Science & Technology

8 Items

Blog Post - Technology and Policy

Preparing Youth to Solve Global Grand Challenges

| June 24, 2013

In a bold move, the UK Government has announced the creation of a £1 million prize for a new “grand innovation challenge.”  According to Prime Minister David Cameron, the award would go to the next “penicillin” or a plane that could fly carbon-neutral across the Atlantic. This effort will complement the £1 million Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. The inaugural prize will be awarded to the inventors of the Internet and World Wide Web in London on June 25, 2013. The prize will not only recognize those who come up with outstanding ideas, but it will also serve as source of inspiration for young people.

Blog Post - Technology and Policy

Africa and Brazil at the Dawn of New Economic Diplomacy

| Feb. 26, 2013

In recent years the major focus of China’s engagement in Africa has been on economic diplomacy. Much of this debate has been influenced by concerns over China’s rise as an economic superpower and the preoccupation with viewing Africa through the jaded natural resource lens. A closer look at Africa’s growing economic diplomacy reveals a more complex picture involving other important emerging market economies as illustrated by economic relations with Brazil. Africa’s relations with Brazil highlight the emergence of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) as a new economic alliance that is reshaping international trading relations.

Blog Post - Technology and Policy

Developing Country Farmers Bridge the “Biotechnology Divide”

| Feb. 22, 2013

  Critics of agricultural biotechnology have long contended that it would not benefit farmers in developing countries. Their concerns were not unjustified. A large number of technologies continue to be restricted to industrialized countries despite their global relevance. Farmers in developing countries, however, are bridging the “biotechnology divide.” According to a new report by Clive James of the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA), “For the first time, developing countries grew more, 52% of global biotech crops in 2012 than industrialized countries at 48%.

Blog Post - Technology and Policy

Africa’s Economic Growth Prospects

| Feb. 15, 2013

Africa’s economic growth outlook has come into sharp focus recently. Some analysts have argued that claims about “Africa Rising” are a myth. Others argue that Africa’s growth is underestimated. These contrasting views, however, pay little attention to major trends that are shaping the continent: deepening regional integration; shifting trade relations; and the rise of technocratic presidencies. Deepening Regional Integration African economies are generally viewed as being too dependent on global trends.

Blog Post - Technology and Policy

Is There a National Security Crisis in U.S. Education?

| Apr. 03, 2012

Last month the Council on Foreign Relations published a report co-authored by Joel I. Klein and Condoleezza Rice, titled, “U.S. Education Reform and National Security.” Giving voice to the work of its task force of 25 scholars and practitioners, the report sounded a call to arms from its opening sentence. “It will come as no surprise to most readers,” Klein and Rice wrote, “that America’s primary and secondary schools are widely seen as failing.” With that swift assertion the authors traveled quickly to their destination: we must test, have standards, and audit.

Blog Post - Technology and Policy

Empowering Women by Upgrading Local Training Institutions

| Mar. 05, 2012

Inequality between men and women remains one of the most critical sources of low economic productivity in Africa. Many of the efforts seek to address the challenge by creating new training institutions. A complementary strategy is to identify and upgrade promising local initiatives. In her preface to the new Gender Equality and Female Empowerment, of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Secretary of State Hillary Clinton states that achieving US global development objectives “will demand accelerated efforts to achieve gender equality and women’s empowerment.

Blog Post - Technology and Policy

Are Digital Textbooks the New “Horseless Carriage”?

| Feb. 06, 2012

The history of technology is filled with people examining a genuinely new innovation and seeing it simply as an extension of something familiar.  For example, the automobile was originally termed a “horseless carriage.”  When a camera was invented capable of providing the illusion of motion, the product was termed “motion pictures”; many people used the device to film plays on stage.  The desktop computer was originally seen as a kind of digital typewriter, and new staff roles were created in organizations for “word processing” specialists who were expert typists.

Blog Post - Technology and Policy

Seeding Agricultural Innovation in Africa: Eight Imperatives for Leaders

| Dec. 15, 2011

The on-going famine in the Horn of Africa has put in sharp focus the urgency to raise the continent’s food production through improved agricultural innovation. This cannot be done without reforming the continent’s research system by creating greater synergies between research, training, extension and commercialization. Africa’s research and higher education systems are dominated by fragmented approaches where research and teaching are carried out in separate institutions often under different ministries.