Survey by Pew Global: “Signs of political discontent are increasingly common in many Western nations, with anti-establishment parties and candidates drawing significant attention and support across the European Union and in the United States. Meanwhile, as previous Pew Research Center surveys have shown, in emerging and developing economies there is widespread dissatisfaction with the way the political system is working. As a new nine-country Pew Research Center survey on the strengths and limitations of civic engagement illustrates, there is a common perception that government is run for the benefit of the few, rather than the many in both emerging... (More >)
How to ensure smart cities benefit everyone
Kendra L. Smith at the Conversation Global: “By 2030, 60 percent of the world’s population is expected to live in mega-cities. How all those people live, and what their lives are like, will depend on important choices leaders make today and in the coming years. Technology has the power to help people live in communities that are more responsive to their needs and that can actually improve their lives. For example, Beijing, notorious for air pollution, is testing a 23-foot-tall air purifier that vacuums up smog, filters the bad particles and releases clear air. This isn’t a vision of... (More >)
How to Succeed in the Networked World: A Grand Strategy for the Digital Age
Anne-Marie Slaughter in Foreign Affairs: “Foreign policy experts have long been taught to see the world as a chessboard, analyzing the decisions of great powers and anticipating rival states’ reactions in a continual game of strategic advantage. Nineteenth-century British statesmen openly embraced this metaphor, calling their contest with Russia in Central Asia “the Great Game.” Today, the TV show Game of Thrones offers a particularly gory and irresistible version of geopolitics as a continual competition among contending kingdoms. Think of a standard map of the world, showing the borders and capitals of the world’s 190-odd countries. That is the... (More >)
Iceland’s crowd-sourced constitution: hope for disillusioned voters everywhere
Ruth Kinna et al in The Conversation Global: “Western democracies are in turmoil. From Brexit to Donald Trump, to a general lack of trust in politics, disillusioned voters are expressing their frustration in strange ways. In Iceland, they are taking a more proactive, hopeful approach – and it’s a lesson to the rest of the world. It looks as though a crowd-sourced constitution, developed in 2012, could finally be about to make its way through parliament. The document – the result of four months of consultation – was approved by a two-thirds majority in a national referendum but was... (More >)
100 Stories: The Impact of Open Access
Report by Jean-Gabriel Bankier and Promita Chatterji: “It is time to reassess how we talk about the impact of open access. Early thought leaders in the field of scholarly communications sparked our collective imagination with a compelling vision for open access: improving global access to knowledge, advancing science, and providing greater access to education.1 But despite the fact that open access has gained a sizable foothold, discussions about the impact of open access are often still stuck at the level of aspirational or potential benefit. Shouldn’t we be able to gather real examples of positive outcomes to demonstrate the... (More >)
Wikipedia is already the world’s ‘Dr Google’ – it’s time for doctors and researchers to make it better
Thomas Shafee in The Conversation: “Health professionals have a duty to improve the accuracy of medical entries in Wikipedia, according to a letter published today in Lancet Global Health, because it’s the first port of call for people all over the world seeking medical information. In our correspondence, a group of international colleagues and I call on medical journals to do more to help experts make Wikipedia more accurate, and for the medical community to make improving its content a top priority. Use around the world Ranked the fifth most-visited website in the world, Wikipedia is one of the... (More >)
The Promise of Artificial Intelligence: 70 Real-World Examples
Report by the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation: “Artificial intelligence (AI) is on a winning streak. In 2005, five teams successfully completed the DARPA Grand Challenge, a competition held by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to spur development of autonomous vehicles. In 2011, IBM’s Watson system beat out two longtime human champions to win Jeopardy! In 2016, Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo system defeated the 18-time world-champion Go player. And thanks to Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, Google’s Google Assistant, and Amazon’s Alexa, consumers now have easy access to a variety of AI-powered virtual assistants to help manage their daily lives.... (More >)
How technology can help nations navigate the difficult path to food sovereignty
Bamidele Adekunle at The Conversation Global: “As the movement of people across the world creates more multicultural societies, can trade help communities maintain their identity? This is the question at the heart of a concept known as “food sovereignty”. Food sovereignty has been defined as “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods” and, critically, the ability of people to own their food systems. Culturally appropriate food refers to the cuisine eaten by a certain group, which reflects their own values, norms, religion and preferences. It is usually dynamic and... (More >)
Crowdsourcing investigative journalism
Convoca in Peru: “…collaborative effort is the essence of Convoca. We are a team of journalists and programmers who work with professionals from different disciplines and generations to expose facts that are hidden by networks of power and affect the life of citizens. We bet on the work in partnership to publish findings of high impact from Peru, where the Amazon survives in almost 60% of the country, in the middle of oil exploitation, minerals and criminal activities such as logging, illegal mining and human trafficking. Fifty percent of social conflicts have as epicenter extractives areas of natural resources... (More >)
From Brexit to Colombia’s No vote: are constitutional democracies in crisis?
Roberto Saba in The Conversation Global: What do Colombia’s recent plebiscite and Brexit have in common? The surface similarities are clear: both referendums produced outcomes that few experts or citizens expected. And many considered them a blow to core the social values of peace, integration, development and prosperity. The unanticipated and widely debated results in Colombia and Great Britain – indeed, the very decision to use the mechanism of popular consultation to identify the citizenry’s will – obliges us to reflect on the future of democratic systems. Both the British and Colombian plebiscites can be understood as the consequence,... (More >)