The tech giants that could dominate our lives

Professor Mohammad Dastbaz, dean of arts, environment and technology at Leeds Beckett University, told an Innovation Network event that tech giants such as Google and Facebook are already changing human behaviour and that they will continue to do so as technology develops.

Professor Dastbaz said: “They will definitely have a significant influence, as they already do in fact. If you look at how these companies have changed our behaviour we no longer pay a lot of attention to books and finding information. We just say ‘I’ll Google it’.

“They are definitely going to be influential in our future whether we like it or not.”

He added that technology was an “enabler” and that it was down to people to ensure it develops and is used to improve lives.

Dorothy Monekosso, professor of computer science at Leeds Beckett University, showed how innovative technology could provide solutions to the healthcare sector.

Professor Monekosso acknowledged that there was ethical questions around dealing with vasts amounts of data, such as ownership and security. She added that privacy needed to be taken into account as well.

A point of debate was how technological innovation in healthcare should be paid for. Professor Monekosso said that she found the US was more receptive to spending money on adopting innovative technology in its health system than the NHS here in the UK.

Steven Webb, company secretary at Premier Farnell, who also spoke at the event, said that technology could prevent much bigger costs to the health sector in the future.

“We have to look at how much is the technology saving,” he said.

Mr Webb added: “The mega-trend of an ageing population means that technology is going to have to form a part of healthcare because fewer young people looking after more and more old people just doesn’t work.” Premier Farnell, which makes the Raspberry Pi mini computer, has been working with Leeds Beckett University to allow students access to their labs. Mr Webb said that many more users were utilising the Raspberry Pi for commercial purposes rather than just as a hobby. This has led to many tech giants such as Google rushing to pre-load software on to single board computers like the Pi.

“Those really large companies are realising the power that is now in the hands of many, many individuals to create their own devices and their own software,” he said.

Despite the dominance of tech giants, Mr Webb said things could change.

Small start-ups in the Internet of Things (IoT) arena are averse to the idea of tying up with large tech companies Mr Webb said.

“A lot of the start-up businesses that I’ve talked to in the IoT world are quite strongly averse to being tied into a Google or an IBM or whoever.

“They want to create their own product or their own software. It’ll be interesting to see how that plays out.”

The Innovation Network event was hosted by The Yorkshire Post in partnership with Leeds Beckett University’s Enterprise and Innovation Hub. The event was sponsored by Tech North.

Changing way of thinking

Changing the mindset of decision makers on healthcare boards is a challenging task, Steven Webb says. But by showing them how tech can make a difference it can convince them.

While technology can help healthcare professionals overcome some of the challenges it isn’t the “ultimate solution”.

Professor Dastbaz said: “I’m very mindful to say that technology is an enabler it’s not necessarily the entire solution. We have to be very careful not to sell technology as the ultimate solution because people will quite rightly say it’s not.”