Tag Archives: technology

U.S. Anti-Crime Aid to Mexico / The Peace Corps is 50 / Russian Imperial Stamps

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The United States is stepping up efforts to help Mexico fight crime. The Peace Corps celebrates its 50th anniversary. An all-women technology delegation of leading U.S. innovators and entrepreneurs heads to Africa to help offer opportunities for women and girls. Some dentists are going green. And more than 14,000 rare Russian stamps were recently uncovered at the Smithsonian.

U.S. Anti-Crime Aid for Mexico
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The United States can accelerate the implementation of its security assistance to Mexico and other countries in the fight against transnational criminal organizations, a senior Obama administration official says. The announcement comes ahead of a meeting between Mexican President Felipe Calderón, left, and President Obama in Washington. 

Peace Corps Marks 50 Years
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On March 1, the Peace Corps celebrated 50 years of service. President John F. Kennedy created the Peace Corps as a challenge to American college students to give up two years of their lives to help people in countries in the developing world. Over five decades, more than 200,000 volunteers have served 139 host countries.

For African Woman, Tech Opportunities
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The United States sends an all-women technology delegation of leading U.S. innovators and entrepreneurs to Liberia and Sierra Leone to help offer opportunities for women and girls. “While in West Africa, the group will explore how technology can increase opportunities for women and girls,” the State Department says in an announcement.

When Your Dentist Turns Green
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A movement is building to “green” America’s 125,000-plus dental offices. Since Ina and Fred Pockrass founded the Eco-Dentistry Association in 2008, dental offices in 45 states and 13 other countries have pledged to reduce their impact on the environment.

A 1863 Russian stamp

Photo Gallery: Russian Imperial Stamps
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One of the best collections of Russian stamps in the world was recently found in a storage vault at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Postal Museum. The collection, composed of more than 14,000 Russian stamps, is truly exceptional in terms of its quality and rarity. At right, a rare carmine proof stamp, created in 1863, that was never produced. The stamps were ultimately issued in blue for use under the Ottoman Empire by Russian post offices in the Levant. The inscription reads “Dispatch small parcel to the Orient.” The Russian Imperial double-headed eagle is depicted with the orb and scepter in its claws.

More Pakistan Aid, DRC Violence, Two Cool U.S. Programs for Youth

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Another $50 million in U.S. aid to Pakistan and a “horrific attack” in the DRC. What the U.S. is doing to preserve European heritage. Also, a report on jobless Americans becoming their own bosses. Read about young people who come to the United States for cool experiences, like IT internships and space camp .

More Aid for Pakistan
The United States is providing an additional $50 million to help Pakistan cope with monsoon flooding, says the U.S. Agency for International Development. The new funds are being diverted from a five-year, $7.5 billion development program to help Pakistan that was announced by President Obama last year.  The United States has already committed $150 million to Pakistan flood relief.

 

Clinton Condemns ‘Horrific Attack’ in DRC
Responding to reports of mass rapes of women and children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged that the United States will do everything it can to work with the United Nations and DRC officials to hold the perpetrators responsible and create a safe environment for all civilians living in eastern Congo. “This horrific attack is yet another example of how sexual violence undermines efforts to achieve and maintain stability in areas torn by conflict but striving for peace,” Clinton said. 

Saving Cultural Heritage in Europe
Landmarks in a dozen European nations in the Balkans, the Caucasus, Turkey and elsewhere will receive support from the Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation. They are among 63 projects worldwide chosen for funding in 2010.

Laid-Off Workers Try Entrepreneurship
Some of the millions of Americans who lost their jobs in the past three years have decided to go out on their own.  Last year, business start-ups in the United States reached their highest level in 14 years, and in the first half of 2010, more than one-fourth of newly unemployed workers considered starting their own businesses.

Iraqis Intern at U.S. Computer Companies
Eight young Iraqi information technology specialists spent 12 weeks this summer at leading American technology firms learning about U.S. business practices, new technologies and entrepreneurial skills. They interned at the companies through the auspices of the U.S. Embassy Baghdad IT Intern Exchange program. 

Libyans at Space Camp
This July, two dozen students from Libya attended Space Camp at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.  They joined other young people from around the world to participate in simulated space shuttle missions, training and lectures on space exploration.  Then in August, a group of Moroccan students had their chance at Space Camp. Last year, the experiences of 24 Libyan Space Camp participants were documented and made into the film One Small Step, One Giant Leap. The film premiered in December 2009, airing more than 20 times on local television in Libya.

