Asia – Page 25 – The Living Library

Many Around the World Are Disengaged From Politics

Curated on October 18, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Richard Wike and Alexandra Castillo at Pew Research Center: “An engaged citizenry is often considered a sign of a healthy democracy. High levels of political and civic participation increase the likelihood that the voices of ordinary citizens will be heard in important debates, and they confer a degree of legitimacy on democratic institutions. However, in many nations around the world, much of the public is disengaged from politics.

To better understand public attitudes toward civic engagement, Pew Research Center conducted face-to-face surveys in 14 nations encompassing a wide range of political systems. The study, conducted in collaboration with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) as part of their International Consortium on Closing Civic Space (iCon), includes countries from Africa, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Because it does not represent every region, the study cannot reflect the globe as a whole. But with 14,875 participants across such a wide variety of countries, it remains a useful snapshot of key, cross-national patterns in civic life.

The survey finds that, aside from voting, relatively few people take part in other forms of political and civic participation. Still, some types of engagement are more common among young people, those with more education, those on the political left and social network users. And certain issues – especially health care, poverty and education – are more likely than others to inspire political action. Here are eight key takeaways from the survey, which was conducted from May 20 to Aug. 12, 2018, via face-to-face interviews.

Most people vote, but other forms of participation are much less common. Across the 14 nations polled, a median of 78% say they have voted at least once in the past. Another 9% say they might vote in the future, while 7% say they would never vote.

With at least 9-in-10 reporting they have voted in the past, participation is highest in three of the four countries with compulsory voting (Brazil, Argentina and Greece). Voting is similarly high in both Indonesia (91%) and the Philippines (91%), two countries that do not have compulsory voting laws.

The lowest percentage is found in Tunisia (62%), which has only held two national elections since the Jasmine Revolution overthrew long-serving President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in 2011 and spurred the Arab Spring protests across the Middle East.

Attending a political campaign event or speech is the second most common type of participation among those surveyed – a median of 33% have done this at least once. Fewer people report participating in volunteer organizations (a median of 27%), posting comments on political issues online (17%), participating in an organized protest (14%) or donating money to a social or political organization (12%)….(More)”.

DNA databases are too white. This man aims to fix that.

Curated on October 17, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Interview of Carlos D. Bustamante by David Rotman: “In the 15 years since the Human Genome Project first exposed our DNA blueprint, vast amounts of genetic data have been collected from millions of people in many different parts of the world. Carlos D. Bustamante’s job is to search that genetic data for clues to everything from ancient history and human migration patterns to the reasons people with different ancestries are so varied in their response to common diseases.

Bustamante’s career has roughly spanned the period since the Human Genome Project was completed. A professor of genetics and biomedical data science at Stanford and 2010 winner of a MacArthur genius award, he has helped to tease out the complex genetic variation across different populations. These variants mean that the causes of diseases can vary greatly between groups. Part of the motivation for Bustamante, who was born in Venezuela and moved to the US when he was seven, is to use those insights to lessen the medical disparities that still plague us.

But while it’s an area ripe with potential for improving medicine, it’s also fraught with controversies over how to interpret genetic differences between human populations. In an era still obsessed with race and ethnicity—and marred by the frequent misuse of science in defining the characteristics of different groups—Bustamante remains undaunted in searching for the nuanced genetic differences that these groups display.

Perhaps his optimism is due to his personality—few sentences go by without a “fantastic” or “extraordinarily exciting.” But it is also his recognition as a population geneticist of the incredible opportunity that understanding differences in human genomes presents for improving health and fighting disease.

David Rotman, MIT Technology Review’s editor at large, discussed with Bustamante why it’s so important to include more people in genetic studies and understand the genetics of different populations.

How good are we at making sure that the genomic data we’re collecting is inclusive?

I’m optimistic, but it’s not there yet.

In our 2011 paper, the statistic we had was that more than 96% of participants in genome-wide association studies were of European descent. In the follow-up in 2016, the number went from 96% to around 80%. So that’s getting better. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, a lot of that is due to the entry of China into genetics. A lot of that was due to large-scale studies in Chinese and East Asian populations. Hispanics, for example, make up less than 1% of genome-wide association studies. So we need to do better. Ultimately, we want precision medicine to benefit everybody.

Aside from a fairness issue, why is diversity in genomic data important? What do we miss without it?

First of all, it has nothing to do with political correctness. It has everything to do with human biology and the fact that human populations and the great diaspora of human migrations have left their mark on the human genome. The genetic underpinnings of health and disease have shared components across human populations and things that are unique to different populations….(More)”.

What is the true value of data? New series on the return on investment of data interventions

Curated on October 2, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Case studies prepared by Jessica Espey and Hayden Dahmm for SDSN TReNDS: “But what is the ROI of investing in data for altruistic means–e.g., for sustainable development?

Today, we are launching a series of case studies to answer this question in collaboration with the Global Partnership on Sustainable Development Data. The ten examples we will profile range from earth observation data gathered via satellites to investments in national statistics systems, with costs from just a few hundred thousand dollars (US) per year to millions over decades.

