3D Printing: The future will be printed

 

 

In the immediate future, with the aid of 3D printing, men and women won't have to argue over whose role it is to cook. #PrintIt

 

 

I am a very keen individual on all matters relating to start ups especially technology driven ideas. This is a matter of necessity as much as a choice. What do you expect of someone who witnessed the very dramatic effect of technology on people. I saw with my own eyes the end of an era and the rise of another. I have witnessed the disruptive capability of technology. How can I forget the typists of the olden days. We dreaded the typing pool in my college days.

 

 

I remember how the business studies teacher caused huge anguish in the soul of many scholars. Today, shorthand is replaced by a nuance of lol (LAUGH OUT LOUD), RODF (rolling on the floor), e.t.c. In a weird sense, I miss the beautiful music that was created by the typewriters but I am more thankful for the gift of speed, convenience and more that today's technology affords one. This post is on the impending disruptive technology called 3D printing. In this post, I lay it bare what it means for industries and domesticated issues. The future will be printed. This is the reality of our world thanks to the disruptive promise of 3D printing. I heard that in the future, medical doctors and surgeons will be able to "print" organs. The article by Fast Company did establish that indeed, this is merely years away. Humanity is at the brink of many-A-wondrous feats.

 

 

3D Printing is beyond a wishful state. It is a concept well domiciled in developed countries of the world where adoption of this disruption is in top gear. It is not a yuppie fad. Far from it. It is a next phase of industrialization and a sweet spot in the continuum called Internet of things. The Internet of things is a concept that explains what happens when everything in the physical realm literally moves into the cloud. This process is known as virtualization and it is what we have been doing for the better part of the last decade. It is on this concept that e-commerce is built on. Virtualization (the digital representation of physical products on the web or mobile) has created and sustained the e-commerce industry for the last two decades but this reign now coming to an end. A new wave is upon us. In the immediate future, what we have come to embrace as the norm will cease to be.

 

 

The reset button has been pressed and in this future, the value chain of many industries upturned will make what we now hold in high esteem to become mere artifacts and stocks in the museum of history. It is true that the cost of acquiring the technology poses a great barrier to adoption but this is only true as with predecessors. In the past, computers were mega luxuries. Today, some individuals boast of multiple versions in their custody. In the mainframe era, the president of IBM (Thomas Watson) underestimated the PC. He said "maybe there is a global demand for 5 PCs". It sounds pre-posterious now but when Watson made his bozo statement, he was probably right.

 

 

3D printing will indeed disrupt our lives. This in fact is a stale fact. For Africa and the third world, what is instructive is how this technology can help us to bridge the productivity gap which was created in the industrial era. We haven't quite been able to bridge the gap in spite of the significant adoption of web technology. Today, we can afford to build very intelligent apps for agriculture and even give farmers future phones but most farmers still use rudimentary tools to farm. Most farmers cannot afford to "over produce" because of the risk of decay and more.

 

 

The clarion call is for us to see how we can optimize 3D printing and its variants to empower. The time is not ripe for us to in our typical style fall for the euphoria. Our euphoria hasn't helped us in any way. Africa missed out of the next big thing because we got too "happy" with the pyramids. 3D may be our chance to bridge the productivity gap.


 Image Credit: Google Image