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THE HUS.institutes Co-Founders traveled to Astana, Kazakhstan and visited the World Expo. The theme of this years Expo, held from 10 June till 10 September, is “Future Energy” with the subthemes “Reducing CO2 Emissions”, “Living Energy Efficiency”, and “Energy for All” – which couldn’t be more suitable with our visions at THE HUS.institute. It has been a perfect opportunity of getting to know the state of the art energy research findings, new technologies and innovations and connecting with like-minded people. We consolidated our findings in a few sentences for you.
One of our main insights was that innovation is not only a result of engineering performance but also a result out of a passionate process of trying to find new solutions and making use of any creative techniques that might be available. May it be economic know-how, may it be cultural knowledge or may it be the exchange between experts and fields that normally don’t talk to each other. It was perceptible that the Expo and everything showed within the terrain, was constructed by collective and diverse intellectual investments. For example, we’ve seen South Korea, rather known for their technical performance, taking on a highly emotional approach to innovation and the theme of the Expo. In our very humble opinion, we think that we do have a lack in finding an emotional path to innovation here in Central Europe.
Another key finding was that, there seems to be a huge consensus on the fact that the use of crude oil needs to be stopped as soon as possible. Also there’s an agreement on the necessity, that fossil fuels have to be replaced by renewable energy solutions. The goal of 100% renewable energy for industrialised countries, was widely spread across nations pavilions. Some people might be fed up by the discussion about CO2 and climate change already but we think it is very important that we keep on pushing for these issues, even though it’s been talked about a lot within the last few years. We need to stop being bored by global challenges and need to bring up that extra motivation to collectively and responsibly vouch for our planet.
In direct correspondence with the consensus on the necessity to stop the use of crude oil, we could see an acknowledgement of the sun and the earth’s weather system as a central source of infinite energy that humanity needs to tap into for all reasons: residential, individual as well as industrial.
Our terminal conclusion is that, it is essential to go out, leave the ivory tower, especially the European one, and take a close look at emerging markets and developing cities in particular. Because that’s where we can see, what exponential growth actually means. In those places you can hear it, smell it – you can sense it. Huge infrastructures being built in such a short period of time, it would be unimaginable in Europe. Where regulations and the democratically organised civil society, and their many different interests, prohibit processes like those we can see in emerging smart countries. Is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? We’re not judging here. All we’re saying is, that it would be dangerous and short sighted to evaluate the global challenges, that we most definitely face, without having changed the perspective first, and taken a look at the arising phenomena as described. We have to take a look at the modern urbanization around the world with smart or less smart cities evolving in countries like Kazakhstan, China or many many other. If we want to talk about resource efficiency, about smart countries, cities, and living – we need to see the full spectrum of needs of people around the world. They are very very different from place to place.
Let’s all be radically open for the future to come. Let’s see what our planet needs. What our countries need and how to get closer to that in a reasonable and sustainable way. Let’s all push for renewables and reach sustainable goals rather sooner than later.
