Solving the nitrogen crisis in a digital cow barn

12

October

2022

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A soil scientist prefers to stand in the mud and a data scientist prefers to sit behind a computer, both sound very different but Claudia Kamphuis got these parties around the same table. In a project for Wageningen University, she and Thomas Been are trying to solve the nitrogen crisis in a digital world. Since agriculture is a major contributor to nitrogen emissions (Hofstede, 2022), they want to focus on this initially. They are planning to do this by developing a digital twin of a farm. But for we continue, what exactly is a digital twin?

According to Kimberly Borden and Anna Herlt (partners in McKinsey’s Operations Practice), a digital twin is a digital representation of a physical object. This object can concern a product, but also an entire office building. What is important is that data from the physical environment of the corresponding product provides real time data to the digital twin. Let me give you an example of a well-known application to make it a little less abstract: Google maps is the earth’s digital twin. Data sources on the earth continuously link real time data (like traffic jams, accidents, weather conditions etc.) to its digital Google maps twin to optimize your traffic route (Borden & Herlt, 2022).

In addition to optimizing your route, an application we are all very grateful for by the way, this technique can thus also be used at the environmental level. By representing a farm in a digital form and continuously combining this with real time data, various scenarios can be examined digitally. This is exactly what Kamphuis and her team are trying to do. For example, by placing sensors in barns that measure nitrogen emission in real time, it is possible to find out, without conducting physical tests, where and with which farming and land management techniques the most results can be achieved (Mailer, 2022; Wageningen University & Research, n.d.; Kloppenburg, Kok & van der Voort, 2021).

We are still at an early stage for developing digital twins for agriculture, but it is a promising technique and when it is fully developed, it can also be used for other organics as water and even diseases (Wageningen University & Research, n.d.).

References

Borden, K., & Herlt, A. (2022, October 10). Digital twins: What could they do for your business? McKinsey & Company. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/digital-twins-what-could-they-do-for-your-business

Digital Future Farm. (n.d.). Wageningen University & Research. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://www.wur.nl/formsession-expired-27.htm

Hofstede, S. (2022, October 5). Lijst met 100 grootste ammoniak-uitstoters telt 90 veebedrijven. De Volkskrant. Retrieved October 12, 2022, from https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/lijst-met-100-grootste-ammoniak-uitstoters-telt-90-veebedrijven~bfe80b23/?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

Kloppenburg, S., Kok, E. J., & van der Voort, M. (2021, January 1). Digital twins in agri-food : Societal and ethical themes and questions for further research. NJAS: Impact in Agricultural and Life Sciences, 93(1), 98–125. https://doi.org/10.1080/27685241.2021.1989269

Mailer, S. (2022, October 10). Digital Twins – Simulating Agriculture for Climate-Positive Farming and Land Management. Lexology. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=25585a38-417d-41ab-b238-f9767099d6cb

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The shared e-scooter war in Rotterdam

8

October

2020

No ratings yet. Rotterdam is the main Dutch battleground for shared e-scooter companies. In this blog I’ll explain how these companies try to gain a foothold and the characteristics of the local market. Last, you get some tips for testing them yourself.

But first, how did it start? In 2018, the start-up Felyx was the first to arrive in the city. The founders weren’t unfamiliar with Rotterdam as one of them is a former EUR student. The business concept was born when driving a car2go in Amsterdam. However, a car in the big city is far from the fastest way to move around. The scooter is. To get a municipality like Rotterdam on board there needed to be something in it for them, too. The e-scooter was the answer as it isn’t loud and locally polluting (Hollingsworth, J., Copeland, B. and Johnson, J.X., 2019). The sharing functions are enabled by IoT technology.

Soon there were hundreds of free-floating scooters to be found all around the city. At first, students were the main target group later expanding into young professionals and freelancers as well (Top of Minds. 2020). The new concept was mainly appealing as it was fun to drive the scooters, but customers soon identified improved convenience and freedom of this transport mode in comparison with their own bike. In that way it is surprising that this concept can be successful in a biking country like The Netherlands.
Fast forwarding to now, there are yet two companies that have joined Felyx in Rotterdam: Check and GoSharing. They all have different ways in which they try to lure you to their platform. Felyx has the advantage of being the incumbent with Felyx being an acronym for e-scooter. They leverage this by charging a relatively high per-minute fee and no staring fee. GoSharing uses volume deals to get you addicted to scooter sharing. Starting with an average per-minute fee when using the scooters without a deal but getting pretty cheap when you buy large minute packages. They limit the amount of free minutes when joining the platform. Check did exactly the opposite by rampaging into Rotterdam with a low per-minute fee, no starting fee and 15 euros of worth of riding for free.

