Innovating with the Enemy?

In the last three years, cities and civilizations have faced some of the most pressing challenges experienced in peacetime. Life gets harder every day for the average personal on the street and many cracks of broken societies are starting to show. Unaffordable food bills, erosion of worker protections, loss of social contracts and victimizing minority groups, an indirect manifestation of resilience, sustainability and climate tipping points crashing together at the same time. 

Key to fixing this is the responsible “holy trinity” of people, planet and profit. The natural consequences of globalized societies created a disconnect between individuals, governments and supplies. An interconnectedness that lulled us into a false sense of security. One powerful enough to ignore many single points of failure of food supplies and transportation and it only needs one to bring the system crashing down. 

I was explaining this to a connection whilst in Paris this week. War is not simply a military exercise. The weapons and reach of war extend well beyond the battlefield and into wider economic and social destructive effects, well beyond the countries the war is in. The Geneva Convention focused too narrowly on the protection of specific human rights for people in war-ridden locations and completely ignore many of the 2nd and 3rd degree needs humans developed in the interim. Thus, this allows economic warfare to bypass the protection of organizations like NATO to indirectly affecting western countries by the effect it has on the developing nations that supply them. 

During times of war, the way the global south supplies the global north, can mean losing access to 80% of your grain sources to create the supply you normally sell and even feed oneself with. It means more food must be kept locally and makes you more sensitive to failed crops, international aid supply chains and climate change. Increasing the chance of further failure and increasing humanitarian needs as each break causes an increasingly magnified slip in people’s ability to meet their own needs. 

Yet, in 2022, we witness supply chain resilience challenged like never before. Climate change and geopolitical forces requires us to examine supply sovereignty. 

Through our accelerator journeys around the world, a common feature we designed into our service, were the points we perhaps don't talk enough about, supply sovereignty. The word "sovereignty" sticking in the throat of many, uttering a word that was commandeered by the very people now destroying many of our societies. But, yielded here, it means a country’s ability to maintain the integrity of its supply chain and reliably account for its cash and carbon. 

Long, complex, intercontinental supply chains have several moving parts. Each link an opportunity for disruption, corruption and waste. 

Take-Make-Waste cycles, in all their forms, continue to reinforce that dependency. When a product is thrown away there is the need for a new replacement product that is delivered through similar supply paths. 

Using systems like Automedi makes products locally and develops a significant extra layer of resilience against geopolitical and supply disruption. Protecting the food and supply systems that keep communities moving and living. After all, nobody is going to start a war in the middle of Europe and then fire expensive missiles to hit Benin, when they can simply have the same effect disrupting the exports of the nation it is attacking. 

Luckily, a common purpose exists between supply resilience and climate change. Shorter, tighter circular economies ensure significantly lower emissions from transportation as well as keeping the value in the economy at any moment in time. Providing the platform for a digital-twin that teleports products directly to users without any of the physical risks. Well-designed resilient supplies can even be cheaper. Making them much less dependent on imports and much more resilient to climate and disruption effects. 

No city can change the supply chain pathway for residential needs, consumed products and infrastructure unless they are at the table in those supply chains. Automedi’s alternative distribution mechanism make those cities self-sufficient for a lot of products in their own supply chains. The community becomes its own factory and logistics firm. Reclaiming control from conventional long-distance manufacturing, freight and logistics. Allowing it to deliver its own provisions independent of international disruption. Meaning smart cities can deliver products on behalf of manufacturers, anywhere in the world and crucially, organize itself to manage its climate effects in a much more holistic way. 

That is important. For, in any economic battle of brinksmanship, the self-sufficient ones always win. 

By,  

Ethar Alali