Initiative for Interdisciplinary Research

NewsForge Article

2006-08-21T20:58:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to post a link to Tina Gasperson's article on FMM's Article 13 Initiative. Entitled, Promoting freedom of expression with OSS in Chad, here is the first part:

Budding young journalists in the African nation Chad now have access to open source tools, thanks to Five Minutes to Midnight, a organization "devoted to promoting human rights and international issues among the world's youth."

Rafigui is a youth organization in Chad's capital, N'Djamena, that gives young people the opportunity to publish news, features, and interviews about the political and social issues they face. The first two issues of the Rafigui newspaper were handwritten, because the journalists had no way to type or print their stories...

Read the rest here.

Iraq and Fast Food

2006-07-24T23:43:00.000-07:00

The first time I ever read about the political power of fast food was in Thomas Friedman's The Lexus and the Olive Tree. His "Golden Archs Theory" stated that any two countries with McDonald's franchises have not gone to war because of, to keep things simple, globalization.

This thought returned to me today when I was waking up and thinking about the recent violence in Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon. I work in an area with a great deal of ethnic restaurants and always look forward to lunch. Today, I wondered, "How do large-scale political events affect ethnic restaurants?"

The best example, of course, is the War in Iraq, when French Fries became "Freedom Fries" and even French's Mustard brand suffered, though they're not actually French. I wonder - how will the recent violence in Middle East affect fast food chains or small restaurants? Unfortunately, Google Scholar had little to say on the subject, so I began to do my own (extremely limited) research.

Since data on small, ethnic restaurants is scarce, I had a look at the fast food chains' stock prices instead. While I will not theorize how they're related, their stock performance is, at the very least, a grim but very real look at two different parts of the world during major humanitarian crises.

The first event is a bit old - the Ethiopian Famine of 1984/1985. From the beginning of 1984 to the end of 1985, McDonald's and Wendy's stock prices rose by 81.61% and 64.76%, respectively (using adjusted closing prices due to stock splits). Good times for the fast food industry, I guess.

During the War in Iraq, investors would also be happy, if investing in some of the major fast food brands. If you invested on March 20, 2003 (the day the War in Iraq officially began with the Shock and Awe campaign), your returns a year later would be:

YUM: 47.94%
MCD: 89.77%
WEN: 50.06%

Heck, even short-term investors would be happy. If you invested on March 19, 2003 and sold on March 21, 2003, you'd get the following growth rates:

YUM: 1.83%
MCD: 1.34%
WEN: 3.66%

Pretty good, considering that's a two-day period. Everyone seems to have felt good during this time. From March 2003 to April 2003, consumer sentiment rose by 10.82%, while the entire first year of the War in Iraq saw sentiment increase by a total of 23.45% (according to the University of Michigan Survey of Consumers). Happy times.

By no means am I trying to say there's a serious connection between the fast food industry and the US military, but it's interesting to look at the above nonetheless.

Betting With Odds in Your Favour

2006-06-04T18:49:00.000-07:00

Today, I was happy to read Michael Christie's Reuters article, "US hurricane outlook draws betting surge". According to the article, sites like Wager Web allow people to bet on things like hurricane seasons (for example, "Will there be a Category 5 Atlantic Hurricane in 2006?"). Other sites, including Trade Sports and Bet Royal, let you bet on political events.

Ethics, morals, and legal systems aside, my question is whether it is possible to bet in a way where the odds are in your favour?

If you're smart enough, the answer is "yes". I remember reading a Wired article a while back, The High Tech Trifecta, which describes some people's attempts to use computers and statistical tools in horse racing. Maybe the same can be done in other areas as well?

Neural networks are being applied to financial markets, but why not other systems as well? It's all a matter of knowing the independent variables, and making proper predictions. You may not even need neural networks - maybe multiple regressions and other analyses will shed enough light to raise the probablistic expectation in your favour.

