The Next Decade — 2021 onwards
& The visionary product that guided my living principles !
What could I change for the coming decade in my life and choices? When I sat down to give a dedicated thought to this question, some obvious principles came out, those principles will help me ride on the next stage of life in general, however, so much of that will impact personal, social and professional choices I make, so I decided to share. In fact, my experiences have prepared me to think on these lines. In 2021 and beyond, these definitive principles are going to be my personal mantra:
“Choose the options that are part of something big, futuristic, solve hard problems that would put us and lives around us in a better spot, look a decade ahead and align with well minded visionaries.” — my personal Mantra
The guiding questions I have been asking myself all these times:
- What kind of world would I want to live in?
- How are we evolving with respect to our dreams of a better world ?
- Why is technology evolution so important to get us ahead of the future?
- Why is getting ahead and planning for the future so important?
- And what is my role in it?
Today, dwelling on those thoughts reminded me of an incident from 2016. In 2016, when I was helping the time machine feature enhancements in Google Earth, our team received a letter from a prison inmate and someone was thoughtful enough to share it with me to insist the impact of our work. Google Earth Software has a feature to show us the flashback of the earth imagery and 3D scenes around the time of choice, if the data is available.
The accused person who was serving the term in the prison wrote something to this effect :
“I have been in prison for the last 9 years for a crime that I did not commit. I heard from new inmates that technology and the internet is very advanced and there is software called Google Earth that can show the imagery of the crime scene from the past. Can your department please check in your photos from 2005 if Red Mercury (a car) was seen there at 9 am Tues Oct 18, 2005 in front of the house on <<StreetName St. >> at <<address>> ?”
It was sad to know that this person has no access or knowledge of the technology that has become mainstream for rest of the people (for whatever reasons that might be). It also felt that there was a new hope that is generated by the mention of technology in this persons mind. The hope was to gather some evidence using satellite and streetside imagery. To me, this was a reasonable imagination based on what they would have heard from others. The letter stated further :
“If I can prove that the vehicle was not at that address parked at the time of crime, it will invalidate the claim that shots were fired from the vehicle and I will have chances of proving non-guilty. I was on <<other address>> at the same time when the crime happened and I had the car. In your photos, the vehicle should be seen at this <<other address>> at 9am, Tues Oct 18, 2005, that will also give evidence that me and the car were not involved”.
NOTE: Those are not the exact details, but that is the summary of that letter.
The tone of the letter was so appealing that I actually wanted to go ahead and search myself on google streetside about the place and the <<address>> given. Obviously we didn’t have daily or hourly imagery that far back, even mini-satellites today are getting us 24 hours frequency, so this was far from possible.
Stretching my imagination further, what if there was a piece of evidence found using earth or street imagery? Have other inmates used Google Earth for those circumstances, why would they otherwise know this use case? Why would not other imagery providers build something for law and enforcement in this regard? What about the cars collecting so much data today, can they get to the data in this fashion and build on-the-fly TimeMachine?
And the Big Question came: Do I want to live in a world where technology will enable us to track the past at that granular level? Is it fair?
I don’t have an answer to above yet, however, I certainly want to live in a world where there are no different standards for information access and availability depending on different circumstances of an individual. The person behind the bars should have the same information access and advantage from technology as we in our normal lives have. That’s the kind of world I want to imagine where people can self-educate and make better choices and be able to shape their lives.
There are many positive stories of Google Earth Software and its use -There is this real life story of a lost and adopted boy who found his roots using Google Earth and satellite images of his hometown after 20+ years of separation from his mother, miles away. Millions of people use Satellite Imagery for good causes today, such as environmental studies, study of climate change, forest changes etc. The thing to keep in mind is, all of these possibilities took birth in someone’s dreams a decade or so back. The vision was painted then in some form and it was one ambitious vision.
Solving for the future is what a visionary does. All the innovations, breakthroughs, technology advancements that are mainstream today, have at least about a decade of journey from dreams, sweat and uncertainty to reality. Moreover, visionaries believe in those dreams and put all the courage, relations and time they got to make it happen. Today, those bets made in the past are still relevant and enriching our lives.
What can I do to position myself close to those who have a better vision for the world? Can we always put the filter of good and bad in our actions and choices aligning them with a greater future ? To address this, I would start 2021 with this Note:
Be part of something big and impactful, chip-in to further the quality and access for everyone. Create solutions for a better future, even if that means starting with just a good intention and see where it takes us, in a decade!!
-Asmita Wankhede
