To reap the benefits of the digital revolution, we need to transform the pillars of society to focus on collaboration and connection and empowerment. Here’s how.

As the world’s top economical thinkers and leaders convene this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos, all the focus will center on the 4th Industrial Revolution — how individual organizations and the world at large are transforming, willingly or not, at the hands of technology.

At CA Technologies, we talk a lot about how technology — specifically software — can help organizations both run their existing businesses better and even transform the definition of their business altogether. But while technology might be able to enable transformation, it’s the ability to connect horizontally, iterate and move quickly, and put coordination over control that is actually the driver of true transformation.

In other words, what makes successful transformation happen is the creation of agile systems, which — paired with agile technology — can power an agile society.

The 4th Industrial Revolution: The Cart Went Before the Horse

In 19th-century England, bus companies, dependent on horses to pull their carriages, were furious with the advent of new “horseless carriages.” Travel was becoming mechanized — faster and more convenient. The government defended horse bus companies and introduced Red Flag Laws that set automobile speed limits to how fast a man could walk with a red flag in front of them.

It’s easy to say now that the British government was wrong for stepping in and ultimately slowing progress. Yet today, a strikingly similar narrative is emerging as ridesharing companies have rapidly gained popularity, taking on local governments and regulations along the way.

Governance is not the only system being challenged by technological progress. Consider societal constructs, like education. The 4th Industrial Revolution means that the world is getting more automated — McKinsey estimates that 45 percent of paid activities have the potential to be fully automated using technology that exists in the world today. There is a clear need to rethink the kinds of skills and ways of learning to create a world where work is still meaningful and profitable, both for the organization and the worker.

The common thread here is that to fully realize all of the benefits of the 4th Industrial Revolution, the foundational pillars of society need to catch up. That’s where “agile” comes in.

Agile: From the Tech World to Society

The term “agile” has multiple definitions, but in the software development world it describes an approach for development that is fueled by self-direction, cross-functional collaboration, continuous improvement and delivery of value and quality.

This new mindset is what the revolution needs to be successful — agile thinking is the driver, technology is the enabler. But how can we take this construct and put it into action to ultimately create an agile society?

An agile society means transforming the existing systems of control to focus on collaboration and connection — and enabling them with a foundation of technology that fuels experimentation and innovation. Here are three ways this can take shape:

1. From Bureaucracy to a Model of Engaged Constituents

Governments and governing institutions oftentimes are regarded by constituents as difficult to work with and focused on maintaining the quip of, “Well, that’s just how we do things around here.” But while we can complain about this sentiment, the revolution demands proper governance to succeed — it just has to turn the focus to engagement.

In the United States, a nonprofit called Code for America is completely dedicated to modernizing municipal government IT programs and making working in government fun and creative. One of their most compelling projects is empowering cities to develop an open-source web application to solve a citizen-selected civic problem, which can then be used or adapted by any city. The results have been remarkable — simultaneously, officials and citizens have addressed local problems while also reducing public IT costs by enabling code-sharing among government entities.

2. From Top-Down and Siloed to Empowered and Diverse Cultures

Agile thinking is all about horizontal collaboration. To achieve this balance, it’s critical to create a diverse workforce — in skills, experiences and perspectives. Understanding that technology is shifting how organizations operate and the output they are creating, two main components must be addressed: education and diversity.

For education, we need to focus on what robots can’t do. The critical-thinking skills at the core of STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) education is the right start, but we also need to consider other non-cognitive skills — such as how we communicate and network with each other.

Organizations can only succeed if their people can bring different perspectives to the table — and are actually empowered to do so. We need to strengthen and support people, especially women, to create a workforce that is actually representative of the global population.

3. From ‘Keeping the Lights on’ to Enabling Digital Organizations

With the pillars of governance and diversity in place, the agile society is ready to be enabled by technology. Technology used to be about maintaining the processes and systems already in place, but 53 percent of respondents in a recent survey by Harvard Business Analytics Services said their organization is investing in modern technology to develop digital products and services faster, instead of maintaining old systems.

As organizations make this shift, software represents a powerful opportunity for organizations to rethink who they are and their purpose, as well as how they connect with other organizations to form bigger networks. Consider a company like Salesforce.com — it generates 50 percent of its revenues from making its technology open to other companies, creating a multiplier effect of value.

Agile thinking is being used to enable digital transformation at all sorts of companies. In the automotive business, Tesla repaired a critical safety defect without even issuing a recall — it simply pushed a software update to the affected cars, and the problem was fixed in a matter of weeks.

Through history, big technological leaps have changed our human lot for the better. As the 4th Industrial Revolution sweeps overs us, we need to make sure the core pillars of our modern world are agile: connected, nimble and tech-enabled. In so doing, we will continue to improve lives and services where they matter most.

Mike Gregoire is CEO of CA Technologies.

All views expressed are those of the author.

We are at the start of a power revolution. The coming year presents a number of opportunities to take action to improve global access to electricity.

The world has made great progress over the past several decades. Primary education is becoming almost universal in many regions, child mortality rates have fallen globally, and life expectancy has risen in most countries. To maintain this momentum we need a sustained commitment to invest in infrastructure that provides people access to healthcare, water and most crucially, electricity.

Electrification, a key enabler of this progress — to power hospitals, facilitate studying at night, and run equipment necessary for manufacturing and job creation — is lagging behind. More than one in six people still lack access to electricity and one in three can’t depend on the sources they have. In Africa alone, over 600 million people still lack access to basic electricity and 70 percent of businesses cite unreliable power as a main constraint to doing business on the continent. Moreover, the world’s poorest often pay the most for what little electricity they do get. We can do better.

The coming year presents a number of opportunities to take action:

1. Lower Oil Prices Can Enable Market Reform
Distorted energy markets are a key culprit in preventing people from accessing electricity. When governments subsidize fossil fuels and cap electricity rates, there is underinvestment in fuel production, power generation and distribution. But today, sustained lower oil prices mean governments have the political space to wind down subsidies. Over the long term, removing subsidies will improve fiscal health and lead to a market mechanism for reallocating resources to produce more reliable, efficient, and fairly priced power — and get it to more people.

Egypt and Indonesia are two countries that have begun to phase out subsidies. As evidenced by GE’s experience in both countries, energy market reforms are important to expanding electricity. We are investing and building capacity to train up future workforces in both countries.  Last year, GE helped add 2.6 GW of power to Egypt’s grid, enough to light 2.5 million homes. In Indonesia we are adding 500 MW of “fast power” with more to come.

2. Emerging Markets Are Embracing Innovation
Achieving electrification, particularly in emerging markets and the least developed countries, will depend on new technologies and new business models. The 2016 GE Global Innovation Barometer finds that business leaders and influencers in emerging markets are embracing disruptive innovation far more than their peers in developed markets. The results are particularly encouraging with respect to Africa, the region suffering the greatest from lack of electricity. For example, 62% of Innovation Barometer respondents in Nigeria see energy efficiency, transmission, and distribution as the areas ripest for innovation.

At GE, Africa is a test bed for novel power products. From distributed power applications that will light entire villages in Algeria to Africa’s first self-sufficient micro grid in Equatorial Guinea, GE employees and our partners are working together to innovate, build new skills and create the next generation of jobs on the continent. In Nigeria, we have plans to invest over $1 billion over the next five years to strengthen our local presence in manufacturing and product services, particularly in the energy sector.

3. Energy Policy Reforms are Attracting Investors
Addressing the global electrification challenge will require massive investments. Happily, we are seeing examples of investment, often driven by market reforms. Mexico and India are two examples that provide ongoing lessons.

A new report by the World Economic Forum spotlights how Mexico is taking steps to bring private companies into the power sector, opening the state-owned system to private investment and creating a wholesale power market. Last year we saw positive results from earlier steps taken in the oil and gas sector.  The report also highlights reforms underway in India, including policies that encourage investment across the energy value chain.  If consumers get access to affordable and reliable energy while investors receive fair compensation, these countries should see successful results.

4. A Renewed Focus on Energy by the Global Community

Last year, the global community adopted the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which include a specific goal to expand energy access.  The world also came together in Paris to reach a global climate agreement that recognized the need for the world’s least developed countries to provide sustainable electricity to their people.  There seems to be a newfound momentum behind the goals of electricity access, efficiency, and sustainability. This includes a recognition of the importance of governments and the private sector working together.

It was encouraging to see the international community address funding mechanisms for both these global agreements. Development banks and the IMF committed $400 billion in conjunction with the SDGs.  The United Nations and partners have pledged $5 billion to promote renewable energy adoption in Africa. 2015 also saw the formation of a new infrastructure finance institution, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. For these funding sources to have maximum impact we need a continued focus on creating a pipeline of financeable energy projects. We also need to encourage financial institutions to prioritize infrastructure projects that underpin economic growth – electricity, water and healthcare.

5. The Digital Revolution in Energy is Beginning

The power industry has embarked upon a transformational journey. Power producers are starting to apply big data and analytics to optimize plant operations and accelerate the adoption of technologies that produce fewer or no emissions. They are also developing new ways to interact with customers, empowering them to become more efficient, participative and responsive to demand and supply.  These advances present opportunities for the power industry to enhance the efficiency, reliability, and affordability of electricity.

It will take cooperation between technology companies, utilities, investors, financial institutions and governments to create flexible and prudent policies that ensure innovation happens in a secure and sustainable manner. We are at the beginning stages of a power revolution, it is gaining momentum and we should start to see exponential adoption and innovation in 2016.

John G. Rice is Vice Chairman of GE and President and CEO of GE Global Growth Organization.

All views expressed are those of the author.

State leaders, powerful executives, prominent philanthropists and influential thinkers are getting together for their annual gathering in Davos this week. As usual, Marco Annunziata, GE’s chief economist, is also making the pilgrimage to the snowy Swiss valley. GE Reports caught up with him just as he was packing his bags. We talked about the importance of measuring innovation and GE’s Global Innovation Barometer, which the company released in Davos on Tuesday.

