December /2011

ESERP Business School

Business Design: People Needs for Inventions

Alexander Snchez (MBA Part Time 2 year)

kilowatt hour, or almost one -tenths of a cent per watt per day. So for my smaller electric devices, I pay fractions of a penny per hour to use and charge them. The Romans recognized a right to light as early as the 6th century and English law echoed these judgments with the

Prescription Act of 1832 , kwoing this fact why cant we Plug into the sun for free energy . Communication, thats the business of the 21 century, we live in a time when everybody wants make money with some new invention regarding the need to pass on every piece of thought that goes through our head. If you want to make money maybe thats the way to go, thats the big deal now a day. We dream with new small devices equipped with extraordinary technology that make our life easy; or our muscles and mind even more useless. In electronics wise we have a pretty large range of choices. I dont know if promoting even more their use, is the way to go, but I can admit Im a user, and I will die without my mp3 player, seriously id literary die without it! Is not something to be proud of in my opinion, but we are part of this generation, is a fact and we cant escape. So do we need another device for this purpose, everybody craves for it, but I think we have that cover for now, I mean right this moment, right this second. New generations of necessities will create new generation of devices. Right now we need inventions for a bigger purpose or bigger issues, issues that everybody have acknowledge, but not everybody really cares about them. In order to do the assignment I observed, I really observed. I set myself to observe everything including the need for time, the need for new devices, for new ways of living. Out of those things I really notice the need for time; everybody is getting their business in the fastest way possible, we live in a very agitated era, we have so many activities to accomplish in a 12 hour periods that we cant help the search for new shortcuts, at the fag-end of life, you have no time to discuss and postpone; to resolve, and yet to philosophize with resolutions, so when I came up with my design I had the purpose to keep that in mind.

With the initiation of the century came an intense race for technology breakthroughs invention, but also came a newfound concern for the planet, for the environment, and Im certainly a part of that. Is important to achieve a product that everybody wants to buy, and have a selling success, but still I couldnt totally take my mind of the idea of helping not only the need of a certain individual, but coming up with something that will benefits the masses and our resources for the future as well. Not every invention is easy to sell, I want to be able to create something commercial. But I also know I can achieve even more by doing something really helpful and trendy without people necessarily recognizing it, as a help the environment product, if is true that I dont have the total answer right now, I believe I have a start. Almost everybody has a phone or mp3player these days. There are 5.3 billion mobile subscribers, that's 77 percent of the world population. Growth is led by China and India, large countries with lots of population and lots of territory, but can they all have access to this kind of technology? We are not quite there yet, but 90 percent of the world now lives in a place with access to a mobile network. So finally I came up with something that can be reach for this amount of people at some point. A small practical charger, initially for new generation mobiles, smartphones and mp3-players using only solar energy. Im talking about a device that receives the sun energy and transforms this into charge. This will be portable, slim, again very small and with a nice, modern design. Yes, it has a not-that-easy high-tech quality; in an average time of only 15-20 minutes of sun receiving, the device will transform that energy into a full day charge. Solar photovoltaic cells convert sunlight into electricity, so this is going to be made of mini solar panels with a lot of technology involve. The Earth receives 174 petawatts, thats a lot, of incoming solar radiation at the upper atmosphere. The total solar energy absorbed by Earth's atmosphere, oceans and land masses is approximately 3,850,000

exajoules per year, again a lot. In 2002, this was more energy in one hour than the world used in one year. So why dont we take advantage of that?. Radiant light and heat from the sun, has been connected by humans since ancient times using a range of ever-evolving technologies. The early development of solar technologies starting in the 1860s was driven by an expectation that oil would soon become scarce. However development of solar technologies stagnated in the early 20th century in the face of the increasing availability, economy, and utility of coal and petroleum. The 1973 oil embargo and 1979 energy crisis caused a reorganization of energy policies around the world and brought renewed attention to developing solar technologies. Solar technologies are broadly characterized as either passive solar or active solar depending on the way they capture, convert and distribute solar energy. silicon panels are more efficient in low and indirect light. CIGS (copper indium gallium diselenide) panels, or lets just say aluminum like panels are more efficient in good, direct sun but less so in low light conditions. To prove is not totally out of reach I found some small devices that could be similar, like a new motion-sensing outdoor security camera that is powered exclusively by sunlight, this device only transmits signal when movement, up to 26-feet is detected otherwise it remains in standby mode to conserve energy. But Is also important to analyze some problems. Direct sunlight contains more energy than indirect, low-angle light that travels farther through the energy-sapping atmosphere. The amount of usable solar energy drops off significantly when the sun is obscured by clouds or haze. But thats when technology comes to the rescue, by amplifying the sunrays even if is not much to work with. And later on, i can develop a bigger or more technological model for GPS units, digital cameras and laptops. Spain would be a perfect fit for starting a project with this characteristics because is one of the most advanced countries in the development of solar energy, since it is one of the countries of Europe with more hours of sunshine. The Spanish government committed to achieving a target of 12 percent of primary energy from renewable

energy by 2010 with an installed solar generating capacity of 3000 megawatts (MW). Spain is the fourth largest manufacturer in the world of solar power technology and exports 80 percent of this output to Germany. Only in catalunya (region) there is more than 300 companies dedicated to projects regarding environmental ways to generated energy. And they all assure you can create your own system by purchasing components separately. They also declare basics of solar power arent complex. New building code laws in Spain are now mandating solar hot water for new and remodeled private residences, and photovoltaics (aluminum panels) to offset some power requirements for all new and remodeled commercial buildings. The new laws also reflect increased awareness of the importance of better building insulation and the use of day lighting. But is important to be aware of some facts, in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the Spanish government drastically cut its subsidies for solar power and capped future increases in capacity at 500 MW per year, with effects upon the industry worldwide. Marketing this new invention is something that could be done with some strategies. Is possible to do a partnership with some big telecommunication company, they really spend the cash on mobile advertising and marketing. Experts predict mobile ad revenue will be US$3.3 billion in 2011. This will sky rocket to $20.6 billion in 2015, more than doubling each year. It will continue to grow thereafter. In 2011, the International Energy Agency said that "the development of affordable, inexhaustible and clean solar energy technologies will have huge longer-term benefits. It will increase countries energy security through reliance on an indigenous, inexhaustible and mostly import-independent resource, enhance sustainability, reduce pollution, lower the costs of mitigating climate change, and keep fossil fuel prices lower than otherwise. These advantages are global. "

With this project we have the chance to be energy independent, the best way to reduce our utility bills, protect ourselves against blackouts and reduce environmental pollution. Is not easy to drag mass attention to an environment project like this at the moment, but with hard work is very achievableIts not easy being green.

References

"Solar power in Spain", (2011, June 22), (WIKIPEDIA.org), Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Spain (Accessed: 2011, 4 december ). "Solar energy", (2011, December 8), (WIKIPEDIA.org), Available: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy (Accessed: 2011, 4 december ).