I guess this brings on a whole new meaning to "If it's raining on the first Monday of June and you're at your local horse racing track..."

Quantitative Social Science - Follow Up

2006-05-03T16:51:00.000-07:00

In my post on quantitative social science, I provided a link to Harvard's Institute for Quantitative Social Science. Lately I've been finding quite a few of these, and so I must post them here for anyone interested (and my own personal memory).

The first is the International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies and the second is Harvard's Program on Networked Governance. Really interesting, and worth a check.

Social Networks and Policy

2006-05-01T22:40:00.000-07:00

While working on my social networks research, I picked up a book called Social Networks and Social Exclusion: Sociological and Policy Perspectives. The book is a collection of papers written by various researchers, and the one that really stands out for me is called "Public Policy and Social Networks: Just How 'Socially Aware' is the Policy-making Process?" by Vicki Nash.

The paper is interesting in that it helps sum up the rest of the book nicely. The paper promotes the use of social networks and sociology as a whole within policy development. One of her examples is how sending people to jails helps them cultivate negative social networks that provide a negative influence on the people going to jail.

This is like the inverse of Ronald Burt's Structural Holes, where people are told to cultivate their networks to make themselves better targets for promotions, jobs, and other opportunities. Places like jails may do the opposite: create structural holes that make it more likely that people are offered opportunities to commit crime.

This is an interesting concept, and I enjoyed the paper. Perhaps social network analysis does have a place in local / urban / national policy development.

Neural Networks and Stocks

2006-04-30T19:28:00.000-07:00

One of the projects I was working on during my (now-finished) Spring 2006 term at school was an independent research course focusing on using neural networks to make predictions about stock price fluctuations. I finished the paper, and have put it up on the I2R Articles page. Here is the abstract:

This research paper is the result of a three-month-long independent study focusing on the ability of feedforward and recurrent neural networks in predicting stock price fluctuations of companies within the "Consumer Discretionary" category of the Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS). The paper focuses on predictions for Circuit City Stores Inc. (CC) for 1-, 5-, and 20-business day periods through the use of input patterns based on fundamental and technical indicators from the stock market and economy. The project is unique in its focus on companies selling to consumers. The results of the project are promising, with statistically significant results appearing for 1-day single-layer feedforward and Elman networks, as well as networks based on fundamental inputs and predicting for 20-day periods.

The paper goes through a great deal of basics, but also has some interesting results. Feel free to check it out, and let me know what you think by e-mailing me.

RSA Challenge Numbers and Charity

2006-04-18T00:04:00.000-07:00

Quick, factor the following number:

818940976446310466116994155375838490488210798487
300767940190433202040129777850184574334955216072
2830930320497060497494268271232459324324521

Stuck? Here's the answer:

2967592699 *

16041159971726177 *

9683406594781834082081 *

177657837071642497045150632157574121246158056326
39625635138779461455285566441946499425178667

Thanks to IBM and a mathematical tool called a "Quadratic Sieve", the above took my computer a few seconds. While the number was relatively easy because it had four factors, RSA Challenge Numbers are much tougher. So tough, in fact, that RSA is paying money to those able to factor some of these numbers.

I won't get into the math behind them, but the IBM software linked above is built for a grid computing environment, making it easy to split the task. So here's my idea: why not have people donate their computing time to solve these numbers and give the money to charity? People are not always interested in giving money, and through this method, people just donate their computing time. Programs like this exist, but none that I know of that directly result in a donation (all others lead to research).

Just a thought - might be worth looking into this summer.

Neural Grids?

2006-04-04T18:03:00.000-07:00

Now that my classes are ending, I'm getting more time to think about my own projects, and I have another idea. This may already have been implemented, especially by another name. I'll call it a "Neural Grid", though maybe this is what a standard grid computing architecture does...

