Reflections on Semantic Web and Alipi

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2011 Oct 6

This week Steve Jobs passed away at the far-too-young-for-anyone-to-die age of 56, and India launched Aakash, a tablet computer seen by many as the ipad-killer, the restoftheworld's rejoinder to OLPC's xo laptop. Steve Jobs was truly brilliant, and had a unique, rarecombination of geek and design talent. His work represents some of the best moves in technology of our age. Will the next age be even better, with brilliantly designed technology being accessible not only to elites in the rich North, but to the many millions of the rising South?

Telecoms and Education Minister Kapil Sibal said today: "The rich have access to the digital world, the poor and ordinary have been excluded. Aakash will end that digital divide." India has a long history of appropriate-technology design: e.g., the creators of the simputer should also be remembered as precursors to this moment. Even if their design did not directly make it to the commercial market, it is experiments such as theirs that made other steps forward become possible.

2011 Oct 7 Ada Lovelace Day.

http://mindshift.kqed.org/2011/10/ada-lovelace-day-celebrates-women-in-stem/ says:

"many have never heard of Ada Lovelace, even though she’s credited with writing the first computer program. If you haven’t heard of her, here’s some background. Born in 1815, Ada Lovelace was the daughter of the poet Lord Byron, although he had no relationship with her and died when she was only nine. Ada pursued her interests in mathematics, studying with some of the best-known mathematicians of her time. In 1833, she was introduced to Charles Babbage, with whom she worked and corresponded about his early computing machines. She also translated the Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea’s memoir on Babbage’s proposed machine, the Analytical Engine, and in doing so added her own notes to the translation. These notes included an algorithm designed to be processed by the machine — the first computer program."


WASHINGTON, October 6, 2011 - http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:23018750~pagePK:64257043~piPK:437376~theSitePK:4607,00.html

"In a global economy that depends on sophisticated innovation and knowledge to drive growth and wealth, a new World Bank report on higher education suggests that low- and middle-income countries should resist the temptation to establish world-class universities to cash in on research earnings and court global prestige before educating their own citizens to high tertiary standards. According to the new report, The Road to Academic Excellence: The Making of World-Class Research Universities, which charts the experience of 11 leading public and private research universities in nine countries from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe, elite research universities are outpacing the smartest companies in the world with their original research. In one recent global study on new patents, for example, leading universities and research institutions are driving more scientific strides in biotechnology than private companies and firms."