“There is now a much greater understanding that the industry of the future is one where humans and machines will work side by side,” says GE’s Marco Annunziata. Image credit: GE Reports

GE Reports: GE has been publishing the Innovation Barometer (IB) since 2010. Why?

Marco Annunziata: There is a lot of debate, and a lot of confusion, on the state of innovation: How much of it is happening? Is it helping businesses and society? What holds it back? The IB has enormous value because it gives us an insight — and data — into all these issues.

GER: Who is your audience?

MA: It’s really everyone, but there are three groups with whom it resonates the most. Economists like me can get a better sense of how quickly innovation is taking place, in which countries it is likely to move faster, what implications it will have on economic growth, jobs, living standards. Policymakers can better understand how to foster innovation: whether they need to change regulations, strengthen the education system, help facilitate funding. The answer will often vary across countries. They can also benchmark themselves to understand which countries are better at innovation and identify and follow the best practices.

Finally, business leaders can get an invaluable insight into how their peers are doing: Are they making progress on collaborative efforts? Do they see securing top talent as a priority? How much are they already benefiting from innovation? Do they bet on disruptive or incremental innovation? The IB is an unmatched opportunity to benchmark yourself against the competition, to get a broad and deep understanding of how important it is to innovate today, and what it takes to do it successfully.

GER: What jumps out at you from this year’s edition?

MA: To me, the most interesting and surprising finding of the 2016 barometer is that people are not as afraid of innovation as most press headlines would have you believe. Nowhere near. Only 17 percent of business executives and 15 percent of the informed public expect digital-industrial innovation to have a negative impact on jobs. This is a stunning result that flies in the face of all the scaremongering articles telling us that innovation will destroy jobs. And I think the reason is that digital industrial innovation is already here, it is already taking place, and people can see that it does not destroy jobs. There is now a much greater understanding that the industry of the future is one where humans and machines will work side by side, and that this will result in more and better jobs. It is part of the more general attitude toward innovation you can see in the barometer, but for me this is the most surprising — and inspiring — result.

GER: Why did GE start tracking innovation?

MA: Measuring innovation sentiment is important for two reasons. From a business perspective, you must invest in innovation if you want to innovate. And investment, ultimately, depends on the “animal spirits” of business leaders and engineers — as Keynes used to call them. It depends on whether they feel optimistic, ready to take the necessary risks. From a policy perspective, it is important to take the pulse of the public’s sentiment on innovation because it will help shape the policies and regulations that can facilitate innovation or hold it back.

GER: Are there any other tools like the IB?

MA: As far as I have seen, the Innovation Barometer is a unique instrument. It is unique because it focuses on the perspective of innovation, whereas other indicators and surveys and look at broader issues of competitiveness or economic development. It is unique because it was designed by people who live and breathe innovation, and it surveys business leaders who are directly involved in the strategic innovation efforts of their companies. And it is unique because it is a living instrument, where the questions can adapt from one year to the next to give us the best sense of how the sentiment toward innovation and the environment for innovation are evolving.

Youth unemployment is a global priority — especially in areas like the MENA region. We need to prepare students for the 4^th Industrial Revolution by giving them the skills they need to keep up with technologically advances.

A global race for talent is on, as executives seek to succeed in an increasingly fast-paced, tech-driven world economy. The importance of developing the right skills to remain globally competitive was highlighted in the latest GE Global Innovation Barometer, with executives citing talent as the top priority for innovating in the 4^th Industrial Revolution.

Yet not everyone is competing on a level playing field, with some regions — such as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) — failing to equip their youth with the skills they need. Less than a quarter of executives surveyed from Algeria felt graduates had the talent and skills the private sector is looking for.

Capitalizing on the youth dividend in MENA and other developing areas of the world is an “urgent global priority,” says Jamie McAuliffe, president and CEO of Education For Employment (EFE), the leading youth employment organization in the MENA region. For every percentage point of improvement in youth employment, global consumption increases by $72 billion a year, he notes, citing an estimate by the World Economic Forum. In MENA alone, the International Labour Organization estimates that cutting youth unemployment in half could boost economic growth by $25 billion by 2018.

As vice chairman of the WEF’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of Jobs, McAuliffe is pressing for action from the global business and policy leaders attending this week’s annual WEF forum in Davos. “We have been building momentum towards broader, collective action for several years,” he says in an interview. “At this point, we are beyond ‘raising awareness’ – now is the right time to make commitments that are tied to real outcomes for youth, such as job placements or apprenticeships after the completion of training programs.”

In the interview, he discusses the opportunities and challenges of addressing youth unemployment, and the importance of rapid skilling and re-skilling to keep pace with technological advances:

As a leading speaker at Davos on the jobs of the future, what is your message to global leaders on why more action needs to be taken to help young people get the skills they need to compete in today’s job market?

My message is simple: youth unemployment is an urgent global priority, and there is a tremendous social and economic upside to addressing it rapidly and at scale. The worldwide employment landscape is very different for young people today than it was for decision-makers in previous decades. But there is good news: there are tangible steps that the public and private sectors can adopt to address the near-term crisis, and diminish its long-term effects. We cannot let the complexity and scale of the challenge create paralysis; these factors should catalyze action at the highest levels — youth, businesses, societies and economies have much to gain.

You’ve used the phrase, “everyone a change-maker.” What do you see as the potential for the young people of today to make a difference in society and the economy?

Graduates of EFE often tell me that a job is not “just a job.” A job is dignity and hope. It provides the power and the resources to act in the interest of others — including siblings and parents, community members and society more broadly. My best days at EFE are those when I learn of a young woman in Morocco whose paycheck purchased her family’s first computer, or a young man in Egypt who goes from his office to his former university to give mock interviews and job search advice to current students. These youth are now empowered to be change-makers in their families and societies.

What are some of the most promising strategies for the region to capitalize on its youth dividend?

We need to focus on outcome-oriented education and training models. Measuring job placement, retention and promotion rates among other metrics is a good place to start. For a more equitable and long-lasting impact, it is also crucial to focus on populations, such as young women, who may face particular challenges entering and staying in the labor force. Some fixes are concrete and relatively simple. For instance, a study we released with Bayt.com and YouGov suggested that tangible approaches like salary negotiation training, providing transportation to workplaces and allowing flextime could help young women overcome barriers to employment.

How can technology and social innovation help to address the problem of youth unemployment?

At the most direct level, technology and social innovation unlock a new range of job possibilities for which young people are particularly well-suited: we are seeing a significant increase in entry-level talent in areas like ICT and e-commerce. The MENA region has seen an astronomical rise in internet penetration since 2003, according to Strategy&, and the ICT industry there could generate nearly 4.4 million jobs over the next five years. Even companies that do not traditionally fall into the “tech” category — such as retailers or SMEs — are creating job opportunities for youth who are skilled in online community management.

EFE has seen the potential for technology to enable disconnected groups to enter the formal labor market online, for example those for whom mobility is constrained — such as Palestinian youth, youth from rural Tunisia, and young women in more traditional and conservative areas. Technology is also changing how we reach youth in the classroom and beyond. Blended learning — combining in-classroom teaching and experiences with online components — is enabling educators to reach more students. As these platforms scale, the workforce development field will need to carefully monitor their efficacy, and their impact on soft skills acquisition.

(Top image: Courtesy of EFE-Egypt)

Jamie McAuliffe is President & CEO of Education For Employment (EFE). He is also Vice Chair of the World Economic Forum Council on The Future of Jobs.

All views expressed are those of the author.

Innovation can help tackle some of our greatest global health challenges. But to attract the necessary investment and achieve our goals, we must work together as a global community.

New health technologies improve human health and unlock human potential. From the polio vaccine and antiretroviral drugs to a novel meningitis vaccine and appropriately dosed, child-friendly tuberculosis (TB) drugs, life gets better through innovation.

Now, as we sit on the edge of a 15-year global commitment to end extreme poverty, fight inequality and injustice, and fix climate change, we must realize the importance of preventing disease and ensuring health and opportunity are in reach for all. Basic health is the bedrock of productive populations and economic prosperity.

Goal three of the sustainable development agenda is to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. Specific targets were set within that goal to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic and curtail deaths from malaria, TB and neglected tropical diseases. For each of these targets, global strategies have been established to provide a roadmap to achieve results. In each case, the roadmap emphasizes the need for new health tools and technologies to bolster our existing arsenal.

Because these diseases primarily impact populations in low- and middle-income countries, there is not always a market incentive for the private sector alone to invest the dollars needed in research and development. Public-private partnerships — arrangements between government, private industry and nonprofit product developers — are one effective way to catalyze global health R&D. Through these partnerships, investments from the public sector and philanthropic donors can be further leveraged with funding and research capacity from private companies — like GE — with expertise in developing health technologies.

To encourage these partnerships and drive R&D, we need new and innovative incentives. Our challenge now is to ask ourselves, what is needed to encourage everyone to take responsibility for their part in this fight? The ideas are there — we just need to turn them into policy and practice. Mechanisms such as prizes or innovation awards, priority review vouchers, advance market commitments and tax credits will help to incentivize private-sector engagement, while multisector-funded foundations or other pooled funds can leverage dollars from other non-traditional partners.

Further, we need to protect the R&D investments made by each sector and ensure that resources exist to move products all the way from basic scientific discovery, through development, clinical research trials, regulatory approval and ultimately into the hands of people who need them. Health tools do no good if they sit on a shelf.

The product pipeline is growing. We now have an estimated 500 global health products in the pipeline — up from just 215 in 2004 — more than half of which are supported by a private-sector partner. But we still face a gap between need and resources that will become more pronounced as products enter costly late-stage clinical trials, manufacturing and implementation into the existing health programs established to address these diseases.

