Author: Soraj

I teach philosophy at the International Buddhist Studies College, Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University. I am also Research Fellow at the Center for Science, Technology, and Society, Chulalongkorn University.

Categories
Craig Smith

Vesak

Vesak:

Buddha’s Unfinished Business in Thailand

By Craig Warren Smith

On May 9 the moon over Bangkok will be bright and the streets empty.   Why?  Because in 1950 the World Fellowship of Buddhists arbitrarily decided that the moon’s fullest day in May would each year mark Buddha Day, what Thais call Visak.

So what does Visak mean for Thais this year?  It is tempting to answer: time to go shopping.

Hmmm.  Filling up one’s shopping cart at Siam Paragon may not be a good way to celebrate the legacy of the Sakya prince who for over 2500 years has inspired the civilized world to look beyond material pleasures to find the deeper meaning of their lives.

Instead, Beyond that Thais – particularly the country’s leaders — should consider three compelling factors that make Buddha Day relevant to Thailand today.

  1. EDUCATION:  Shedding its status as a religion, Buddhism is being reborn as a secular learning process called “mindfulness.” Mindfulness is an essential skill for every Thai, not just monks.  It could bring new life to Thailand’s antiquated educational system.

At a time when Asians get their values from the West, that are surprised to learn that Westerners increasingly get their values from Asia. America is Buddhism’s new Mecca.  It started about 40 years ago,  when Buddhist adepts from Southeast Asia, Korea, China and Tibet found San Francisco as their new watering hole. As these separate Asian cultural influences canceled out each other, Buddhism spread through US universities and emerged as a secular philosophy called “mindfulness,” a sophisticated way of training the mind which has replaced the West’s idiotic fixation on Freudian psychology as a way to cope with stress.   At least 1,000 peer-reviewed journals explain how health care systems can achieve their aims more quickly, less expensively and more ethically if they incorporate mindfulness into their therapies.

But stress-reduction is not all that mindfulness can do. Some of America’s most prestigious neuroscience labs have produced functional magnetic resonance images that prove how mindfulness can make the brain more pliable (they call it by the fancy word “neuroplasticity,”) and therefore a basis for interactive learning. “Learning how to learn” is a 21st century art, says the Dalai Lama. One of his students,  the best selling author Dan Goleman explained that mindfulness is the key to “emotional intelligence,” suggesting the more than cognitive skills are involved in learning.  Like Goldman, MIT Professor (and AmericanBuddhist) Peter Senge has sold millions of books proposing that educational systems be remade into mindfulness-inspired “learning organizations.”   He says mindfulness presents a shield against addictions.  Thais could use mindfulness to tackle alcohol, sex and smoking addictions.

  1. THE ECONOMY:  A Buddhist philosophy called “sufficiency economy” is not just an ethical plaything of the monarchy.  It could be the key to a distinctly Thai approval to economic stimulus:  mindfulness help revive GDP while at the same time halting mindless consumerism and lessen global warming.

It may be a good thing that that ASEAN Summit in Pattaya didn’t happen.  Thailand did not offer its own home-grown model of economic stimulus to offer to their ASEAN partners.   “Buddhist economics,”  a term introduced by EF Schumacher in 1973 refers to the notion that, after meeting basic needs,  economies need not be geared to endless consumerism but to the cultivation of fundamental human values.  His Majesty the King embraced this notion, renaming it Sufficiency Economy.  Thanks to the Crown Property Bureau, Sufficiency Economy is becoming part of the national education curriculum, but it could go further to become the basis of economic transformation.   The Thai National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB) should take notice.

  1. DEMOCRACY:   Mindfulness is a key to strengthening citizen participation in Thailand and, by so doing,  solving the tug-of-war between red and yellow shirts.   Democracy could grow from the bottom-up.

Democracy isn’t just about “one man, one vote,”  a notion that can be corrupted through vote buying and debased through crass populism.  Democracy works when citizens participate, rather than wait for government to fix things. As noted by the Dalai Lama,  Buddhism is ultimately democratic in that it focuses on helping each citizen make his own free choice about how to find happiness.

Thai democracy has been high-jacked as a political slogans by red shirts and yellow shirts.  oriented and Yellow-shirted coalitions.  The Thai government should take a cue from Paiboon xx, the former deputy prime minister,  by

Again, the question of how to bring interactive learning to the village level through mindfulness practices should be a serious topic for the NESDB,  who could formulate an economy based on technology-assisted interactive learning in which mindfulness becomes a driving force.