The market-entry tactics have led to a strange dynamic in this market. Felyx is going reasonably steady as they haven’t performed stunts to gain market share at any time. At Check, this is a different story: their market-entry tactics have lead to giving out so many free minutes of riding that it took them months to boost revenues. The upside is a considerable gain in the number of users. The upcoming months will tell if they can retain them now that riding is not free and a starting fee is introduced. GoSharing is found to compete less on price. What they are doing is connecting edge cities and suburban areas of Rotterdam by creating service areas in villages. Commuters are able to pick scooters up close to home and drop them in the city centre. At the end of the day they can find an available scooter again to travel back.

Time will tell whether this is a winner takes all market, like many recently disrupted markets are. In the meantime all of the providers have found investors with deep pockets, currently favoring the consumer. I think there will be space for multiple providers. Furthermore, I believe that the most important aspect is the availability of scooters in the right places at the right time and second is the ease of combining trips with other transport modes such as the subway.

Are you interested in trying one of these services out? Get some free riding minutes with Check promocode MMN-GN4, Felyx code RSqGv8CW or GoSharing code XZ26IZ.

If you’re already using shared e-scooters in Rotterdam I’m looking forward to hearing from you in the comments. Which provider do you like and why? And do you think the market will eventually head towards a monopoly or will there be space for 3 or more providers in the future?

References:
Hollingsworth, J., Copeland, B. and Johnson, J.X., 2019. Are e-scooters polluters? The environmental impacts of shared dockless electric scooters. Environmental Research Letters, 14(8), p.084031.

Top of Minds. 2020. Carrière Advies Van Quinten Selhorst En Maarten Poot | Top Of Minds. [online] Available at: [Accessed 8 October 2020].

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Hey Podcast Lover! Have You Heard Of Lex Fridman?

7

October

2020

As BIM-student, it is very likely that you are interested in topics like coding, Deep Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, human-robotic interaction, or Autonomous Vehicles. If by any chance you also enjoy listening to podcasts, you might be in luck:

I highly suggest you to check out the Lex Fridman Podcast.

LexFridman

Lex Fridman is an AI research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, often better known as MIT. He works on developing deep learning approaches to human sensing, scene understanding, and human-AI interaction. He is particularly interested in applying these technologies in the field of Autonomous Driving.

LexFridmanTeaching

If you know the Joe Rogan Experience, you likely are already familiar with Lex. Having worked for both Google and Tesla, Lex Fridman understands the business application of digital technologies. He uses his podcast to share this knowledge with his audience and discusses his fascination with a variety of interesting guests. This can be particularly interesting for us as Business Information Management students, as we also form the future bridge between business ventures and technological innovation. The podcast discusses similar topics like we get taught in class, sometimes going more in depth, with international research experts in those particular fields.

If you enjoy podcasts, these are some examples of Lex Fridman Podcast episodes that I highly recommend you to give a listen as a BIM-student:
RecommendedEpisodes

  • Episode #31 with George Hotz: Comma.ai, OpenPilot, Autonomous Vehicles.
    Famous security hacker. First to hack the iPhone. First to hack the PlayStation 3. Started Comma.ai to create his own vehicle automation machine learning application. Wants to offer a $1000 automotive driving application, which drivers can use on their phone.

 

  • Episode #49 with Elon Musk: Neuralink, AI, Autopilot, and the Pale Blue Dot.
    Elon Musk. Tech entrepreneur and founder of companies like Tesla, SpaceX, PayPal, Neuralink, OpenAI, and The Boring Company.

 

  • Episode #114 with Russ Tedrake: Underactuated Robotics.
    Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Aeronautics and Astronautics, and Mechanical Engineering at MIT.

 

  • Episode #120 with François Chollet: Measures of Intelligence.
    French Software Engineer and researcher in Artificial Intelligence, who works for Google. Author of Keras – keras.io – a leading deep learning framework for Python, used by organisations such as CERN, Microsoft Research, NASA, Netflix, Yelp, Uber, and Google.

These were just several examples of episodes that I enjoyed myself.

The benefit of a podcast is that you can listen it basically anywhere, and can stop listening at any time. If you are not familiar with podcasts yet or with the listening experience they offer, maybe the Lex Fridman Podcast could be your first step into this experience.

