For more than a year, we at LIRNEasia have been working on the analysis of images. The NYT story on Stanford researchers working on Google Street View describes the potential well. For computers, as for humans, reading and observation are two distinct ways to understand the world, Mr. Lieberman Aiden said. In that sense, he said, “computers don’t have one hand tied behind their backs anymore.
Two years ago, I wrote this in my year-end message to the LIRNEasia team: The first thing that comes to mind is the book club. Not something that LIRNEasia management initiated, but something that spontaneously emerged. Having learned more from the books that I hid under my desk in school than from formal education, I strongly believe the value of reading. And I happen to also believe that fiction and poetry are perhaps the best vehicles for communicating the most abstract of truths. The business gurus and even the foundations are now going on about the power of stories, another thing LIRNEasia was ahead of the curve on.
The Sunday Times Plus – Review of “Numbercaste” by Yudhanjaya Wijeratne by Rohan Samarajiva “I have long been a reader of science fiction not just for entertainment, but also for insights useful for my research and teaching. After all, the very word cyberspace was coined by William Gibson, a luminary of the cyberpunk sub-genre. I like all forms of sci-fi, but find near-future science fiction the most illuminating. So I not only read, but recommend. A friend teaching about social aspects of ICTs once explained she had trouble following my reading recommendations: the plots were mostly formulaic quests, she said.
The Potential and Challenges for Online Freelancing and Microwork in India India Habitat Center 27 December 2017
What Current and Potential Workers say Presented at the dissemination event India Habitat Center 27 December 2017 LIRNEasia (Helani Galpaya, Laleema Senanayake), together with the team from Vihara Innovation Network (Aditya Dev Sood, Rumani Chakraborti, Mohit Tamta, Tanmay Awasti et al)
Here’s to a refreshing holiday season and lots of great learning and growing in 2018, from all of us at LIRNEasia! Read more about how we have learnt – and helped others learn – in the years gone by in our latest Annual Report.
Dharmawardana, K. G. S., Lokuge, J. N.
Myanmar Times Opinion by Namali Premawardhana Namali Premawardhana’s op-ed based on the ITU’s Measuring the Information Society 2017 report and LIRNEasia’s own survey results has been published in Myanmar’s leading English newspaper, the Myanmar Times. Here are two of the summary paras: Two important aspects of ICT development which the ITU does not address are women and digital literacy. Myanmar’s story of ICT access, use and skills among women and other marginalised communities is less impressive than the broader narrative. The 2016 LIRNEasia data revealed that although more women in Myanmar own a phone now than in 2015, men were 28pc more likely to own a mobile phone. In addition, nearly half of mobile handset owners require help to perform basic activities with a phone, such as installation of an app, creating logins and passwords and adjusting settings.
A senior UN official has blamed the telecoms networks for threatening the road safety across Asia and the United States of America.
It is natural to think of state entities as the key actors in south-south cooperation (SSC) for improving public-service delivery. But as the highlighted example of Bangladesh’s Union Digital Centers (UDCs) shows, non-state actors can play important roles in public-service innovation. If true innovation is the objective, it would behoove the UN Office for South-South Cooperation and other interested parties to cast the net wider to include innovative organizational mechanisms as well as government innovations.
Workshop on ICT Accessibility for Persons with Disability Event for disabled people’s organizations and media 12-13 December 2017 Yangon, Myanmar Myanmar Independent Living Initiative (MILI), established in 2011, is a self-help organization led by disabled persons that has been working at various levels and fighting for equal rights, inclusion and independent living of people with multiple types of disabilities in Myanmar. MILI promotes disability access in employment, education, health, disaster-risk reduction, social-enterprise, social, political, electoral and public sectors. LIRNEasia is a pro-poor, pro-market think tank established in 2004. It has been working on catalyzing policy change through research to improve people’s lives in the emerging Asia Pacific by facilitating their use of hard and soft infrastructures through the use of knowledge, information and technology. Myanmar ICT Development Organization (MIDO), established in 2012, uses Information and Communication Technology (ICT) as a tool for the development of the country by narrowing the digital divide in Myanmar; using ICT for the country’s development and the safeguarding of human rights; and encouraging the emergence of good Internet policies for ICT users.
Better late than never. Why it took multiple decades after the establishment of the Universal Service Fund to spend the money to connect the unconnected in India’s North East is the question. It’s not that there was a shortage of money. Bharti Airtel Ltd will set up 2,000 mobile towers across villages and national highways in the North East with the help of government funding, the company said in a press statement on Sunday. The telecom operator has signed an agreement with the department of telecommunications and the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) to provide mobile services in 2,100 villages across Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and Arunachal Pradesh over the next 18 months.