Quantic’s Weekly Roundup – October 2020 (3)

Quantic’s Weekly Roundup is a satisfying mix of the latest breaking news, business, STEM and social science stories. Here are your headlines for this week: 

Robo-doping: The use of performance-enhancing algorithms to gain a competitive advantage in esports competition. Esports is a fast-growing field, and that has only accelerated in the midst of COVID-19. In digital competitions, there are no guidelines or rules against the use of simulation programs to enhance performance. Some factors that conspire to enable robo-doping include fast internet speeds, cloud-based platforms, and automation systems. These same factors can also manipulate technology we use in our day-to-day lives. 

Farming tech is getting a NASA-inspired upgrade. In increasingly tight, urban homes, we don’t all have room for gardens. The Rotofarm, by an Australian company called Bace, is a space-friendly hydroponic system, and it doubles as a beautiful sculpture in your home. With a circular design, which rotates plants like a Ferris wheel through the day, the Rotofarm is able to fit nearly five feet of growing area inside a countertop footprint of just 11 inches. 

The pandemic made almost 60% of consumers consider postponing high-value purchases. This lack of clear direction from consumers has put the next decade of growth and market share up for grabs. Some experts are saying the next era must be driven by true creativity and managed risk-taking, which is often inspired by customer obsession, but not defined by it. Expose your teams to new technology, new art, and new foods, and build a sustainable innovation capability to transform this inspiration into valuable new ideas.

Singapore-based smart electric motorbike startup, Ion Mobility, has raised $3.3 million in funding to launch its products across Southeast Asia, starting with Indonesia. Founded just last year, Ion Mobility aims to create more sustainable and affordable mobility alternatives for Southeast Asia’s large population of motorbike users. According to a Statista report, Indonesia alone had roughly 115 million motorcycles in use in 2018, which was about half of its total population that year.