Have you seen examples of wearable technology intended for personal safety or emergencies?
A while back, there was an incident where a bicyclist was in an accident and their Apple watch recognized that they’d suddenly fallen. The watch dialed 911 or an emergency contact number, which led emergency services to the person’s rescue. So there may be other gadgets, tools or apps that have these capabilities.
Data security and privacy issues are a factor in Canada for sure. We have a digital charter, so our rules and regulations are a little bit stiffer than they are in the US. But there are issues on both sides of that fence.
Exponential technologies can impact us positively, but they can also be detrimental to us. Unless you can wrap your head around the fact that you have AI, blockchain and 5G all coming together to rapidly accelerate our capabilities, you might miss a loophole here and there that would lead to something beneficial for a lot of other people.
There should be something in my coat that I can touch to let people know I need emergency assistance. That is the kind of technology for good that we should be looking towards. We should be trying to find ways to bring that out into the market that will not scare people. With emergent and exponential technologies in particular — AI coming together with blockchain, wearables and other kinds of technology like 5G capability and even 6G — what direction will those things take? If you were using all of this emerging or exponential technology, how would you throw that into a startup in some way that created value based on a bad situation?