A member of the World Energy Council, Justice Ohene-Akoto, has underscored the need for individuals and institutions to develop a keen interest in predicting global happenings in order to mitigate their potential shocks.
He made this call while speaking virtually during the ‘3rd IEEE International Conference on Advance Computing and Innovative Technologies in Engineering’ held in India. He explained that forecasts can help stakeholders across the globe make important decisions to reduce shocks.
“I admonish all to take a keen interest in predicting future global happenings and trends. This is the only way to secure the future and also mitigate or reduce global shocks in all areas. Scientists, researchers, engineers and academics should take keen interest in future global predictions, happenings and trends. This will be an imperative tool in all facets of life including healthcare, energy, climate change and security, among others,” he added.
Mr. Ohene-Akoto, an engineer by profession, further explained that the presence of advanced computing and innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence, the Internet of things, machine learning and deep learning make future predictions of events more attainable as compared to previous years.
Buttressing his point, he made reference to the recent COVID-19 pandemic as well as the Russia-Ukraine war which have had adverse impacts on the global economy.
“We all saw the adversative effects of COVID-19 and how it shook nations and the global economy. We also saw the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war and its current hostile effects on economies. This is to mention but a few occurrences showing the reason we need to take this subject seriously and work on it with a sense of urgency, with all our hearts and minds,” he explained.
He also encouraged all and sundry to intensify efforts in order to save lives and the world at large, adding that existing works such his recent academic publication which predicted the economic value of power outages help fill in the missing gaps.
“This may look impossible, but remember that most of the things we have and are enjoying today seemed impossible yesterday. Years back, who would have thought we could travel in the air?
“Who would have thought I could be in the United States and address you in India? Let’s put our mind to it to make it happen. The world depends on you and me to make it a better place,” he concluded.
Apart from Mr. Ohene-Akoto, Prof. A. Ambikapathy, Professor and Head-Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering at the Galgotias College of Engineering and Technology, India, and others were keynote speakers at the international conference.
