But then I’ve been thinking about universities much, much longer. Are they the appropriate vehicles for driving innovation in emerging economies, let alone inclusive innovation?

The answers would be different if the question were asked about the American model of the university? To a certain extent, the American university, even a place like Reed College which is focused on undergraduate liberal arts education, is a good platform for innovators. Just read Steve Job’s famous commencement speech.

As Nannerl Keohane states:

This way of learning has several distinct advantages: It’s insurance against obsolescence; in any rapidly changing field (and every field is changing rapidly these days), if you only focus on learning specific materials that are pertinent in 2012, rather than learning about them in a broader context, you will soon find that your training will have become valueless. Most important, with a liberal education you will have learned how to learn, so that you will be able to do research to answer questions in your field that will come up years from now, questions that nobody could even have envisioned in 2012, much less taught you how to answer.

One would assume that the research universities like Stanford, where Jobs gave his speech, are better platforms for innovation. On the outside, yes, it so appears. But in reality, actual innovation occurs in organizations and locations that are part of the university’s eco system, but are not necessarily controlled and directed by the university. I am reminded of statements like every university department being a collection of small businesses, rather than an integrated, coherent organization. We all set our research agendas, decided what we would teach and what we would not, and so on. These things were not centrally controlled.

The question before us is not innovation by or in US universities. It is about the role of emerging-economy universities in innovation.

The questions then are whether our universities have created the kinds of environments that would allow a Steve Jobs to emerge and innovate, and whether, in contrast to the “collection of small businesses” model of the US, our universities are capable to directing the energies of faculty to produce innovation.

My answer to the first question is an emphatic no. The answer to the second question is more complicated. It is tempting to support the central control of the work of faculty because they are so unproductive now. But if this is done in a creative enterprise, is there no danger that the creativity will be stifled? You may be able to get them to write more research articles or teach more students. But innovate? No.

LIRNEasia hasn’t worked extensively on the topic since our 2008-20010 research cycle, when our Research Fellow, Eriwin Alampay explored mMoney applications in the Philippines as well as the overall issues with respect to regulation (Financial and Telco) of such services. We even did some rapid response work, when Sri Lanka’s Central Bank expressed  their intentions to come up with new rules regarding financial transactions using mobiles. Chanuka subsequently critiqued the less-than-ideal regulations that eventually came out.

Two years on, what I saw at the event was that the breadth and depth of applications for financial transactions through mobiles had increased, yet the regulations that have come up still leave much to be desired by way of financial inclusion for the unbanked. The same arguments that took place then about whether it should be a bank led or mobile led model still seem to be in play. Disappointing indeed. But there is hope. Pakistan seems to have come up with collaborative model, using a third party switch(es) that would connect multiple telecos and multiple banks. Since this happend only last month, I still don’t have all the details, but what I appreciated was the apparent lean regulatory approach with clearly bifurcated responsibilities for the State Bank (Pakistan’s Central Bank) and PTA (the regulator) in terms of oversight and dispute resolution. One hopes our Central Bank is keeping an eye on the developments there.

The other issue that goes to the heart of the financial inclusion debate vis-a-vie mobiles, i.e. KYC [Know You Customer] requirements, still seems to be an issue, with different countries taking different approaches. I hope they can converge on a multi-pronged approach to KYC, with different levels of KYC for different transaction limits, so that the poor who will transact with lesser amounts don’t have the same burden of paperwork that prevents them from having bank accounts in the first place.

The story was about an award. But what I noticed was the role of telephones in the story. The award winning innovation is not just one new thing; it is a collection of process improvements. Critical elements involve phones as easy ways of contacting mothers on the one hand and health workers on the other.

Without the phones, would the innovation have been possible? Without the innovation, would the increase in immunization rates have been possible? Without the increase in immunization rates would it have been possible to save lives?

Without the reforms, would there be phones? Would it be possible to assume that all health workers could be reached, and that the mothers would have phone numbers to give when being registered?

These benefits, it appears, far outweigh the millions of dollars generated by the telecom industry for government.