WHERE TO START?

The Prime Minister should ask the Education Ministry’s Commission on Basic Education to bring mindfulness into the school curriculum.  He should ask the Science & Technology Ministry’s NECTEC into a design center for software based on  mindfulness principles. He should ask the National Telecommunications Commission for regulations  that cause Thailand’s mobile operators to bring mindfulness learning applications to cell phone users in Thailand.

To fulfill the meaning of Visak,  leaders of Thailand must offer an alternative to the vapid “lifestyle” concepts promoted to consumers.   The life choices of the Buddha lead not  to consumerism but to happiness.   Thus, Visak offer the course-correction that Thai society needs.  To be stewards of the Buddha’s own vision,  they must bring this lifestyle into the 21st century using all the tools at our command.

Craig Warren Smith, is the Director of the Meaningful Broadband Working Group at Chulalongkorn University. This month he is the resident meditation teacher in Amanjiwo,  a resort located near the ancient Buddhist temple Borobodur, Indonesia. www.amanjiwo.com.

Categories
bioethics

Research Ethics in Thailand

I am now in Singapore attending an international conference on “clinical research ethics.” My presentation is about the existing structures and emerging issues about research ethics in Thailand. Enjoy.

Categories
information technology

เทคโนโลยีกับความสุข

บทความเรื่อง “เทคโนโลยีกับความสุข” ซึ่งเป็นส่วนหนึ่งของโครงการ Gross National Happiness สามารถดาวน์โหลดได้แล้ว

Categories
conference

Social and Ethical Dimensions of Information Technology

การประชุมวิชาการ “มิติทางสังคมและจริยธรรมของเทคโนโลยีสารสนเทศ”
ห้อง 105 อาคารมหาจุฬาลงกรณ์ จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย

15 กรกฎาคม พ.ศ. 2552

******************************************************************

กำหนดการ

8:45 – 9:00 พิธีเปิด

9:00 – 9:45 “Buddhism and Information Technology”
ศ. ดร. สมภาร พรมทา

9:45 – 10:15 พัก

10:15 – 11:00 “Blogging and Thai Society: Unleashing Potentials and Perils in a Troubling Democracy”
ผศ. ดร. พิรงรอง รณะนันทน์

11:00 – 11:45 “Impacts of the Social Network in Thai Society” ผศ. ดร. ภัทรสินี ภัทรโกศล

11:45 – 12:30 “The Philosophy of Creative Commons and Open Source Movement” รศ. ดร. โสรัจจ์ หงศ์ลดารมภ์

12:30 – 13:30 อาหารกลางวัน

13:30 – 14:15 “Information Technology and the Threat towards a Surveillance Society in European Countries: Some Lessons for Thailand?”
ผศ. ดร. กฤษณา กิติยาดิศัย

14:15 – 15:00 หัวข้อจะประกาศภายหลัง
ผศ. ดร. ดวงกมล ชาติประเสริฐ

15:00 – 15:30 “How Data Can Survive Over the Internet World”
นายวศิน สุทธฉายา

15:30 – 16:00 พัก

16:00 – 16:30 หัวข้อจะประกาศภายหลัง
นางสาวพิมลพรรณ ไชยนันท์

16:30 – 17:15 อภิปรายทั่วไป

Categories
Craig Smith

Return to authenticity

Eastern Buddhism may find some cures for technological and scientific materialism from Buddhism’s new homes in the Western world

Published: 31/03/2009 at 12:00 AM

Newspaper section: Outlook

http://www.bangkokpost.com/leisure/leisurescoop/14293/return-to-authenticity

At a time when many Thai Buddhists are feeling increasingly hopeless over clerical apathy, monks’ acts of misconduct and society’s fierce worship of materialism, contemporary Buddhism in the Western world may help to provide some innovative answers.

At least that is what Prof Craig Warren Smith believes. Currently in Thailand as a visiting lecturer at the Chulalongkorn University Centre for Ethics of Science and Technology, the former professor at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University says reformers in various professional fields in the West have drawn their inspirations from Buddhist mindfulness.