And the idea? In my work with neural networks I noticed that depending on the initial weight settings, some networks only require a small amount of training cycles to work well. I haven't had the time to analyze how close multiple attempts would be around the correct pattern, but it's possible they could be close. It would be interesting to have multiple computers testing networks at the same time and then combining their results as a committee to decide what their final answer is.

While thinking about this, another thought popped into my head: what about treating each computer as an individual neural network, in charge of detecting certain features or potentially working together to find patterns. The various computers could be interconnected and, like neurons in a neural network, treat each others' responses with various weights.

This could be akin to building a global "brain" that trains itself to detect special types of patterns. Where could that lead? Hmm... If I make it in Java I can set it up on multiple here in my university's labs, without anyone knowing.

Consumer and Investor Sentiment

2006-04-04T02:05:00.000-07:00

A great deal of research goes into analyzing consumer and investor sentiment for economic and financial forecasting. The best free resource with regards to such sentiment - in my opinion - is the University of Michigan's Survey of Consumers, a monthly survey that outlines how consumers feel about products, the economy, their finances, and other details. Really interesting to follow this around, though non-paying subscribers have to wait a few months for results.

I stumbled upon this while working on my neural networks project, and have been incorporating it into my research. As I've been doing this, however, an idea popped into my head. Google News scans articles for various details and groups them -- why not do the same with articles targeting the economy or specific companies, and trying to group them based on the number of positive (or negative words) they use? This could potentially lead to a daily sentiment index for stocks, and may prove to be a very reliable indicator of how a stock will do in the future.

If I get time in the summer, I'll play around with these ideas. I'm fully comfortable with neural networks now, so expect their use in more of the projects on I2R and other things I'm involved in. The report on the neural networks project should be put online in about a week or two.

Quantitative Social Science

2006-03-30T15:56:00.000-08:00

I was reading a few reviews of Duncan Watt's Six Degress of Separation, a book that proposes a way to combine models between small-world networks (groups of interconnected individuals within a corporation or other group) and random networks. I may be completely missing the point, so I apologize. All of the reviews were on the Journal of Social Structure's site, and one comment jumped out at me.

In her review, Martina Morris writes:

"This book poses a real challenge to the social sciences, to get their collective technical acts together. How to do this is an interesting question. But it will require, at minimum, either teaching real social science to undergraduates (so that they come to grad school armed with a theoretical background and we can focus on teaching them good methods) or enticing mathematics BAs into the social sciences (so we can focus on teaching them social theory in grad school)."

I just wanted to point this out, as I believe it's a real problem as well. The more I discuss mathematics with students focusing specifically on the social sciences, the more disheartened I become. While I don't expect students to become well-versied in linear algebra or topology, I do believe that having a basic foundation in statistics, a comfort in solving equations will allow you to understand social problems in a better way.

A great deal of important social science tools are mathematically based. Amarty Sen won the Nobel Prize for his work in social indicators and social welfar, much of which includes development of axioms and mathematical tools for measuring such problems. Even more simply, understanding things like the Human Development Index or Purchasing Power Parity requires a basic understanding of mathematics.

The quote comes from the Journal of Social Structure, but may be applied on a larger scale, and I haven't even begun to discuss the importance of institutes like Harvard's Institute for Quantitative Social Science.

Video Games and Marketing

2006-03-07T17:29:00.000-08:00

Marketing is a very interesting subject, especially when psychology gets involved. I can't help but be intrigued by how much the subject focuses on controlling other people's ideas, desires, and thoughts.

I recently wrote an article for Five Minutes to Midnight where I discuss video games and politics. In this case, I don't mean how many politicians are trying to ban violent video games but rather, how the US military, World Food Programme, and other institutions are using video games to market themselves. By creating high quality video games and letting people play them for free, not only do these institutions get a place in people's homes, they begin to influence their thoughts as well.

Oh well... Back to basic training in America's Army.

