Additive Manufacturing (3D Printing)
Access to Medical Equipment in a Pandemic Situation: Importance of Localized Supply Chains and 3D Printing
By Muhammad Zaheer Abbas, PhD
The response to the COVID-19 crisis highlighted the weaknesses of the free trade system and failures of the traditional supply chains. Public health preparedness for future pandemics demands nation-states to increase their local production of medical supplies in order to reduce their dependence on third countries. Globally connected local production, enabled by digital fabrication tools, is arguably the best policy response to collaboratively address supply-chain vulnerabilities. 3D printing technology, which is the most prominent manifestation of digital fabrication ecosystems, can play a key role in enhancing the local production capacity in a time- and cost-efficient manner. This paper calls for an increased focus on local production and proposes a more systematic use of 3D printing capabilities to address shortages of critical medical equipment in a health emergency.
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The Fourth Industrial Revolution in the Developing Nations: Challenges and Road Map
By Sohail Asghar, Gulmina Rextina, Tanveer Ahmed & Manzoor Illahi Tamimy
Technological advancements and the amalgamation of several fields, including Advanced Robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Big Data Analytics, Cyber Security, Cloud Computing, and Internet of Things (IoT) have brought the world on the cusp of a Fourth Industrial Revolution (FIR). This industrial revolution has the potential to sky rocket economic growth or on the other hand, cause countries to lag behind in terms of economic development if the potential of FIR is not exploited. A number of developed countries such as Germany, the UK and USA have put in place public policies that focus on implementing FIR in their respective countries. It is critical that developing countries also take steps to adapt FIR in order to take advantage of it as well as not be adversely affected by these technologies if not adopted. There are a number of reasons why developing countries are not able to fully implement FIR technologies such as lack of commitment, infrastructure and lack of skilled workers. The objective of this study is to identify the challenges and issues faced by the developing countries in the implementation of the FIR. This study proposes a strategic framework: “Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (CFIR)” for developing countries in order to face the challenges of FIR. Consequently, CFIR will work on establishing research labs for capacity building through collaboration and establishing technology-based incubation centers. CFIR will bring together an international network of governments, leading companies, civil society and experts to co-design and pilot innovative policy and governance frameworks.
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