The series includes efforts to revamp existing statistical systems. It also supports the growing movement to invest in less traditional approaches to data collection and analysis beyond statistical systems–such as through private sector data sources or emerging technologies enabled by the growth of the information and communications technology (ICT) sector.

Some highlights from the first five case studies–available now:

An SMS-based system called mTRAC, implemented in Uganda, has supported significant improvements in the country’s health system–including halving of response time to disease outbreaks and reducing medication stock-outs, the latter of which resulted in fewer malaria-related deaths.

NASA’s and the U.S. Geological Survey’s Landsat program–satellites that provide imagery known as earth observation data–is enabling discoveries and interventions across the science and health sectors, and provided an estimated worldwide economic benefit as high as US$2.19 billion as of 2011.

BudgIT, a civil society organization making budget data in Nigeria more accessible to citizens through machine-readable PDFs and complementary online/offline campaigns, is empowering citizens to partake in the federal budget process.

International nonprofit BRAC is ensuring mothers and infants in the slums of Bangladesh are not left behind through a data-informed intervention combining social mapping, local censuses, and real-time data sharing. BRAC estimates that from 2008 to 2017, 1,087 maternal deaths were averted out of the 2,476 deaths that would have been expected based on national statistics.

Atlantic City police are developing new approaches to their patrolling, community engagement, and other activities through risk modeling based on crime and other data, resulting in reductions in homicides and shooting injuries (26 percent) and robberies (37 percent) in just the first year of implementation….(More)”.

Tech Was Supposed to Be Society’s Great Equalizer. What Happened?

Curated on October 2, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Derek Thompson at The Atlantic: “Historians may look back at the early 21st century as the Gilded Age 2.0. Not since the late 1800s has the U.S. been so defined by the triad of rapid technological change, gaping economic inequality, and sudden social upheaval.

Ironically, the digital revolution was supposed to be an equalizer. The early boosters of the Internet sprang from the counterculture of the 1960s and the New Communalist movement. Some of them, like Stewart Brand, hoped to spread the sensibilities of hippie communes throughout the wilderness of the web. Others saw the internet more broadly as an opportunity to build a society that amended the failures of the physical world.

But in the last few years, the most successful tech companies have built a new economy that often accentuates the worst parts of the old world they were bent on replacing. Facebook’s platform amplifies preexisting biases—both of ideology and race—and political propaganda. Amazon’s dominion over online retail has allowed it to squash competition, not unlike the railroad monopolies of the 19th century. And Apple, in designing the most profitable product in modern history, has also designed another instrument of harmful behavioral addiction….

The only way to make technology that helps a broad array of people is to consult a broad array of people to make that technology. But the computer industry has a multi-decade history of gender discrimination. It is, perhaps, the industry’s original sin. After World War II, Great Britain was the world’s leader in computing. Its efforts to decipher Nazi codes led to the creation of the world’s first programmable digital computer. But within 30 years, the British advantage in computing and software had withered, in part due to explicit efforts to push women out of the computer-science workforce, according to Marie Hicks’ history, Programmed Inequality.

The tech industry isn’t a digital hippie commune, anymore. It’s the new aristocracy. The largest and fastest growing companies in the world, in both the U.S. and China, are tech giants. It’s our responsibility, as users and voters, to urge these companies to use their political and social power responsibly. “I think absolute power corrupts absolutely,” Broussard said. “In the history of America, we’ve had gilded ages before and we’ve had companies that have had giant monopolies over industries and it hasn’t worked out so great. So I think that one of the things that we need to do as a society is we need to take off our blinders when it comes to technology and we need to kind of examine our techno-chauvinist beliefs and say what kind of a world do we want?”…(More)”.

Google is using AI to predict floods in India and warn users

Curated on September 26, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

James Vincent at The Verge: “For years Google has warned users about natural disasters by incorporating alerts from government agencies like FEMA into apps like Maps and Search. Now, the company is making predictions of its own. As part of a partnership with the Central Water Commission of India, Google will now alert users in the country about impending floods. The service is only currently available in the Patna region, with the first alert going out earlier this month.

As Google’s engineering VP Yossi Matias outlines in a blog post, these predictions are being made using a combination of machine learning, rainfall records, and flood simulations.

“A variety of elements — from historical events, to river level readings, to the terrain and elevation of a specific area — feed into our models,” writes Matias. “With this information, we’ve created river flood forecasting models that can more accurately predict not only when and where a flood might occur, but the severity of the event as well.”

The US tech giant announced its partnership with the Central Water Commission back in June. The two organizations agreed to share technical expertise and data to work on the predictions, with the Commission calling the collaboration a “milestone in flood management and in mitigating the flood losses.” Such warnings are particularly important in India, where 20 percent of the world’s flood-related fatalities are estimated to occur….(More)”.

Rohingya turn to blockchain to solve identity crisis

Curated on September 15, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Skot Thayer and Alex Hern at the Guardian: “Rohingya refugees are turning to blockchain-type technology to help address one of their most existential threats: lack of officially-recognised identity.

Denied citizenship in their home country of Myanmar for decades, the Muslim minority was the target of a brutal campaign of violence by the military which culminated a year ago this week. A “clearance operation” led by Buddhist militia sent more than 700,000 Rohingya pouring over the border into Bangladesh, without passports or official ID.