Weird World of Economics

2006-02-26T01:44:00.000-08:00

I've been doing a great deal of reading on forecasting of economic and financial data over the last few weeks. This field of study is relatively new to me, but is quite interesting nonetheless. There are a lot of books that focus on the topic of business, economics, and how weird the two are, including http://www.freakonomics.com/ and The Undercover Economist. I've read the first and thought it was great -- the latter is sitting on my desk, waiting for me.

As I've been researching, I've come across my own interesting facts and tidbits... There are three that stand out.

First, CWJ Granger's Forecasting in Business and Economics talks about a "blueprint indicator" -- apparently, some economists believe that by monitoring the amount of sales of blueprints, you can predict investment in the future. Why? Because companies need blueprints to draw up investment plans, and so the two are correlated.

Secondly, the Conference Board's Help Wanted Advertising Index -- the group scans help wanted ads in newspapers to predict how unemployment will be doing in the future. This one is much more sensible than the blueprint one -- I personally like the idea.

And finally, a historical fact in Macroeconomics: Canadian Edition one can learn about Germany's and Britain's "paper weapon". It appears as though both countries planned to print each others' currency and drop bombs filled with this currency onto their streets. Doing so would lead to inflation, causing economic problems.

Welcome to the weird world of economics. Everything makes sense, in its own way.

Reviving I2R

2006-02-20T13:53:00.000-08:00

It is unfortunate, but within the last few months, I have lost track of I2R. This isn't because I lost interest (the research is still going strong!), but because of a lack of time. I am currently working on three research projects, and all are going well. I'm going to revive this blog to post my thoughts and fun things I run into as I research.

To give you an idea of what I'm working on, here are the three projects:

Social Network Analysis: I originally learned about this while writing about the Al Qaeda network and how it may be targeted (articles at i2r.org). I'm continuing this work, albeit in a much more civilian setting, in Toronto, at the University of Toronto's NetLab.
Neural Networks and Stock Market Prediction: an exploration of how two types of neural networks may be used to predict stock market conditions in the consumer staple and consumer retail industries.
Open Source Software for Developing Media: a much more applied technical project that focuses on using open source software to help make newspapers, websites, and other forms of media in the developing world, called the Article 13 Initiative (A13I).

That's what I'm working on. Come back often to learn more.

Non-Secular Economics?

2005-05-14T20:19:00.000-07:00

Friday Morning Reflections at the World Bank is a collection of four essays written by World Bank employees and published in 1991. The book is based on a weekly group meeting where employees at the World Bank met together to discuss the moral and ethical roots of their work. While the essays do not offer any surprisingly new insights into the idea behind combining religion and development, it is still work a read.

The essays have been written by people with very different religious and ethical backgrounds. They show how important religion is, even in secular institutions. While the book is a bit out-dated, it's only 80 pages long - an easy read on a rainy day.

To say that religion and ethical has no presence in economics or politics is naive. Politics is guided by the morals and ideologies of those in power and voters (one would hope). Thus, it is inherently religious, and the sooner we realize this, the better. I am not advocating the acceptance of a specific religious doctrine, but a cultivation of study of the connections between religion and politics would be nice.

Update on Privately Funded Science

2005-05-08T10:55:00.000-07:00

On March 10, I wrote about funding pure science through donations, rather than depending on public funding. In some cases, government funding only supports specific views or goals, similar to Thomas Kuhn's "paradigmatic science".

On May 9, however, the Cosmos 1 project, a prototype ship being launched from a Russian submarine. The project is supported and sponsored by the Planetary Society, Cosmos Labs, Lavochkin Association and the Space Research Institute in Russia. The Planetary Society boasts that the project is being supported by its members, who donate regularly to support space-focused research.

This is a very exciting project. Not only is it testing a technology that may one day make it possible to "sail" in space using gigantic solar sails, but it is testing the technology for the benefit of pure science. If this trend continues to grow, it may be possible to fund more projects in such a way - imagine a society that works to promote science out of its own interest.

