DHL INNOVATION DAY 2012 – Logistics 2050: FROM SCIENCE FICTION TO REALITY

Innovation Day 2012

Innovation Day 2012 on March 15, 2012

 

Logistics 2050 – From Science Fiction to Reality

“The only limit is our imagination”

A computer hacker, a neuro-scientist, and a female rabbi led an energetic discussion at the DHL Innovation Day – along with scientists and economists from around the world. The result: unexpected solutions and new questions.

On March 15th the fourth DHL Innovation Day took place. It was a day dedicated to bringing together people from all around the world to discuss new ways of thinking and working. It was hosted at the Innovation Center in Germany, by Solutions and Innovation, and attended by some 200 DHL customers, partners and other futurists

Future was the prevalent topic. How did people in the past envision the future, and how do these models differ from current ideas about the future? What does the future hold for us and how will present views and practises be viewed in hindsight? These and other exciting questions regarding the world of logistics were explored in the speeches given by guest speakers and discussions with the audience and panel members throughout the day.

The latest megatrends were displayed and discussed under the heading ‘Logistics 2050 – From Science Fiction to Reality’. Addressing films such as ‘Back to the Future’ and ‘The Day After Tomorrow’, Professor Laurence Smith, a geo-scientist from UCLA, gave his keynote speech about how science fiction films deal with some of the factors that will and have already shaped our future: population growth, dwindling natural resources, climate change, and globalization. Even optimistic models suggest that the world’s need for coal will triple by 2050, and the need for natural gas will double. “Where will the power come from?” he asked. Will technology find an answer? “The only limit is our imagination”, said Smith.

Visions abounded. Speakers throughout the day pondered the upsides and challenges of smart materials, self-driving vehicles, and 3D printers. They discussed the recent scenario study, Delivering Tomorrow – Logistics in 2050, and how customers’ demands are changing, from the need to save time, to the desire to play a role in shaping the kinds of products they seek. Participants enjoyed the day. “It was a really fascinating exploration of the challenges of the industry and society,” commented Chief Commercial Officer Bill Meahl. “Customers found the presentations and panel discussions lively and provocative.” Toyota’s General Manager for Environmental Affairs & Corporate Citizenship, Steve Hope, agreed. "I had no expectations of how today would look in terms of the innovation aspect of DHL's business. I imagined this was going to be more about pure logistics. I wasn't expecting the wide range of discussions and debates that was exposed to us today, or the forward-looking considerations of what society and what customers and the general public will expect in 2050. That was quite unexpected and I found it very thought-provoking." All participants were left with lots of questions to consider. What stands in the way of innovation? The scientists mentioned factors such as limited resources, fear of failure, and lack of collaboration. Do the ways we think about the future hold us back, wondered female rabbi Elisa Klapheck. „How modern are our ideas about privacy?“ asked computer hacker and entrepreneur Pablos Holman.

The DHL Innovation Day 2012 was an inspiring and successful day. All of the participants took the opportunity to connect, share ideas and think about new ways to solve the logistics problems of today and tomorrow. The team at Solutions & Innovation look forward to seeing everybody again next year!

Keynote speech: From Science Fiction to Reality and the reference to logistics in 2050

Watch the speech

Keynote speech: From Science Fiction to Reality
and the reference to logistics in 2050

Dr. Laurence C. Smith

Scientist and author

The author of the book "THE WORLD IN 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future" will open this year’s Innovation Day. His work focuses on main topics that will not only influence logistics but society as a whole in the future. The four global forces of population demographics, resource demand, globalization, and climate change are the centre of the megatrends that Mr. Smith explored in his work as a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles in the geography department.

Mr. Smith was the Key Note Speaker of this year’s DHL Innovation Day

Introduction into the topic Logistics 2050

Official opening of the DHL Vision Suite

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Opening Vision Suite

One highlight of the day was the opening of the DHL Vision Suite Logistics 2050, a cutting edge multi-dimensional projection room which provides visitors with a view of different scenarios that might take place in the year 2050. It gives insight not only on logistics topics, but also on the changes in society, economy and the environment that may be likely to develop. As Dr Appel observed, we cannot foretell how the world will be in forty years. But it makes sense to try – to stay ahead of the competition, to move with the times and to shape the future.