The health challenges we face are too great for any one sector alone to solve. Partnerships drive innovation. We need to work together as a global community — business, governments, nonprofit product developers, and philanthropic organizations — to invest in and develop new health technologies. Without new drugs, vaccines, diagnostics and other health tools, we cannot hope to achieve the global goals we agreed to last year.

We stand to save millions of lives, but we cannot do it with the tools we have today. We need to ensure that new and existing health tools reach the people who need them. These investments make a real impact on the most vulnerable populations living in low- and middle-income countries — and they improve lives and health outcomes around the world.

We are a global community; this is our shared fight.

(Top image: Courtesy of Majid Saeedi, Getty Images)

Erin Will Morton is Coalition Director at the Global Health Technologies Coalition (GHTC).

All views expressed are those of the author.

New GE jet engines must pass a litany of hardships on the test stand — from bird strikes to hailstorms — before they get to take to the air.

But even then they are not finished. One of the steps required to win FAA certification actually looks like fun — though the engines might object. It involves flights on GE’s Flying Test Beds. GE has two of them, each one a converted Boeing 747 packed with computers, electronics and other gear. The newer one, which GE acquired in 2011, can safely climb as high as 45,000 feet, some 5,000 feet above maximum cruising altitude.

Earlier this year, when GE was testing LEAP and Passport engines, the engineers invited a photographer in a separate plane to join them for test flights over California’s Sierra Nevada. Take a look at the haul he brought back.

Top Image: GE Aviation acquired its original flying test bed (red stripe) two decades ago. That plane, called Clipper Ocean Spray, was the 16th Boeing 747 ever built and flew for two decades in Pan Am livery. Earlier this year, it was testing the new Passport engine GE developed for Bombardier’s Global 7000 and Global 8000 business jets. Above: GE’s two flying test beds over Sierra Nevada. All image credits: Wolf Air Vectorvision/GE Aviation

A Passport engine on wing of GE’s original flying test bed is powering through tests.

GE flies the planes from its Flight Test Operations Center in Victorville, Calif., located on the edge of the Mojave Desert.

GE bought its new flying test bed (blue tail) from Japan Airlines. After two decades in commercial service, GE spent 14 months puling out seats, rewiring the plane and installing state-of-the art avionics. The first test engine on wing was the next-generation LEAP.

The flying test beds and filled with computers and test equipment. The new plane holds nearly 900 miles of wiring and fiber optic cable.

The cables connect sensors embedded in the engines to rows of computers inside the economy cabin and help engineers analyze terabytes of complex data in flight.

The fiber optic cable will stream digital data from some 1,700 instruments and sensors monitoring thrust, temperature, fuel consumption and other readings from the engine.

The LEAP was developed by CFM International, a joint company between GE and France’s Safran (Snecma). Even though the engine won’t enter service until 2016, it’s already the best selling jet engine in GE’s history. CFM has have received more that 7,000 orders and commitments for the LEAP valued at more than $125 billion.

There will be three versions of the LEAP engine: LEAP-1A for the Airbus A320neo, LEAP-1B for Boeing 737MAX, and LEAP-1C for the Comac C919. It’s the first engine with GE technology that contains 3D-printed parts and components from a groundbreaking material called ceramic matrix composites.

GE engineers reinforced the wing structure of the new test bed, drilled new holes in the fuselage for extra cables and modified the wing leading edge around engine No. 2 (the engine on the left side closest to the body).

The changes will allow engineers to attach to the wing any of the new engines the company is developing, including the giant GE9X engine. With 132 inches in fan diameter, the GE9X is largest jet engine ever designed.

Besides the test engine, the new flying test bed uses GE’s CF6 engines, the same kind that power Air Force One.

Nobody wants to be told they are going to die. Yet that’s the prognosis Wayne Eskridge received from his doctors in 2010. The diagnosis was a stage-four case of cirrhosis of the liver. As he and his family despaired over the future, he received another medical opinion, saying this time that he was fine with no liver disease. He was counting his blessings, but later the emotional rollercoaster took another dive when the diagnosis reversed once more. “Over a period of four years I was told I was seriously ill and then told I was not and later I was told that I had a progressive liver disease caused by iron,” Eskridge said from his home in Boise, Idaho. “I did not know where I stood, but I gave seven liters of blood to treat the iron problem. Later that diagnosis was judged to also be wrong. I felt the information I was getting was insufficient but didn’t know where to turn. It’s a journey that drove my wife and me crazy.”

Eskridge’s nightmare finally ended in 2014 when a new MRI scan aided the doctors in their diagnosis of nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) – a “silent” liver disease afflicting people who drink little or no alcohol. Eskridge now knows he has stage-three/four cirrhosis — an advancing case of liver disease, but not necessarily a fatal diagnosis. He believes his prognosis would be better had he been diagnosed four years earlier.

Top and above: A 16 year old obese patient with elevated liver enzymes and fatty liver infiltration on ultrasound and MR. The MR elastography (MR Touch) was performed to evaluate tissue stiffness prior to a planned biopsy. The MRE showed normal liver stiffness, indicating the presence of simple steatosis, but no fibrosis or inflammation. The biopsy was cancelled. Image credit: GE Healthcare

Doctors performed an MRI scan with an imaging technique called MR-Touch. MR-Touch is a medical imaging technique that provides an elastogram – a color-coded anatomical image showing varying degrees of elasticity or stiffness in soft tissue which then aids the clinicians in their diagnosis of disease. In this case it was liver disease. GE developed MR-Touch in partnership with the Mayo Clinic. It can capture the image in just 14 seconds, a short time for most patients to hold their breath.

Eskridge’s liver trouble began in December 2010, after surgery to remove his gangrenous gallbladder. The initial diagnosis was based on obvious liver damage observed by his surgeon. A subsequent biopsy showed no liver disease, a finding that made little sense. That started Eskridge on his tortuous four-year journey of back-and-forth visits to primary care physicians, gastroenterologists and hematologists. He underwent a battery of tests, including blood draws, ultrasounds, biopsies and MRIs, and received diagnoses ranging from no liver disease to hemochromatosis — too much iron in the body resulting in stage 4 cirrhosis.

“We had several years of trying to figure out what was going on and not being successful,” he says. Frustrated, the 73-year-old engineer, who runs an online lighting business, went so far as to take a pathology course online at Tufts University to learn more about his liver.

MR Touch assesses the stiffness of a patient’s liver and is especially valuable in evaluating and assisting the clinician in their treatment plan for fatty liver disease. Image credit: GE Healthcare

In 2014, Eskridge’s liver mystery was solved when he and his wife, Rosemary, met Dr. Michael Charlton of Salt Lake City, who prescribed an MR-Touch scan that assisted the clinicians in their diagnosis of NASH and visualized the extent of the liver damage. NASH is difficult to detect because most patients are asymptomatic and don’t have high risk factors.

Eskridge believes that if he had not been diagnosed by his clinician using the MR-Touch imaging technique his disease likely would have progressed to a fatal stage-four case of cirrhosis. He now has hopes — and a fighting chance — of stopping the disease.

He’s keeping himself healthy through lifestyle changes, including increased exercise, weight loss and the elimination of harmful saturated fats. He instead consumes significant amounts of unsaturated fats in extra-virgin olive oil and liver-supportive supplements as part of a restricted Mediterranean diet — things he says he would have done earlier had doctors correctly diagnosed his illness. “Had I had the same counsel after my 2010 surgery, I probably would not be at stage-three/four cirrhosistoday,” he says.

At least 30 million people in the United States — one in 10 — have some form of liver disease. Medical imaging techniques like MR-Touch and new cloud-based software that precisely highlight what clinicians need to see for them to effectively treat liver disease could mean more precise care for patients and productivity for clinicians.

“Absent better diagnostic tools, my doctors did all that I could ask of them. My story is not unique as many people have silent liver disease. It’s a problem that may become more common as my generation, with our industrialized diet and poor habits, gets older,” Eskridge says.

Already the MR-Touch imaging technique and GE software called FlightPlan for Liver are helping doctors treat liver cancer. Previously, liver cancer was particularly difficult to deal with because the liver’s complex vascular structure made it hard for doctors to find which blood vessels fed a tumor. Using MR-Touch and the software, surgeons now have more detailed imaging to help them prepare for an embolization to surgically block blood vessels feeding a tumor.

GE Healthcare engineers in Finland have recently started working on a predictive software system that could one day collect human vital signs like blood pressure, temperature and breathing rate, and feed the data into a secure database for analysis. That information would be used to build individualized digital twins for each patient. The data would live in the cloud and could help spot health problems before they get out of hand.

The system, which runs on Predix, GE’s cloud-based system for the Industrial Internet, is still some years away, but its predictive analytics and the digital twin technology are already starting to have applications in many industries. The most recent is power generation.

Salt River Project (SRP), a utility serving over 1 million homes and businesses in and around Phoenix, Arizona, has connected its power plants and electrical grid to SmartSignal, GE software that can monitor turbines, generators and other machines and minimize unplanned downtime. “It’s like going to the doctor for a physical and they do the lab work, check your heart and your blood pressure. That’s effectively what this software does for our assets, in real time,” says May Millies, SRP’s former Power Generation Services manager, who now manages of operations and maintenance at the Desert Basin Generating Station.

Top Image: The Navajo Generating Station is one of the power plants in SRP’s portfolio. SRP, which serves nearly 1 million customers, has been in business since 1903. That makes it a decade older than its home state, Arizona. Above: The digital power plant is one of GE’s applications for the digital twin technology. Image credit: Getty Images

This is important because like an undiagnosed illness leading to hospitalization, unplanned downtime is expensive. The world’s power plants could save some $80 billion annually if they operated near their potential, according to a 2008 estimate by the World Energy Council. Millies says SmartSignal has been saving SRP as much as $400,000 a year by catching anomalies early.

