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Starting a Capstone: Draft Outline

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After years of working towards my concentration, it is finally time to bring everything together for my senior capstone. The first step is to write down everything that has been circling around my head the past several weeks and come up with an outline for my capstone. This “Madlib” exercise provides a pre-made outline, filled in with my current idea for what form my capstone will take. This exercise will be revisited often to see how my ideas progress and change throughout the year.

Framing Question:

In what ways can we promote sustainable technology transfer?

Importance:

This is especially important, as outlined by economist Klaus Schwab, with the onset of the fourth industrial revolution and related technologies that suggest large social, economic, and environmental changes. For example, business, the nature of labor, and global relations all could undergo seismic changes with new technologies such as artificial intelligence, internet of things, and advances in biotech. These technologies are all coming to change the world through drastic improvements in efficiency and radically different approaches to problem solving, yet they also pose many challenges. One big question is how to address concerns of equity and access to new technologies. Another question is how to approach the ethical dimension of these technologies. Of particular concern to me is how these technologies will change the relationship between built and natural environments. Although these questions raise many concerns, through policy, scientific research, and innovative business practices, technology transfer during the fourth industrial revolution can happen in a way that promotes sustainable urban development.

Situated Context:

I specifically want to look into agriculture in the Western United States. Agriculture is a field that is already seeing a lot of changes with new technologies, and most major technologies in the fourth industrial revolution provide radical new options for farms. Many of the major debates of the fourth industrial revolution, such as those of equity, ethics, and environment, also play out in agriculture. The Western US is an interesting area of study due to the prevalence of agricultural startups, tech companies, and farms that are already experimenting with new technologies.

Focus Question:

In what ways can technologies of the fourth industrial revolution promote sustainable development through Western American agriculture?

Methodology:

My research will include a comprehensive analysis of academic research on the fourth industrial revolution and the future of agriculture. Following this, I will need to research current and planned policy around technology transfer in agriculture as well current scientific research and companies who work with AgTech. This can be supplemented with interviews with farmers, policymakers, scientists, and businesspeople who are at the forefront of agricultural innovation.
Results:
I expect to come up with a list of suggestions for policy, scientific research, and innovative business practices for new technology transfer that promotes triple bottom line sustainability in Western American agriculture. A possible idea of what this may look like would be a proposal for improved collaboration between the various parties.
Summary:
By looking at a specific, local context, this will shed light into how technologies of the fourth industrial revolution can promote global sustainable urban development through agriculture. This also opens up many questions for how these technologies will be adapted to agriculture in different economic, social, and geographic contexts. This also goes beyond agriculture as many of the proposed suggestions could be adapted to different fields also affected by the fourth industrial revolution such as transportation, labor markets, or urbanization.