You can find the episodes of the Lex Fridman Podcast here: https://lexfridman.com/podcast/

Or check out Lex Fridman’s Youtube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/user/lexfridman

The above sources have been used as sources for this post. 5/5 (7)

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Digital is More Sustainable, or is it not?

4

October

2020

No ratings yet. Growing concerns around climate change and the impact of human activities on global warming has resulted in a global trend of organizations adopting CSR / sustainability policies. Simultaneously, digital technologies were becoming more and more prominent in most organizations. Consequently, digital technologies changed the way business is done in a lot of industries by moving business processes online. These two trends resulted in numerous companies making ‘anti-paper’ claims about digitized processes being more environmentally friendly as it removed the dependency on paper and plastic. However, are these claims actually true? Do digital processes actually have a lower environmental footprint than traditional business processes where e.g. documentation, promotion and marketing is done on physical materials such as paper?

For this question to be answered, there first needs to be clarity on how environmental footprint is defined. In this case, environmental footprint will be defined as the effect that an activity has on the environment, and this could be an effect in terms of CO2 emissions, amount of waste produced, recycle rate or else.

The claims that digital processes are more environmentally friendly than traditional processes seem very logic. On first sight, digital processes consume less physical materials than traditional processes; saving documentation in the cloud vs printing or writing the documentation on paper. However, in reality this is not the case. Obviously, paper or other physical materials such as plastic are in principle not environmentally friendly. In the case of paper, it uses wood as its main element, uses 400 – 2600 liters of water for the production of one kilo of paper and emits on average 500 grams of CO2 emissions per kilo of paper (which is the equivalent of eating two avocados). Altogether, the paper industry accounts for 7% of the global CO2 emissions. Compared to the airline industry, which is known as one of the most harmful industries, it is three times as much. Despite these numbers, it appears that the paper industry does not have a negative influence on the vegetation. On the contrary, it is proven that forest coverage has increased in both Europe and the US. Moreover, paper is recyclable up to seven times and approximately half of all paper is already being recycled globally, this reduces the amount of waste that paper leaves behind.

Digital processes on the other hand, do not seem to use a lot of materials on the surface. However, the devices used to document and process the business operations online require a lot of energy. Per organization, the CO2 emissions of energy usage can differ significantly dependent on whether the energy comes from a renewable source or fossil fuels. Moreover, the devices in the offices are not the only pieces of hardware that need energy with online documentation. Online data storage also requires enormous data centers that consume energy 24/7. Collectively, it is expected that the IT industry will account for 14% of total global CO2 emissions, whereas this is currently only 3%. Besides energy usage, technological devices require a lot of materials among which lithium, (precious) metals and rare commodities in the production phase. Despite the fact that concrete evidence and literature are not available yet on the environmental footprint of technological devices due to its relatively short existence, it is clear that technological devices require a lot of (non-recyclable) resources and that it is very likely that this has consequences for the environment.

In short, both traditional (paper-based) and digital processes have a significant environmental footprint on the planet. Due to the complexity of the total footprints and the lack of concrete evidence on technological devices, it is very hard to determine whether or not digital processes are actually less harmful to the environment than traditional processes. Therefore, organizations should be very careful with such statements and individuals should be critical and not blindly believe such statements as it can be used as a way of greenwashing.

References:
Cambridge Dictionary, n.d. Environmental footprint. Accessed on the 4th of October 2020 via https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/environmental-footprint
Kinsella, J. (2017). Digital Vs Paper: A History Of Printing, In House And Outsourced. Accessed on the 4th of October 2020 via https://www.ceotodaymagazine.com/2017/11/digital-vs-paper-a-history-of-printing-in-house-and-outsourced/
Klein Lankhorst, M. (2019). De papierindustrie stoot meer CO2 uit dan de luchtvaart. Is het nog wel verantwoord om papieren boeken uit te geven? Accessed on the 4th of October 2020 via https://decorrespondent.nl/9463/de-papierindustrie-stoot-meer-co2-uit-dan-de-luchtvaart-is-het-nog-wel-verantwoord-om-papieren-boeken-uit-te-geven/509327049-b14c9d5f
Moodie, A. (2014). Is digital really greener than paper? Accessed on the 4th of October 2020 via https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/digital-really-greener-paper-marketing
Project Drawdown, n.d. Recycled Paper. Accessed on the 4th of October 2020 via https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/recycled-paper
Simpel Duurzaam, (2020). Hoeveel is 1 kilo CO2? Accessed on the 4th of October 2020 via https://simpelduurzaam.nl/hoeveel-is-1-kilo-co2/
Two Sides, n.d. Electronic communication also has environmental impacts. Accessed on the 4th of October 2020 via https://www.twosides.info/electronic-communication/

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A robotic workforce: fact or fiction?

