Category — Science and Technology Policy

“The Fundamental Role of Science and Technology in International Development: An Imperative for the U.S. Agency for International Development”:
The Fundamental Role of Science and Technology in International Development: An Imperative for the U.S. Agency for International Development

The paper copy of this book has just been published. The online version has been available for some time. I suspect the report is must reading for those in the United States interested in science and technology for international development. The book does not deal with UNESCO explicitly, but UNESCO is the lead agency in the UN system for basic science and engineering, as well as social science and some fields of applied science.
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This looks like it will be a somewhat informative read.

far too many groups in the fields that i work with accept the singular account of economics…. so i’m distributing this.
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“Economic Pluralism for the 21st Century”
June 1-3, 2007
University of Utah (Salt Lake City, Utah, USA)

In the second half of the 20th century, neoclassical economics and its derivatives came to dominate economic thinking, teaching and policymaking. Humanity is increasingly feeling the consequences of this blinkered vision: the ever-widening gap between the very rich and all the rest; growing divergences in economic performance across nations and regions; globalization without global coordination for the common good; and economically induced climate change, with the mid-century prospect of an Earth unable to support even current levels of human population. Meta-externalities from economic systems are draining the resources on which they depend, from families and other institutions that educate and socialize human beings, to water, air, soil, and the diversity of species.

In a positive vein, economics in the 21st century has already taken a decidedly pluralist turn, spurred in part by the struggles of economists – mainstream and heterodox – to increase the relevance of economic theory, policy, and education in a changing and challenged world where no single theoretical tradition or institutional structure can reasonably claim to hold “the key” to human betterment.

ICAPE and the organizers of “Economic Pluralism for the 21st Century” invite proposals for papers that discuss or demonstrate the value of economic pluralism in any of its domains: economic theory and philosophy, economic institutions and policies, or economic education.

Panels will be organized around thematic topics, with an eye to encouraging dialogue among authors whose papers address similar issues from different points of view. In this fashion, we hope to promote critical engagement and mutual learning among conference participants.

Submission of Proposals

All paper and panel proposals should be submitted to Rob Garnett at r.garnett@tcu.edu, or by post to:

Rob Garnett
Department of Economics
Box 298510
Texas Christian University
Fort Worth, TX 76129

Proposal deadline: January 15, 2007
Notification deadline: February 15, 2007

For individual paper proposals, please include the following:

Paper title
Brief abstract (200-250 words)
Your name and contact addresses (including institutional affiliation)

For panel proposals (3-4 papers), please include:

Panel title
Brief description of the panel’s focus
Brief abstract (200-250 words) for each paper
Each panelist’s name and contact addresses (including institutional affiliations)

When submitting a panel proposal, you are encouraged (but not required) to designate a session chair. Also, you are encouraged to propose a format for your session, including non-traditional formats such as roundtables, workshops, or presenter/audience dialogues.

Conference Fees and Registration

The conference will be held over three days, beginning on Friday morning, June 1, 2007, and ending midday on Sunday, June 3.

The conference fee covers Friday and Saturday lunches, a conference dinner Friday evening, tea/coffee breaks throughout the conference, and all printed conference materials.

Between now and April 1, 2007, the fee structure will be:

Regular rate: $150
Low-income rate (for graduate students, underemployed Ph.D.s, and others): $75

After April 1, 2007, the fee structure will be:

Regular rate: $175
Low-income rate: $75

To register for the conference, please fill out the registration and payment form (available at www.icape.org) and send it to:

Ed McNertney
Department of Economics
Box 298510
Texas Christian University
Fort Worth, TX 76129

PCs to developing world ‘fuel malware’ | The Register :
Programs to send PCs to third world countries might inadvertently fuel the development of malware for hire scams, an anti-virus guru warns.

Eugene Kaspersky, head of anti-virus research at Kaspersky Labs, cautions that developing nations have become leading centres for virus development. Sending cheap PCs to countries with active virus writing cliques might therefore have unintended negative consequences, he suggests.
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the law of unintended consequences…..

Net Neutrality Song:
A new, downloadable song by Kay Hanley, Jill Sobule, and Michelle Lewis in favor of net neutrality. Nice, but the chorus sounds too much like it’s going to be “Hey Mr. Tambourine Man.”

And coming on the heels of this gloomy analysis of the congressional vote — heck, they even got Alcee Hastings to vote against it! — it does put one in mind of Tom Lehrer’s Folk Song Army (”they may have won all battles, but we had all the good songs”).
in favor of net neutrality

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i think it does sound a bit like mr. tamboruine man… but it is at least it is an interesting take on a musical protest against the powers-that -be changing the rules about the internet.

Information Policy: Evaluation Report on UNESCO’s Community Multimedia Centre Initiative:

UNESCO’s Community Multimedia Centre initiative is contributing “to improving quality of life through access to information” according to an independent evaluation report carried out by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).

UNESCO’s CMC initiative promotes sustainable local development through community-based facilities that combine traditional media like radio, television and print with new information communication technologies (ICTs) such as computers, the Internet, and mobile devices.

Since 2001, UNESCO has established more than 87 CMCs in over 22 developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean with major funding provided by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

The evaluation describes the initiative’s main achievement: “The CMCs are accepted by and fully integrated into the communities and can in many cases be sustained beyond the pilot phase without core operating grants. The effort and funding that UNESCO has channeled into this transformative initiative have been exceeded by the hard work and commitment of the CMC staff and the communities where they are based.”

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this report has some significant findings. one of which i want to reaffirm…. people matter more than technics.

YouTube – The Death of The Internet?:
The Death of The Internet?

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worth watching…

now is the time to become involved.

Patent reform hearing:
The Senate’s i.p. subcommittee (of the Judiciary Committee) held a hearing today on patent litigation reform. The hearing focused on the contours of a new post-grant opposition system. c|net has a recap.
If you want to get up to speed on recent patent reform efforts, the Patent Reform Library at J. Matthew Buchanan’s Promote the Progress is a great place to start.

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this patent reform library looks to be an excellent resource.

Category:Creativity Techniques – Mycoted:
This is a general category of Creativity and Innovation Techniques, simply listed in alphabetical order. Like most tools these creativity techniques all have their good and bad points. I like to think of these creativity techniques as tools in a toolbox in much the same way as my toolbox at home for DIY. It has a saw, spanner, hammer, knife and all sorts of other things in it, they are all very useful, but you have to pick the right tool (creativity technique) for each job. We will try and provide a little guidance along with each tool to let you know whether it’s best used for cutting paper or putting in nails.

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interesting idea. i hope it takes off.

UNESCO’s Basic Texts on the Information Society:

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some interesting key unesco texts.

nightmare science:

In short, the elite that has been created by practice of the scientific method uses the concomitant power not just to express the results of particular research initiatives, but to create, support, and implement policy responses affecting many non-scientific communities and intellectual domains in myriad ways. In doing so, they are not exercising expertise in these non-scientific domains, but rather transforming their privilege in the scientific domains into authority in non-scientific domains. Science is, in other words, segueing back into a structure where once again authority, not observation, is the basis of the exercise of power and establishment of truth by the elite. But the authority in this new model is not derived from sacred texts; rather it is derived from legitimate practice of scientific method in the scientific domain, extended into non-scientific domains. Note that this does not imply that scientists cannot, or should not, as individuals participate in public debate; only that if they do so cloaked in the privilege that the scientific discourse gives them they raise from the dead the specter of authority as truth.

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there is a difference between authority, truth and power. my famous example is the use of the idea of hell in the bible…. what purpose does it serve, who does it empower, and why are there so many bibles produced that never mention hell? where did it come from and where is it going, for whose benefit?