Neural Innovation – Innovation
14 October 2016
İbrahim Özgür Yıldırım
There are always di‑erent trend topics in business. Each age has their own “zeitgeist” and innovative forces which create the trends of that specific age. Nowadays we hear more about “Industry 4.0” as a trend. The name implies that industry followed a path by increasing complexity about the technologies used in industry, through steam power and mechanization (Industry 1.0 – 1800’s) to electrification and assembly lines (Industry 2.0 – 1900’s) to PLC and automation (Industry 3.0 – 1960’s) and cyber-physical systems and networking (Industry 4.0 – today). Each path is driven by the innovations of their age. Then, what will be the innovations to drive “Industry 5.0”? The answer might be in our brains, literally “our brains”.
Any simple action that a human being makes requires very complicated and long calculations that none of today’s supercomputers were able to accomplish to calculate until now. Our brain does it all in a very fast, accurate and e‑icient way in milliseconds by using an energy less than a light bulb. Most of our actions happen in a harmony with automatic piloting of our brain, beyond thinking even without noticing. Our reality is the stories created by our brains, most of them is created subconsciously. How could that be possible?
Our brain continuously renews and restructures itself. With each single experience, new codes are written by electrochemical reactions occurring in our brain cells by virtue of signals created by a perfect neural network.
Our body systems sense every small change in our environment and create small electrical signals to our nervous system. Those signals go directly to our brains as input data and a magnificent Nano process happens. Each single neuron reacts in a way to compute this data and communicates with another neuron through chemicals and neurotransmitters until a decision takes place. Our brain then sends back orders about how to act to our body .Very fast Nano computers. Each data is recorded in our memory to be used for next processes, to create a perfect model for our actions. In a normal human brain, there are 86 billion neurons with approximately 50 trillion connections (synapses) (*). Location of those connections are changing flexibly when it is necessary, according to signals coming. This is called as “plasticity” of the brain.
Actually, a single neuron is not clever. They only have an ability to process the data according to their simple codes and to transmit the results through creating connections with other neurons. This is a very good example how simple parts can create something bigger than sum of them. This is how humanity has been evolved. The critical thing here is “correctly arranged and seamless interactions” and afterwards “networking and collaborations” which creates perfection, agility and e‑iciency. Learning how brain works is the real organic model for the future. Inspired by all this knowledge about biological neural networks, I believe humanity will need a new kind of innovation for the future. Today, it is already started globally with “open innovation” e‑orts, but sooner or later further necessities will occur and will lead us to have a “neural innovation”. Until that time comes, Kordsa Global will continue its “neuron tasks” to create new values for all stakeholders through open innovation and to reinforce its customers. (*) The Brain: The Story of You, David Eagleman