#leapfrogging

Science, Volume 389, Issue 6759, July 2025. Summary Without specific articles or content details, a summary for the Science journal, Volume 389, Issue 6759 (July 2025) can only be generic. This issue likely features cutting-edge scientific research spanning various disciplines like biology, chemistry, physics, and medicine. It may include peer-reviewed research articles presenting new…

Leapfrogging (Midden-Delfland / NL / 2021-10)

By | Abhijit Bhaduri |Keynote speaker, Author and Columnist

I was catching up with an erstwhile colleague, “K”, who was smarting from being passed over in the office. He had expected the big corner office and the perks that go with it. Instead life offered him a googly. Someone his junior had been handpicked by the board to head the function. The tables had been turned. “K” would now report to…

Bernie Sanders Stakes Out Forceful Climate Stance, Leapfrogging The 2020 Field

WASHINGTON ― Two years can be a split second in geological time and an eternity in politics, but it may also be just long enough for an issue ignored in one election to reach center stage in the next.

At least, that’s the bet Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is making. 

On Monday the Vermont senator packed two rooms of the Hart Senate Office Building for a star-studded town hall meeting on clima…

The great thing about SXSW is that you learn new perspectives on things you know very little about. “Cannabis Tech Stack”-talk was one such talk where I didn’t really know any of terms and had to Google every few minutes (terpene profile, strain type, etc.). And for good reason, the cannabis industry isn’t exactly booming in Singapore.

But elsewhere it is.

Marijuna is legal currently in 9 states and medical marijuana in 29 states. Canada will legalize recreational marijuana mid-2018. Australia wants to become the biggest producer of medical cannabis.The international market for cannabis is projected to hit 31.4 billion in 2021.

So this industry is no longer about hippies and weirdly-dressed potheads bumbling around. In SXSW there were (smartly dressed) experts on cannabis-related CRM, venture capital, data solutions and Agritech. Because of the regulatory landscape there is now an entire ecosystem of cannabis-related specialists:

The mind-blowing fact was that in many ways the cannabis industry is leap-frogging in technological innovation, not unlike Indonesia (with people first accessing the Internet via mobile - bypassing the desktop) and China (people skipping credit cards and paying via mobile). The marijuana industry is only around 5 years old so everything is brand new. The panelists said that regulations have actually forced them to innovate harder.

There are five key innovation areas within cannabis industry right now:

1      Agritech and genetics

A growing number of marijuana growers are moving into greenhouses and experimenting with ways to improve the quality of the product.

2      Brand building in a post-advertising era

By nature of the industry, dispensaries are not able to advertise their different wares. That requires them to find new ways to connect with customers. Also different states have different regulations so it is challenging to create a “Coca-Cola” of cannabis. When you cannot use traditional promotional channels, retail experience and data become more important. Word-of-mouth is also essential. Cy Scott (who now heads a marijuana marketing intelligence company) co-founded Leafly that is essentially a Tripadvisor for marijuana.

3      Retail innovation

Cannabis dispensaries are at the forefront of both NFC-technology and how to innovate the retail space. In-store experience is essential when you cannot really build your brand in other ways.

4      Data spine across everything

Marijuana companies are data-driven. Real-time data fuels everything from production to retail experience.

5      Blockchain as part of the way of working

Nicholas Cooper (CEO of TriGrow systems), whose company creates end-to-end cultivation solutions for the cannabis industry,use Blockchain in their internal projects. With a product where origin and ingredients plays an important role, Blockchain can help you to track the supply chain and to ensure the quality of the product.