Neuroeconomics

2005-05-03T23:58:00.000-07:00

I finished reading Decisions, Uncertainty, and the Brain : The Science of Neuroeconomics by Paul W. Glimcher yesterday, and have to say it was a good and interesting read. I initially picked up the book with the hopes of seeing how cognitive neuroscience can be applied to economics, but the book focuses on the opposite - how economics can be applied to cognitive neuroscience. But this wasn't disappointing by any means.

Glimcher explores the biological sciences and explains that the field of study is on a convergent path with economics. Probability theory, game theory, and many other economic tools being used to explain decision making within society are used in behavioural studies of animals, and other life sciences. He even shows a few models where successful experiments based on game theory have been performed on animals, showing that evolution tends to move towards near-optimal strategies that one can calculate using game theory.

Of course, this doesn't mean neuroeconomics is strictly concerned with using economics in the life sciences. The field works both ways. By studying the brain and developing neural models of decision making processes, can we create more accurate utility curves or create macroeconomic models based on simplified "brains" (neural networks) interacting within a "societal system" in a super computer?

I've found two very interesting blogs on this topic: Kevin McCabe's Neuroscience Blog and Decision Science News. Very good sources of information on economics, behavioural economics, and neuroeconomics.

Viral Marketing and Awareness Campaigns

2005-03-25T20:58:00.000-08:00

In Unleashing the Ideavirus, Seth Godin discusses the idea of viral marketing. He's not the only one aware of its importance, and books like The Tipping Point and, of course, Viral Marketing, discuss the importance of this phenomenon. It's been successful in business, and I believe iPod's success is a recent example (though don't quote me on it). Maybe that's why Apple's television ads just show people dancing - we don't need to be told what an iPod does, because all our friends have one and ours is due to arrive by courier tomorrow morning.

So what is viral marketing? All it requires is the creation of a product or service that promotes itself, and allows its "customers" to promote it by simply using it. Hotmail is a classic example. By letting people send free e-mails with a signature promoting the service, users did Hotmail's promotion for them.

It would be interesting to create a similar, viral marketing oriented concept for awareness campaigns in politics and human rights. Specifically, I'm thinking of the Millennium Development Goals. While organizations are toiling to achieve the goals, citizens in developed nations know little, if anything, about the concept. For example, I've met students studying International Development who were not aware of the Millennium Development Goals, even though these goals will significantly affect their careers and lives.

But what if an organization were to create a project, or product, that promotes the goals in a viral way? What if there was an organization that took marketing of these goals and turned it into a cult phenomenon? What if the next time you're on the subway, your ride is interrupted by an awareness campaign that teaches you about the MDGs, and is so unique that you just have to tell your friends? And what if this "awareness campaign" is one that, by simply telling your friends, you unwittingly become a promoter, and convert your social circle promoters as well?

It's doable. All it takes is the right idea, infusion into a social network, and a couple of days to watch it grow.

These Ideas

2005-03-21T21:15:00.000-08:00

The last few weeks have been a bit difficult in terms of working on I2R and trying to explore the world, as I found out that I will not be able to study mathematics in as much depth as I'd like. My main focus is international development, and the course load is increasing significantly. This has made me a bit devastated, but I am now back on track with working on the projects.

The ideas and research of the past months has been very interesting and motivating. Throughout the entire intellectual journey, I've had a nagging suspicion that there is something more - something deeper - behind society, economics, and life. "Genetic regression", complexity, artificial intelligence, and in-depth knowledge of the social sciences can shed light on this, and as I've continued my research, my belief that this is so has only gotten stronger.

But what is it? What drives the world and humanity, and the subsystems therein? Is a formal proof possible? Not as we know it, but it is possible to show this deeper, intricate world. Mathematically? Maybe. Qualitatively? Definitely.

More research is warranted, but the ideas below show that thinking outside the box, and entering a more complex and dynamic world is the path to do so.