The Myanmar government has since agreed to take the Rohingya back, but are refusing to grant them citizenship. Many Rohingya do not want to return and face life without a home or an identity. This growing crisis prompted Muhammad Noor and his team at the Rohingya Project to try to find a digital solution.

“Why does a centralised entity like a bank or government own my identity,” says Noor, a Rohingya community leader based in Kuala Lumpur. “Who are they to say if I am who I am?”

Using blockchain-based technology, Noor, is trialling the use of digital identity cards that aim to help Rohingya in Malaysia, Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia access services such as banking and education. The hope is that successful trials might lead to a system that can help the community across southeast Asia.

Under the scheme, a blockchain database is used to record individual digital IDs, which can then be issued to people once they have taken a test to verify that they are genuine Rohingya….

Blockchain-based initiatives, such as the Rohingya Project, could eventually allow people to build the network of relationships necessary to participate in the modern global economy and prevent second and third generation “invisible” people from slipping into poverty. It could also allow refugees to send money across borders, bypassing high transaction fees.

In Jordan’s Azraq refugee camp, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is using blockchain and biometrics to help Syrian refugees to purchase groceries using a voucher system. This use of the technology allows the WFP to bypass bank fees.

But Al Rjula says privacy is still an issue. “The technology is maturing, yet implementation by startups and emerging tech companies is still lacking,” he says.

The involvement of a trendy technology such as blockchains can often be enough to secure the funding, attention and support that start-ups – whether for-profit or charitable – need to thrive. But companies such as Tykn still have to tackle plenty of the same issues as their old-fashioned database-using counterparts, from convincing governments and NGOs to use their services in the first place to working out how to make enough overhead to pay staff, while also dealing with the fickle issues of building on a cutting-edge platform.

Blockchain-based humanitarian initiatives will also need to reckon with the problem of accountability in their efforts to aid refugees and those trapped in the limbo of statelessness.

Dilek Genc, a PhD candidate at the University of Edinburgh who studies blockchain-type applications in humanitarian aid and development, saysif the aid community continues to push innovation using Silicon Valley’s creed of “fail fast and often,” and experiment on vulnerable peoples they will be fundamentally at odds with humanitarian principles and fail to address the political roots of issues facing refugees…(More)”.

The Use of Regulatory Sandboxes in Europe and Asia

Curated on September 11, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Claus Christensen at Regulation Aisa: “Global attention to money-laundering, terrorism financing and financial criminal practices has grown exponentially in recent years. As criminals constantly come up with new tactics, global regulations in the financial world are evolving all the time to try and keep up. At the same time, end users’ expectations are putting companies at commercial risk if they are not prepared to deliver outstanding and digital-first customer experiences through innovative solutions.

Among the many initiatives introduced by global regulators to address these two seemingly contradictory needs, regulatory sandboxes – closed environments that allow live testing of innovations by tech companies under the regulator’s supervision – are by far one of the most popular. As the CEO of a fast-growing regtech company working across both Asia and Europe, I have identified a few differences in how the regulators across different jurisdictions are engaging with the industry in general, and regulatory sandboxes in particular.

Since the launch of ‘Project Innovate’ in 2014, the UK’s FCA (Financial Conduct Authority) has won recognition for the success of its sandbox, where fintech companies can test innovative products, services and business models in a live market environment, while ensuring that appropriate safeguards are in place through temporary authorisation. The FCA advises companies, whether fintech startups or established banks, on which existing regulations might apply to their cutting-edge products.

So far, the sandbox has helped more than 500 companies, with 40+ firms receiving regulatory authorisation. Project Innovate has helped the FCA’s reputation for supporting initiatives which boost competition within financial services, which was part of the regulator’s post-financial crisis agenda. The success of the initiative in fostering a fertile fintech environment is reflected by the growing number of UK-based challenger banks that are expanding their client bases across Europe. Following its success, the sandbox approach has gone global, with regulators around the world adopting a similar strategy for fintech innovation.

Across Europe, regulators are directly working with financial services providers and taking proactive measures to not only encourage the use of innovative technology in improving their systems, but also to boost adoption by others within the ecosystem…(More)”.

Palaces for the People: How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight Inequality, Polarization, and the Decline of Civic Life

Curated on September 9, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

An Overview of National AI Strategies

Curated on August 28, 2018 by Stefaan Verhulst

Medium Article by Tim Dutton: “The race to become the global leader in artificial intelligence (AI) has officially begun. In the past fifteen months, Canada, China, Denmark, the EU Commission, Finland, France, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Nordic-Baltic region, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Taiwan, the UAE, and the UK have all released strategies to promote the use and development of AI. No two strategies are alike, with each focusing on different aspects of AI policy: scientific research, talent development, skills and education, public and private sector adoption, ethics and inclusion, standards and regulations, and data and digital infrastructure.

This article summarizes the key policies and goals of each strategy, as well as related policies and initiatives that have announced since the release of the initial strategies. It also includes countries that have announced their intention to develop a strategy or have related AI policies in place….(More)”.