Gross National Happiness - Putting It First

Synchronicity or coincidence or karma, call it what you will: international examples of computing being adjusted to support societal values (as opposed to the other way around) are presenting themselves.

One of the first cases I ever learned about turned traditional software engineering on its head and inspired me to write my book on socially beneficial computing. The story was about a team of computing professionals from New Zealand and Peru who collaborated on an Andean poverty alleviation project. The way in which they creatively conducted requirements gathering and specification development was a stunning example of respecting traditional cultural values yet raising living standards, addressing environmental problems and seamlessly integrating modern computing technology.

The Peruvian project was a localized example of adaptive software engineering; an article in the most recent Communications of the ACM (CACM)* takes the idea national, discussing how an entire country (Bhutan) is demonstrating that exploitation of people and the environment is not an inevitable result of technological development.

As author Richard Heeks, Director of the Centre for Informatics Development at the University of Manchester (UK) explains, Bhutan is successfully placing "Gross National Happiness" ahead of "Gross National Product". Even though I have just finished reading a book on different economic value systems and even wrote about it (see my last post) it took me a few minutes to wrap my head around this concept (Gross National Happiness? Meaning...?). Fortunately, Heeks anticipates my Western mindset-produced difficulties and starts at the beginning. He discusses the concept of happiness, how it relates to economic development and in particular to 21st Century digital communications.

Putting happiness first is not easy, but it doesn't appear to be any harder than putting other things first (e.g. short term financial profit). It is all about where a society is coming from and what it chooses to encourage and discourage. It doesn't mean a society can't be a vibrant part of the 21st Century global community. Although Heeks only mentions it in passing, perhaps because it would distract from the points he is trying to make, the underpinnings of Bhutan society are Bhuddist (Mahayana, for those familiar with the branches). Heeks avoids a religious discussion and focuses on historical background and current implementation of modern digital technology initiatives.

Whatever your range of interest, there are several truly fascinating aspects to what is happening in modern Bhutan. If you want concrete examples of a growing, competitive society that puts human and environmental welfare first, here they are. If you want to ponder how the Buddhist religion can interact with computing, you have food for thought. (So intriguing; I'm pondering the idea of writing a post on the subject). If you want to learn about a very different model of progress in the developing world, here is your opportunity. Interested in Eastern society and computing beyond what has been written about well known countries such as Japan, China and India? Want some fresh ideas about development (in all its meanings), technological infrastructure, 21st Century global technology? Looking for a research project?

One short article; one small country. A lot of food for thought and ideas about positive directions we can go with computing.


*"Emerging Markets: Information Technology and Gross National Happiness" Communications of the ACM, April 2012, Voll 55, No. 4, pp 24 - 26

Computing and the Reduction of Global Conflict

I came across some creative examples of university faculty who are using computing for societal benefit. I located these faculty through podcasts produced out of New Zealand by "The Sustainable Lens". One faculty member is taking an empirical approach to studying factors that promote peace.

A broadcast from 5/13/11 profiles the work of Juan Pablo Hourcade at the University of Iowa. Hourcade earned his doctorate in Computer Science with a focus in HCI. One of his goals is to convince people in the computing field that computing technologies can be used to reduce global conflict. He recognizes that a key to making the study of peace acceptable is to apply empirical scientific methodologies to the research. There are many aspects of this work. One of the most fascinating is the mining of masses of data to identify factors that increase or decrease the chances of conflict. These data are drawn from a myriad of sources including: demographic, historic, financial and economic, supply chain analysis, social and human condition, gender and inequality, environmental stress, social stress, and consumer behavior data. The power of computing is also leveraged to provide transparency of connections between individuals and transactions.

Computing is used to identify the factor(s) that matter the most in supporting or reducing conflict and are drawn from contemporary and historic sources - some going back several thousand years. Predictive modeling has a role as well. Visualization renders complex results easier to understand (there is a small pun in there by the way). The precision of computing provides the ability to zero in on the interaction of critical factors, providing the all important empirical (rather than philosophical) basis for making large scale policy decisions. Hourcade also discusses at some length implications for personal decision making.

Using known information about human psychology, Hourcade talks about how social media can be actively used to promote compassion - which he claims psychology has shown is key to reducing or altogether avoiding conflict. Social media can be used to bring together people who might see things from different perspectives. Psychology refers to this as reducing personal distance, a proven highly effective method of promoting the "humanization" of those who appear threatening but do not necessarily need to be so.

Although he only touched on the topic in one sentence during the interview, my ears perked up when Hourcade said he saw a role in conflict reduction for electronic voting systems. As I have learned through researching this topic for my book project (here is an earlier post I wrote about internet voting), electronic voting is incredibly controversial and often promotes passionate conflict! I wish there had been more time in the interview to pursue Hourcade's view on the role of electronic voting.

Hourcade made the interesting observation that there has been a significant amount of research in the computing field into ways to improve warfare and very little research aimed at reducing it. Good point.

Why not put the power of computing to work for the cause of global conflict reduction?

Is there any plausible reason not to pursue this line of research?

What ideas do you have about why computing research for peace has not been explored as much as say...economics? (Much of the data comes from the same sources.)

Interdisciplinary Potential in Academia - New Zealand

Coincidences, coincidences. The Chronicle of Higher Education has a report on the potential for interdisciplinary work in academia in New Zealand. QUITE the contrast with the information in the US centered article I posted last time. Very cool to run these back to back and more food for thought!

Here, again, is an excerpt, with the full link below (also accessible without a subscription):

"The Conference was organised by two groups of early and mid-stage career researchers, the Oxygen Group and He Waka Tangata, with the explicit aim of mixing together the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities together productively and fostering dialogue between them. I know – we’ve all heard that ambition before. But what was remarkable about this conference is that it was working.  People from very different backgrounds mingled together quite happily without the usual tensions and petty snobberies that can typify attempts to bring different branches of knowledge together, all in the name of producing more innovative work."


The URL is ferociously long, so I hide it behind this nice little link to the article.