The Knowledge to Decide

In what some have dubbed the Third Industrial Revolution, 3D printing is now allowing consumers to be masters of their own manufactured durable goods. But Asian countries will need to work a lot harder to avoid becoming laggards in this transformative new field. What is 3D printing? 3D printing refers to the process of making a three-dimensional solid object of virtually any shape from a digital model using powder, molten plastic or metals. It first slices a 3D computer model into layers, then builds the object one layer at a time using the 3D printer. The quality of the end-product is dependent on various factors, such as the base material, thinness of the layers, mechanics of the printer as well as the amount of preparation taken into consideration for the 3D computer model. Also known as additive manufacturing, 3D printing seeks to distinguish itself from “subtractive manufacturing”. The latter involves the cutting down and pairing-off materials to attach them together

The movement to digitize healthcare information promises to deliver massive gains in efficiency, effectiveness and patient access to personal data. The next steps in this revolution involve making health data accessible via mobile devices and applying big data analytics. Can healthcare IT really revolutionize the age-old healthcare industry? Medical records have traditionally been stored at hospitals and medical centers in the form of paper or analogue film explaining the old joke about doctor’s handwriting. Remarkably, a large share of medical records across the world is still stored in this way, especially in developing economies. But for decades now, a quiet revolution has been underway to make medical information digital, portable across different medical institutions, amenable to big data analytics and accessible to the patient. This revolution is now nearing the tipping point when big changes may become visible. Nowadays, leading healthcare providers in develop