Gen Y so?

Over the last couple of years I have noticed a decline in my interest in the development of new technology and related business activities.

While pondering this on my bike this morning I drifted off into a daydream of a new form of smart carbon fiber manufacturing. Roughly, I developed a whole new business with automated carbon fiber bike frame manufacturing using bespoke carbon fiber mesh types. I had a whole algorithm team working on using evolutionary algorithms and finite element analysis technologies to continually improve bike frame technology using the constraints of in-house fiber webs made with mixed media with novel properties. I had a fully automated clean-room factory with 200 R&D engineers off to the side. I even started putting distributed sensors through the carbon fiber with wireless transceivers in all products so that the design could be continuously improved by the use of real time date for strain, stress, temperature and other measurements. And on it went.

Just out of curiosity, when I got to work I Googled ‘smart carbon fiber’ and went straight through to a Kickstarter project called ‘Vanhawks Valour’. They plan to have sensors and lights in the handlebar and seat of a carbon fiber bike and a smartphone app to tell cyclists the best routes, do all the usual time and calorie measurements, warn them of dangers on route, and so on. And then I realised why the Gen Y tech industry makes me so depressed (apart from the beards and the accents) – they are focused entirely on first world problems and they only re-deploy existing engineering. The risks they face are in financing and marketing and yet they believe they are true pioneers.

It has now crystallised for me; I do not truly respect these uninventive innovators.