“Systems and Society” – Question and Answer Session

Lead Male:
Thank you. What we are going to do now is to enter in a round of questions, let’s say, to any of the people that presented, right? Either [Supriya 00:11] … If you can come forward, I leave any of you to make any question. Please.

Question 1 Male:
[inaudible 00:00:24]

Supriya:
Yeah. See, I didn’t [inaudible 00:01:06] the details but I think I got your point. See, there were many entities, many processes which were involved in these 2 supply chains. 1 is your selling into them, goods that they require for everyday livelihood. The other was you are selling what they were getting in the forest by adding some value to it and selling to the outside world.

When you look at process [map 01:27] between the 2, this diagram only shows the entities which were [involved 01:32] and the people and the processes. When you go 1 level deeper, the same processes which are used for the [1 supply chain 00:01:40] will be used for others and the same people and principles will be applied.

Whereas if you look at what needs to be brought in, has to be different from what needs to be sold out. They were selling, bringing in items for them at a higher cost and selling out at a lower cost and then the [depos 01:56] that they had, where you had to [store 01:58] these two, there was again a conflict of interest there between the 2 entities and then the government had to put in a lot of money into those particular areas. By separating the processes, the people and stakeholders involved, and also a market study which showed that the pricing that they were currently doing was much lower than the market had, and the continuous supplier of the products because there is a demand for the product, for this [produce 02:25] out in the retail market, but they were not able to sustain that.

I mean, it’s like when you want and it’s not on the shelf, the customer just goes off, so those kind of supply chain issues were solved.

In this, it was at a level of [cybernetic 02:40] [inaudible 00:02:41], but if you go deeper, like I said, the specifics we came up with the process maps, those were separated so that the depos meant for our stocking for the items and for the retailer.

Question 1 Male:
[inaudible 00:02:54]

Supriya:
Yes.

Question 1 Male:
[inaudible 00:02:56]

Supriya:
The separation of welfare and commerce [concerns were 02:58] …

Question 1 Male:
[inaudible 00:02:59]

Supriya:
[inaudible 00:03:00] Yes. Yes.

Lead Male:
Thanks Supriya. Any other question please? I have one for [Felipe 03:11]. I think you are challenging in a very [tradition 00:03:15] way, a very interesting approach, the works of 3 Nobel Prize in Economics, to my knowledge. First, [inaudible 00:03:21] with input output tables, second, [Tom Sargent 03:29] with dynamic macroeconomics, and as well, [Babloukoff 03:35], [Lucas 03:35], all these 3 Nobel Prizes with dynamic programming.

I heard from, at NYU from Professor Sargent that now we kind of have to know how to program and [imitate 03:48] in any kind of language because economics is now programming, programming, programming.

What do you think about that as a part of, let’s say, a way to complete your [triad 04:02] on, sorry, fluid energy and yeah …

Felipe Pait:
It’s quite a challenge, I mean, there’s a discussion we had yesterday with Tom Sheridan’s presentation and he made the point that now current models are incomplete and I responded to that by the work that I was doing was to start looking at how can we [inaudible 00:04:28] to current economic models at the macro level initially, to include the role that our natural environment, our natural resources play in terms of [inaudible 00:04:38] economics and start to recognize the [law 04:41], and I think the starting point is to see if we can actually embed them into current economic models that are being used, because there’s 2 things.

First of all, [inaudible 00:04:50] missing from that, but secondly, if we want to make a change, and it’s probably easier to have change in existing models that’s accepted in the financial economic area, and have those embedded or included in it, rather than getting a clean sheet of paper and develop new models.

We may eventually move and gravitate away from our current economic thinking, but as I said before, we need to do different things, we need to think differently, and do things differently as well.

I’m not quite sure if I’ve answered your question right, but the main thing is to actually bring forward and include, you know, how do we value our natural assets? How do we rate them in terms of, now I know there’s a lot of work being done on, “The world is overpopulated, we can only support ‘X’ billion and we have ‘Y’ billion,” and what is that translate down into terms of how many people do we have enough water for in the context of water security, energy, and food, and particularly with the trade-offs against that. Different countries do different things in terms of those trade-offs.

It’s going to be an evolution process and that’s why I said we probably need to start off at, “How do we [inaudible 00:06:05] this and do it at the local level, then the regional, national, regional levels.”

Lead Male:
Okay. Thanks Felipe. Anybody else that want to … I have an Albert to a Dr. [Rapali 06:16] …

Dr. Rapali:
Yes.

Lead Male:
Oh. Sorry. Excuse me. Excuse me.

Question 2 Male:
[inaudible 00:06:19] last night that [inaudible 00:06:25] but we could also apply [inaudible 00:06:37] other things and one of the things too is that, looking for an [inaudible 00:06:42] was [inaudible 00:06:45] way that you were always [inaudible 00:06:47], but I think the human component is like animals fighting against [inaudible 00:07:02] … The human component of innovation fights against [system 07:09] decay, and I think that all of these static types of models ignore the fact that innovation is much more of a solution than an [inaudible 00:07:20] … You wouldn’t have reverse osmosis [inaudible 00:07:26] was approaching a problem [inaudible 00:07:31] producing fresh water [inaudible 00:07:38] had to do with purifying water [inaudible 00:07:42] I think that that’s dangerous [inaudible 00:07:51] bad model [inaudible 00:07:54]

Supriya:
Yeah. [inaudible 00:07:59] Yeah, the 3 elements and then you were talking of those, how you optimize with the 3, but I think there is an influence of technology on that where you know I think food, water and you know other resources are changing the nature in which they are being energy … There is an increase probably the technology ensures that it’s not limited but then how it’s converted it’s not a limitation but I think you’re actually increasing the food production, the energy, water, yeah, in a sense is limited, but like you said, you actually have filters, like a country like Dubai actually do.

However, perhaps it’s expensive, but they can still afford good drinking water because of other resources that they have, so I don’t know if the model should incorporate other aspects into it.

[inaudible 00:08:55]

Lead Male:
[inaudible 00:09:00]

Dr. Rapali:
It’s interesting the dynamic way of handling things is relatively become a possibility because of the communication technology that we currently have and also the way we understand the demand that is [ever 09:20] changing. In that sense, sense and respond systems how to be get more robust and also time, timely, how we sensing to what extent we could respond with the technology to really assess the demand and then find the resources, for example, I started the [inaudible 00:09:43] sharing models. These are the things that we are coming to see. I think technology is at the right point to really address this issues. Thank you.

Lead Male:
Thank you. Any final question? I appreciate [inaudible 00:10:05] where you did [inaudible 00:10:07] as an economist I really love all this, and it’s really impressive, but we are really short of time, unfortunately, there are some other presentation that have to be take this area and I really want to give you an applause for your work and the share with all of you.