Session 2!

Brief Summary:

In the development of human kind, there will be exchanges between various communities of people, such as fighting for dominance. Technology is inextricably involved in such human activities and exchanges for these various forms human development. (E.g.: transfer of technology between communities)

Interesting Observations and Ideas:

Different countries dominate different aspects of things, even though we often only identify the country with the best economic records as the key world leader. Hence, we can tap on the various niches of the countries for faster development of humans as a whole. For example, countries learning the crux of each of such successes to improve on themselves at a faster pace.

Another idea brought up by Prof was that a specific event could produce vastly different outcomes (about the plague that hit Russia), which was very interesting. This emphasized that often, it is fear that deters human beings from solving the problem logically. As such, I believe it would be more beneficial for us humans to look ahead and be receptive to new technology.

(I also found it interesting that the British seemed to have everything that came from other parts of the world)

Key take away points:

Attitude is important! Only by being ready for challenges and having a never-give-up attitude is an individual/a company/ a group of people ready for success and be a rising star or dominant player. Even though we discussed about many different types of people being rising stars or dominant players, in the context of technology, I think the logical extension is that people and companies have to be willing and interested to learn new technology, to have an edge against others and subsequently excel in their field.

Another take away point was from a discussion after a student’s presentation (after Eugene’s presentation) that the problem does not always lie with technology companies exploiting the poor. Instead, the government has to put in place some regulations as well to prevent such circumstances from occurring. It raises the important issue that seems to keep arising – technology is not difficult, people are.

Issues for further discussion:

After going home to consider about the MDG (Millennium Development Goals), I was wondering how various technologies could actually help people to attain these goals in MDG faster, even though it may not solve the root problem. For example, for gender inequality, the video showed that lack of education was the root problem. However, use of technology such as computers to search for information by themselves may aid the educating process.

Personal Ratings for Session:

9/10 – I learnt a lot about how human endeavors through history can affect or be affected by technology. I also enjoyed the students’ presentations as there were many new insights and perspectives, such as the new article that Damini introduced to the class. An area that could be improved would be if students presenting could refer to particular excerpts of their articles during the presentation so that we could make clearer links between their ideas and sections of the articles.