SRP first tested SmartSignal offline, feeding it old equipment data. They wanted to know how the software would have dealt with a major failure that happened in the past. “We knew that the [historical] data showed a significant mechanical problem,” said Millies. “The question was, if we had had the GE software, would it have seen the problem in advance and caught the outage?”

The cybersnoop wasn’t fooled. “It read the data, found the anomaly and notified us on the software tool,” she says. “If we had the software at the time, it would have prevented that very costly outage.”

SRP has now connected almost all of its power stations to the Predix platform. When completed, the project will give them instant access to information of these critical assets. She wants to allow her team to make decisions that boost the utility’s overall efficiency and reliability even during normal operations. “We are able to manage our costs and ensure a reliable system because we are able to plan our outage activity,” Millies says. “Our assets are running predictably because we know what maintenance work we have to do and we are able to plan that work to get it done in a timely fashion.”

SRP is now considering how to apply SmartSignal to businesses well beyond its power plants.Says Millies: “We want to expand it across our assets.”

GE released its fourth-quarter results this morning, capping a pivotal year when the company sold much of its lending business and embraced software to become the world’s largest digital-industrial company.

For GE, 2015 was a long string of multi-billion deals. The company has closed transactions to sell GE Capital assets valued at more than $104 billion and signed deals valued at $157 billion – ahead of plan. GE Capital also completed a share exchange program following the 2014 Synchrony IPO that will contribute to the company’s effort to return more than $90 billion to shareholders through dividends and share buybacks. The share exchange, the largest in history, reduced GE share count by almost 700 million shares.

GE also acquired Alstom’s power and grid business, the company’s largest acquisition ever, and launched GE Digital, a new unit that will work closely with all GE businesses and help them and their customers take advantage of the Industrial Internet.

GE acquired Alstom technology like this “ultra supercritical” steam turbine, which powers the world’s most efficient coal-fired power plant. Image credit: GE Power

Told by the numbers, GE beat analyst estimates, reporting $0.52 per share in operating earnings (EPS) from industrial businesses for the quarter, a 27 percent increase from the prior-year period. Industrial revenues fell by 1 percent on an organic basis for the quarter, but rose 3 percent organically for the year. Industrial profit for 2015 rose 7 percent organically. The company also reported 80 basis points (1 basis point = 1/100 of a percent) of industrial margin growth, and a rise of 110 basis points in gross margins (excluding Alstom). Orders were up 3 percent for the quarter.

“GE executed well in a slow-growth environment,” said Jeff Immelt, GE chairman and CEO. “For 2015, we accomplished all of the goals we outlined for investors. We recognize that the first few weeks of 2016 have been especially volatile. However, our orders in the fourth quarter grew 1 percent organically and our backlog grew to $315 billion with Alstom. We believe in the strength of our business model and that there is enough growth out there to deliver in 2016.”

In 2015, GE launched the digital twin, a cloud-based simulation of physical assets that allows engineers to optimize machines based on data analytics and predict problems before they happen. Image credit: GE Power

After closing the Alstom acquisition in November of last year, GE has already started combining Alstom’s technologies with its industrial segments, bringing scale and expertise to their customers and global installed base. GE said Alstom also strengthened the GE Store– the way the company shares technology, talent, expertise and connections across its businesses – providing access to growth markets and boosting technical leadership, services and software offerings. GE said Alstom’s impact was on track to add $0.05 per share to earnings in 2016.

GE also reported $5 billion in 2015 revenue for GE Digital. The new unit, which GE launched in November, brings together all of the digital capabilities from across the company into one organization, integrating GE’s Software Center, the company’s global information technology and commercial software teams, and cyber security. GE aims to be a top 10 software company by 2020.

GE has been keeping up the pace in 2016. In January, it announced it would sell its Appliances business to Haier – less than two months after the company’s previous deal with Electrolux ended.

For more information on GE’s quarterly earnings, tune in to the webcast on GE’s investor relations website. For more financial news, subscribe to GE Reports and GE’s investor newsletter.

The Fortune 500’s success at “optimizing at will” has come at a cost. To survive in today’s fast-paced global economy, it’s time to focus the ability to “grow at will.” You need to install a Growth Operating System.

Ask a Fortune 500 CEO, “How many $50 million companies did you launch last year?” The answer should be: “many.” A great company should be teeming with growth. But more likely than not, the answer you’ll get is: “zero.”

Why is new growth not common at large enterprises packed with talent, capital, expertise and scalable leverage? There is a simple way to understand the challenge in terms of battling processes: New to Big vs. Big to Bigger.

Big to Bigger has had a stunning run of success. After 30-plus years of efficiency and optimization efforts, large enterprises have created the capability to optimize at will. Tools from TQM to Lean Manufacturing to Six Sigma allow an “always on” capability to impact optimized, bottom line value.

But while Big to Bigger has won big, it has been at a substantial cost. Benchmarking and executive compensation based on efficiency and share have led to the near eradication of the capability to grow. While Big to Bigger thrived, the concept of New to Big lost the organizing framework that would allow leadership to unleash the capability to grow at will.

Into this growth vacuum stepped a new set of competitors. The capability to grow has effectively been yielded to “the valleys” — venture capitalists and entrepreneurs set out to defeat the Big to Bigger machines. It was a clash of contrasting mindsets, mechanics and decision architecture: predictability vs. opportunity in uncertainty, incrementalism vs. disruption, inside out vs. outside in mindset — the addiction to being right as stunted new growth discovery. Now under accelerated attack, big companies double-down to their old ways. It’s easier to see and measure what exists today — what is knowable — what we can make, what customers say, than discovering what customers will need tomorrow — what we can become, what customer do. Behaviors don’t lie.

Fortune 500 companies are bigger and more efficient than ever. But in securing their stature, they have traded their ability to grow. Well-intended “innovation” efforts can’t compete with talent trained and incentivized to tame risk. The loss of the New to Big mindset and mechanics to grow at will looms as a serious threat.

Organic growth has been brought to a standstill. But there is a solution: the Growth Operating System (OS) pioneered at GE as Fastworks.

The Growth OS, which restores a permanent growth capability by installing the mindset and mechanics of the world of venture capital and startups, is reigniting a contrarian view that large enterprises to go on the offense and win. The outcome is a new and permanent competitive growth capability that both advances and defends the core. It unlocks a new learning velocity that creates confidence and speed in identifying, validating and growing ideas into scaling enterprise startups across the core stages of venture capital: seed, launch, scale. It’s installing the conditions, experiences the skills of venture capital and entrepreneurship as a new form of management.

Giants like GE, Citibank, Tyco, Exelon, and others are already installing, piloting and now scaling the Growth OS with hundreds of enterprise startup teams. Many will join this pioneering restoration of entrepreneurship at the enterprise. But New to Big growth will not happen on its own. Companies must become better, stronger, faster — they must become Bionic. CEOs must create, foster, launch and protect New to Big growth capability if it is to survive.

That starts with the New to Big leadership job description:

• Operator and VC: The Ambidextrous Leader

Beyond leading the original Big to Bigger mission, it’s about creating, disrupting and restoring a permanent growth capability and nurturing a New to Big mindset.

• New Talent Contract: Find, Build and Focus on Developing Creators

Obsessed and advantaged leaders can be found, skilled up and incentivized for growth.

• Break the Addiction to Being Right: Question Driven Leadership

Shift from answer-driven leadership to question-driven leadership.

• Destroy Success Theater: Demand and Drive New ‘Commercial Truth’

Create permission to engage with radical differentiation in a way that gets to the truth.

• Be Outside-In: Growth Anchored in Massive Customer Problems

The answers are outside the building. Inside-out growth ideas largely fail as they are shoehorned to fit the enterprise’s view of the world, then prematurely scaled on thin evidence.

• Expire Past Assumptions and Drive Net New Learning

Validate customer problems based on observable action — not what customers say, but what they do.

• Embrace “Lean” Validation: Celebrate Productive Failure

The venture capital concept of productive failure — honest, cheap and fast failure — rules.

• Shift From TAM to TAP

At most enterprises, the focus is on total addressable market (TAM) — looking at current customers and markets, developing new products and services from the “inside-out” and launching ideas without pre-validated customer support. The focus should be on total addressable problem (TAP).

• Install the Growth OS: Drive Mindset, Mechanics, Experience, Change Culture

The shift in CEO behavior is critical to the restoration of organic growth. If New to Big is not fully embraced, protected and driven from the C-suite, it’s doomed.

• Go on the Attack: Compete with Startups

The only way to compete with startups and disruption is to become one. Embrace a “software will eat the world” ideology.

The rewards for big companies from New to Big are visible in the marketplace every day. Growth that is net new is always valued at a much higher compounding rate than existing share growth. This is why startups have the valuations they do today.

How would this permanent growth capability impact the mindset, decisions, speed and competitiveness of the core? The answer should be profound: Grow at will.

(Top GIF: Video courtesy of GE)

David Kidder is author of The Startup Playbook (Chronicle) and co-founder of Bionic, the pioneers behind The Growth Operating System (OS), which creates permanent capability within large enterprises to install, discover, validate and manage growth. Bionic works with teams — from the CEO down — across the world’s leading companies to Ignite Growth Revolutions. David can be reached at dkidder@bionicsolution.com and @davidskidder.

All views expressed are those of the author.

Africa’s young innovators can leapfrog into the digital revolution with the right tools and training.

The 4^th Industrial Revolution is driven by newer technologies, such as 3D printing, that are changing industrial processes by accelerating them and making them more flexible. With the right tools and training, young innovators in Africa have the opportunity to skip the second industrial revolution — traditional mass production — and leapfrog straight to digital manufacturing. This, in turn, can provide them with a path out of poverty.

