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Category: Innovation

Programming – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (maybe) – II

10 April 202318 May 2023
Raul Zambrano
Artificial Intelligence, FOSS, Innovation
Today Expert systems, an integral part of AI from the onset, are one of the best examples of rules-based programming. The core idea is to have a computer system that can provide the same depth of knowledge as top-notch human Read more

Programming – Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (maybe) – I

1 April 202321 May 2023
Raul Zambrano
Artificial Intelligence, FOSS, Innovation
Yesterday I accidentally learned how to master computer programming. I was finishing high school and faced the daunting decision of choosing a study field. As my father was an engineer, I leaned toward the same area. But my passion for Read more

ChatGPT’s New Version

31 January 20234 February 2023
Raul Zambrano
Artificial Intelligence, e-governance, Economics, Innovation
Yesterday, OpenAI released a new iteration of ChatGPT, version 3.5.  To quickly check, I decided to ask some of the same questions I did back in December. The table below compares the results. ChatGPT November 2022 v3.0 January 30 2023, Read more

More Light on Financial Inclusion

20 August 202226 September 2022
Raul Zambrano
Blockchain, Economics, Human Development, ICTD, Innovation
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 Read more

Digital Technologies and Sustainable Development

1 July 202217 July 2022
Raul Zambrano
Climate Change, Economics, Governance, Human Development, ICTD, Innovation
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 Read more

Financial Inclusion and Democratizing Finance – II

10 June 202219 June 2022
Raul Zambrano
Blockchain, Economics, Human Development, ICTD, Innovation
Where are the banks? It seems paradoxical that the mainstream history of micro-finance/financial inclusion does not consider banks.  After all, banks are supposed to “bank the unbanked.”  So banks are not only missing from such a narrative.  They are also Read more

Open Data and Big Pharma

15 May 20221 June 2022
Raul Zambrano
Economics, Innovation, Open Data
In 1980, the U.S. Congress passed the Bayh-Dole Act that modified patent and trademark law by allowing universities and small businesses to own inventions created under the funding of the Federal Government. Its core idea was to expedite the commercialization Read more

More Bitcoin Inequality

15 March 20225 April 2022
Raul Zambrano
Blockchain, Inequality, Innovation
While still prone to seemingly unpredictable dynamics, Bitcoin’s price seems to have found a new center of gravity in the last year. Since February 2021, the Cryptocurrency has oscillated around 4ok per unit, give or take. It peaked at 67.5k Read more

Blockchain Adoption in the Public Sector – II

30 January 20222 February 2022
Raul Zambrano
Blockchain, Governance, ICTD, Innovation
Regulatory frameworks are usually perceived as counter-productive and even nefarious by innovators, pundits and followers. Together they will go out of their way to stop them, arguing that their impact on innovation is lethal, as discussed in a previous post. Read more

Blockchain Adoption in the Public Sector – I

15 January 202231 January 2022
Raul Zambrano
Blockchain, e-governance, Governance, Innovation
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 Read more

Contesting Innovation

15 September 202124 January 2022
Raul Zambrano
Human Development, Innovation, Social Innovation
Innovation is always good. Innovation regulation is always wrong. These are the two innovation axioms we repeatedly hear in unison from mainstream media, innovators and innovative companies, big and small. Indeed, the two are connected. They are, in fact, two Read more

Waiting for yet another Industrial Revolution

5 July 202126 July 2021
Raul Zambrano
Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, e-governance, Economics, Human Development, ICTD, Innovation
The PC revolution. The Internet revolution. The mobile revolution. The social media revolution. The blockchain revolution. And the AI re-revolution. We seem to be living in times of Permanent Revolution. Also reminds me of the Age of Revolution that thrived Read more

Carbon Removal Policies for the U.S?