16

October

2019

4.67/5 (3) Our current workplace is becoming increasingly digital and automated. Employees fear that robots will eventually overtake their jobs, as was the case with manufacturing and is currently happening with administrative tasks (BCG, 2015). But is this really the case? Are we heading towards a future in which all jobs will be automated and performed by a robotic worker? In this blog I want to share my opinion on the debacle about automation in the future workforce.

 

Fear of losing a job has always been present in the background, but one paper, written by Frey and Osborne (2013) about the future of innovation and employment, caused a lot of fear among the current workforce a couple of years ago. The authors claimed that half of the current jobs will be automated in the near future. For many people this will, of course, be very frightening to hear about. However, is this really the case? According to OECD (2013), who wrote an article in direct response to Frey and Osborne, only 9 percent of all jobs could be fully automated. This difference is explained by the fact that Frey and Osborne included all jobs in their percentages no matter if they would be fully automated in the future or only minor parts would be automated or performed by a robot.

This exact point is, in my opinion, of key importance in the job automation discussion. Naturally, it is unavoidable that certain jobs or parts of it will be automated in the future. A robot is after all cheaper and less prone to errors than a human worker (Romero et al., 2016). The inference should not be made, however, that human workers will not be of value anymore in the future workplace. The majority of the jobs still have to be performed manually. Think of jobs in which cognitive skills are necessary, complex decisions have to be made and where the human touch is a key factor. Jobs in healthcare or strategy-making are very clear examples of where human workers will still be needed in the future. Automation will mostly play a central role in tasks such as processing huge amounts of data, moving information from one place to another or in tasks that are very repetitive.

As a result, it is true that workers will need to learn new skills to be able to interact and collaborate with these robots (BCG, 2015). Nowadays, it is very accessible for employees to teach themselves skills necessary for automating simple tasks. Programs like UiPath and Blue Prism let you build programs that can do the repetitive tasks for you, without knowing anything of programming yourself.  This way employees do not only learn skills that are future proof, but most importantly, can also be part of the evolution of their job in a proactive way. This will, in addition, take away the fear and misconception from employees with which we started the beginning of this blog. Robots and automation will not take over complete jobs, they will only support you with handling certain tasks.

Taking all of the above into account, my opinion is that the future workforce will stay mostly human. It will, however, be optimized and supported by robots and it would be wise for employees to understand the basics of automation to adapt to the changing workplace. How do you see this? Do you think computers and robots will become smart enough to outcompete all human workers?

 

p.s. In case you are interested in automation and would like to experiment with it yourself, have a look at UiPath, which offers easy to understand automation lessons.

 

References:

BCG. (2015). Man and machine in industry 4.0. How Will Technology Transform the Industrial Workforce Through 2025? Retrieved from https://www.bcg.com/publications/2015/technology-business-transformation-engineered-products-infrastructure-man-machine-industry-4.aspx on 15-10-2019.

Frey, C., B., & Osborne, M. (2015). Technology at work. The future of employment and innovation.

OECD (2016). The Risk of Automation for Jobs in OECD Countries: A Comparative Analysis. OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Paper. Volume 189.

Romero, D., Bernus, P., Noran, O., Stahre, J., & Fast-Berglund, Å. (2016). The operator 4.0: human cyber-physical systems & adaptive automation towards human-automation symbiosis work systems. In IFIP international conference on advances in production management systems (pp. 677-686). Springer, Cham.

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Botnets and Smart-houses: Attack on Philip’s Hue Bulbs

15

October

2017

No ratings yet. What is a botnet?

It is a collection of devices which are all connected to the internet, where each one is running one or more bots (autonomous program). These include any type of device that can be controlled by malware. Most of the time, the owners of these devices do not know that their devices are infected.

But why is this topic becoming more important? With more variety and cheaper devices becoming a part of ‘the internet of things’, there is a larger pool of devices which can be infected. Since many of these devices have very little security, they are easily infected and large networks are quickly made.

So, what can the hackers do with these botnets? They can take down websites with large DDoS attacks (you may have experienced these playing online games), that take down the servers by flooding their bandwidth using botnets. Secondly, they can commit click fraud, where advertisers online are led to believe people are clicking their ads. This could ultimately destroy the internet advertising model. Furthermore, they can use these their botnet network to mine bitcoins (and earn a considerable amount of money doing so).