“In management, for example, Edward Deming drew from Zen monastic practices to formulate Total Quality Management in the 1980s,” he says. “More recently, MIT professors Peter Senge and Otto Sharma drew from Zen Buddhist principles to bring ideas about ‘learning organisations’ into management.”

Meanwhile, Robert K. Greenleaf helped to establish the field of corporate leadership through his book Servant Leadership which conveys principles of Mahayana Buddhism.”

Concurrently, the Shambhala Institute has been a gathering point for those who wish to link Buddhist meditation with management, while Daniel Goldman, a student of HH the Dalai Lama, introduced the concept of emotional intelligence that has had wide application in management and education, says Prof Smith.

In economics and development, His Majesty the King’s ‘sufficiency economy’ and Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness can be traced back to E.F. Schumacher’s famous Small is Beautiful, which has a chapter on Buddhist economics.

Similarly, many of the “thought leaders” in the field of sustainable development are practising Buddhists or are influenced by Buddhist ideas, he says.

“Nobel laureate in economics Amartya Sen’s Development as Freedom also drew heavily from the Buddhist kingdom of Ashoka to criticise the Lee Kuan Yew (Singaporean) doctrine of authoritarian economics that has been embraced by China and other Asian countries,” he adds.

In health care, Sogyal Rinpoche’s Tibetan Book of Living and Dying has greatly influenced health care professionals’ approach to the experience of death and dying.

“Many concepts of wellness and preventative medicine also involve mindfulness training,” he adds.

Among the pioneers in this field is Jon Kabat-Zinn of the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Himself a meditation teacher, his introduction of stress-reduction techniques through mindfulness practices 20 years ago have now become widely accepted.

Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama’s interaction with leading neuroscientists has led to the formulation of a field called contemplative neuroscience that links neuroscience innovations with Buddhist practices, he explains. In the field of education, he names the Naropa Institute as a main driver of contemplative education in the West which was later welcomed by educators around the world.

Buddhism, he adds, has helped to shift the focus of educational reform from formal education to the shaping of informal learning processes and inner growth through mindfulness. Many thinkers have also drawn from Buddhism for their critiques of modern science for glorifying matters while disregarding the mind.

One of them was Francisco Varela, who passed away in 2001, he says. “He was an innovator in biology with a Harvard PhD who drew from Buddhist principles to criticise the scientific method.” Apart from setting up “first person science” based on Buddhist abhidharma and sutras as well as Western phenomenology, Varela also founded the Mind and Life Institute,which mixes Buddhist viewpoints with science.

Another leading critic of mainstream science is Alan Wallace. A former monk and translator for the Dalai Lama, his works help to deconstruct the sanctity of mainstream science by exposing “scientific materialism”. These pioneers are part of the contemporary Buddhist movement in the West that Prof Smith is also part of. An expert in the field of spiritual computing, he is working with the technology labs of many computer giants to bring Buddhism-inspired principles into the design of next-generation software to answer the spiritual needs of surfers.

All these reformist initiatives are a result of the West’s embrace of core Buddhist teachings and practices in the past century. When planted on Western soil, which does away with the cultural influences of the East, contemporary Buddhism is forced to return to the essence of its teachings and tradition to reveal and uproot materialism.

In modern times, such materialism is the union of technology/science/consumerism. Following in the footsteps of Buddhism’s age-old tradition, contemporary Buddhism in the West seeks to undo this union. Buddhism in the West has emerged not as a quiescent movement but has become a positive force and an instrument of reform, he says.

“It expresses itself in largely hidden ways through innovative ideas and methods that are transforming society. “These innovative ideas are now impacting Asia. And it is causing reformers to draw upon Asia’s Buddhist roots in new ways,” he adds.

Categories
Craig Smith

What is Shambhala?

A Lecture in Chulalongkorn University’s “Buddha in the 21st Century” Series, March 25, 2 pm, Room 708, Boromratchakumari Building, Faculty of Arts, 7th floor, Chulalongkorn University.

Shambhala is an ancient secular tradition with outer, inner and secret aspects — at once intended as a method of achieving a harmonious social order and a way of quelling discord in one’s mind.

