Archive for August, 2009

Manuel Castells, for those that don’t know, is one of the most prolific, well-respected scholars of our time. I know his work around the networked society – the ramifications of the information and communication revolution – but he is also a ground-breaking student of sociology, urbanization and politics.

He is currently spending some time in South Africa giving various talks at universities. Tonight, I attended one at the University of Cape Town (somewhat poorly) entitled “Prospects for Cities in the Global South.” Instead of trying to synthesize it, I thought I’d post some striking points:

• Castells sees two linked processes shaping our world: globalization and metropolitanization. To him, urbanization refers to an out-dated model of change. Instead of cities as popularly understood – city center surrounded by suburbs and followed by rural areas – population concentration these days comes in the form of “metropolitan regions.” He didn’t specifically say it (he used examples from China or Europe), but think of D.C., Philly, B-More, NYC (and maybe even Boston) – regions of urban areas with policentric metropolises. The metropolitan region is the spacial form of our era, and it is not equivalent to the cities of yore.
• Although the world just crossed 50% urbanization, Latin America has been 80% urban for ten years. Brazil is 85%!
• This is an inevitable trend because metropolises are necessary for face-to-face interaction which define high-level activities. The globally networked nature of these regions allows this high-level interaction to be transferred internationally to more low-level activities. This spacial concentration enables innovation (think Silicon Valley), but you need both the concentration (nodes) and the dispersed network.
• Universities are not necessarily creators of knowledge. They need to actively generate development from their knowledge and create “self-programmable learners” because the skills they learn in school will soon be obsolete.
• In rural areas, people have no chance at survival. They know this – every effort to stave off rural-to-urban migration has failed. [Aside: then why is Sachs & Co. working on the Millennium Village project?]
• Spacial concentration has a number of challenge, for which we must prepare:
  • Major environmental crisis: our livability on this planet is in danger because even though cities are the major engines of economic growth, the are a major cause of environmental damage.
  • Concentration of poverty and social exclusion at unprecedented scales. Highly linked to ecological threats such as pandemics: “Viruses don’t stop at the door of the a rich neighborhood.”
  • Lost public spaces to private centers, and therefore lost identity.
  • Mobility has become a recipe for immobility. Notion of relying on the automobile is unrealistic when space is limited and plenty of people cannot afford them. “We are in permanent gridlock.”
• Although the metropolitan region is the key size for this century, we lack the institutions to plan them.
• Cultural tolerance and openness will be key due to population migration.

I really have no where enough experience with these topics to criticize what seemed like a thoughtful and smart talk. Next week, though, I hope to attend the launch of his new book, Communication Power – a topic I am more comfortable with.

One of the most exciting projects I was involved with at infoDev was a website that aims to bring together knowledgeable people to debate the appropriate role of technology in education around the world. The aptly named Educational Technology Debate is already in its fifth month of existence and has hosted great discussions about 1:1 vs. communal computing, the effectiveness of ICT, and mobile phones vs. personal computers.

This month’s debate focuses on the educational content needed for teaching:

Will educational systems, and the stakeholders that support them, be able to adapt existing and new content onto these devices? Might this adaptation facilitate a more egalitarian content creation structure, challenging the existing pricing structures and vested interests of current curriculum production & dissemination models?

In addition, should this content focus on ebooks and other electronic media that replicates existing content? Or is this an opportunity to change the way in which content is created, teacher’s educate, and students learn?

We have two experts, Richard Rowe and Angus Scrimgeour, who will lead the debate, but we’ve tried to make this as interactive as we can, so post your thoughts in the comments and help shape the discussion.

So, Gordon Brown gave a talk at TED Global that argues that “foreign policy can never be the same again” because instantaneous digital communication makes it necessary that the masses are heeded. It’s nice to see someone in his position aware and passionate about technology’s ability to change the world for the better, but I think he falls prey to the over-optimism that too often shapes these discussions.

Take a look at some of his examples in the above video:

• #IranElection Twitter activity and #Neda [yet, Ahmadinejad was just sworn in]
• The Saffron Revolution in Burma [yet, the Junta remains in power]
• The Ethiopian and Sudanese children dying during famine [yet, poverty remains rampant in the African horn]
• Tienanmen Square tank man [yet, China is now even more powerful and far from democratic]

Now, to be fair, PM Brown’s real call was for a truly global society built on solid institutions, but his focus on media and technology distracts from the real power structures that are far more resilient than, say, the voting of American Idol, where text messaging actually does matter.

Remember, the two Current.tv journalists weren’t released because of Twitter activity. It took some high-power diplomacy.