Envisioning the Tech of the Future

By Hassan Arshad Chattha

The Alibaba Group recently announced a bold new initiative to take on the leadership of the tech world as well as become the architect for solutions to the problems of the future. The DAMO (Discovery, Adventure, Momentum, Outlook) Academy is an ambitious global undertaking with a staggering budget of over 100 billion yuan (about $15 billion USD) to tap into world class talent pools around the globe and give them the resources and the support needed to harness and unleash their collective potential while also cementing the Alibaba Group’s position as a global technology leader.

The tech giant Alibaba is one of the most incredible and inspiring success stories to come out of China, and this new initiative is a strong sign that it is not content sitting on its considerable past achievements, but rather aim for the stars. 

The underlying philosophy behind this initiative is equally fascinating. The word DAMO (达摩) in Chinese is also the name of the monk to whom the transfer of Zen Buddhism from ancient India to China is credited to. Zen Buddhism is also said to have inspired the martial arts practiced by monks in China’s famed Shaolin monastery. Jack Ma is known to be a fan of martial arts. Thus the name combines not just the abbreviation for its aims, but also contains the underlying philosophy of sustained discipline in the unrelenting pursuit for betterment. 

Furthermore, the initiative aims to help Alibaba to achieve its goals of serving two billion customers and creating a hundred million jobs by 2036. It intends to start by setting up labs in seven cities around the world: Beijing and Hangzhou (Jack Ma’s hometown) in China; San Mateo and Bellevue in the U.S.; Moscow, Russia; Tel Aviv, Israel; and Singapore. 

This will allow diverse talent from across the world to be included in the endeavor which will bring in much needed diversity that is severely lacking in Silicon Valley today. Global perspectives are direly needed in any functional and effective solutions for the future. Furthermore, DAMO also plans on not just recruiting over a 100 researchers, but will collaborate closely with similar initiatives operating in the top universities of the world such as U.C. Berkley’s RISE lab. The advisory board consists of professors and thinkers from the top universities of the world such as MIT, Harvard, Princeton, Beijing Institute of Technology and Peking University among others. 

By bringing together such formidable talent and massive resources in a global R&D push that incorporates tech companies, innovators, universities, research labs and top notch facilities, the aim is to tackle, improve and innovate in the fields of quantum computing, AI, machine learning, deep learning, data analysis, IoT (Internet of Things), data intelligence, fintech (financial technology) and human-machine interaction. There are more specific areas of research on the table as well that include network security, visual computing and the critically vital real-time natural language processing. 

Suffice to say, the scope and scale of this undertaking as well as global collaboration in the tech world parallels the other great Chinese undertaking, the OBOR (One Belt One Road) initiative. The solutions that come from this initiative are bound to shape the future and its technologies. 

This will also hopefully address many of the pressing concerns of the world at this point which have been the cause of the digital gap that has only widened in this day and age. The digital gap is the abyss which separates the world along technological lines. The initiative could not have come at a better time. With the tech world currently disproportionately being dominated by the likes of Google, Facebook and Silicon Valley in general, it was high time that there was challenge to their dominance. Since most of the consumer technology in use in the world today was designed in and around Silicon Valley, its usage is either limited or severely hampered for other regions, often causing them to lag behind and not fulfill their potential. 

With this initiative taking in talent from across the globe and fueled by a more holistic philosophy, it can be hoped that the solutions are applicable on a global scale and not some city in the midwestern US. As the Editor-in-Chief of influential magazine Mother Jones recently lamented on Twitter, “So many Silicon Valley startups are about dudes wanting to replicate mom: carpooling, laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, bodegas (a convenience store) ”

(The author is a digital media strategist and consultant, currently based in China. 

Can be reached at: hassanarshadlive@outlook.com)