Africa has shown an incredible ability to leapfrog older forms of technology in favor of adopting the latest. It skipped traditional landlines — as well as dial-up Internet access — and moved straight to mobile broadband. Digital manufacturing and 3D printing will revolutionize Africa’s manufacturing industry in the same way that smart phones and mobile broadband are transforming the service, trade and agricultural industries.

Next-Shoring, the ‘Next’ Frontier

The lack of an established manufacturing sector means that most Africans rely on importing items like machine parts, consumables, household goods, tools and building materials. As 3D printing becomes more versatile, African nations can digitally manufacture such objects domestically and reduce dependency on costly imports. It will create an environmentally friendly ecosystem that doesn’t require factories, machinery, labor or capital. The savings, both direct and indirect, will afford many people the opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty.

Although growth in the manufacturing sector has long been considered crucial for economic development, it usually represents a small part of African economies. In Nigeria, for example, manufacturing is still at an infant stage, accounting less than 7 percent of GDP, and the local industry depends on imports of raw materials and parts.

3D printing has the capacity to transform the supply chain. By 2025, two-thirds of global demand will come from emerging markets, according to McKinsey & Co. As that happens, a new trend of “next-shoring” is expected to move manufacturing areas close to where the raw materials or customers are, cutting down on distribution time and reducing costs. Next-shoring transcends geography and focuses on physical proximity to emerging markets, talent and customers.

Take the auto industry in Nigeria, with Ford’s decision to establish a presence and produce roughly 10 units a day for the market. Since Nigeria is a priority market in Sub-Saharan Africa, many companies are looking at how a base there can service the entire region. Reliance on highly specialized suppliers for complex parts can be reduced with 3D printing, and so can the number of suppliers involved across the supply chain.

Developing Skills for the Future

As we enter the 4th Industrial Revolution, one area of concern is how prepared Africa’s students are to become innovators in tomorrow’s economy. Countries will need to ensure that people have the skills they need to compete globally by investing in education and school-to-work transitions.

There are two primary entry points into the world of 3D printing. The first is the education sector. Priority should be given to getting the culture of 3D printing into schools so that youth can become conversant with the technology and increase their interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

We’ve seen first-hand the benefits of such programs, with Youth for Technology Foundation partnering with several secondary schools and universities across Nigeria to train several hundred students in human-centered design and 3D Printing. At the Federal Government Girls College in Owerri, 15-year-old Treasure developed a passion for 3D modeling and has been designing and printing rings, phone cases and other small consumables. She is now starting to think about how to market these products to others in her community and sell them in online marketplaces.

But employers cannot wait for the right applicants to show up at their doorsteps. They should work with education providers, especially at the tertiary level, to design curricula that fit business needs. They should also take the workplace to the classroom, by lending out members of their own staff to act as instructors and increasing the availability of work-placements programs and other opportunities for practical learning.

The second point of entry involves adding knowledge of 3D printing technology to Africa’s innovation corridors. For example, YTF partnered with the GE Garages Lagos program to expose entrepreneurs to the latest in advanced manufacturing technologies, while teaching them to drive innovation through rapid prototyping.

YTF supported one of the entrepreneurs from GE Garages, Tochukwu, who designed a reading stand device. The 3D Africa team helped to refine the 3D-printed parts for his product, which was a finalist in the Social Innovation Contest organized by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and Tochukwu was recently able to establish a replica 3D printing hub in Lagos.

Moreover, as the GE Global Innovation Barometer noted, there’s a strong sense among entrepreneurs that government should be more of an enabler and steward of innovation. Though opportunities abound for those interested in 3D printing and other innovative technologies, there are still many risks — including high levels of initial investment and marginal cost, lack of support from the government and a disregard for intellectual property issues.

However, the opportunities to unlock innovation and create employment opportunities through entrepreneurship are endless, and the youth of Africa stand to benefit from all of them.

(Top image: Courtesy of Youth for Technology Foundation)

Njideka Harry is President & CEO of Youth for Technology Foundation (YTF).

All views expressed are those of the author.

Thomas Edison’s light bulb patent was 15 years old when Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-rays and proved their power by imaging the bones inside his wife’s hand. “I’ve seen my death,” she reportedly said after seeing the picture.But GE co-founder Elihu Thomson had longevity in mind. A year after Roentgen’s discovery, he modified Edison’s light bulb to emit X-rays and used it to build the first X-ray machine. It allowed doctors to diagnose bone fractures and locate “foreign objects in the body” and launched GE into the healthcare business.

Elihu Thomson’s X-ray machine from 1896. Image Credit: GE. Top Image: The latest GE imaging systems like the Revolution CT can produce detailed images of the vascular system. Image Credit: GE Healthcare.

Today, GE Healthcare makes everything from advanced imaging machines to super-resolution microscopes and software that can be used to process, analyze and probe for insights terabytes of data produced by the machines. The business generated $17.6 billion in revenues in 2015.

Above: An MRI image of the brain. The method, called diffusion tractography, is displaying some of the long white matter bundles (red: left-right, green: anterior-posterior, blue: head-foot). Top image: The skull and carotid arteries imaged by GE’s Revolution CT Scanner. Images credit: GE Healthcare

Some of the technology has been on display at the 101th annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) in Chicago last December. The RSNA is the radiological industry’s “Grand Slam” gathering and trade show that was expected to draw 60,000 visitors and exhibitors this year. GE attended the inaugural meeting in 1914 .

An Edison X-ray ad from 1897. Image credit: GE

In 2015 at RSNA, GE announced the first GE Health Cloud that will initially gather data from 500,000 GE imaging machines, allow doctors to collaborate online, and let independent software vendors to develop apps in the new cloud ecosystem. The GE machines that will supply the data draw on decades of research and commercial development starting with Thomson’s fluoroscope, the world’s first commercially available X-ray machine.

GE’s William Coolidge invented what is considered the modern X-ray tube. He also developed an early portable X-ray machine. Coolidge’s X-ray machine was used in military hospitals during World War I. Image credit: Museum of Innovation and Science Schenectady

In 1932, GE’s Irving Langmuir won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work that led to early coronary artery imaging. In 1973, his colleague Ivar Giaever received the Nobel Prize in Physics for research that led to the first GE MRI machine a decade later. In the 1980s their colleague John Schenck at GE Global Research took the first brain selfie with a GE MRI scanner. The list of innovations goes on. Take a walk with us from the past into the future.

General Electric researcher and scientist Irving Langmuir receives the 1932 Nobel Prize in Chemistry in Stockholm, Sweden. Langmuir was associate director of the GE Research Laboratory at the time. Image credit: Museum of Innovation and Science Schenectady

Dr. Ivar Giaever, 1972 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics, poses with his superconductive tunneling experiment. Image credit: Museum of Innovation and Science Schenectady

The Nobel acceptance telegram from Ivar Giaever. Image credit: Museum of Innovation and Science Schenectady

In 1939, GE medical scanners produced X-ray images of mummies for the New York World’s Fair. Scientists are still using GE imaging machines to study ancient objects, including mummies, a baby woolly mammoth and a piece of a sunken ship. Image courtesy of the New York Public Library.

John Schenck‘s work is featured in Breakthrough, the six-part science TV series developed by GE and National Geographic Channel. He took the first brain selfie with a GE MRI scanner. Image credit : GE Reports

This image shows complex patterns of connectivity of the human cortex measured in vivo with MRI via diffusion of water molecules in axons in the white matter. Image credit: GE Global Research

A 3D view of the human heart’s mitral valve – two leaflets that open and close with each heartbeat. The mitral valve ensures that blood flows in one direction copy. The image was taken with “4D” ultrasound. Image credit: GE Healthcare

The pair of “bubbles” in this image are actually a twin pregnancy. Each of the amniotic sacs has a 6-week-old embryo inside. The image was taken with “4D” ultrasound. Image credit: GE Healthcare

An image of the body with GE’s Revolution CT scanner. Image credit: GE Healthcare

An image of the heart with GE’s Revolution CT scanner. Image credit: GE Healthcare

An MR image of the liver. A 16 year old obese patient with elevated liver enzymes and fatty liver infiltration on ultrasound and MR. The MR elastography (MR Touch) was performed to evaluate tissue stiffness prior to a planned biopsy. The MRE showed normal liver stiffness, indicating the presence of simple steatosis, but no fibrosis or inflammation. The biopsy was cancelled. Image credit: GE Healthcare

Try finding and untying single hairs within a tangled knot. FlightPlan for liver software makes identifying tumor-feeding vessels easier by highlighting the cancer-feeding vessels with high sensitivity. Image credit: GE Healthcare

ViosWorks* combines 3D cardiac anatomy, function, and flow in 1 free-breathing, approximate 8 minute scan. It enables visualization of the whole chest and beating heart from any vantage point – any structure, in any plane – simultaneously seeing ventricles contracting and accurately quantifying blood flow. *7 dimensional viewing capabilities of the heart; 3 in space, 1 in time, 3 in velocity direction. Image credit: GE Healthcare

The skull and carotid arteries captured by GE’s Revolution CT scanner. Image credit: GE Healthcare.

You can find more images on GE Healthcare’s Pulse site.

Every day is a bad day for flying if you hang out with Brian DeBruin. DeBruin runs GE Aviation’s jet engine test operations site in Peebles, Ohio, and his job is to make sure that GE engines keep working when they fly into an hailstorm, encounter a dust cloud or ingest a goose. He and his team even set off small explosions inside jet engines to simulate blade failure. “Some of these tests are relatively benign, but others are quite damaging,” DeBruin told GE Reports. “You’ve got to prove that your engines are good.” We recently sent photographer Chris New to check Peebles out.

Top image: A cowl for a GEnx engine stretches out like a giant mechanical moth. Above: The Death Star-like turbulence control structure (TCS) streamlines the air flowing inside a jet engine during testing. 

Up close, the sphere appears translucent.

