Tim de Groot

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Driverless cars, pilotless planes and now autonomous ships. The future is becoming reality and this has a lot of benefits but is not without challenges either.

There are a lot of benefits when looking at autonomous ships. First of all, it would lower fuel usage and lower labor costs. 90% of the world trade is transported by sea, when reducing these costs the price of many products would probably decline as well. Without rooms for the crew, more cargo could be loaded onto each ship. Another advantage is regarding to safety. The artificial intelligence that would steer the ship would be safer than a human crew. A report by Allianz in 2012 said that 75%-96% of all the casualties at sea were due to human error. If autonomous ships are a lot safer, less of these incidents would happen, less people would die and a lot of the accidents where oil is spilled into the sea would not occur.

The main challenge for shipbuilders is the fact that modern pirates exist, namely hackers. When an autonomous ship full of cargo would get hacked, horrible stuff could happen. First of all, the shipping company could get blackmailed and enormous amounts of money would have to get paid. Another downside would be the terrorists. Just imagine if hackers would hack several ships and just steer them into all the major global harbors. This would destroy the world economy as we know it today. In my opinion, it really depends on how well these ships can defend themselves against a cyberattack in order to decide whether these ships should make it to the sea. An emergency switch should be implemented where they could always get control of the ship again and it will probably take decades of using ethic hackers and taking all the security measures before these ships are allowed on the sea. The benefits do not outweigh the risks, what do you think?

https://qz.com/1050012/no-ladders-and-curved-edges-how-ships-of-the-future-will-fend-off-pirates/

https://www.agcs.allianz.com/news-and-insights/expert-risk-articles/human-error-shipping-safety.html

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325195302_Cyber-Risk_Assessment_for_Autonomous_Ships

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The practice of giving small loans (as little as US$10 or as much as $US500) to the very poor, alongside other financial services such as savings accounts and financial training is what the Grameen Bank of economist Mohammad Yunus does. His microcredit-focused Grameen bank was the reason he won a Nobel peace prize in 2006. Over the past decades, microfinance has proven to be a powerful tool in raising welfare levels of the poor through increased disposable household income. Additional effects of microfinance on social welfare are for example female empowerment, health, nutrition and education.

Microfinance was mainly created because banks were not meeting the needs of the large segments of the population. One of the barriers to reaching those segments was the fact that formal credit records for those clients were non-existent. Most people in this segment have never been able to get a loan or a credit card and paid most things by cash in rural areas.

Companies will hesitate to extend loans if they cannot get reliable information to assess the risks of potential clients. For companies that operate in different locations across the world, obtaining client information and making objective evaluations can be a difficult task. It can also be costly. That’s why there’s a need to exploit technology and scientific methods to make things easier and less expensive.

Traditionally, financial service companies employ “small data”, such as credit scores, as they evaluate potential customers. However, as new technologies and innovative financial services emerged, new information that is useful in assessing credit worthiness has become available, but is highly disorganized. This is where big data becomes increasingly useful. Big data compiles and organizes fragmented and scattered data into something useful for financial service providers.

Data analytics can increase financial inclusion because of its benefit to financial service companies – especially those that intend to provide services on a global scale. The collection and analysis of vast amounts of information from and about potential customers is useful in evaluating financial risk. Companies extending microfinance services can better assess the risks involved in lending money to certain individuals with the help of big data as it can be used to come up with credit worthiness ratings or other quantifiable ways for credit risk assessment.

To address this infrastructure challenge, these microfinance companies usually rely on mobile phones as their way to connect to their current and prospective clients. Mobile phones become the main method of communication between microfinance service providers and their clients in remote areas. The better they can assess the financial risk of the potential customers, the more people can be helped.

Hope, D. (2018, January 30). How big Data is enabling financial inclusion. Retrieved from smartdatacollective: https://www.smartdatacollective.com/big-data-enabling-financial-inclusion/

Maas, T., & Bel, J. d. (2018, July 30). overcoming the challenges of microfinance to reach more people. Retrieved from holland FinTech: https://hollandfintech.com/2018/07/overcoming-the-challenges-of-microfinance-to-reach-more-people/

Vivanco, F. (2015, September 15). Microfinance places hope in big data, but other things are also needed. Retrieved from Fomin, multtilateral investment fund: https://www.fomin.org/en-us/Home/News/article-details/ArtMID/18973/ArticleID/3158/Microfinance-places-hope-in-big-data-but-other-things-are-also-needed.aspx

Zhang, Q. (2017, June 26). Yes, microlending reduces extreme poverty. Retrieved from The conversation: http://theconversation.com/yes-microlending-reduces-extreme-poverty-78088

Will Hackers Become The New Pirates?

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