Steven Johnson: Where good ideas come from. Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action. Lecture 11: Theories of Knowledge 1. From IT to Cleantech: New Sources of Innovation. Imagine a response to oil dependence and climate change that offers people around the world a new and improved version of the car, premised on redesigning infrastructure top to bottom with green technology in a way that recharges ailing national economies. Applying both an entrepreneurial spirit and a systems engineering approach, Shai Agassi has devised just such a visionary plan for cracking these vexing global challenges. A recent World Economic Forum asked participants how to make the world a better place by 2020. Agassi felt an engineer’s compulsion to respond. He describes a process “like a fractal problem…opening up a cascade of questions.” First came the notion of running a country without oil.
He seized on, then dismissed, the idea of bio- and hydrogen-based fuels. This realization meant addressing both economic and engineering problems. The model’s complexity and infrastructure requirements imply government backing, which Agassi has already secured. Bertrand Piccard's solar-powered adventure.