From Star Wars to Alien. This GEnx jet engine could be easily mistaken for a machine designed by H.R. Giger.

Jet engine test cells have 20-foot-thick walls built from a special high-density concrete. The construction team vibrated the wet concrete down to squeeze out air and eliminate weak spots.

A GEnx-2B jet engine inside a test cell. This engine powers Boeing’s 747-8 aircraft. Many Boeing 787 Dreamliners use the slightly larger GEnx-1B.

An engineer stands by an air inlet into a test cell. Engines like the GE90-115B, the world’s largest and most powerful jet engine, can swallow as much as 8,000 pounds of air per second.

“When the engine runs and it’s not moving, it’s kind of like a giant vacuum cleaner,” says “cell owner” Ray Staresina. “A large engine like the GE90 will pull a little tornado from the walls if the airflow doesn’t cut it off. When that happens, it distorts the data.”

An inside view of a GEnx jet engine. These blades are controlling airflow around the core of the jet engine. This air generates most of the engine’s thrust.

GE is the company whose jet engines have fan blades made from composite materials. Composites allow engineers to build larger and more efficient jet engines. The blade design was so striking that New York’s Museum of Modern Art included one blade in its collection.

A close-up of the composite blades and their titanium edge.

The test cells and their massive air inlets from the outside.

Peebles also has outdoor test stands where engineers can simulate everything from hail storms to bird strikes.

GE Aviation also assembles jet engines in Peebles. The company ships them with these giant trucks.

By embracing the 4th Industrial Revolution, we transform the electric grid and we can improve access to affordable, reliable power.

As we enter the 4th Industrial Revolution, technological innovations — particularly advances in software — are increasingly being used to address some of the world’s most pressing issues. Perhaps nowhere is software’s ability to solve our most difficult challenges more apparent than in energy. Big Data, artificial intelligence, machine learning and the Internet of Things (IoT) are enabling us to transform the electric grid — making it cleaner, more affordable and more reliable.

It is true that software can’t actually generate electricity. But it can allow us to maximize the value of the power we generate through effective use of data. In doing so, we can reduce our dependence on dirty fossil fuels, improve the effectiveness of energy efficiency, renewable energy and energy storage technologies, and create a more efficient, carbon-free electric grid. Software will turn data into a new source of power. This transformation will allow us to cost-effectively extend the benefits of electricity to the 1.1 billion people in the developing world without access to reliable electricity and accelerate our transition to a fossil-fuel free economy. When it comes to energy, software will not eat the world — it will help save it.

The need to transform our electric grid — reducing greenhouse gasses associated with energy generation while extending energy access to those in the developing world — is urgent. Left unchecked, climate change will cause a massive amount of economic and humanitarian damage. The difference in climate damage costs between low (1.5°C) warming and high (4.5°C) warming scenarios could be as high as $50 trillion, according to Citibank. The World Health Organization expects that, between 2030 and 2050, climate change will cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress.

Moreover, though we have made strides in reducing global poverty, we still need to extend access to reliable and affordable electricity if we hope to continue to increase the income and improve the living standards of millions of people living in the developing world. To put it simply, if we want to sustain the economic progress the world has achieved since the dawning of the industrial revolution, and foster a 4th Industrial Revolution, transformation of our electric grid is essential. The potential for the energy transformation is clear, as GE’s Global Innovation Barometer illustrates, with 61 percent of citizens surveyed saying the industry could benefit greatly from the digital revolution.

There is no doubt that new renewable energy, energy storage and electricity distribution technologies will be needed to enable this transformation. However, software will also play a critical role in making the grid cleaner, more affordable and more reliable.

One area that software can particularly help is in maximizing the efficiency of the grid. The amount of energy we currently waste is stunning — with more than 30 percent of the energy used inside buildings being wasted due to activities such as the lighting and cooling of empty rooms, according to the EPA. We can use software to lower the amount of energy we waste or use inefficiently. Software connected to IoT device sensors and controls can unobtrusively turn off or down Internet-connected appliances and devices, dramatically reducing energy use. In the U.S., utilities such as Austin Energy, the City of Palo Alto Utilities and Bonneville Power Administration are using software to implement programs that can curb power demand for air conditioning by 30 percent or more. Customers do not notice any change (except for a lower monthly bill), while they can avoid adding hundreds of megawatts from new power plants.

Software can also help maximize the effectiveness of renewable energy, energy storage and other distributed energy assets. Utilities can now forecast, optimize and control these assets, helping them better balance energy supply and demand. With this flexibility, they can integrate more intermittent renewable energy into their generation portfolios, tapping into other sources of energy if there is a drop in renewable energy generation. Moreover, because the software can anticipate peaks and valleys in renewable energy generation, they can reduce unnecessary energy storage system discharge cycles — extending the life and value of storage systems. In essence, software converts the grid into its own backup.

Over the past decade, software has demonstrated that it has the power to eat up entire industries — from retail (Amazon) to advertising (Google) to entertainment (Netflix). Now it is time for software to eat the conventional fossil-fuel-based energy industry, and make energy clean, reliable and affordable — helping us not just save trillions of dollars, but millions of lives as well.

(Top GIF: Video courtesy of AutoGrid)

Dr. Amit Narayan is Founder and CEO of AutoGrid, Inc., a leader in big data analytics and predictivecontrol software for the electricity and energy industry.

All views expressed are those of the author.

Amid a growing fear of “Digital Darwinism,” executives are embracing the startup ethos to stay competitive in the fast-paced global economy.

The 4th Industrial Revolution inspires hope, but also fear. There’s hope that technology can help solved some of society’s greatest challenges — from poverty to access to healthcare and electricity, as the latest GE Global Innovation Barometer shows. But among executives from around the world who took part in the survey, there is also a palpable sense of fear of becoming obsolete (FOBO) as emerging and disruptive technologies pass them by.

Survival in this new era of “Digital Darwinism” means being able to adapt quickly to technological change and foster disruptive innovation. In other words, embrace a startup mentality. More than four-fifths of executives surveyed recognized the startup ethos as increasingly the norm for creating an innovation culture for companies — regardless of sizes.

“The one thing you can say for sure is that whatever’s in your five-year plan today is certainly not right,” says Eric Ries, entrepreneur and author of The Lean Startup. “That’s the substantive reason why something has really changed here and why startups are extremely well adapted to the situation.”

The “dramatic change” in speed and uncertainty compels companies to scrap the 20^th century business model focused on planning and forecasting in favor of a more agile approach of “continuous innovation, says Ries, who works with new and established companies to apply lean startup principles.

In the interview, Ries discusses why executives are increasingly recognizing the need to adopt a lean startup approach — and what they need to know to make it successful:

A key finding in this year’s Innovation Barometer is this fear of becoming obsolete (FOBO) in the digital age. Do you consider so-called “Digital Darwinism” a threat that executives should take seriously?

I love FOBO as a way of having that conversation — I’m going to start using that. It describes a certain corporate mindset I see. Most companies I talk to of a certain size have become really paranoid about becoming obsolete.

In the same organization, you can have factions — people who think that obsolescence is coming, and people who are in denial about it. The reason I’m talking to most companies is that at least one far-sighted leader has gotten the memo about this and wants to have some kind of conversation about what the company can do. But they’re often fighting against the forces of inertia or denial in the rest of the organization.

This is a consequential and monumental change. If you look at the pace of turnover of the S&P 500 – the length of time that any company can expect to dominate with the right combination of product and business model has changed. Anyone who really thinks the business models and products of today will be the same 50 years from now — even 10 or 20 — I think that proposition is really laughable.

How do you get executives to recognize — and embrace — the new reality of disruptive innovation?

As an outside consultant, I have the advantage of being able to say to companies, “Look, as a customer, I don’t really care if you live or die. And my friends in Silicon Valley are — right now as we speak — embracing this new way of working and are eagerly trying to disrupt your market.”

In some cases, the startup will embrace this new way of working and will disrupt and replace the incumbent — and the customer will benefit. In others, the incumbent may be willing to do the hard work and transformation to embrace these new ways of working together — and the customer will benefit.

We know for sure that the products and business models will evolve and that we, as consumers, will be the beneficiaries of those amazing products. So we don’t especially care who does it. It’s important for companies to understand that if they want to be the ones that survive that change, they have to be willing to do that hard work.

The Barometer points to a growing recognition of the benefits of a “startup ethos” — what does this mean for larger companies?

There are substantive reasons why a startup management system is required to deal with this digital revolution. The semiconductor revolution has two really important consequences for every industry — a dramatic change in speed and in uncertainty.

Because software is fundamentally intangible, the limits on what can be produced — and in how long — are nothing like the era of physical products. For both pure software products and for products that have software as a component, there isn’t really any hard limit to how fast new products can be developed, or on how many different variations all the competitors in a given market can try. It’s really only limited by the imagination and personnel involved, which is why you see kids in their dorm room building multi-billion-dollar companies.

Technology enables speed and rapid experimentation, which means that no matter how safe your business is, you can’t make really long-term plans. The one thing you can say for sure is that whatever’s in your five-year plan today is certainly not right. That’s the substantive reason why something has really changed here and why startups are extremely well adapted to the situation.

Why do you think the lean startup trend is finally catching on among larger companies?

I think there’s finally a recognition that older management methods that made most of today’s companies a success are really based on planning and forecasting. I think because we got so good at it, people have forgotten that original theory and they have just viewed the management system we have as inscribed on stone tablets and just the way you do work.

But a management system based on accurate forecasting is going to be in trouble with the level of disruption we anticipate in the 21^st century. That’s why people are starting to get nervous — are the systems and structures of my company really rigorous and agile enough to deal with the rocky seas that are coming up ahead?

I think in a lot of cases the answer is no — and that has driven people to search for solutions.

(Top image: Eric Ries at Lean Startup London, Courtesy of Betsy Weber)

Eric Ries is an entrepreneur and author of the New York Times bestseller, “The Lean Startup.”