Development Needs a Better Image

2005-03-20T22:50:00.000-08:00

It is difficult to define the term "development", though the connotations are very stereotypical, especially, from my experience, in universities and high schools. If the world is to truly be successful in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and other development targets, it must first make the idea more attractive to people.

The connotations surrounding "development" are not positive to the average person. Hemp-wearing activist-types quickly spring to mind when we think of "helping the poor" or "alleviating poverty". Poorly drawn posters and finding your own non-conformist political opinion come soon after.

With such narrow stereotypes come narrow views. What is "development"? It is post-colonial rehabilitation, and giving up two-ply toilet paper to conserve the Amazon rainforest.

What else could we connect "development" to? Emerging markets; multinational corporations; stock options; capitalism; the World Bank.

While most people would shun such ideas of "development", it is important to note that these ideas are also more powerful that most stereotypical "development" movements. The age-old saying of "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em." comes to mind, and this is true here. Rather than hope for the virtually impossible demise of MNCs, GICs, and SAPs, those promoting "development" should learn to use them to their advantage.

There's nothing wrong with credit, and there's nothing wrong with investment.

Science Through Donations

2005-03-10T22:03:00.000-08:00

Space Daily reports that NASA may be cancelling a number of older missions, including the ones that still keep the Voyager spacecraft running. These satellites are some of the oldest launched by humans, and are at the edge of the Solar System. This is not right.

While an argument to decrease funding could be made, completely shutting down the Voyager missions would be a devastating blow to science and the romantic nature of astronomy. These missions still return useful information, and if shut down, will require another thirty years of planning and waiting if we are to launch new satellites so far. Furthermore, with the flagrant record that NASA and the ESA have had with regards to satellites, the ships would probably fail.

Keeping the Voyager mission running, according to the article above, only requires $4.2 million a year. Such costs are so low that it may actually be possible to fund them through donations. If done, this could start a completely new era for science - public, non-governmental donations fueling research that people deem interesting? Sure, it could work - if fans are paying to keep their favourite shows on the air, why not this?

Emerging Markets and the Knowledge Economy

2005-03-04T22:58:00.000-08:00

The New Scientist has a special feature in its February 19 to 25 issue on India's economy. The country is doing extremely well in terms of science and technology, and this is why so many people are worried about outsourcing in the United States.

It's interesting to note some predictions that say India may be able to develop by skipping the industrialization process and developing a knowledge-based economy instead. This holds great hope for the country, and may be a positive sign for nations in the developing world. While some "development" plans aim to industrialize and expand resource exploitation, it may be possible to promote knowledge based economies, outsourcing, and research to make nations competitive.

Not only is this a ray of hope for those living in poverty, but is also a good sign for the environment.

A Place for Neural Networks?

2005-02-10T20:59:00.000-08:00

In my opinion, neural networks are some of the most interesting tools in computer science and other fields. Their applications are enormous, and it would be interesting to see how they can be applied to political issues.

While this sounds far-fetched, there is some research being done in this area. Journal articles are hard to come by in this area, but things like mathematical analyses of hostage situations and viewing terrorist organizations as chaotic structures are topics you will find in international relations journals. Another subject is mathematical sociology.

What about applications to political, or even economic, issues? The interesting thing about neural networks is they can theoretically find patterns that humans may overlook. With systems that have much too many variables for people to actually contemplate (i.e. economic systems, the stock market, civil wars), a complex neural network just may be the answer - or a means to one.

Avian Influenza Networks

2005-02-07T22:13:00.000-08:00

The World Health Organization has released dire predictions about the amount of deaths Avian Influenza can cause. While the numbers are extremely high (up to 1.5 billion deaths), there is one interesting factor in all of this - infectious disease networks.

In Linked, Albert-László Barabási explores networks and makes reference to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The disease spreads through a number of ways, including sexual contact and sharing of needles. As such, one can model its spread through the use of social networks, as the only way one can get the disease is if one comes in contact with someone who has it.