Even better, imagine if you could email a letter to the post office, pay for the stamp online, and never set foot outside of your door? You could send mail digitally, with minimal fuss. People still like receiving letters, if it wasn’t such a pain sending them we might do it more. All of these are simple innovations which barely even amount to innovation at all. They would just bring the post office up to the operating level of a modern teenager.

The Internet boom
On a broader level, the Internet boom in America saw renewed business for the post as people began ordering more from Amazon and eBay and online delivery sites. Sri Lanka looks poised to see a similar boom in eCommerce, but few trust the Postal Service to deliver. Most local eCommerce start-ups I’ve talked to consider courier services (either their own or outsourced) their first resort. To a degree this is natural (even the US Postal Service has lost out to UPS and DHL), but if the Sri Lanka Post was even slightly proactive, they could at least get into the game.

The column.

Contrary to the declarations made at the G20 summit meetings in earlier years, the world leaders seem to have finally given up on the possibility of concluding the trade talks within the parameters on which they had launched them as a single undertaking. At the G20 Summit meeting held in Cannes on November 3-4, 2011, the leaders had recognised that ‘it is clear that we will not complete the DDA if we continue to conduct negotiations as we have in the past’. At the APEC Meeting on November 12-13, 2011, while expressing deep concerns at the impasse confronting the Doha Development Agenda (DDA), the leaders similarly came to the joint assessment that ‘the reality is that a conclusion of all elements of the Doha agenda is unlikely in the near future’. Likewise, at the MC8, there was consensus that ‘it is unlikely that all elements of the Doha Development Round could be concluded simultaneously in the near future’. On the way forward, both the G20 and APEC meetings have called for fresh, credible approaches for furthering negotiations.

Analysts are expecting Nokia to rapidly reassert its relevance in the smartphone market, which it had largely to itself before the 2007 introduction of Apple’s first iPhone. Over the next 12 months, Nokia will expand its smartphone market share more than sixfold, to 12.2 percent, overtaking Research in Motion, the makers of the BlackBerry, according to I.D.C.

By 2015, Windows and Nokia will be the world’s second-largest smartphone operating system, I.D.C. estimates, with 21 percent, trailing Google’s Android, with 47 percent, but ahead of Apple, with 19 percent.

“What people are underestimating is how much operators in Europe and elsewhere are beginning to support and push Windows phones,” Mr. Jeronimo said in an interview.

Report.

As I wrote in a column in November, people will soon be able to download files of physical objects and print them out at home. Although being able to print out a new mug or toothbrush at home sounds magical, I said that there would surely be copyright problems that occur as a result of this technology’s going mainstream.

This theory struck oil this week when the Pirate Bay, a notorious peer-to-peer file-sharing Web site that is a source of free copyrighted music and movies, said it was creating a new download section on its site that would enable people to freely take files a 3-D printer can recreate into physical things.

The possibilities are sketched out in a piece I wrote two years back, but has still not come out in print:

Gone were the days of massive manufacturing plants that made lots of identical things that were then transported to far places at great cost and damage to the environment. Instead, goods were now produced through decentralized smart manufacturing processes that were controlled from central design centers at the nodes of massive data networks. Instead of making the same thing in millions of copies, the new manufacturing allowed customer input into the design process in ways that made supply follow demand, not vice versa. The relentless pressure to drive down transaction costs that emanated from the budget telecom network model that South Asia pioneered stood the region in good stead. Combined with the paradigm of design for extreme affordability that drove corporate strategy in the region in first few decades of the 20th Century, it gave South Asian tortoises an edge over the Chinese hares that had prematurely got locked-in to old style mass production.

In 2009, Dr. Hossain was assigned to two districts where immunization rates were 67 and 60 percent, respectively. In 2010, they were 85 and 79 percent. These rapid improvements were the result of Dr. Hossain’s innovative approach to running an immunization program. He instituted a process of registering pregnant women with their expected date of delivery, location, and phone number, so vaccinators knew when children were born, where they were, and an easy way to contact their mothers. He provided annual schedules for vaccine sessions to make vaccinators more accountable to the community and had the vaccinators put their phone numbers on the children’s immunization cards, so parents with young children could get in touch with a health worker. These may seem like small innovations, but they show how looking at old problems in new ways can make a profound difference. Improvements like these are spreading to other locations because of the commitment and creativity of Dr. Hossain and many others like him. Delivering lifesaving vaccines takes the dedication of many well-known players like GAVI, the World Health Organization, and UNICEF; government officials; and perhaps most importantly hundreds of thousands of heroes on the frontline like Dr. Hossain.

