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Technology and Development Redux
Best Films – 2022
I read somewhere that 2022 was an excellent year for filmmaking. After all, the pandemic has become endemic (learn to live with it, no matter what). And previous virus constraints have now evaporated. Back to 2019, so to speak. Almost.
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How Green is AI?
Playing Games My father taught me how to play chess when I was nine years old or thereabouts. He played his fair share of games while he was studying engineering. He told me that a few of his classmates quit
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ICTs and Emissions – V
Walking Around the Main Gallery Unlike its basement, the abode’s main gallery is noisy, crowded and chaotic, offering a maze-like layout we need to navigate safely. Indeed, one can easily get lost, and while checking in is pretty simple, finding
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Digital Technologies and Sustainable Development: The Missing Link
Context Nowadays, digital technologies occupy most interstices of society. While the global pandemic exposed glaring gaps, especially in developing countries, avoiding their mantra seems torturous. Undoubtedly, their rapid diffusion in the last 30 years is historical (Comin & Mestieri, 2018).
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ICTs and Emissions – IV
Environmental Footprints As previously mentioned, data centers (DCs) depend not only on energy consumption but also require plenty of water for survival, just like humans. We thus have increasing competition for a critical resource, especially when droughts and wildfires are
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ICTs and Emissions – II
Cyberspace Mansions In 2009, amid the Global Financial Crisis, the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) announced plans to create a 1.2 billion dollar data center (DC) in Utah. Indeed, surveillance once again proved it is immune to economic disasters, regardless
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ICTs and Emissions – I
Digital technologies’ social ubiquitousness is indisputable. Indeed, escaping their mantra seems unreal, almost dystopic, regardless of location or connectivity. The TINA (there is no alternative) principle appears to be entirely at work here. It is thereby paradoxical new ICTs are
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Economic Growth and Sustainable Development
In a previous entry, I explored the connections between digital technologies, economic growth and the environment, using the concept of Sustainable Development (SD) as analytical reference. The figure below depicts yet another way to see the three development outcomes that
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More Light on Financial Inclusion
In a couple of recent posts, I briefly traced the history of financial inclusion and its links to the emergence and diffusion of digital technologies. A recently published book by Nick Bernards tackles the same issue more comprehensively while taking
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Towards a Public Internet?
Memory insists on telling me every so often that the first time I ever used the Internet was at the tail end of the 1980s. A couple of years earlier, the college where I was struggling to finish my Ph.D.
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Digital Technologies and Sustainable Development
1. Overall context Much water has already gone under the bridge on this topic. Yet the flow shows no signs of coming to a halt soon. In the early days of the so-called “Internet revolution,” only a few were connecting
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Financial Inclusion and Democratizing Finance – III
Show me the money The impact of initiatives such as Grameen Bank (Village phone included) and M-Pesa is still under discussion. From a poverty reduction perspective, the effect has been much more limited. Many countries in the Global South have
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