Category: e-governance

Identifying the Unidentified

Raul Zambrano Blockchain, e-governance, Human Development 1 Comment

Identity access and management (IAM) is perhaps one of the areas where Blockchain Technology (BCT) could make a real difference. Research I am currently undertaken indicates that over one hundred BCT startups around the globe are focusing on this area. Add to this number the many other startups and organizations who have been engaged with digital identity for many years now but do not use BCT.1 See this report by OneWorld Identity for details and examples.

Also, factor in target 16.9 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that explicitly calls for universal legal identity provision, including birth registration for all children around the globe.2 Links to other SDG targets are listed here. The ID2020 global public-private partnership is now spearheading these efforts.

IAM

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Endnotes   [ + ]

1. ⇧ See this report by OneWorld Identity for details and examples.
2. ⇧ Links to other SDG targets are listed here.

25 Years of the Sustainable Development Networking Programme, SDNP

Raul Zambrano e-governance, Governance, ICTD, Innovation, Social Innovation Leave a comment

The Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP) was a UNDP global program that ran between 1992 and 2004.  SDNP’s core goal was to enhance access to sustainable development information on a multi-stakeholder basis using new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Its scope of work was driven by Agenda 21, the sustainable development agenda endorsed by UN member countries at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Agenda 21 was composed of forty chapters, organized under four separate headings. The very last chapter of the agenda called for increased access to information for decision-making as one of the means of implementation of the agenda. Adding to its approach the targets of chapters 27 (strengthening non-government organizations) and 37 (capacity building in developing

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Lights Off in Westchester

Raul Zambrano e-governance Leave a comment

Just as with the stock market, weather forecasting is a tricky business. Thanks to one too many inaccurate forecasts, most people seem to be aware of this and usually cast doubts on what weather people tell us, specially when storms of any kind are heading our way. In the Northern Hemisphere, weather talk is also one of the most used ice-breakers to initiative conversations with strangers and acquaintances. And when forecasts are completely off, these informal conversations turn even more lively and, why not, intimate.

The Butterfly Effect

Weather systems are known to be “chaotic” (i.e., non-linear). Chaos theory, initially developed in the late 19th century and formalized as we know it today in the (19)80s,

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