Ushahidi Harnesses Technology for Public Good

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Patrick Meier is an international consultant, who specializes in early warning and crisis mapping projects. He is the director for applied research at DigiActive and member of the Ushahidi advisory board.

Experts and entrepreneurs from around the world discuss what governments can do to promote high-tech entrepreneurship and what the shape of technology entrepreneurship will be in the future.

The use of Ushahidi, which means “testimony” in Swahili, around the world demonstrates how technology innovation and the new capabilities it brings about can be harnessed for public good. Ushahidi is a free and open source platform that allows virtually anyone to publicly crowdsource [outsource a task to a group of people through an open call on the Internet asking for contributions] and dynamically map vital information that almost immediately can be used to take action.

At its heart, Ushahidi is a Web-based aggregator of information. The user-friendly platform can be used to map online news, email content, Tweets, text messages, pictures and YouTube footage, for example. It has been used to power citizen-based election monitoring in Afghanistan and Mexico; coordinate disaster response in Haiti and the Philippines; promote crime reporting in Atlanta and Nairobi; track the swine flu outbreak and human trafficking.

In response to the Haiti earthquake, student volunteers at Tufts University’s Fletcher School in Boston and the Haitian Diaspora used Ushahidi to map relevant content from multiple media sources and incoming text messages from Haiti in near real-time. Ushahidi worked with several key partners on the ground to set up a phone number where people in Haiti could send free text messages with their location and most urgent needs. Ushahidi volunteers triaged and mapped thousands of incoming text messages in near real time, which provided emergency responders with actionable information to rescue individuals trapped under the rubble and thereby save lives. Several weeks after the Haiti disaster, student volunteers at Columbia University also used Ushahidi to map the post-earthquake needs in Chile.

I am sure that in the future we will come up with more innovative ways to use existing and emerging technologies for public good.

See also Patrick Meier’s blog iRevolution.

Can Research Parks and Incubators Spur Development?

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Guest blogger Anthony Townsend is director of technology development at the Institute for the Future, a California-based research group.

Experts and entrepreneurs from around the world discuss what governments can do to promote high-tech entrepreneurship and what the shape of technology entrepreneurship will be in the future.


For over 50 years, the research park model has spread throughout the developed world as a tool for technology-based economic development. The main idea behind this movement is that real estate development can seed the long-term growth of new technology industry clusters.

Today, we see the research park model being copied widely in the developing world. Africa’s first research park – the Innovation Hub in South Africa – demonstrates the possibilities of research parks to spur innovation by incubating university research spin-offs. Developing economies throughout the Global South are building research parks at a rapid pace.

However, just as the research park model matures, the nature of basic scientific research and technological innovation is changing rapidly. Science is more global than ever, presenting new opportunities for scientists in the developing world to connect to traditional centers of research, and participate in their work. The development of products and services based on new technologies is being rapidly accelerated through new design, manufacturing and distribution tools.

These trends suggest that the research park model – which focuses solely on land and leasable space – will need to grow up in order to spur developing economies. It will need to connect better globally, in order to package and deliver value to distant markets for talent and intellectual property. At the same time, we’ll need to rethink the physical design of research parks because innovation networks don’t have to be confined to a single campus or building – they span entire neighborhoods, cities and metropolitan regions.

For more information, visit the Institute for the Future’s report on the future of research parks, Future Knowledge Ecosystems. See also my blog.

Research Universities: Engines for High-Tech Entrepreneurship

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Guest blogger Jonathan Ortmans is president of the Public Forum Institute, a non-partisan organization dedicated to fostering dialogue on policy issues. He also serves as a senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation.

Experts and entrepreneurs from around the world discuss what governments can do to promote high-tech entrepreneurship and what the shape of technology entrepreneurship will be in the future.

Almost all of us enjoy technologies born in university labs or benefit from new business spawned through the dissemination of technologies from the university to the marketplace. Universities have been the lifeblood of many vibrant economies, such as Silicon Valley, whose heart is Stanford University. Considering the positive, economy-wide impact of commercialized university-developed technologies, a key question for policymakers is, “Are we are maximizing this impact?”