Shambhala has long fascinated Westerners since it was first discovered by the British Theosophical Society more than 100 years ago. Pioneers such as Madame Blavatsky called it “shangri-la,” a romantic lost kingdom that popularized in books and films, such as “Lost Horizon” and “South Pacific”. In fact, it is a serious spiritual method, connected with Tibet’s robust folk tradition, e.g. the legend of Gesar, and Buddhist tantras, such as the Kalachakra. Though pre-Buddhist, the tradition of Shambhala is the hidden teaching of some of Tibetan Buddhism’s most significant contemporary exponents, such as the late Chogyam Trungpa and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Relevant to the “Buddha in the 21st Century” lecture Series at Chulalongkorn University, is that Shambhala does not emphasize the attainment of individual enlightenment. Rather, it fosters “enlightened society,” and it explicitly aims at using “spiritual warriorship” to achieve a radical course-correction in social systems that have lost their balance with nature.

Shambhala principles are conveyed by the organization Shambhala International, which has 175 meditation centers around the world, including one located in Bangkok. Though this organizations, teachings of Shambhala are expressed to the public by means of a series of weekend programs, called Shambhala Training, to be introduced in Bangkok for the first time April 3,4,5 http://bangkok.shambhala.info

Prof Craig Warren Smith, a Senior teacher of Shambhala Buddhism, now in residence at Chulalongkorn University’s Center for Ethics of Science and Technology will present the lecture. For more than 20 years a Shambhala training instructor, he will lead the upcoming training in Bangkok, which will include the participation of Chulalongkorn’s professor Dr. Soraj Hongladarom as guest speaker.

His lecture March 25 will overview of Shambhala teachings and suggest how and why Shambhala principles are currently being embraced as a complement to conventional Buddhist practice.

Categories
happiness

Web 2.0: Toward Happiness and Empowerment through Interactive Technology

Web 2.0: Toward Happiness and Empowerment through Interactive Technology

Soraj Hongladarom

Department of Philosophy and Center for Ethics of Science and Technology

Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University

Introduction: What is Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is a new development in the World Wide Web. According to the Wikipedia, the term ‘web 2.0’ refers to “a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites, wikis and folksonomies — which aim to facilitate collaboration and sharing between users.” Its use first became widespread in 2004, after the first O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference. Actually, ‘web 2.0’ does not refer to any advancement in technological details, but it shows more how the internet and the technologies of the World Wide Web is used so as to reflect social interaction and the ability for users to share information which was not actually feasible with the way the Web was used before. According to Tim O’Reilly, “Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2).

Many websites that we are familiar with today employ the web 2.0 concepts. A clear example is www.youtube.com, which could well be regarded as the very embodiment of the idea. Youtube does not contain any information on its own. The millions of video clips on its website do not originate from the people who designed the site and put URL on the internet, but from the millions of users worldwide who share the clip with one another. We might look at youtube.com as a huge free market where people come in from all corners to share their information. In the previous incarnation of the Web, what we might conveniently call ‘web 1.0,’ the idea is that information is created and disseminated to the users by the content providers and the webmasters, and the users are in most cases little more than passive consumers who can only choose which chunk of information they would like to get and which one not, but they do not have the power to share their own information with the outside world without themselves becoming webmasters. Web 1.0 creates a wall between the webmasters and the users. Webmasters create, maintain and disseminate information, and the public consume it. With the web 2.0 concept, on the other hand, the line between webmasters and the users has become significantly blurred. The function of the webmasters in youtube.com function, not as ones to choose which video clips should be shown on the first page, which ones on the second and other inner pages, and so on, but the role of the webmasters has almost become invisible, making sure that things run smoothly and that the overall look of the website is pleasing and functional, etc. In short, the role of the webmasters changed from that of ‘masters’ to being more like ‘servants’ who stay out of the limelight and are always there and ready to help.

In this brief paper, I would like to discuss how the web 2.0 concept could be conducive to happiness. As happiness is notoriously a difficult concept to pin down exactly, what I am focusing is rather empowerment of the local communities. As a technology that supports social networking and sharing of all kinds of information, web 2.0 will be instrumental in promoting happiness that is a result of such social empowerment. However, before that vision can be reality, many obstacles need to be overcome. These obstacles will be identified in the course of this paper and I will provide some attempt at showing how they can be eliminated.