What I love about this story is the simplicity, almost banality, of the innovation. It’s just better record keeping and follow up. Nothing that a Patent Office would recognize as an innovation. But it is considered worthy of a Gates Foundation Prize. And it involves, centrally the mobile. Not a telecenter, not a subsidized device, but the standard mobile connection that today one can assume among the poor.

The Za­mbian government has confirmed expectations and will renationalise the local mobile network, Zamtel, which is 75% owned by Lybia’s Lap Green Networks.

The government has also dissolved the board of directors and appointed its own interim CEO.

Zamtel’s bank accounts were also frozen last week in an allegedly unrelated investigation into money laundering claims, which the company denies.

The previous government sold the 75% stake in Zamtel to Lap Green Networks in 2010 for US$257 million – a figure which the then-opposition claimed was substantially below the book value for the company.

Story.

TAX BADS RATHER THAN GOODS A good rule of thumb is that when you tax something, you get less of it. That means that taxes on hard work, saving and entrepreneurial risk-taking impede these fundamental drivers of economic growth. The alternative is to tax those things we would like to get less of.

Consider the tax on gasoline. Driving your car is associated with various adverse side effects, which economists call externalities. These include traffic congestion, accidents, local pollution and global climate change. If the tax on gasoline were higher, people would alter their behavior to drive less. They would be more likely to take public transportation, use car pools or live closer to work. The incentives they face when deciding how much to drive would more closely match the true social costs and benefits.

Economists who have added up all the externalities associated with driving conclude that a tax exceeding $2 a gallon makes sense. That would provide substantial revenue that could be used to reduce other taxes. By taxing bad things more, we could tax good things less.

I can agree with him on gasoline. The decision makers in most South Asian countries appear to agree as well. They tax the hell out of gasoline.

My gripe is re mobile telephone user charges. Why are they being taxed excessively? Therefore, they are being consumed less. Why? Do the governments think the use of mobile phones is a bad? No need to say it is good; just be neutral. Treat it like anything else.

But I hope I am wrong and that there will be real implementation. A low-hanging fruit is bilateral lowering of roaming charges and termination charges for calls from Sri Lanka to India and vice versa. We have been waiting for SAARC to implement these things, much easier if India and Sri Lanka show how it can be done.

Sri Lanka and India have signed an agreement to set up a mechanism of technical and institutional cooperation in telecommunications. It aims to develop telecommunications in both the countries particularly in the areas of technology and access to telecommunication services, a statement from the Indian High Commission said.

The deal covers oversight of service provision, convergence, next generation networks, new technologies, spectrum issues, number portability, and economic regulation, it said.

“It’s one of the last areas on the Internet where there really isn’t anything yet that addresses core needs for this group of people,” he said, adding that “trillions” are spent each year on global scientific research. Investors are betting that a successful site catering to scientists could shave at least a sliver off that enormous pie.

Dr. Madisch, of ResearchGate, acknowledged that he might never reach many of the established scientists for whom social networking can seem like a foreign language or a waste of time. But wait, he said, until younger scientists weaned on social media and open-source collaboration start running their own labs.

“If you said years ago, ‘One day you will be on Facebook sharing all your photos and personal information with people,’ they wouldn’t believe you,” he said. “We’re just at the beginning. The change is coming.”

At present, the structure and dynamics of the internet is such that the intelligence is at the edge of the network, with only the header of the IP packet being referred to as it traverses the network. With DPI, service providers can scan the payload segment of the packet in real-time and handle in differently, based on pattern recognition.

The article refers to 3 arguments that supports the internet’s end-to-end structure:

The authors model a framework for technology-aware policy analysis (based on the ACI, Actor-Centered Institutionalism framework) to understand the dynamics between actors, interests, political interactions, influence of institutions etc. The ACI framework deals with real actors who are guided or influenced by cognitive interactions and institutions (subject to hierarchical decision making and so on), where technology is the output, not the input. The challenge lies in explaining how technologies affect the subsequent decisions of socio-technological system. With technology-aware policy analysis, the technological change is the trigger of the policy output with it’s potentially disruptive nature, actors, institutions and interactions between the players affecting the policy process.