28 February 20205 March 2020
Raul Zambrano
Climate Change, Economics, Governance, Innovation
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 Read more

Technology and Earth Hacking

10 February 20203 March 2020
Raul Zambrano
Climate Change, Governance, Inequality, Innovation
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 Read more

Blockchains and Food Safety

10 September 201915 February 2021
Raul Zambrano
Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Climate Change, Human Development, Innovation
Trade is one of the main trademarks of the globalization process. Nowadays, most countries exchange products and services regularly and use local comparative advantages to specialize in specific trade sectors and/or commodities. Food and agricultural products are important components of Read more

Measuring Artificial Intelligence Development

3 August 201920 October 2019
Raul Zambrano
Artificial Intelligence, e-governance, ICTD, Innovation
In the last decade, Artificial Intelligence (AI), including siblings machine learning and deep learning, has been growing by leaps and bounds. More importantly, the technology has been deployed effectively in a wide range of traditional sectors bringing real transformational change Read more

Blockchains and Digital ID, II

10 July 201915 February 2021
Raul Zambrano
Blockchain, e-governance, Governance, Innovation
The Evolution of Digital identity The emergence of digital technologies provided the ground to shift from traditional systems based on physical identity. In the past, both foundational and functional identity mechanisms were centralized, with individuals getting a physical document containing Read more

Blockchains and Digital ID, I

20 June 201915 February 2021
Raul Zambrano
Blockchain, e-governance, Governance, ICTD, Innovation
Overview Like previous technologies, such as the Internet, blockchains have been driven by a high degree of techno-optimism not yet backed up by on the ground impact or reliable evidence. Undoubtedly, the technology, which is still rapidly evolving, has enormous Read more

E-government Development I

10 May 201910 July 2019
Raul Zambrano
e-governance, ICTD, Innovation, Open Government
Birth Running on the coattails of the now infamous dot-com bubble, e-government first saw the light of day before the end of the last Millennium. At that time, where hype overtook the tech scene yet again, adding ‘e’ (as in Read more

Biased Artificial Intelligence

6 February 201914 December 2022
Raul Zambrano
Artificial Intelligence, Governance, Innovation
A recent piece in MIT’s Technology Review nicely summarizes the issue of bias in AI/ML (AI) algorithms used in production to make decisions or predictions. The usual suspects make a cameo appearance, including data, design and implicit fairness assumptions. But Read more

Smart contracts are not that smart

15 November 201816 February 2021
Raul Zambrano
Blockchain, Governance, Innovation
Smart contracts are perhaps one of the most touted features of blockchain technology. While the idea itself dates from the end of the last century,  blockchains provided the platform for actual implementation in the Internet era. Undoubtedly, Ethereum was the Read more

ICOs: Endangered Species

12 October 201816 February 2021
Raul Zambrano
Blockchain, Economics, Innovation
As expected, ICOs are finally cooling down. There are several reasons for this. First, ICO oversight by regulators in many countries has substantially increased. Regulators are poking not so much into new ICOs. Instead, they are doing deep dives into Read more

Uncertainty and Artificial Intelligence

20 September 201814 December 2022
Raul Zambrano
Artificial Intelligence, Book review, Economics, Inequality, Innovation
In a world where perfect information supposedly rules across the board, uncertainty certainly challenges mainstream economists. While some of the tenets of such assumption have already been addressed – via the theory of information asymmetries and the development of the Read more

Visa on Arrival

29 August 201824 September 2018
Raul Zambrano
Innovation, On-mission
My passport seems to profess a deep love for visa stamps. Every time the possibility of travel to another country arises, I can hear its excitement of filling yet another passport page with a brand new and (maybe) shiny visa Read more

Learning about Machine Learning

15 August 201814 December 2022
Raul Zambrano
Artificial Intelligence, Innovation
A few months ago, as I was finishing a paper on blockchain technology, I received an unexpected comment on Artificial Intelligence (AI from here on in) from one of the peer reviewers. While addressing the overall topic of innovation in Read more

Have You Ever Seen a Blockchain?

15 July 201815 February 2021
Raul Zambrano
Blockchain, Human Development, Innovation
A silent but intense competition seems to be taking place when it comes to defining blockchain technology. A Google search for the question “What is blockchain” yields over 120 million possible results. This number includes thousands of guides, videos, FAQs Read more

Blockchain Mining Costs and Revenues

15 June 201815 February 2021
Raul Zambrano
Blockchain, Economics, Innovation
In a previous post, I pushed the idea that mining is part of the blockchain economy’s real sector. Unlike financial speculation, mining requires investment in hardware, electricity, space, human resources, etc. This also applies to small miners who will undoubtedly Read more