All views expressed are those of the authors.

GE Oil & Gas became the latest GE business to launch its own digital division. The unit launched a pilot project with BP to help the energy company reduce unplanned downtime by deploying software and analytics, and partnered with “subsurface” software company Paradigm.

“Digitization has become not only a competitive differentiator but increasingly, a necessity,” said Lorenzo Simonelli, chief executive officer of GE Oil & Gas. “We are evolving our business and digital offerings to match the needs of our customers, partnering with them to embrace the transition and help make their businesses stronger long-term.”

GE spent more than $1 billion on software development over the last several years and opened Predix, its cloud-based software platform for the Industrial Internet, to outside developers. Predix is similar to iOS or Android, the software platforms that power smartphones, but built for machines. Predix allows developers to mine industrial data, gather insights and make machines more efficient. Last fall, GE also launched GE Digital, a new unit that will work closely with all GE businesses and their customers and help them digitize and take advantage of the connected world.

GE hired ABB veteran Matthias Heilmann to run the Oil & Gas Digital Solutions business. He brings more than 20 years of industry expertise in technology, software, operations, and finance.

The pilot project with BP will focus on a new “digital solution” aimed at increasing reliability for BP’s offshore operations in the Gulf of Mexico. GE said the scalable cloud-based system, which will run on Predix, could be quickly deployed around the world at a low cost. “Moving beyond the equipment, the solution will introduce new process surveillance and predictive analytic tools to provide early warnings of potential facility issues,” GE said in a news release.

Dave Feineman, senior advisor for digital technology in BP’s Upstream Technology organization, said that “these digital technologies offer the opportunity to collaboratively develop industry-leading solutions to address some of the most significant challenges in field operations.”

GE is working with Paradigm, a leader in reservoir modeling software and services, on a first-of-its-kind upstream solution for optimizing field level production. It integrates Paradigm’s knowledge of what’s under the surface with GE’s production expertise and technologies. The system could help production operators reduce operating costs by combining information like real-time flow rates and pressures with reservoir data, then analyzing that information to optimize operations. GE said “improving problem detection and treatment design alone can reduce operational costs by 10 to 25 percent through fewer interventions and more efficient resource utilization.”

“Today, production engineers often rely on single well analysis to make production decisions that have field wide impact,” said Arshad Matin, CEO of Paradigm. “Partnering with GE, we can now provide a unified view of both production and reservoir data for optimal decision making.”

GE Oil & Gas is holding its annual meeting next week in Florence, Italy.

Labs around the world are brimming with groundbreaking research more than ever in history. Starting this Friday, we’ll be highlight five of the most interesting examples we’ve noticed over the past week.

Editing Out Misspelled DNA To Fix Blindness

Illustration Getty Images

A few years ago, scientists figured out a way to edit DNA the same way a writer would fix a misspelled word on a page. Researchers at Columbia University and the University of Iowa announced this week that they used a DNA-editing tool called CRISPR to repair a gene defect that causes blindness in some 1.5 million people worldwide per year. “Our vision is to develop a personalized approach to treating eye disease,” said one of the authors of the study, Columbia’s Stephen Tsang. No pun intended.

Robot Solves Rubik’s Cube In One Second

Jay Flatland, a software developer from Kansas, and his friend Paul Rose built a robot that solved a Rubik’s Cube in just over one second. The robot relies on 3D-printed grippers attached to six stepper motors driven by Arduino processors and four webcams that determine the state of the cube. The cameras feed the images to a PC running Linux and Rubik’s Cube-solving algorithms, which determine the fastest set of moves to solve the cube. You’ll probably read about them in the next edition of Guinness World Records.

These 4D-Printed Objects Change Over Time

Image credit: Wyss Institute

Materials scientists at Harvard’s Wyss Institute found a way to add time to 3D-printing. Their hydrogel composite structures can change shape upon immersion in water. The discovery could lead to programmable materials that can assemble over time.

Two Strikes And You’re Food

Illustration Getty Images

Venus flytraps catch insects by counting off the times they’ve been touched. German scientists showed the carnivorous plants don’t spring their traps randomly, but count the number of times an insect runs into their touch-sensitive trigger hairs (see above the red spikes on the inner “palate” of the “jaws”). The hairs send electrical signals to the plant. Two bumps mean that dinner will be served.

These Drones Turn Into A Submarine

Drones are evolving so fast they feel like old news these days. But teams at Rutgers University and Oakland University recently built drones that can fly, operate on the surface of water and then dip underneath like a submarine. Beat that, Captain Nemo.

The flight paths of migrating birds can span continents. Honeybees zigzag through orchards and meadows to the sweetest spots for nectar and then zip back home again. Adult salmon, in what might be the most epic voyage in the animal kingdom, swim from the ocean upstream through branching and churning rivers to lay eggs in the spot where they were born. It’s a route they took only once before — in the opposite direction, as young fish — and yet they don’t get lost.

Obviously, none of these animals, which range from invertebrates to mammals, rely on Google Maps. Instead, they seem to be reading some invisible clues in the environment. People throughout history have tried to solve the mystery. Now researchers are being drawn to some powerful clues.

Top: A flock of swallows getting ready for their bi-annual migration. Some cross from England to South Africa, covering 200 miles a day. Above: A leaping salmon moving upstream in the River Tay in Scotland. Some of the fish travel thousands of miles to Greenland and back. Images credit: Getty Images

Starting some 50 years ago, scientists began to realize that some animals might come equipped with a biological compass that can read the Earth’s magnetic field.

Since then, this once-controversial hunch has been proven correct for many species. Its underlying mechanism, however, has remained unknown. But that may be changing.

The main five senses use organs like the eyes, ears and nose to see, hear and smell. Now researchers in China believe they’ve decoded a sixth sense called magnetoreception. Its secret lies in a rod-shaped protein structure that can spontaneously align to the Earth’s magnetic fields, Can Xie and his colleagues from Peking University recently reported in the journal Nature Materials. The team found it in the retina of a pigeon, a location that had already been connected to the magnetoreception sense.

The team found the protein biocompass in the retina of a pigeon, a location that had already been connected to the magnetoreception sense. Image credit: Getty Images

Using state-of-the-art genomic and protein analysis equipment — some of which was developed by GE Healthcare Life Sciences— the team focused on a protein they call MagR. This protein is capable of aligning with magnetic fields after coupling with a light-sensitive protein called Cry.

They found the complex molecules in fruit flies, pigeons, butterflies, rats, whales and humans, though they caution that it is still unknown whether animals actually use it for magnetoreception.

But seeing it across species — many of which are known to rely upon sensing magnetic fields — allowed Xie to form a hypothesis. “The nanoscale biocompass has the tendency to align itself along geomagnetic field lines and to obtain navigation cues from a geomagnetic field,” Xie told the Guardian. “We propose that any disturbance in this alignment may be captured by connected cellular machinery, which would channel information to the downstream neural system, forming the animal’s magnetic sense.”

Xie’s team used a prototype of a GE tool called a size-exclusion chromatography column, which allowed them to purify the Cry/MagR protein complex. Image credit: GE Healthcare life Sciences

The article has drawn considerable interest from the research community. Michael Winklhofer, an Earth scientist at Germany’s Ludwig Maximilian University, will perform follow-up research on the Chinese team’s findings to verify them. He told Nature that the discovery of MagR “appears to be a major step forward towards unravelling the molecular basis of magnetoreception.”

Not so fast, say others. “It’s either a very important paper or totally wrong. I strongly suspect the latter,” David Keays, a magnetoreception specialist at Austria’s Institute of Molecular Pathology, told Nature. “One has to ask whether in vivo, at physiological temperatures, MagR is capable of possessing magnetic properties at all. If MagR is the real magnetoreceptor, I’ll eat my hat.”

The Earth behaves like a giant magnet with two poles. The geomagnetic field – represented by magnetic field lines above – is generated in the center of the Earth by its iron core and surrounds the entire planet. If Xie’s right, many animals might be able to detect changes in the field and orient themselves on their journeys. Image credit: Getty Images

One part of the research that isn’t in question is the Chinese team’s equipment. They used a prototype of a GE tool called a size-exclusion chromatography column, which allowed them to purify the Cry/MagR protein complex.

This column, which was designed for use in biological and pharmaceutical research, allowed the group to accurately separate the complex from other molecules quickly. From this step, the team was then able to take pictures of the complex with an electron microscope.

The size-exclusion chromatography column, which works on the principle that molecules in a liquid will pass through porous media within the tube at different speeds based on their size, “proved to be critical in obtaining a homogeneous sample for (electron microscopy) structural determination,” the authors wrote in their acknowledgments.

As part of a regular series featuring content from BRINK, Tom Jacob and Karen Shellenback of Mercer discuss the need for companies to invest in cybersecurity talent to maintain competitiveness.

The rise of the Internet, data and communication technologies in concert with the proliferation of mobile and interconnected ecosystems has revolutionized every aspect of modern society. However, our never-ending reliance on technology has also created new vulnerabilities and avenues for harm for those who wish to capitalize on financial and otherwise nefarious schemes. The cyber vulnerabilities that organizations face today are pervasive and formidable. But to view the challenges through only a technological lens is missing half of the equation.

Fundamentally, cybersecurity remains a human problem, and the solution to that problem lies with human beings. Thus, understanding the role of human capital is critical in the development of innovative security solutions. In 2015, competition for talent in this field is a make-or-break factor for organizational resiliency and competitiveness.

