Disruptive technologies have given the old science of onomastics unprecedented powers. Combined with datamining, extracting semantics from names can provide numerous, valuable applications. Though discriminating names carries a high risk of abuse, it can also drive new, unexpected ways for developing poor areas.
Urbanization isn't just about cities. The impact of emerging megacities on the surrounding resources is a growing concern for both experts and local authorities. One shouldn't forget that every large city owes its growth to a generous hinterland, able to feed its inhabitants. The equation is changing. But it still has to be solved.
The open data movement has reached a significant and ever-growing number of states and governments. From New York to Paris, from Nairobi to Singapore, an increasing number of territories offer open sets of data. To fully understand the stakes of this movement, one of the first techno-political ideas to spread at the network speed, one has to track its origins.
A few decades ago, when Africa was crumbling under the burden of debt, economic forecasts were very pessimistic. But the vigorous growth of African economies has proven them wrong. Where does the African growth come from? What are its specificities? What does Africa need to be able to race with other great emerging countries?
Between planned economy and privatization, Chinese capitalism is trailblazing its original path. What will the next twenty years be like? To form an idea, we must go over the course of reforms that have been carried out so far, while taking the full measure of a major phenomenon, which should encompass 300 million more people within a few years: urbanization.
Launched in 2009, the Unique Identification Authority of India is a megaproject mixing the latest information technologies and basic development requirements. Its objective is both simple and ambitious: to provide a unique identity number to all residents in the country. Helping the poorest to access the modern economy and society is an emergency and a key to economic and social development. It is also a challenge, and not only a technical one.
Is the globalization wave starting to wane? Various recent indicators suggest that Western companies have started reshoring manufacturing jobs, those qualified and well-paid jobs that provided a social platform for the development of industrialized countries. But experts disagree on both the magnitude and the meaning of this phenomenon. Only on one fact do they agree: the United States will be the largest lab of the reshoring process.
During its 18th Congress held in last November, the Chinese Communist Party has been discussing the country's economic future. At a time when many questions arise about its upcoming challenges, one must take a look back at the current model. Will the spectacular success of the Chinese economy bring forth a Beijing consensus as a successor to the Washington consensus?
Has international trade come to a standstill with the crisis that started in 2008? Things are not that simple, says the Director-General of the WTO. While protectionist pressures may appear here and there, the real question revolves around the growing complexity of trade and the structural limits inherent to the technique of negotiation rounds undertaken by member states.
The digital revolution is not only a matter of technologies. The players involved can be described as radical innovators, whose work has a direct impact on social exchanges - from friendship to trade. The shock wave is gradually spilling out of our screens and hitting the rest of the economy. The concept of multitude helps us grasp what is at stake.
Companies once viewed corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs with general skepticism and even contempt. How times have changed. Today, businesses around the world, spurred by consumers as well as a rising generation of more socially conscious leaders, are making CSR a priority, embedding it into their operations and using it to attract and keep talent.
Europe's economic crisis continues, and the way it plays out will decide the future course of the world economy. Among those who are trying to steer the continent, and especially the euro zone, away from the edge of the precipice is Christine Lagarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund. She has recommended policies such as deeper economic integration and higher firewalls to turn Europe around. Ms. Lagarde also has the delicate task of restructuring the IMF so that fast-growing emerging economies have a voice in the institution that is commensurate with their increasing economic clout, without alienating other member countries.
The emergence of a cognitive technology disrupts and rearranges the deliberative processes that govern the practices of a given community or society. Such a disruption can have an impact on the architecture of deliberation networks, on the organizations and individuals who participate in deliberations, or on the standards and conventions that structure them. Or it can have an impact on all at once. As for the current digital revolution, one can understand it better considering the previous great historical mutations, paying a special attention to the debates and criticism they have ignited in their day.
After the crucial passage from orality to writing, the invention of the printing press brought about an unprecedented reconfiguration of the circulation of information. The construction of scientific knowledge and political discussion was thereby disrupted, with a progressive expansion of reflection circles. Is the Internet but a new stage?
Thirty years ago, with a few colleagues, a young engineer based in Bangalore founded a software company that was to become a global giant in the world of computing. Last year, Narayana Murthy relinquished his position as president of Infosys. In an interview to ParisTech Review, he re-examines elements that paved the way to success – elements that cannot be dissociated from transformations in contemporary India.
Innovation is the result of constant information exchanges between technology, the markets, an innovation team, as well as other departments of the firm. How can we speed up these exchanges within big companies? Nicolas Bry (Orange – Innovation Marketing Group) suggests creating small dedicated structures led by innovation professionals with specific management methods. Then the question becomes: how to insert their work into group strategies?
There are systematic reasons why elected officials make certain kinds of mistakes over and over. One thing political scientists have discovered by examining the political species is that it shares common characteristics picked up by adapting to its natural environment. One of the strongest motivating forces in this environment is the pressure for reelection. It is precisely this drive for reelection that introduces predictable biases into political decision-making and helps explain governments' paralysis in the face of some very serious problems.
To build a sustainable economy, consuming fewer natural resources, we need to think in terms of growth, not otherwise. The issue of sustainability should be tackled in a dynamic way. By setting a new model for the lifecycle of materials, we can project what the future's economic model could look like.
As a theme, social innovation emerged in the 1960s, driven by management theorists like Peter Drucker and social entrepreneurs such as Michael Young, founder of the Open University. But only in the last decade has it really taken off, by redrawing the sometimes blurry line between business and civil society, one drawing inspiration from the other and vice versa.
In any discussion of strategic thinking in contemporary China, western consultants always cite the wisdom of one towering figure: Sun Zi, author of the celebrated "Art of War". Yet when enquiries are made into the principles guiding Lenovo boss Liu Chuanzi he is quick to proffer "The Little Red Book". He is not alone. Is this a nod of respect toward the tutelary figure of the current regime? No, Mao Zedong Thought remains an enduring influence from Beijing to Shenzhen and revising some of its concepts is of immense value in any attempt to understand the tactical instincts of contemporary China.