Panel discussion: How will technology influence our lives in 2050?

The speakers

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Panel discussion: How will technology influence our lives in 2050?

Are we facing the collapse of information society or a second digital revolution?

Digital revolution is a burning topic today and is believed to be the main driver for societal and business change. In fact, transition to the Information Age has essentially changed the way the modern society is functioning, driving the creation of new business models and practices. From a business development perspective, boom of internet technologies and a strongly marked direction towards virtualization have resulted into the move to the online social media marketing strategies and eCommerce.

Changes on the consumer level have been immense, making the lifecycle of new products every time shorter and pushing companies to come up with new innovative “smart” products. Such examples as: trying on digital clothing, or making up your own perfume online are just a few possibilities of the digital world today. Another aspect of it is social networking, which has become an integral part of everyday’s life and a common way to keep track of friends and to meet new people. Should it be for profession or personal purposes, different social networks will be helpful to find the correct people in the correct place. Facebook, Google+, Couchsurfing, InterNations, Pinterest, Duego, Orkut are just a couple of examples.

Generally speaking digital trends have embraced all spheres of life and business, turning into the critical aspect to build excellence on. For this reason, new digital-based strategies and possible future scenarios are the discussion focus for many companies and Deutsche Post DHL is no exception.

If you would like to get more insights from the panel discussion itself watch the video!

Panel discussion: How will technology influence our lives in 2050?

Dr. Andrej Busch

Chief Executive Officer DHL Parcel Germany

Dr. Andrej Busch has been CEO of DHL Parcel Germany since January 2011. He is also a member of the Supervisory Board of Postbank Filialvertrieb AG. Prior to this time, he was a member of the Divisional Board PARCEL of Deutsche Post AG for four years, during which time he was responsible for marketing.

Dr. Busch worked as a management consultant in the Düsseldorf office of McKinsey & Company, Inc. starting 2003. He left the prestigious management consultancy as an associate principal (senior project manager) in early 2007 to join his new employer Deutsche Post DHL where he assumed duties on the Divisional Board of DHL Parcel Germany.

Prior to this, he studied law in Passau, Würzburg, Melbourne and The Hague. He received his doctorate from the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg in 2003.

Mr. Busch was a speaker on the podium discussion: How will technology influence our lives in 2050?

Christian Schulz

Product Director at MyParfuem

Mr. Schulz has a lot of experience in the private enterprise. He studied International Business Administration at the Hogeschool van Arnhem en Nijmegen with focus on International Finance & Accounting, International Economics and Project Management. After that he worked for several companies like IBM and Mercedes Benz to enhance his knowledge. Since August 2011 he has been Director of MyParfuem, an eCommerce company that enables their customers to create their individual perfumes.

Mr. Schulz was a speaker on the podium discussion: How will technology influence our lives in 2050?

Sanjay Sarma

RFID-Visionary

Sanjay Sarma is a Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. He founded the Auto-ID Center at MIT and developed many of the key technologies behind the EPC suite of RFID standards now used worldwide.

He was also the the founder and CTO of OATSystems, which was acquired by Checkpoint Systems (NYSE: CKP) in 2008. He several on the boards of GS1, EPCglobal and several startup companies. Dr. Sarma received his Bachelors from the Indian Institute of Technology, his Masters from Carnegie Mellon University and his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley.

Sarma also worked at Schlumberger Oilfield Services in Aberdeen, UK, and at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories in Berkeley, California. His current research interests are street scanning, sensing, RFID, logistics and manufacturing.

Mr. Sarma was a speaker on the podium discussion: How will technology influence our lives in 2050?

Demonstrations "Beam me to the future" - Can material be intelligent?

The speakers

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See the presentation of Mr. Hühne

See the presentation of Mr. Hölscher

See the presentation of Mr. Kuzyk

Demonstrations "Beam me to the future" - Can material be intelligent?

Material science, being one of the oldest applied sciences, evolved from the basic ceramic production to metallurgy and eventually to what we now call intelligent material manufacturing. The basis for this evolution have been the constantly growing requirements for the material properties and characteristics, which have now ascended to materials having embedded functions. Likewise, under the loop of the current technology innovation trend, the main competitive advantage on the business arena is the constant enhancement of products, resulting in continuous adding-up to their functionality and especially intelligence. Able-to-respond and react materials will thus play the key role in sustaining such a competitive advantage.