However, another type of attack is equally frightening. The smart-LED-light system from Philips, the Philips Hue is just as vulnerable to attacks as any other device connected to the internet. These Hue lights allow the user to control their lights via the internet, with a lot of different functions. With more people adopting these type of technologies (myself included) large scale attacks can have serious effects.

Researchers from Canada were able to remotely hack hue bulbs from a distance of 70 meters using botnets, allowing them to control them. Not only is this something you obviously do not want as a consumer, but it can seriously damage an electrical grid of a densely populated area. This was all done with equipment only costing a few hundred dollars. Although the researchers worked together with Philips to improve their system, similar attacks may follow.

The Hue lights are only one aspect of a smart house. When more devices are added to your house for convenience, a hack can do a lot more damage. As a consumer who enjoys these technologies a lot, I am left to trust these large companies to improve their software to keep me protected. But to what extent can these technologies put me at risk? Are you willing to trade the risk of being hacked for the reward of  “super cool lights”?

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603500/10-breakthrough-technologies-2017-botnets-of-things/

https://www.cnet.com/news/new-study-details-a-security-flaw-with-philips-hue-smart-bulbs/

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Anonymous, hackers or hacktivists?

9

October

2016

5/5 (1) With the digitalization of our society, the number of internet users has increased as well. In the year 2000, 414,794,957 (6.8%) users had access to the internet. Now, 16 years later 3,424,971,237 (46.1% of total population)users have access. (Internetlivestats, 2016). Of course, how more users on the internet, how more interesting it is for hackers to abuse their knowledge of the technical aspect of the internet.

Today I want to talk about one of the most well-known hackers organization Anonymous. Anonymous was founded in 2003, on the imageboard 4chan. Their members, so-called ‘Anons’ consider their selves as hacktivists, but what is the difference between a hacker and a hacktivist? A hacker is a person who gains unauthorized access to computer system. This can be either for good or bad reasons, but usually it is to deal damage to the system or in order to retrieve valuable information. (Merrian-webster.com, 2016) A hacktivist on the other side, is a person who gains unauthorized access to a computer system and carry out various disruptive actions as a means of achieving political and social goals. (dictonairy.com, 2016)

We can also differ white-hat hackers, which have good intention and black-hat hackers, which have bad intentions. White-hat hackers are usually computer system testers or security experts. Black-hat hackers are the hackers where you think about when people are talking about hacking, breaking into systems and dealing damage to those systems.

So before we place Anonymous into these categories, what have they done in the past 13 years? Let’s list up some, to my opinion, good actions of Anonymous:

  • Operation Deatheaters. (thousands of pedophile networks were shut down and names of visitors were published).
  • Shutting down hundreds of accounts, forums, websites of IS supporters
  • Leaking Bank of America corrupt and unfair mortgage practices.

On the other side, they did certain things which aren’t justifiable:

  • Hacking Sony’s systems in 2011. Caused a 10% stock value loss and published tens of thousands of private emails.
  • Putting personal information of HBGary Federal lawyers after Aaron Barr (CEO) said he had ‘cracked’ Anonymous. (Bright, 2012)

These are just a few examples of the hundred things Anonymous has claimed to do. Most good things they do have to do with publishing information and shutting down ‘bad’ websites. The bad things Anonymous is doing is mostly reacting to certain, in their eyes, bad deeds. Also, they respond to threats, like the HBGary Federal case.

So whether Anonymous is a good or a bad organization is a matter of perspective. I wouldn’t say they are white-hat or black-hat hackers/hacktivists. In 1996  at the DEF Con Hacking Conference they made up a new kind of hackers/hacktivists: grey-hat hackers/hacktivists. These are hackers/hacktivists which may sometimes violate the law, but not have malicious intentions like the black-hat hackers. I would say they are grey-hat hacktivists, what do you think?

Thank you for reading!

Feel free share your knowledge and opinions about this topic!

(Also, if you’re interested in Anonymous, check out the movie ‘We Are Legion'(2012)).

 

 

 

References

Bright, P. (2012, October 03). With arrests, HBGary hack saga finally ends. Retrieved from http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/03/the-hbgary-saga-nears-its-end/

Hacker. (2016, October 09). Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hacker

Hacktivist [Def. 1], (2016, October 9) Retrieved from http://www.dictionary.com/browse/hacktivist

Internet users. (2016, October 09). Retrieved from http://www.internetlivestats.com/internet-users/

La Monica, P. A. U. L. (2014, December 15). Sony hack sends stock down 10% in past week. Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/15/investing/sony-stock-hack/

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