Open Source, Open Society and Web 2.0

The web 2.0 concept aligns itself perfectly with that of open source. In software terms, ‘open source’ means that the source code of a particular program is publicly accessible and is intentionally released to the public so that anyone who has the expertise can have a look in order to study it and make improvements. The only requirement for open source is that once one revises and improves on a code, one is bound to publish one’s own revisions and announce this to the public. This is to ensure that any revisions and improvements will be fed back to the system so the benefits still belong to the public. The open source idea is diametrically opposed to the normal practice of most software businesses, which jealously guard their source codes as trade secrets. This ‘proprietary system’ or ‘closed source’ implies that the source code, the very heart of software, belongs to the company as private property. Nobody except for authorized personnel within the company who owns it has the right to open up a piece of software and to do anything with it. Once a user has bought a piece of proprietary software, he or she in effect has agreed to be bound by its terms of use, which in most cases involve the agreement not to tinker with the source code, if they do have the ability to crack open the software get to the inside.

Another well known website illustrates this viewpoint very well. Wikipedia.org is a very widely used online encyclopedia in the world today, and its startling feature has always been that anybody has the right to share their knowledge and expertise with the world by uploading their own contribution to it, thus adding what they know to the global community, adding a share of knowledge for the benefit of everyone. The basic idea of the open society is that every individual is equal, and that idea is also reflected in the wikipedia conception. Knowledge is shared among everybody in the world, and definitely it is not the prerogative of some privileged few.

The open source system is much aligned with open society. According to Karl Popper, an open society is one where there is a system of tolerance, accountability and most of all transparency in information management. A government is open when anybody can monitor its functioning and when it can provide justifications and reasons for its action. This is opposed to governments in closed, totalitarian societies where governments are not accountable to the people, nor are they any transparent in its dealings. In this sense, there are a lot of affinities between open source software system and open society. In the open source concept, there is a system of trust and willingness to share the good with everybody in the community. The authority functions more as one who facilitate things so that the good is brought about in the most efficient manner possible so as to ensure that everybody does have a chance to enjoy the good, rather than hoarding the good to a privileged few as is very often the case in closed societies.

What is crucial here is that open source critically depends on open society. This is a point that seems to be much overlooked by software developers. But in a society where there is no freedom to innovate and no freedom to share information without any restrictions, it is very difficult to image how open source software system can even get started. On the other hand, promoting open access and openly sharing systems such as web 2.0 websites could well lead to more open societies, because, as history has shown many times, maintaining a healthy, democratic society requires that information be fully accessible and fully shared. This is precisely the objective of web 2.0

Web 2.0 and Happiness

So we have now come to the central part of the paper. I would like to show that there is a link between web 2.0 and happiness. Let us note, however, that the term ‘happiness’ here is used here not in the usual psychological or economic sense of ‘subjective well being,’ but in a more ancient and more spiritual sense of cosmic order and harmony. Rationale behind this is rather complex, and at least requires a full paper of its own. However, the idea, basically, is that by equating happiness with subjective well being, the moral dimension and the spiritual side of the matter is left out. One can be ‘happy’ when one is only satisfied with the material consumption. But as all religious traditions point out, this is not adequate at all, and there is obviously more to happiness than mere consumption. What web 2.0 can offer in promoting happiness is that, by allowing people to network together and by allowing them to express themselves to their communities, the technology allows for a level of happiness that has hitherto been rather difficult to achieve. Happiness can be achieved here only it is understood as something that arises when one fulfils one’s goal and one’s sense of ‘belonging’ to something that is greater than oneself, something more akin to Aristotle’s ‘good life’ (eudaimonia) rather than mere consumption of material goods. At any rate it is hard to see how material consumption would have anything to do with social networking, so if happiness is equated with the former, then one would indeed by hard pressed to see how web 2.0 can lead to happiness at all.

To put things in more concrete terms, web 2.0 creates a level of happiness by ensuring that information is shared in an open and transparent manner. As happiness is better understood as a harmonious working relationship between the inside (individual preferences, etc.) and the outside (social and physical order of things), web 2.0 does promote it through becoming a lynchpin of open society. Hence there are strong logical connections between open source software (such as web 2.0), open society and happiness.

Web 2.0 in Thailand

There are a number of websites in Thailand employing the web 2.0 concepts. The most successful one seems to be www.pantip.com. This very popular website functions as a forum where members come in and engage with their fellow members of every imaginable topic, ranging from politics (a very heated section) to art and entertainment, to religion (another heated place), and pet care and so on.