Generally, smart materials can be defined as materials able to perceive the external stimuli, process and analyze it and respond by changing its original properties (appearance, electrical, mechanical).

Considering the current rate of innovation especially within the bio- and nanotechnology, the multi-functioning of smart materials is not a far-off future. Moreover, the combined usage of different intelligent materials capitalizing on particular intelligent functions will result in the creation of systems, able to perform smart actions in an ingenious way. Futuristic examples of such a system can be a furniture object transformable to an iPod, flexible aircraft wings, or back-to-nature self-healing materials.

Multidisciplinary background of the research on intelligent material implies its cross industrial application possibilities; meaning that understanding the future potential and speed of development is crucial for many companies, including Deutsche Post DHL.

See demonstrations of Intelligent Material and the podium discussion in the video.

Demonstrations "Beam me to the future" - Can material be intelligent?

Dr. Christian Hühne

Material authority

After he finished his studies in Civil Engineering at the university of Hannover, Mr. Hühne worked at the German Aerospace Center (DLR). He did his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Braunschweig in 2005. Since 2008 he has been the head of the department composite design at the Institute of Composite Structures and Adaptive Systems at the DLR.

His researches concentrated on the topics of design of components, efficient and economic production and lightweight composite design.

Mr. Hühne did a presentation on the topic: "Beam me to the future" - Can material be intelligent?

Dr. Hendrik Hölscher

Physicist

Hendrik Hölscher studied physics at the University of Hamburg and obtained his Ph.D. in 1999. Focusing on the development of advanced atomic force microscopy techniques he worked for different research institutes as a Post-doc before he won the Junior Researchers Competition Nanotechnology 2002 held by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. With the funding of this price he established his own research group at the Center for NanoTechnology (CeNTech) of the University of Münster, Germany.

From 2006 to 2007 he was visiting assistant professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Yale University. His work on the development of new AFM methods was honoured with the Transfer-Prize 2007 of the University of Münster in 2007.

Since 2008 he is the head of the scanning probe technologies group at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany.

Mr. Hölscher did a presentation on the topic: "Beam me to the future" - Can material be intelligent?

Prof. Dr. Mark Kuzyk

Professor at Washington State University

Mark G. Kuzyk received his Ph.D. degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1985, and then was a member of technical staff at Bell Labs in Princeton, New Jersey from 1985 to 1990. He has been a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Washington State University since 1990, where he has served as Associate Chair of Physics, Chair of the Materials Science Program, and Chair of Graduate Studies in Physics. He is now a Regents Professor and Fellow of SPIE, American Physical Society, and Optical Society of America.

Mr. Kuzyk did a presentation on the topic: "Beam me to the future" - Can material be intelligent?

How will societal changes affect the use and acceptance of technology in 2050?

The speakers

Watch the discussion

See the presentation of Mr. Mijnals

How will societal changes affect the use and acceptance of technology in 2050?

The possibility to adapt the use of new technologies gets more and more important with every year. The increasing frequency of new techniques in all fields and the endless number of possibilities for every person to evolve, has made society an inscrutable network.

So a dominant question of our time has become, if a human being will be able to learn faster how to handle new technologies. Is it even possible for a person to keep up with the times all his life or is there a cognitive border? And how can a modern society provide it’s population with tools and structures to handle the increasing speed of innovation?

It is a hard thing to tell if modern norms and values will help individuals to keep the pace, but our discussants took up the challenge.

To see the podium discussion please watch the video.

How will societal changes affect the use and acceptance of technology in 2050?

Prof. Dr. Bernd Weber

Neuroeconomist

Mr. Weber has accomplished a lot for the university of Bonn. After he did his doctorate of medicine at the faculty of medicine in Bonn, Mr. Weber became a postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Epileptology at Bonn´s University Hospital.

He was the provisional Head of the Department of NeuroCognition-Imaging at the Life & Brain Center, Bonn and co-founded the Neuroeconomics Lab at the city´s university.

