Bad news outsells good news, making news channels so depressing it's easy to conclude we spent all of 2015 killing each other! Truth is, we managed to move human civilization forward significantly! Here's my take on the five biggest ways in which civilization advanced in 2015.
#5 - We further explored space, the final frontier
NASA's New Horizons space mission reached Pluto this year and has sent back amazing pictures of the "dwarf planet". Before you pooh-pooh that, take a moment to reflect on the fact that Pluto is at edge of the solar system, 5 billion kilometers away!
#4 - We agreed, more than we disagreed
It may not appear so, but this year the world agreed on significant matters that have been many years in the making. In Iran, a long-standing threat of nuclear escalation was defused, with an agreement being reached between Iranians and the US-led West. On Greece, better sense prevailed on bailout terms between the Greeks and the German-led EU. We didn't quite agree on gay rights, but a historic US Supreme Court verdict ensure we moved forward anyway. The much maligned WTO inked two big agreements this year, one on global trade of IT products, worth $1.3 trillion, and another on agricultural subsidies, which will over time remove several artificial barriers to world trade and food supply.
#3 - We connected more of the world, thus democratizing opportunity more
One billion humans use Facebook daily now, and Google does over 3 billion searches a day. In 2015, we connected another half a billion people to the Internet for the first time, most of them in Africa and developing Asia. The business implications of this level of global connectivity are already evident, e.g. Alibaba's online shopping extravaganza Singles Day generated $14.3 billion in sales in a single day this year!
But the significance of the creation of a connected, global village goes way beyond mere e-commerce. In its grandest manifestation, it allows for what I call the "democratization of opportunity". Today the best of human knowledge is available online, and often for free. Anyone can start a business in this "sharing" or "gig" economy, as ideas can attract talent and funding regardless of their origin, reducing barriers to entry and stimulating innovation on an unprecedented scale. Furthermore, anyone can now write or otherwise express themselves politically, socially or artistically on a global stage. This democratization of opportunity on a global scale was never possible before in human history, and represents a powerful step forward for civilization.
#2 - We edited genes and defeated microbes
An even bigger step forward that human civilization took this year has been in the space of genetics and microbiology. Remember the ebola epidemic that was supposed to wipe us out? Well, this year we have all but eradicated ebola! Similarly, Africa eradicated polio this year, a hard-won victory that took more than 25 years!
A revolutionary genetic technology, human DNA editing, made rapid (albeit sometimes controversial) strides this year. The entire human epigenome was finally mapped this year, and we now have demonstrated the ability to "edit" human embryos using CRISPR , which has the potential to make future babies free of genetic disorders. Of course, as always, there are risks of misuse and a need for more regulation, but the technology will march on meanwhile.
Perhaps the biggest win has been the discovery of teixobactin, a totally new antibiotic. The last time we discovered an entirely new antibiotic was over 30 years ago, and the first time was in 1928, when Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin! While this is significant enough, the real significance is the process by which teixobactin has been discovered. Here's why: as we have started using more and more antibiotics in the last few decades, bacteria have grown alarmingly resistant to them. Teixobactin can overcome even the most resistant bacteria, which is obviously great. Trouble is, that only buys us time in the battle between our brains and bacterial evolution, since bacteria will eventually evolve and beat our new wonder drug, just as they did with previous antibiotics. Enter iChip, a new methodology for developing antibiotics that allows us to test future drugs on more bacterial strains and much faster! Essentially, the discovery of teixobactin using iChip not only puts us a few decades ahead of killer bugs, but also establishes a process of developing antibiotics that's faster than the speed at which bacteria evolve!
#1 - We acted to save the planet by going beyond fossil fuels
After decades of climate denial, humans finally agreed that while our post industrial progress has been nothing short of phenomenal, it has taken its toll on the planet, and that a different model of development - sustainable development - is no longer a nice to have, but a must have for our continued existence. When the first round of climate talks were held in Rio in 1992, the debate mostly centered on the question, "Is this a real thing?". We have come a long way in a (relatively) short time since then, as all the nations in the world reached a landmark climate deal in Paris a few weeks ago. Everyone knows that the Paris agreement by itself will not suffice to address climate change, but the fact that we have come together as a civilization to accept, confront and address this issue gives us hope that we will find ways to save ourselves from climate hara-kiri, after all. Our best brains and economic powerhouses have already started finding ways to go beyond fossil fuels, the main culprit. Solar seems to be the technology of choice, with France and India coming together to form a grand Solar Alliance; Gates, Musk, Jack Ma and other tycoons coming together to commit billions for solar research, and Musk announcing the Tesla Powerwall earlier this year, hopefully as a sign of things to come.
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Chandan Joshi is a global business executive and a strategy consultant, with deep expertise and a passion for consumer and technology driven businesses. Visit him at LinkedIn at https://sg.linkedin.com/in/chandanjoshisg or on his blog, at www.chandanjoshi.com