Opening page of http://www.pantip.com/

Another interesting website is http://gotoknow.org/, a site that collects a large number of ‘weblogs’ or ‘blogs’ contributed by the members. Both pantip.com and gotoknow.org are ranked among the most popular websites in Thailand:

http://gotoknow.org/

What these two websites share in common is that, firstly they are operated mostly by their members. All the content is provided by the members, and the so-called ‘webmasters’ are in fact facilitators who make things running but impose no heavy hands on the directions where the content is heading. However, there may be some restrictions, especially in the case of pantip.com, as when the exchanges (mostly about politics) tend to get out of hand and when the directions of the discussions might risk offending someone or breaking the law. Otherwise the idea is that any content whatsoever is fair game.

These two websites clearly show that Thailand appears to be heading in the right direction as far as the use of web 2.0 concepts is concerned, but now the problem is how many people in Thailand are actually using it. Considering the statistics prepared by the National Electronics and Computer Engineering Center (NECTEC) showing that the total number of internet users in Thailand hover around 12 percent in the year 2004,1 this is not quite satisfactory. It is indeed true that happiness does not necessarily depend on how many people are getting connected, but without any level of appreciable internet access, it is hard to imagine how happiness is going to be achieved, at least when we consider the kind of happiness that has been the subject of our discussion so far in this paper.

Conclusion

So to conclude. The major question that will concern policy makers in the country for a foreseeable future is: How could Thailand foster the design principles for web 2.0 technologies that actually promote happiness and human development? This question is important because design is indeed crucial if any policy attempt to broaden the people’s participation in the internet world is to bear fruit. I think a first priority for the design should be that the users should be kept in mind from the beginning. Technologies are meant to answer the people’s wants and needs, and anti-technology rhetoric notwithstanding, we in the twentieth century simply cannot leave without it. And I am firmly convinced that the path toward happiness would not be feasible without some kind of ingenious technological design that is accessible to everybody and that allows for the full flowering of everyone’s potential. Web 2.0 seems to be doing its job in this regard, as we have seen. However, many obstacles still remain, as in Thailand only less than fifteen percept of the population are connected to the Internet. And even if we carefully consider the prime examples of Thai web 2.0

Another thing that deserves no less serious attention is the potential clash between local values and the global web 2.0 websites such as youtube. The recent incident between the Thai government and the website concerning the portrayal of the Thai king illustrated that the clash could get downright serious, resulting in the whole youtube.com website being shut down and inaccessible throughout the country for a consideration period of time. This clash in value needs to be fully addressed and deliberated. What global websites such as youtube need to consider is that they cannot take their own system of values for granted. However, this is a very delicate and complicated matter. We have to be well aware of the possibility that local values might trump over global ones, resulting in parochialism and the syndrome that occurs when one country is always arguing against ‘interference’ by outsides (which in many cases are only justifications of brutality inside the country). On the other hand, we also need to be careful that the so-called global system does not fully dominate everything and every local corners, which could result in the same thing.

1 Thailand ICT Indicators 2005: Thailand in the Information Age (Pathumthani: NECTEC, 2005), p. 27.

Categories
Craig Smith public policy

Mobile Musing

MOBILE MUSINGS

By Craig Warren Smith

craigwarrensmith@hotmail.com

Founder of the international movement to close the Digital Divide and a former Harvard University professor,  Prof Craig Warren Smith is now in residence at Chulalongkorn University’s Center for Ethics in Science and Technology.  His column Mobile Musings is a regular feature of Database.

Obama Shows How Broadband Could Stimulate the Thai Economy

After using the internet to install himself as US president,  Obama’s  next step is to show how the internet can empower the rest of us.  The Kingdom of Thailand should take notice.

Soon,  ASEAN nations will announce regional economic revival plans under His Majesty’s shadow in Huahin.  As host, Thailand could bring the  transformational exuberance of Obama’s First Hundred Days to Southeast Asia.  After eight disasterous year of declining US influence, it is ok to learn from America again.

As soon as Obama was elected,  the hordes of rowdy, grassrootsy, internet-savvy Americans who were responsible for Obama’s election,  immediately went to work formulating a “New New Deal”  The term refers to a revival of President Roosevelt New Deal work relief progam of the 1930s. Just as the old New Deal built highways,  the new approach put the 21st century superhighway (broadband) into a starring role in the US stimulus package.