Can the same apply to Avian Influenza? I believe so. Once a highly infectious strain of flu evolves, the first person to be infected will infect a number of people, who will in turn infect more, and so on. This is a network phenomenon, and as in the case of SARS, those who travel a great deal or come in regular contact with a large number of people will spread the disease quickly. Preventing those from getting the disease will slow the spread, though doing so will be difficult.

One interesting characteristic of networks is that they often appear with the "Power Law". Let's say you have a function, f(x) = y. Let x represent the number of people that caused y number of infections per person. For example, if x = 10 and y = 30, it means 10 people caused 30 infections each. Graphing such information will show you that f(x) is a curve exhibiting exponential decrease: one or two people caused a large number of infections, three or four a bit less, than a few dozen even less, and so on.

Yes, this is a mathematical model and yes, if Avian Influenza does as much damage as some predictions say, it will follow this model.

Modelling the Stock Market

2005-02-01T15:37:00.000-08:00

"Not really random, but so complex it might as well be," is what usually springs to mind when thinking of the stock market. Finding patterns in the system is something challenging many people, with the incentive being a range of interests in the markets, or simply wanting to earn a heck of a lot of cash.

A recent article published on New Scientist, called "'Zero intelligence' trading closely mimics stock market" says scientists have been able to mimick the London Stock Exchange through the use agents who trade randomly (to put it simply). The article also has a link to a previous one, entitlted "Virtual brokers forecast real stocks", which supports the idea that the stock market, and other complex systems, can be modelled through the use of multi-agent systems.

It is possible to call the stock market chaotic, but saying it is random may be going too far. With thousands of people trading daily, it is difficult to find patterns in the system because there are so many variables and so many unknowns. However, by making a few correct generalizations, it may be possible to learn something. A lot of the lessons in the goal of finding order in the stock market can also be used elsewhere, with economics and even internatonal relations being two areas who stand to benefit.

And even if it is all random, one interesting aspect of "randomness" is that it is self-similar. Random variations look similar whether you look closely and move back and look at the big picture. Paradoxically, maybe this is the "order" we are all so interested in finding?

Digitizing the Developing World

2005-01-31T22:23:00.000-08:00

The Red Herring has an interesting article on "The Hundred-Buck PC". A noble idea, and one that follows well with C.K. Prahalad's The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. By making low-cost products that can be marketed to the poor, a company can make a great deal of money and also help develop those at the bottom of the societal pyramid. Whether or not this is ethical is beyond the point.

One question I have is how accessible this portable computer will be. In terms of $100 per PC, it's still out of reach of most poor people, though using it to create community centres or kiosks seems to be feasible. I'd be interested to get a hand on one of these computers and test their durability.

Language requirements are another important question. Most of the developing world doesn't speak English and many people are illiterate. If more people get access to this technology, internationalization of software will become an important factor. And for this, I recommend a solution that uses XML-based User Interface representation languages (open source, of course) that will allow volunteers to translate interfaces into local languages. It's doable, and with MIT, Google, and other companies expected to work on this project, it can set a standard for the IT industry.

Welcome

2005-01-30T23:41:00.000-08:00

The Initiative for Interdisciplinary Research (I2R) is a project I've been trying to start for a few months now. Originally a mentorship program for high school and university students and available at http://www.i2r.org, the site and program is going through an identity crisis. I set a goal of having a complete business plan for I2R by August 31, 2005, and this blog will be where I post research, thoughts, and brainstorms.

While I do not know much about what I2R will be, I'd like it to be either a business or some sort of institute or laboratory. Either way, it will deal with promoting interdisciplinary approaches to today's problems - by fusing mathematics and computer science with the social sciences, it will be possible to learn more about people and humanity, and help the world become a better place.

That's all for now, but I hope to update this page regularly with articles, ideas, and so on.