TechPlus+

The Environment and “Socialist” States

1 May 202211 May 2022

Raul Zambrano

Climate Change, Economics, Governance, Human Development, Inequality

Thirty-six years after it first broke the news for the wrong reasons, Chernobyl is back in the headlines thanks to the horrible and absurd Russian invasion. Sixteen months before the well-known Soviet nuclear meltdown of 1986, a plant located in Read more

ICTs and Development Theories – II

15 April 202227 April 2022

Raul Zambrano

Economics, Governance, Human Development, ICTD

Linking ICTs to development External researchers and experts poking for the first time into ICTD might assume that the field has, 30 years after its birth, a cohesive theory on how ICTs impact development. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Read more

ICTs and Development Theories – I

1 April 202227 April 2022

Raul Zambrano

Economics, Governance, Human Development, ICTD

ICTD overview The field of ICTD first saw the light over 30 years ago1 Selected references are provided at the end of the 2nd part of this post. Its overall scope is ambitious as it covers several sectors and thematic 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

State Capacity and Digital Technologies – I

1 March 202222 March 2022

Raul Zambrano

Economics, Governance, Human Development

To the Moon and Back It was my elder sister’s 25th birthday when Apollo 11 landed on the moon. We watched the unprecedented event on B&W TV  – our grandma openly expressing total skepticism. We then went out for a Read more

Hacking Public Policy Making with AI

15 February 20221 March 2022

Raul Zambrano

Artificial Intelligence, Crowdsourcing, e-governance, Human Development

Modern Evidence-based Policy Making (EBPC) has been around for 25 years, imported into the mainstream from the health sector and its success with randomized controlled trials. The latter has now spread to many other sectors and research areas. A few 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

Best Films – 2021

31 December 202114 January 2022

Raul Zambrano

ICTD

The pandemic has been a blessing in disguise, to a point. Many films continued to be available online at the start of the year, but as vaccines increased and panic subsided, theaters started to reopen, albeit not at lightning speed. Read more

Global Wealth Distribution

15 December 20214 January 2022

Raul Zambrano

Climate Change, Economics, Human Development

GDP (Gross Domestic Product), the statistic most frequently used to measure wealth creation in terms of goods and services, has been the subject of critical review for the last 25 years. Green National Accounting (GNA) and the ensuing Green National Read more

A Fuzzy Das Kapital Word Cloud

1 December 202117 December 2021

Raul Zambrano

Economics, Human Development

A few months ago, the top U.S. General was summoned by a Congressional Committee to explain why “Critical Race Theory” was being taught in the military. The General’s response built on the idea that the better one knows the enemy, Read more

Digital Government and Social Leaders

15 November 20213 December 2021

Raul Zambrano

e-governance, Gender, Governance, Human Development, ICTD

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 Read more