Of course,  the Obama broadband promoters have a lot of competition.  They must compete with fear mongers.  Like Arnold Schartzenegger,  who in movies is a bold action star but in real life he is a wimp who says California will sink into oblivion unless the feds bail them out with big bucks.  He and 19 other USA state governors ask for a $1 trillion from the feds. The US steel industry’s moguls are also holding out a tin cup, requesting another $1 trillion.  Since the too-big-to-fail argument worked so well for the auto industry,  all the other pooped-out industries are standing in line.

In contrast to the fear mongers,  the broadband-promoters rely on hope. See http://www.barackobama.com/technology.   They fit directly into the inspiring “yes we can” optimism that Obama’a  expressed in his presidential campaign,  and my guess is that they will be the voices that will be heard by US Congress who actually must approve the budget.

How Broadband Fits into American Revival

As the bailout crowd seeks to avoid the bad karma that resulted from bad policies of the past,  the broadband advocates are trying to create good karma that will ripen in the future.

They say that broadband is the precondition for a massive plan for retraining displaced workers,  re-establishing a competitive national work force, creating a new wave of entrepreneurship and milions of new jobs — reversing those wiped out by George W’s disasterous polices.  At least a dozen plans for broadband-promotion have been advanced.  Some of them involve direct subsidies to the telecommunications industry itself,  such as $40 bilion for Internet Service Providers.  Others are clearly anti-industry and seek to fund nonprofit community networks,  support plans for shifting to less carbon intensive workforce,  or simply try to get more broadband-enabled services beamed into schools, hospitals and rural health clinics.

The most persuasive and expensive plan has been put forward in a report by a group called EDUCAUSE.   It argues for putting about $100 billion into “fat” broadband infrastructures that will beam 24/7 distanced learning into every household.  “The total cost of broadband-enabled economic renewal could be paid for just 19 days of what we spend on the Iraqi war,” says the author of the report, John Windhausen.

The Thai government should take note of four aspects of the way broadband has been integrated into economic revival in the US:

DEMOCRACY 2.0 Prime minister Abhisit should not just concentrate on communicating with the Thai public through one-way SMS messaging,  but turn himself into an expression of Democracy 2.0, a term that refers to the way in which the internet era can foster citizen participation. Just as Obama is turning his campaign web site into a web constituency for formulating and implementing of his policies,  so should the new PM.  His party may not have been elected with the majority, but now that he is their leader he can engage Thai citizens in the solutions for low-income Thais and, in that way, steal the thunder from Thaksin and, perhaps, win the heart of the people.

HR COULD DRIVE ECONOMIC REVIVAL:  In fact, the clear focus of the broadband approach to revival is educational.  Note that the US approach does not  assume that investments in human resources development is a luxury that will pay off in the next generation.  Rather,  the American broadband advocates “crunch the numbers” to show that investments made now in broadband-assisted education and job-creation would be the least expensive and quickest path to US economic renewal.  The same would be true for Thailand. This is the can-do approach that, so far, is missing from Prime Minister Abhisit’s stimulus package which does not get to the heart of how to generate a competitive workforce.

TAPPING THE PRIVATE SECTOR:  In the US, the private sector is a full partner in the stimulus package.  All the broadband proposals involve giving the private sector the incentives to devote its talents and resources to economic revival, including the creation of jobs that lighten the earth’s carbon footprint.   In a similar way,  could bargain with the private sector.  For example, rather than concentrate on excluding offensive web sites, the new Thai ICT ministry could create a sophisticated mix of incentives, subsidies and tax credits that encourage web applications that positively support His Majesty the King’s ethical principles of sufficiency economy and gross national happiness.  In fact,  rather than pour finds into a black hole of educational subsidies, the new government could get a “bigger bang for the baht” by challenging Thai ICT industries to work through their own commercial channels to generate the skills need for low-income Thais to create millions of new jobs.

GOING GLOBAL:  The next factor has to do with the spillover from domestic into international perspectives.  Obama had to bow to protectionist sentiments during his election campaign, but as US Senator last year he authored a bill that increases the impact of US international development assistance via public private partnerships,  entrepreneurships and small business development.  This is the approach to international affairs that the Thai government itself should advance.   As an open society surrounded by more authoritarian Asian governments (including some well-represented as ASEAN),  the Kingdom of Thailand could promote HR-driven bottoms-up economic development in its foreign policy,  and turn Thailand itself into a showcase for this approach.