Checking ICOs, Again

6 June 201819 June 2018
Raul Zambrano
Blockchain, Economics, Innovation
It has already been three months since I last checked the ICO scene. At the time, I suggested ICOs were probably slowing down. New data seems to confirm this but all points to other trends not detected before. Figure 1 Read more

Algorithmic Inequality

15 April 201817 April 2018
Raul Zambrano
ICTD, Inequality, Innovation
Disruptive. One of the attributes that most use to describe in minimalistic terms the potential impact of new and emerging information and communication technologies (ICTs) in society. While its actual meaning can vary from one person to another, disruption is Read more

Blockchain Technology is not a Monolith

8 April 201815 February 2021
Raul Zambrano
Blockchain, Innovation
Many observers seem to assume blockchain technology is an immovable monolith. While such assumption does help when trying to explain how the technology works to the general public, this is not the case when describing the actual status of the Read more

ICO Update: A Slowdown in Sight?

7 March 20189 March 2018
Raul Zambrano
Blockchain, Economics, Innovation
ICO data for last February is now available and shown in Figure 1 below. We can immediately see that both the number of ICOs and the total investment volume has decreased. The latter, which amounted to 1.2 billion USD for Read more

Blockchain Technology and Human Development revisited

22 February 201815 February 2021
Raul Zambrano
Blockchain, Human Development, ICTD, Innovation
I was invited to Canada to discuss my blockchain technology paper. Here are my opening remarks at the panel organized by Government Affairs and IDRC. Speaking about a seemingly complex subject such as blockchains poses a challenge not only for Read more

An Overview of Blockchain Technology and Digital Identity

29 January 201815 February 2021
Raul Zambrano
Blockchain, Human Development, ICTD, Innovation
Like previous digital technologies, such as the Internet, blockchain technology (BCT) has been driven by a high degree of techno-optimism not yet backed by on the ground impact or reliable evidence. Undoubtedly, the technology, which is still in its infancy, Read more

Overall Perspectives on Technology

21 January 201825 May 2023
Raul Zambrano
Human Development, ICTD, Innovation, Social Innovation
Disruptive, transformative and revolutionary are some adjectives commonly used to describe the potential impact of new and emerging technologies on society. Joblessness, human decay, and the Singularity sit on the opposite side, constantly reminding us of the darker side of Read more

ICOs: Crowding-in Blockchains?

27 June 201716 February 2021
Raul Zambrano
Blockchain, Crowdsourcing, Innovation
Nowadays, ICOs (or Initial Coin Offerings) are all the rage. Unlike traditional IPOs, ICOs allow startups to streamline the capital-raising process while at the same time enhancing the number of potential investors.  While venture capital is still part of the Read more

25 Years of the Sustainable Development Networking Programme, SDNP

13 June 201717 December 2017
Raul Zambrano
e-governance, Governance, ICTD, Innovation, Social Innovation
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 Read more

Blockchain Mining: Competition and (de)Centralization

24 April 201716 February 2021
Raul Zambrano
Blockchain, Innovation
“One-CPU-one-vote.” 1 CPU stands for Central Processing Unit, nowadays also known as a microprocessor. From a governance perspective, this is perhaps one of the most interesting phrases included in the original Bitcoin paper penned by a still anonymous author. Could Read more

Blockchain and the Future of Society

24 October 201615 February 2021
Raul Zambrano
Blockchain, Book review, ICTD, Innovation
Alongside artificial intelligence and robotics, Blockchain technology is enjoying widespread popularity around the globe. The surrounding hype seems to increase by the minute. Pundits and supporters see a plethora of applications for the technology not limited just to the financial Read more

App-based Car Services in Guadalajara

4 September 201631 May 2017
Raul Zambrano
Innovation
The last time I visited Guadalajara, Mexico, was in 2011. Jalisco’s Electoral Institute (IEPC in Spanish) invited me to take part in a seminar on technology and citizen participation. Gathering proceedings were published later on and are still available here. Back then, Read more

A “social” history of Bitcoin?

27 January 201616 February 2021
Raul Zambrano
Blockchain, ICTD, Innovation
A recent article by one of its lead developers argues that Bitcoin, defined as an experiment, has utterly failed. While the initial concept was to develop a form of digital money that was completely decentralized and autonomous from any bank Read more
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