He passed his qualification for a teaching career in higher education in 2008 and was granted a Heisenberg-professorship at his hometowns university in 2010.

Nowadays he is an acknowledged expert at the topics of brain connectivity and diffusion weighted imaging. He is also a renowned member of several economical and neuroscientific institutes.

Mr. Weber was a speaker on the panel discussion: How will societal changes affect the use and acceptance of technology in 2050?

Elisa Klapheck

Rabbi

Elisa Klapheck (*1962, Düsseldorf) is a rabbi in the Jewish community of Frankfurt. Before her ordination in 2004 she worked as a journalist for daily newspapers like "Der Tagesspiegel" and "die tageszeitung" as well as for radio and TV.

In 1997 she became the press spokeswoman of the Jewish community in Berlin and editor of the magazine "jüdisches Berlin".

By her idea the first congress of female European rabbis was initiated. She was the first female rabbi of the Netherlandish-Jewish community "Beit Ha’Chidush" (Home of renewal) and has written several books on the topics of being a female rabbi and being a religious jew in the 21st century.

On December 18 she and several Jews and non Jews of Frankfurt founded the "Torat Hakalkala - Society for support of applied Jewish economics and social ethics".

Ms. Klapheck was a speaker on the panel discussion: How will societal changes affect the use and acceptance of technology in 2050?

Pablos Holman

Hacker and Inventor

Futurist, inventor, security expert, and notorious hacker with a unique view into both breaking and building new technologies.

Pablos consults on invention and design projects that assimilate new technologies – making wild ideas a bit more practical and vice versa. Previously, Pablos helped build the world´s smallest PC; 3 D printers at Makerbot; spaceships at Blue Origin; artificial intelligence agent systems; and the Hackerbot, a WiFi- seeking robot.

Pablos is working at the Intellectual Ventures Laboratory where a wide variety of futuristic invention projects are under way including a fission reactor powered by nuclear waste; a machine to stop hurricanes; a system to reverse global warming; and a device that can shot mosquitoes out of the sky with lasers to help eradicate malaria.

Mr. Holman was a speaker on the panel discussion: How will societal changes affect the use and acceptance of technology in 2050?

Patrick Mijnals

Author and consultant of the "Zukunftsinstitut"

After he finished his basic studies in psychology and artificial intelligence in the Netherlands and Germany, Mr Mijnals researched the neurophysiological basics of meditation at the Bender Institute of Neuroimaging.

Since then Patrick Mijnals has been working for the ‘Zukunftsinstitut’ in different positions. His work focused on the possibilities and limits of virtual reality.

He was also responsible for trend research and the setup of an cooperative knowledge management system for the Telekom AG.

Today he is an independent adviser and author on the topics of Trend and Innovation management.

Mr. Mijnals was a speaker on the panel discussion: How will societal changes affect the use and acceptance of technology in 2050?

Award „Jugend forscht“

Award „Jugend forscht“

Ms. Carina Lämmle was awarded with a special „Jugend forscht“ prize, sponsored by DHL Paket. The 17 year old designed a special, carbon based foam, that allows medical goods to be transported under extreme temperature conditions.

Most Innovative Customer

Most Innovative Customer

Renault was awarded for their collaboration with DHL in developing a logistics concept to guarantee the replacement of their electric vehicle batteries.

Most Innovative Employee

Most Innovative Employee

Frank Josefiak, Technical Director at Agheera, was awarded with the “Most Innovative Employee” title due to his impressive tally of 21 patent applications

Most Innovative Scientist

Most Innovative Scientist

In the category of “Most Innovative Scientist” Dr. Tobias Reggelin was honoured for his achievements in the field of mesoscopic simulation modelling. His work allowed logistic flows to be displayed in a much faster and more accurate way.

Senior Scientist: Life’s Work

Senior Scientist: Life’s Work

Lastly, Lauri Ojala, Professor of Logistics at Turku School of Economics in Finland, received the “Senior Scientist” award for his lifetime achievement of innovation in the logistics industry and was acknowledged for his contribution to creating the “Logistics Performance Index” - an interactive benchmarking tool. The Index was initiated by the World Bank and currently evaluates 155 countries based on their logistics performance.