App store nowadays sounds familiar to everyone. Most of the people use app every day ranging from games, news, communication, dating tools, shopping and etc. Recently, an American entrepreneur named Justin Kao developed an app store for DNA. (DNA App Store, 2017) He believed that people are willing to pay a few dollars to see insights of its DNA. There are many interesting findings, for example, the risk of certain disease. Justin founded Helix and was given 100 million dollar to make DNA App Store real. (DNA App Store, 2017)

How is this working exactly? Helix created an online shop for data of individual’s genetic information. People, who want to know about their physical features, risk for diseases or to whom they are related to, are required to provide a spit sample. (DNA App Store, 2017) After paying certain fees, Helix will analyze DNA sequence and generate finding digitally in order for customers to access easily. All those DNA are analyzed by sequencing machines in San Diego. They are capable to analyze more than 1 million samples. Helix could become the biggest DNA sequencing center around the world. (DNA App Store, 2017)

Helix will not only analyze data but also store individual’s data. The large dataset provides huge opportunity from business perspective and also medical perspective. (DNA App Store, 2017) From business side, it enables outside company to utilize genetic information to create additional services, for instance, what will your son or daughter look like in the future. Moreover, there are many other business opportunities waiting for companies to discover. Helix created a platform for the whole industry. From the medical point of view, large DNA data enable government agencies to have a deeper understanding of citizens’ current health conditions and further disease risks. It helps to predict disease accurately, observe disease earlier and cure the patient with more targeted treatment.

However, regulatory limitations do exist. How much information can Helix provide to its customers? All or partially? Furthermore, the accuracy of its prediction of disease is being questioned. The chance of having disease should be decided based on both doctor and the DNA sequence. In sum, DNA App Store provides us insight about our gene information. It is a trend as the medical technology keeps evolving. It is also the base of further medical development, for instance, gene editing.

DNA App Store. (2017). MIT Technology Review, pp.26-27

As information technology evolves, our medical capability improves significantly. With the usage of artificial intelligence and big data, some advanced medical systems now can be able to diagnose a patient’s disease faster and more accurate than a human doctor. It can be seen in the future that more and more medical software will act as the role of doctor. However, only diagnosing patients is not enough. Combing medical knowledge and information technology, immune engineering has recently made a breakthrough on “T-Cell” which is designated to kill other cells. (Immune Engineering, 2017)

T-Cells are normally extracted from person’s own blood, due to the fact that human immune system is the most powerful vaccine. Nevertheless, cancer or other lethal disease cannot be cured by our own immune system. This is where T-Cell comes in. By adding new generic infrastructure with certain virus, T-Cell now can be able to sense the target cell and eliminate the disease. (Immune Engineering, 2017) There are many additional application for T-Cell, for instance, curing arthritis and sclerosis.

Certainly, limitations also exists. When an individual does not have enough T-Cell from own blood, T-Cells from other donors now become suppliers. There are chances that patient’s body will resist the T-Cell from outside which might consequently lead to death. Thus, before injecting foreign T-Cells, a gene editing is needed to create a compatible cell. (Immune Engineering, 2017) If the gene editing process can be successfully implemented, then we are one step closer to cure cancer.

Curing cancer is one of the biggest challenges for human kind. If T-Cell can effectively cure cancer, countless lives will be saved. In the meantime, it also attracts huge amount of capital investment. In 2014, Bellicum Pharmaceuticals raised over 160 million dollar through IPO and in 2015, Cellectis raised 228 million dollar. (Immune Engineering, 2017)  All in all, it is believed that lethal diseases, such as, cancer can be cured by Immune Engineering (T-Cell) with the help of technological breakthrough and massive capital investment.

Immune Engineering. (2017). MIT Technology Review, pp.8-13.

The industry that we will be discussing is eLearning industry which has disrupted traditional learning system. MOOC is the biggest and most well-known eLearning platform which has major providers such as Coursera, Udacity and EdX. M—Massive, O—Open, O—Online, C—Course. MOOCs is open to everyone and free of charge, the question is how to make revenue?

Revenue can be generated by offering premiums next to freemium account. For example, Coursera offers certain options:
Signature Track -> Students pay for verified certificates
Specializations ->A sequence of courses are given and skills are applied with a practical project to earn a certificate.
Purchase Course -> Students need to pay for access to graded assignments

How does MOOCs disrupt traditional education?
With MOOCs, students are provided with higher education and cost effectiveness. Suppliers would apply pricing strategies to online courses. MOOCs offer personalized pricing (financial aid). They also offer different versions of the content with different prices. Lastly, they can bundle courses into a specialization sequence. It depends on student’s willingness. Besides, according to equation of production cost of information (F+C*X), fixed cost is relatively high while marginal costs are close to zero.This leads to pre-made content being reusable, you can sell the same thing repeatedly.

Since there is no limit for the number of students, well-known courses can register as many students as possible. Online made-to-order lessons would be more diversified to meet different demand. Students can break away from monotonous syllabus and get personalized curriculum.

Geographical limitations have been decreased. Previously, student could only enroll into institutions that were within daily traveling distance. MOOCs enable students to be more flexible and allow institutions to reach potential customers globally.

E-learning indeed influence the dynamic of economy.
Firstly, competitive rivalry is high. The number of competitors is high, which makes switching cost low. Secondly, the bargaining power of suppliers decreases.With MOOCs, more suppliers will be available. Moreover, the bargaining power of buyer decreases. As most governments decide the fees for universities and eLearning will increase the size of customer group, bargaining power will drop.

The threat of new entrants has increased, as eLearning can provide same quality without previous limitations which makes the entry barriers lower. Finally, the threat of substitute increases, as eLearning/MOOCs offer attractive price-performance outcomes. MOOCs are mostly free and easy to switch.

The future of eLearning lies with Mobile learning. More learners will use portable device when having online courses. Social media will become study forum for idea sharing and tutoring. Virtual Reality (VR) is another opportunity to further engage online content and interact with others in 3-dimensional ways. With VR, users can also have face-to-face virtual contact with individuals to have instant discussion. Furthermore, We expect that employers deem online certificate recognizable and encourage employees to master skills using MOOCs. Besides, we predict that universities will offer online degree program. Students all over the world can access the program without geographical limitations.