United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP), and their Asia Pacific Information Superhighway (AP-IS) initiative, might consider offering their member states: A set of tools and methodologies for technology stewards to assess their own E-Resilience in their organizations and communities; then, supply the quantitative and qualitative findings to include in an AP-IS database for researchers and practitioners to use in analyzing national, cross-boarder, and regional strategies for addressing E-Resilience. Best-practices for developing community centered communications networks with options for reliable and proven back-haul and interconnection; along with their resilience to various disaster, geographic and socioeconomic constraints. Guidelines for building Business Continuity – Disaster Recovery Plans (BC-DRPs) that comply with emergency communications requirements; taking into consideration survivability & availability and Rapid Restoration of Access to Telecommunication (RReAcT) programs These were three key recommendations contributed to the 2nd session of the AP-IS steering committee and WSIS regional review meeting held 27th & 28th September 2018, UN Conference Center in Thailand. The event was a precursor to the Committee on Information and Communications Technology & Science, Technology and Innovation, Second session. The main contribution, of my talk, was to cover E-Resilience: i.
When the first set of AfterAccess results were analyzed, we found that women in India were 46% less likely to own a mobile phone than men. We publicised this information in the country as the widest gap among all 16 countries surveyed at the time. The media lapped up the story resulting in an immediate direct policy win for LIRNEasia. 
The "AfterAccess: ICT access and use in Asia and the Global South" report was released in New Delhi, today.
A former Google engineer named Colin Huang has developed an online shopping app named Pinduoduo in China during 2015.
The search for a silver bullet ICT solution for low/volatile prices for agricultural produce continues, even when it should by now be evident that there is none. What matters is the level of supply and demand when the crop is ready to be harvested. We have great difficulty in foretelling the future. ICTs can, as the Economist points out, result in faster and wider dissemination of misleading or irrelevant information such as what is everyone growing at this particular time. What is relevant is the price that will be fetched when the crop is harvested, which is determined by supply and demand at that time.
Both English and Burmese leaflets are available below:
The Social Science Section of the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science organized a symposium to discuss the Sri Lanka Singapore Free Trade Agreement, signed in January 2018. Given it has been six months since this legal instrument binding two countries was signed in the Presidential Secretariat, I sought to explain the politico-economic context within which these kinds of agreements are being negotiated and signed. The slideset that I used is here. The audience was sparse, indicating the atrophied state of social science in Sri Lanka. The knowledge of trade agreements even among the panelists left much to be desired.
In April 2018, LIRNEasia’s Team Leader for Big Data Sriganesh Lokanathan traveled to New York to speak at UN Head Quarters. Here is what UN Global Pulse had to say about his speech. “You cannot fix what you cannot see,” said Sriganesh Lokanathan, Team Leader, Big Data for Development, LIRNEAsia. He argued that no one actor can achieve the promises of big data alone, and that the only way in which responsible and inclusive innovation can take place, is through collaborations and accountability by all stakeholders. He also underlined the importance of developing the capacity of citizens around the use of big data.
Pew Research, based on the Global Attitudes Survey, reports that 22 percent of the adult population in India owned a smartphone in 2017. This finding mirrors the findings of our AfterAccess surveys conducted in India
In an overview of studies on India in the United States, Devesh Kapur of the University of Pennsylvania has some less than complimentary things to say about RCTs. They mirror some of my comments about systematic reviews here, the next layer of RCTs, though I do not say anything about the benefits to reseachers like Devesh does. By contrast, there has been a considerable increase in India-related work in the social sciences. The field has become much more empirical and India offers several advantages for a researcher: large sample sizes, heterogeneity in multiple dimensions, relatively low cost of gathering data, and weak official oversight (which, in any case, is unlikely to be enforced). It would be hard to do many of these trials in the US or China.
Since 2016, we at LIRNEasia have had a strong engagement with the post-conflict Northern Province. In my role at ICTA, I was invited to inaugurate the incubator space established by the Northern Chamber of Information Technology on 26 June 2018. The seven-hour one-way journey did not justify a single event. So we crammed in a whole series of interactions, including a structured discussion organized by our partner Jaffna Managers’ Forum. Among the invited senior professionals and politicians were the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, Provincial Council members, senior academics, etc.
Here is what I wrote about Smith v Maryland and the third party doctrine two years ago. The US government’s justification for the collection and use of telephone metadata pertaining to US citizens by the National Security Agency (NSA) exposed by Snowden was based on the third-party doctrine, derived from the above judgments (Savage, 2013). A 2013 decision from the District Court of the District of Columbia (perhaps the most important, because Washington DC is within the District) attracted significant attention because it explicitly contradicted the Smith rationale, stating that the surveillance of meta-data in 2013 was qualitatively different from that which was decided in 1979. However, a subsequent decision by a District Judge from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court responsible for oversight of the National Security Agency’s surveillance activities reaffirmed the third-party doctrine. Until the various appeals work their way up to the Supreme Court, Smith v Maryland will continue as the ruling precedent in the US.
There is little doubt that China has made achievements in the telecom sector. Their reforms were based on managed competition between state-owned companies. Now we will see the model replicated in a poor country. It will be good to see if it will work. In addition, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced that the state operator would be split in two in order to foster greater competition in the market, saying: “There will be two telecom corporations and shares will be sold in both.
Two years ago, when I presented a paper on Myanmar’s policy challenges at the LKY School of Public Policy in Singapore, the key point that came up in discussion was what role of the military would play in the fourth operator. What we speculated is coming true, according to Frontier Myanmar: It is unusual for a country’s military leaders to attend the launch of a telecoms company. But at the launch of Mytel, Myanmar’s fourth telecoms operator, around 50 high-ranking military officers were in attendance, including Senior General Min Aung Hlaing and Defence Minister Lieutenant General Sein Win. Lieutenant General Tran Don, Vietnam’s Deputy Minister of Defence, also attended the June 9 ceremony. Telecom International Myanmar Company Limited, which operates under the brand name Mytel, is 49 percent owned by Viettel, which is wholly owned by Vietnam’s Ministry of Defense.
Google alerted me that a new article had been published on Upgrading Myanmar’s internet connection by the well-funded and hyperactive A4AI. I had the alerts on because I’ve been working in Myanmar since 2012. I was surprised. The article reminded me of what the lawyers in the Attorney General’s Department in Sri Lanka call a balloon opinion. The words are there.
Helani Galpaya was one of the keynote speakers at a GIZ-organized event in Berlin, Germany on the 14th of June 2018.