DPI can be applied in numerous cases such as bandwidth management, content regulation, copyright enforcement, targeted advertising, government surveillance and network security. The authors apply their framework to actual cases within the bandwidth management and copyright enforcement use cases that highlight the instances where technology determines politics and vice-versa. However, the cases within this paper are confined to western societies and democratic governments. Therefore, there is potential for enhancement and further research in to the forces affecting the policy process and internet governance of developing world.

“Let us be clear,” the White House statement said, “online piracy is a real problem that harms the American economy, threatens jobs for significant numbers of middle class workers and hurts some of our nation’s most creative and innovative companies and entrepreneurs.”

However, it added, “We will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”

The bills currently under consideration in Congress were intended to combat the theft of copyrighted materials by preventing American search engines like Google and Yahoo from directing users to sites that allow for the distribution of stolen materials. They would cut off payment processors like PayPal that handle transactions.

The bills would also allow private citizens and companies to sue to stop what they believed to be theft of protected content. Those and other provisions set off fierce opposition among Internet companies, technology investors and free speech advocates, who said the bills would stifle online innovation, violate the First Amendment and even compromise national security by undermining the integrity of the Internet’s naming system.

Development research is also like that. The true effects may be seen 25 years later, but by that time the unit that funded the research may no longer exist. The Information Science Division of the International Development Research Centre of Canada (IDRC) supported Dr Ravindra Fernando to establish the National Poison Information Center somewhere in the 1980s. Here is testimony in 2012 from someone who had no direct contact with IDRC about its effects:

As a young intern in the early 1990s, working in a Base Hospital in Nuwara Eliya, we had to treat many patients who arrived in hospital after poisoning. They were mostly poor people working in the estates or who were in vegetable cultivation. Poisons, especially insecticides and weedicides were household items for many of them. Some died, especially those who came late to hospital, but many survived.

Relatives of those who died gradually accepted the fate of the deceased; they said it was the wish of the gods. They thanked us for our heroic efforts, often in the middle of the night to save their kith and kin.

For the families of those who survived, we were the gods who performed a miracle. It was the humble gratitude of these poor people who kept us going. Little would they have known that it was not us but science that saved their lives. The science on the principles of management of poisoning was put into pen by the renowned academic and the most senior Professor of Forensic Medicine of the University of Colombo, Prof. Ravindra Fernando who was also the pioneer who started the National Poisons Information Centre many years ago.

And the reviewer goes on to describe the author, including the funding support from IDRC. The Information Sciences Division is no more. The program officer who approved the project has long moved on. But the fact that Canadian tax payers’ money continues to save lives is acknowledged.

No review of a book is complete without a few words on the man whose pen was behind the writing. Professor Ravindra Fernando, my beloved teacher, qualified as a doctor with M.B.B.S. (Ceylon) from the University of Sri Lanka in 1975. He passed his Diploma in Medical Jurisprudence (Clinical and Pathology) London in 1980. He also has the degrees of FRCP from the Royal Colleges of Physicians, London, Edinburgh and Glasgow, FRCPath.(UK), MD (Sri Lanka), FCCP and FCCGP. He is the recipient of WHO Fellowships on ‘Medical Education’. He has over 80 academic publications and presentations to his credit and has written over 15 books, published in Sri Lanka and abroad.

He has held many prestigious positions including as the President of the Asia Pacific Association of Medical Toxicology, the founder Secretary General of the Indo-Pacific Association of Law, Medicine and Science, President of the Sri Lanka Medical Association, President of the Ceylon College of Physicians, President of the College of Forensic Pathologists of Sri Lanka and the Chairman of the Board of Studies in Forensic Medicine, Post Graduate Institute of Medicine, University of Colombo. Most of all he is the Father of the National Poisons Information Centre, which he established in the General Hospital, Colombo using funds mobilised from his own personal efforts through the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Canada and other donors.