Our partners, field work, technology, and everything else.
In the June 16-20 edition of India New England, the source for engineering and business news for Asian Indians in New England, Dimagi’s recent award at the World Bank’s Development Marketplace competition is showcased.
Links
Want to do something about the environment? Easy. Recycle, walk away from your car, and think green. But what can you, yes you, do if you are worried about a pandemic flu?
Evidence (and common sense) says that simple hand washing cuts the spread of respiratory infections. So you keep your hands clean. What else? The avian cases of H5N1 in Asia have greatly been in wild birds and domestic poultry. Is there a way to put international pressure so that proper hygeine is practiced around home grown chickens? Maybe there is new certification for healthy chicken rearing practices. You begin to demand for only certified chickens, and the supply follows.
I don’t know, all this is really complicated. The WHO reported yesterday that there have been 312 confirmed cases of H5N1 flu to date in humans across the world (WHO data).
I think we need a movement here, and a color.
- Vikram
Do give a visit to the Cooper-Hewitt Design museum on the on Museum Mile.
From now till September 23rd, 2007, they are displaying “Design for the Other 90%”
A wide variety of projects/ideas are showcased ranging from the One Laptop Per Child, the LifeStraw (which was quite exciting to see), as well as creative bikes and shelters and the like.
Worth a look to experience in person the tools and resources that are in use today around the world. It also highlights the benefit, but also the tension of what amazing things can come out when talented designers and engineers tackle complex problems. Dedicated design/engineering can be seen both as a luxury and a necessity. Some food for thought in how to rethink the economy for doing this line of work.
For more information, visit:
http://other.cooperhewitt.org/
-Dan
The 2007 Harvard commencement festivities graced Cambridge with two high profile Bills.
Former President Clinton spoke at Harvard College’s class day exercises on June 6th (full text). He spoke on looking past our differences to embrace a spirit of reconciliation in the manner of his hero, Nelson Mandela. The class day forum has had a diverse history of speakers, ranging from entertainers the likes of Ali G. and Conan O’Brien, to Mother Teresa, Bono, or Nelson Mandela himself. To this Harvard grad, it seems that the choice of speaker is somewhat indicative of a certain cultural mood for the graduating class and more (well, there’s the zeitgeist, and sometimes just the luck of the draw getting speakers…see Al Franken’s speech).
Reading through Clinton’s address reminded me of Bono’s 2001 address (full text) on his conscience for equality. What is interesting about both speeches, aside from the celebrity power, is that there’s not so much a pat on the back on being graduates and having a general mandate to “be good people, agents of change.” But rather a challenge to see more, and do things differently, not necessarily more, but just be different.
Which brings me to Gates’ commencement day speech (full text) on his personal journey in his work in the Gates Foundation as well as his exhortation to the graduating class to ask the question “What for?” Instead of stroking the collective ego and accomplishments of my alma mater, he just asks what’s the point. What for the talent and intellect and the degrees, are these resources going to be even used to solve the bigger problems in the world, quite refreshing and sobering at the same time.
Reading these two speeches was good way for this computer scientist to articulate in structured sentences (instead of code) why we do things here.
- Dan