—

Craig Warren Smith, PhD Senior Advisor Human Interface Technology Laboratory Craigwarrensmith.com Hitl.washington.edu DigitalDivide.org SpiritualComputing.org USA mobile phone: 206 245 9970
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Broadband to the fore

New working group unites the biggest players in the industry.

By: Roger Sansuchat
Published: 4/03/2009 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: Database

http://www.bangkokpost.com/tech/technews/12708/broadband-to-the-fore

As it prepares to issue licences for 3G and WiMAX in Thailand, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) last week announced a new alliance with mobile operators. Called the Meaningful Broadband Working Group, it aims to produce an approach to broadband deployment, revive the economy, boost human resources and preserve Thai cultural and spiritual values.

At the announcement of the formation of the Meaningful Broadband Working Group are, from left to right: Craig Warren Smith of Chulalongkorn University; Todsaporn Simtrakarn, chief strategy officer at CAT Telecom; Tore Johnsen, chief executive officer, Dtac; Supachai Chearavanont, president and CEO, True Corp; and Ricky Corker, head of Asia North sub region for Nokia Siemens Network.

The announcement was a result of the Meaningful Broadband seminar last week hosted by Chulalongkorn University’s Centre for Ethics in Science and Technology, sponsored by Nokia Siemens Network.

Members of the alliance, apart from the NTC itself, include Dtac, True Corp and CAT, and efforts are underway to bring two other telecom operators, AIS and TOT, into the group.

Much of the impetus for this approach has come from the Obama administration in the US, which was the first government to put broadband into a starring role in economic stimulus. “We will use our participation in the working group to study carefully how the Obama team is using broadband to boost human resources and to see if the same approach could work in the new Thai economy,” said Sathit Limpongan, chairman of CAT. Last week, the Finance Ministry, where Satit is an official, announced a 1.9 trillion baht stimulus plan that incorporates investment in broadband infrastructure. In a speech that caused US Congress to agree to spend $9 billion on rural broadband infrastructure, one of Obama’s advisers said “data shows that a $17.4 billion investment in wireless broadband infrastructure could increase GDP by 0.88% to 1.28% – – a gain of $126.3 billion to $184.1 billion in dollar terms – and create 4.5 million and 6.3 million additional jobs over the two-year forecast period of 2009-2010.

“In the same way, Thai stakeholders could align broadband with the Thai government’s efforts to overhaul its economy,” said Craig Warren Smith. Smith is a former Harvard professor of science and technology policy who is in Thailand to organise the Meaningful Broadband initiative.

“A broadband approach to economic stimulus would not take years to produce jobs,” said Smith. “The benefits would begin to occur in a matter of months.”

“Now that legal hurdles are being removed, there is an urgent need for ICT stakeholders in Thailand to pool research efforts and formulate policies and practices that will make broadband of optimal benefit for all Thais,” said Prof Setaporn Kuseepitak of the NTC.

“Though Thailand doesn’t score high on technical indicators,” said Ricky Corker, Head of Asia North sub region for Nokia Siemens, “broadband could have a powerful effect on the country’s human resources, creating jobs and new entrepreneurial businesses,” he said. “Thanks to the academic, corporate and governmental cooperation expressed at Chulalongkorn, Thailand could produce the innovations that allow it to move into the ranks of global innovators in broadband technologies.”

“Telecommunications has emerged as the leading growth sector in Thailand’s economy. This effort hopes to find new ways to leverage the industry’s strength for the benefit of all Thais,” said Professor Prasit Prapinmongkalkarn, an NTC commissioner.

“Being meaningful means being affordable,” said Dtac CEO Tore Johnsen. “We are keen to share our experience in extending broadband to every Thai citizen no matter where they work or live.”

“Broadband applications can harm Thai citizens as well as help them,” added Supachai. “Though our participation in this working group, we want to make sure that broadband has the best possible ethical impacts on this country.”

The next step for the working group, say its members, is to invite Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to join a discussion about how broadband could assist the policy goals of a whole range of ministries.

Roger Sansuchat, fellow, Centre for Ethics of Science and Technology, Chulalongkorn University.

Feeds from the Center for Ethics of Science and Technology, Chulalongkorn University.