There are several indications that the answer to that question is negative. The federal government invests nearly $50 billion a year in university research, but there are few initiatives to help bring the benefits of new technologies to consumers in an efficient manner. Robert Litan and Lesa Mitchell of the Kauffman Foundation have developed an idea that promises to address this problem. Their proposal has been named one of Harvard Business Review’s Ten Breakthrough Ideas for 2010. They call for creating an open, competitive licensing system for university technology. [University licensing offices receive invention disclosures from faculty, staff, and students, and license those commercially viable to industry in exchange for cash royalties to inventors and their departments and schools.]

Currently, most U.S. universities channel commercialization through centralized technology licensing offices (TLOs) established in the wake of the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980. This system allowed universities to gain organizational benefits and economies of scale, but over time it has slowed commercialization by monopolizing the process. Many TLOs are short-staffed and inefficient. Litan and Mitchell call for freeing up the market in technology licensing. This would require an amendment to the rules of the Bayh-Dole Act to condition federal research dollars on allowing faculty members to choose their own licensing agents [private-sector entities that provide licensing services outside universities], something that the Commerce Department could do.

In the face of declining competitiveness, a jobs crisis, and economic slowdown, the optimal commercialization of university innovations could not be more important. It is time to update policies to encourage federally supported research to translate into new products and new businesses.

Better Palm Oil to Improve Diet in Sierra Leone

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[guest name="Joe-Lahai Sormana" biography="Joe-Lahai Sormana worked for two multinational chemical companies as a senior engineer and scientist. He has a doctoral degree in chemical engineering from Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia. He lives in Pennsylvania."]

The African Diaspora Marketplace contest recently awarded $50,000 to $100,000 to 14 immigrants to the United States from African countries to help them start or expand businesses in Africa. Some of them share how they plan to use the money on the New Enterprise blog.

Joe-Lahai Sormana

Joe-Lahai Sormana

In Sierra Leone, crude palm oil is an essential ingredient in traditional dishes. Between 30,000 and 40,000 metric tons of palm oil per year is consumed in the country. Over 95 percent is derived from palm fruit through traditional methods that are labor intensive and inefficient.

That wasn’t always the case. But during the civil war, all palm-oil processing mills were either destroyed or became inoperable and, to the best of our knowledge, none of them have been re-established or re-started.

I have established a company called Palm Fruit Processing Company Limited with the primary goal of producing palm oil in a modern mill. My local partner, Aloysius A. Beah, is negotiating contracts with palm plantations to provide us with a steady supply of palm fruit. In the future, we plan to develop our own plantation.

Palm Fruit Processing company’s logo

Palm Fruit Processing company’s logo

Our oil will carry health benefits as it is cleaner and has a lower level of saturated fat. But the company will be selling it at a discount relative to local prices. We will be able to afford it because of greater efficiency of our processing mill, which will allow us to produce significantly more palm oil from the same quantity of palm fruit than traditional producers will ever do. Our company’s pricing strategy and product quality will give us a competitive advantage from the start.

The company will create jobs, thereby contributing to the economic development of the country and to improvements in the standard of living in the local community.

A win in the competition validates our business model and value-proposition. Grant funding will be used to purchase equipment and develop the necessary infrastructure to house it. We already have selected sites, bought land and obtained the design of the mill.

Technology changing convention business

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People worldwide can get up-to-date information about the 2008 conventions at a click of their computer keys. Want to know where protesters are headed or what famous person just entered a convention venue? Thousands of bloggers and journalists are providing instant updates to their readers via social networking web sites like Twitter.

Journalists are filing stories from their laptops and Blackberrys – often typing furiously while sitting on the floor of busy hallways. At an event celebrating women’s political involvement August 25, organizers gave journalists the event program on a flash drive. Organizers figured this would not only make their work easier but it would also prevent wasting paper – one of many green initiatives at the convention.

Convention followers are not the only ones benefiting from new technologies. The Women’s Campaign Forum, an organization working to elect female leaders, launched a campaign called “She Should Run.” The goal of the campaign during both conventions is to get names and contact information of 750 women who could be potential future political leaders. It looks like the campaign is going to easily meet its goal: After the first day of the Democratic convention, the group had 500 names, 300 of which they received within minutes.

One of the organizers spoke to a crowded auditorium of supporters and encouraged them to take out their cell phones and text message their suggested women. Thanks to cell phone technology, the group gained 300 new names in moments. The approach is much faster than the traditional way of sending out a field of volunteers with clipboards – although those volunteers were still on sight. In another triumph of technology, many of them had found out about the program on Facebook.