A Convergence of Challenging Factors: The Cybersecurity Labor Pool

The cybersecurity field is growing exponentially, and the demand for skilled tech workers exceeds the supply. The supply of talent, however, is hampered by a convergence of factors that have placed an unintentional stranglehold on the workforce. Consider the following challenges organizations face in hiring cybersecurity talent in 2015:

1. Exponential growth: Cybersecurity jobs postings have grown 74 percent between 2007 and 2013. This growth rate is more than two times faster than all other IT jobs. In particular, cloud computing and mobile connectivity are experiencing exceedingly rapid growth trajectories. These new globally adopted technologies are driving the need to address a new set of security concerns and are propelling cybersecurity job growth in the professional services, public administration, manufacturing, defense and retail sectors.
2. Demand exceeds supply: Although the cybersecurity field is growing rapidly and offers very competitive pay, demand for these IT specialists exceeds the supply of credentialed, experienced professionals. Research at Cisco Systems Inc. in 2014 linked recent high-profile security breaches to the shortage of nearly one million skilled cybersecurity professionals.
3. Supply is hampered by multiple interwoven challenges: There are many educational and experiential barriers for those interested in moving into cybersecurity roles, including the need for four years of education and four to five years of work experience or certification. Yet, only 186 institutions offer cybersecurity coursework, which account forless than 5 percent of all American colleges and universities. These requirements effectively eliminate new graduates and create a dearth of entry-level positions, which are necessary for building a robust pipeline. Finally, cybersecurity leadership requires a focus on the people issues, calling for executive communication skills, negotiation skills and gravitas along with operational, legal or line-of-business exposure. Finding talent with the right mix of these skills is extremely difficult.

The Unintended Consequences – Labor Market Results
The unintended consequences of the above educational, experiential and hiring requirements have, in part, resulted in the following:

Building your cybersecurity talent pool takes longer than other IT positions: According to Burning Glass, cybersecurity job postings take, on average, 24 percent longer to fill than other IT job postings and 36 percent longer to fill than all other job postings. Senior level cybersecurity positions take even longer to fill: On average, filling a cybersecurity position at the senior level takes 9.2 months.

Cybersecurity talent costs more than other IT positions: Cybersecurity jobs pay approximately $10,000 to $20,000 more annually than comparable IT jobs and salaries are increasing at a faster rate than the average IT position. In addition, 83 percent of cybersecurity new hires are receiving more-than-average pay increases.

Companies that have a hard time attracting and retaining cybersecurity talent risk falling behind in terms of competiveness and add more uncertainty to the ever-growing equation of holistic organizational risk. So, what can organizations do to increase the flow of cybersecurity talent into their organization? Like any other job category with hard-to-find skills, companies must create a comprehensive talent strategy and action plan.

11 Ways to Attract and Retain Cybersecurity Talent
In the 2015 marketplace, where demand is high and supply is low and cybersecurity professionals are poached daily, a well-executed talent strategy with progressive attraction and retention incentives is a must. A strategic cybersecurity talent action plan should include the following elements:

1. Evaluate your company brand. What is it that makes the organization stand out from the rest and how is the company perceived in the larger arena of social media and the crowd-sourced blogosphere? If your organizational presence is nonexistent or negative, it is time to dedicate resources (financial and otherwise) to change that image.
2. Understand current engagement levels. Engage cybersecurity staff in brainstorming solutions and action planning, so as to increase the excitement and engagement of your critical team members.
3. Harness strategic workforce planning and metrics. Using data analytics and workforce planning applications, the human resources (HR) function must work with cybersecurity leadership to create a plan that lays out the anticipated ebbs and flows of talent streams, patterns of attrition, bench strength, career path mapping and avenues for bringing critical talent in the door.
4. Partner with universities to develop emerging curriculums and open up access to potential new hires. Providing real-world curriculum challenges as well as on-site job rotations, networking opportunities, co-ops and internship opportunities allows young workers the development experience they need and the exposure hiring organizations require.
5. Provide training and more training. Companies must make the most out of the talent already in place. Providing specific training opportunities to current staff on emerging technologies is a requirement that cannot be overlooked.
6. Create enticing career path trajectories. In a field where talent is in short supply and one can jump ship for added responsibilities and pay, having a visible, enticing, attainable and tangible internal career map is essential.
7. Focus on creative career growth opportunities. Create opportunities to highlight significant accomplishments and provide a clear line of sight and accelerated growth paths that align with career goals, passions and personal aspirations.
8. Improve processes, communication and productivity. Increase the productivity among the cybersecurity team by using new technologies to manage day-to-day workflow processes and efficiencies.
9. Increase the use of open-source collaboration and external networks. Consider the use of community collaboration models, including design challenges, hackathons and open-source community platforms to tap into external networks and locate potential talent.
10. Build line-of-business experience. Provide training opportunities to IT staff on business strategy, negotiation, legal considerations and communications, along with stronger ties to senior management, to enable cybersecurity leaders to translate corporate business strategy into risk and cybersecurity resource plans.
11. Open the door to all talent. Increase talent acquisition channels to look beyond what HR and recruiters may deem as the appropriate experiential requirements (B.S. degree, four years of experience and certifications).

The cybersecurity field is growing by leaps and bounds. The need to stay in front of a rapid and exponential technological landscape with astounding opportunities and vulnerabilities is simply … daunting.

The demand is exceedingly high and the pressure to find critically specialized talent to address the inherent challenges and vulnerabilities is not about to go away. Organizations that want to remain competitive and reduce substantial organizational risk must invest in cybersecurity talent practices to open up, energize and direct the flow of essential talent into and within the organization.

(Top image: Courtesy of Patrick Lux/Getty Images)

This piece first appeared in BRINK.

Tom Jacob is a Senior Partner in the Information Solutions group of Mercer’s Talent Division. He joined Mercer in 2003 and is based in Philadelphia. Tom has served in a number of roles at Mercer all having in common the innovation and launch of new products and services. He presently serves as the global leader of Research & Insights products which includes Mercer’s industries, research publications and metrics information products.

Karen Shellenback, Principal, Mercer Research and Insights, is responsible for conceiving, developing and delivering innovative insights products and services based on rigorous research using Mercer and non-Mercer data. Karen is a human capital leader focused on strategic research and evaluation, human capital analytics and impact metrics. She has partnered with executive clients in numerous Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies, as well as government, non-profits and academia, harnessing “driver” data to improve client organizational performance.

All views expressed are those of the authors.

The commune of Carros in the south of France straddles a leafy valley tucked away a short ride from Nice and the beaches of the French Riviera. Like much of Provence, the medieval town of 11,000 swells every summer with tourists seeking tans and sipping rosé. But it may soon become a magnet for people interested in the sun for a different reason.

The town holds the world’s first smart solar grid, a system that could one day allow cities to generate more renewable energy closer to customers. “This is a prototype for an end-to-end system from the consumer to storage to the distribution grid, back to transmission,” says Laurent Schmitt, smart grid strategy leader at GE Grid Solutions.

Above: Carros sits on the far edge of France’s transmission grid. That made it the perfect place for GE’s and ERDF’s digital grid project. Top image: Port of Nice

The GE business and French distribution grid operator ERDF, which spent the last four years building the grid, picked Carros because of its remote location on France’s transmission grid. Despite its proximity to Nice, Carros relies on a single electricity supply line. This drives up the risk of outages, especially in busy July and August, when demand shoots up. A local business park is another factor that taxes the line.

Ironically, solar panels would seem like the obvious solution to add more power. But in the past they just caused more problems, and often had to be shut down because they generated more electricity than the grid could carry. “This really created a complex problem that ERDF wanted to solve,” Schmitt says. “If we get it right here, we’ll have solid proof that we can do it elsewhere.” He believes the smart grid market will be worth 50 billion euros by 2020.

The team began by modernizing the existing grid with software and automatic switches, placed solar panels on more than 500 buildings and installed a centralized 1-megawatt battery to store and release excess electricity. The result is a smart grid that can be more flexible and efficient in sending power to the grid.

GE estimates a smart grid like the one in Carros could cut generation costs by 20 percent by reducing the need for building up excess power generation capacity.

One piece of GE software, called distributed energy resource management system, allows operators to mesh consumption information from smart meters with load forecasts, status updates from the grid and weather reports.

The software, for example, allowed the operators to offer a subsidy via text message to a local coffee roaster if the company fired its ovens when neighbors’ solar panels were generating excess electricity. “We load up, and the coffee roaster roasts their coffee at a cheaper price because they get a subsidy from the grid operator to consume during this period,” Schmitt says. Grid operators used the same incentive to make residents turn on water heaters during solar peaks.

When local business cannot soak up all the extra electricity, that’s where the battery and more GE software come in. Engineers coupled the battery with charge management technology that charges or drains batteries based on electric demand on the grid.

Solar panels in Carros can send power to the grid or charge batteries. Image credit: GE

At the town’s business park, 15 customers with installed solar power also became an “islanding” zone — generating and storing enough power to be disconnected from the grid at certain times. Schmitt says islanding will be especially useful in emerging economies where grids are unreliable.

Although the market for battery energy storage is still minuscule today, it could reach 10 gigawatts of installed capacity by 2020, GE says. Storing power from renewables such as solar and wind and feeding it into the grid will drive most of the demand.

GE estimates a smart grid like the one in Carros could cut power generation costs by 20 percent by reducing the need for building up excess power generation capacity. It will also cut the district’s carbon footprint.

A worker standing inside a battery storage. Image credit: GE

The project is just one of many globally where GE is testing innovative ways to improve grids. Worldwide, electricity demand is expected to rise by up to 70 percent by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency, creating a $12 trillion market. Rising demand in India, China, Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia will drive much of the growth. In those markets, coal will still play an important role, but renewables are expected to represent one-quarter of the energy mix by 2050.

That puts the electricity industry on the verge of a global digital revolution that is leading to a whole new idea in power generation: distributed energy. With renewables in the mix, it starts to make sense to have smaller, cleaner plants serving smaller communities. Just like in Carros, the idea is to generate some electricity locally to reduce stress on the grid, cut energy costs and increase flexibility.