Category: Governance
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Blockchain Adoption in the Public Sector – I
Over ten years after its creation, the hype on Blockchain Technology (BCT) continues to dominate the scene compared to actual implementation. However, that does not necessarily imply it has remained immune to change. At the very onset, Cryptocurrencies, led by Bitcoin, were the main attention magnets. Not surprisingly as, after all, the goal of its…
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Digital Government and Social Leaders
As part of an online course on Digital Government for Social Leaders, I was asked to develop a script for a five-minute animation where an Avatar will introduce the topic and entice the leaders to embrace it as part of their political agendas. The animation introduces the short course and is complemented by a more…
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AI National Policies – III
Policy Evolution Comparatively speaking, AI national policies and strategies have evolved much slower than other digital strategies such as ICT, Digital Government, and Open Data. That might seem paradoxical given the systemic benefits and risks of the revived and now resurgent technology, undoubtedly more significant than any previous innovations. Nevertheless, in the early days, skepticism…
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AI National Policies – II
As mentioned in the previous post, policymakers should skip over the dominant technology-centered AI perspective and instead position AI as a multi-dimensional structure cutting across all sectors. Indeed, national AI policy effectiveness depends, to a large extent, on the AI vision that policymakers adopt. Unfortunately, AI appears almost irrelevant for many policymakers in low-income countries,…
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AI National Policies – I
National policy development on new digital technologies has become a staple since the emergence of the Internet in the early 1990s. It has certainly not been limited to the most advanced countries. Nations in the Global South have also climbed the same steep and now long policy slopes, albeit rarely being leaders in emerging areas.…
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AI Topography
For the last 30 years, the seemingly endless number of so-called technology revolutions invading our expansive yet decaying landscape has been accompanied by a proliferation of wide-ranging publications, usually playing catch-up while trying to predict the future on the spot. That has certainly been the case since the official birth of the Internet. In the…
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Vaccine Inequality
Already under siege in many quarters, Globalization has now added the seemingly unstoppable spread of the Corona Virus to its already dubious credentials. As expected, not one single country has been spared, rich and poor suddenly standing on the same level playing field – a milestone economic globalization never accomplished despite mainstream media coverage tirelessly…
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AI and Development Policies
Strongly supported by behemoth tech companies, the “ethical and responsible” AI discourse has almost completely overshadowed the relevant conversation on the potential socio-economic impact the resurgent technology might have in developing countries. While such discourse’s subtle agenda, apparently now failing, is essentially aimed at avoiding any government regulation by promoting “AI for good,” research on…
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Greater “AI for Good”
The proliferation of top, best, fails and prediction posts on almost any topic is now a staple of the annual transition from one year to the next. As the new year starts seeing the light of day, we seem compelled to take stock of the previous 365.25 days and poke more in-depth into the short…
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Digital Government Governance Models
Governments should fully understand the scope and reach of the various Digital Government (DG) institutional functions described in my previous post and their proper sequencing before they embark on comprehensive digital transformation processes. The policy units’ actual institutional location leading DG processes should result from the analysis of the various functions, not the starting point.…
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Digital Government Revisited – III
Institutions matter, more so for the development and implementation of Digital Government (DG), whose core target is public institutions’ transformation. On the one hand, public institutions should have an array of capacities to ensure public investments in digital technologies are effectively managed from beginning to end. In many low-income countries, such capabilities are exiguous or…
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Contentious Politics in the AI Age
Initially touted as revolutionary and progressive in the 1990s, the lightening evolution of digital technologies, running on the coattails of continuous innovation, has been accompanied by the rise of both extreme socio-economic inequalities and loud and widespread populism, nationalism and overt racism. Many countries are undergoing de-democratization processes undergirded by very resilient neoliberalism, while claim-making…
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Carbon Removal Policies for the U.S?
Founded almost 40 years ago with the financial support of the MacArthur Foundation, the World Resources Institute (WRI) is one of the U.S most prominent research organizations working on environmental issues since its inception. The entity centers its efforts on scientific research and development while explicitly ignoring “ideology” or fostering activism. WRI has a wide…
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Technology and Earth Hacking
Hacking the Sky Low, angry gray clouds, seemingly non-stop light rain and damp breathing air were hometown weather traits that most bothered me when I was growing up. Like most other children, I had a fascination with airplanes and could spend hours watching them. Going to the airport was one of the coolest things –…