don’t think they should outsource 3D printing to another company; perhaps they can partner with them in the short-term to learn more, but in the medium-term, they should continue to do this in-house and build up the additive manufacturing capability.

This is a very interesting article and raises some important questions about future sustainability of the toy industry, especially with the decrease in brick-and-mortar stores like Toys R Us. I think that LEGO will need to adapt to the changing environment and double down on their e-commerce platform. This will require additional advertising on their part since they will no longer have the physical presence acting as a promotion channel. Their current crowdsourcing efforts are a great start to promoting their product, as it gets the customer involved and excited about the product. While I do think the bankruptcy of Toys R Us and other toy stores will impact sales, LEGO can bounce back if they can successfully master e-commerce.

This was a very interesting article and raises some important questions. I agree with you that a key question here is once criminals learn to dupe the machine, how will Paypal ensure the safety and security of its customers? Paypal will have to think carefully about how to compensate customers if and when this does occur. Additionally, Paypal will need to always stay abreast of the best in class fraud detection and prevention technologies. For this reason, I do not think that machine learning could ever replace humans at Paypal, because human fraud analysts will need to be the ones that are in the know on all the latest technologies.

This is a very interesting piece on using open innovation to improve the customer experience and product design process, and I think the question you pose is a thoughtful and relevant one. I would think that the more you go through a crowdsourcing process, the less new insights you can glean. This is likely due to the fact that customers have many unmet needs that may not come out during a second and third round of crowdsourcing. I believe an internal design and strategic capability is necessary to stay on top of the latest trends, to stay competitive in the VR environment, and to uncover features that customers do not even know they want.

This is a great piece on a very interesting technology that is likely to have a big impact on diagnoses of mental health issues. However, I worry if this technology will be accessible to the people who are most at risk and need it the most. People in lower income classes suffer from more mental health issues than those from upper classes, and may not have the same accessibility to smart phones. According to the Pew Research Center, smartphone penetration in the U.S. is 77% (http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile/). The 23% of Americans who don’t have smartphones are likely lower class Americans, who need Mindstrong the most.

I wonder how we can ensure that this technology spreads to areas of the country and to the groups of people that are truly in need.