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MEANINGFUL BROADBAND

A Launch event for the Centre for Ethics of Science and Technology, Chulalongkorn University (by invitation only)

Time: 24 February 2009, 9.00 am. – 2.00 pm.
Venue: Room 105, Maha Chulalongkorn Building, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok

Agenda:
9.15 am. Opening by host Dr. Charas Suwanwela, Chairman of Governing Board, Chulalongkorn University
Overview of the day’s proceedings, Prof. Soraj Hongladarom,
Director, Center for Ethics of Science and Technology

9.20 am. Keynote from Prime Minister Hon. Abhisit Vijjajiva: Towards a New Thai Economy and Workforce: Finding the Optimal Role of Broadband (to be confirmed)
A Response to the Prime Minister’s Remarks on Behalf of the Private Sector: Mr.Ricky Corker, Director Nokia Siemens Networks

9.40 am. What is Meaningful Broadband; Towards a “Compact” linking
Public and Private Sectors. Prof Craig Warren Smith, Senior Advisor, Human Interface Technology Laboratory, University of Washington:Craig Warren Smith

10.00 am.- 12.00 noon Presentation: Towards a “Compact” between public, private and academic sectors.

• Towards a Meaningful Regulations: Prof. Sethaporn Cusripitck (NTC Commissioner)
• Towards the Broadband-enabled Reform of Basic Education : Dr.Paron Isarasena, Commission on Basic Education, Ministry of Education

12.00 – 12.30 p.m. Conclusion and press conference

12.30 – 13.30 p.m. Lunch with video presentation of interactive learning with children from KMUTT model school

MEANINGFUL BROADBAND

A By-Invitation-Only Seminar at Chulalongkorn University, February 24, 2009

Meaningful Broadband, a half day event and press conference hosted by Chulalongkorn University on February 24, 2009, is designed for a select group of 40 leading ICT stakeholders from government, business and academic sectors in Thailand. The event, which presents a model for the optimal deployment of high-speed internet in ASEAN countries, is sponsored by the Nokia Siemens Network.

Held at a time when US President Obama has given a starring role to high-speed internet as a factor in US economic stimulus, the event on February 24 will consider how a “broadband ecosystem” might trigger benefits to low-income Thais as well as the Thai citizenry as a whole. Drawing upon an innovative model called Meaningful Broadband that is being prepared for deployment in Indonesia, the meeting will consider how high-speed internet could have meaningful impacts in Thailand as well.

The core concept of Meaningful Broadband is that it does not refer to a single device or a single software application. Rather it refers to the formulation of a complex national “ecosystem” of products and services with four aspects: 1) backbone, 2) Last Mile, 3) devices, and 4) content. In this model the term, “meaningful” has three aspects: usable, affordable and empowering. By operationalizing this idea, regulators and technology-developers could gain the criteria needed to measure the impact of broadband technologies on citizens.

Interwoven and reinforced with public policy and new investments,this ecosystem could intertwine public and private sectors together into new strategic alliances anchored by public-private partnerships and reinforced by regulatory innovations. As it turns out, the academic sector has an important stake in the successful deployment of broadband and is itself a potential force in every aspect of the ecosystem.

In the background of this meeting is an important innovation that has emerged from the young Obama Administration in the US. Broadband received $9 billion in federal investments and, more importantly, an additional $120 billion in human-resources development investments were allocated by US Congress so that the educational and workforce-development systems could be transformed through broadband.

Prior to the US example, most governments have assumed that human-resources infrastructure and technology investments would only pay off in the long-term. But the advocates for this approach in the US have argued that the stimulus to the economy and the payoff in jobs could be immediate. Could the same logic work for Thailand?

To set the context for this discussion, the gathering will consider a model for the formulation of “meaningful” broadband ecosystems, formulated by Prof Craig Warren Smith, who first began working with the Kingdom of Thailand when he was professor of Science and Technology Policy at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. This year he is in residence at Chulalongkorn University’s Center for Ethics of Science and Technology and serves as an organizer of the February 24 session.

Prime Minister Abhisit himself has been invited to offer his own views on this topic and we have also invited the chairman of Thailand’s regulatory agency, National Telecommunications Commission to explain NTC’s framework for interacting with the private sector regarding broadband. Finally, the gathering will announce a research agenda for assessing these options and considering a path forward.

*Free to the public*

Centre for European Studies at Chulalongkorn University
and
Goethe-Institut Bangkok

in cooperation with
Center for Ethics of Science and Technology and Thousand Stars Foundation

organise

International Symposium

“Buddhism in German Philosophy and Literature: An Intercultural Dialogue”

6 – 7 February 2009

Room 105, Maha Chulalongkorn Building, Chulalongkorn University

Programme

Friday 6 February 2009

8.00 – 8.45 Registration

8.45 – 09.15 Asst. Prof. Dr. Charit Tingsabadh, Director of Centre for European Studies atอChulalongkorn University, reports to the President of Chulalongkorn University

Opening Remarks
Prof. Pirom Kamolratanakul, M.D.
President of Chulalongkorn University

Dr. Ulrike Lewark
Deputy Director, Goethe-Institut Bangkok

9.15 – 9.30 Moderator: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Soraj Hongladarom

Dr. Peter Skilling, École française d’Extrême-Orient, Bangkok
Remarks on Philology and Buddhist Studies, with Special Reference to German Philology and Manuscript Studies

9.30 – 10.05 Prof. Dr. Volker Mertens, Free University Berlin, Germany
Buddhism in the European Middle Ages

10.05 – 10.20 Tea and Coffee

10.20 – 10.55 Dr. Ronald Perlwitz, Université Paris Sorbonne Abu Dhabi
Friedrich Rückkert und der Buddhismus

10.55 – 11.05 Questions & Answers

11.05 – 11.40 Prof. Dr. Pornsan Watananguhn
German Section, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University
On the Reception of Buddhism in the Literary Work of
Gjellerup, Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse

11.40 – 12.15 Prof. Dr. Heinrich Detering, University Göttingen, Germany
Hesse, Brecht and Thomas Mann: Buddhism and Other Influences

12.15 – 12.30 Discussion

12.30 – 14.00 Lunch

14.00 – 14.35 Moderator: Prof. Dr. Volker Mertens
Prof. Dr. Adrian Hsia, Emeritus Professor of German,
McGill University, Montreal, Canada and Honorary Professor,
School of Chinese Studies, Hong Kong University, China
Catholicism / Protestantism versus Hinduism / Buddhism: On Hesses’s
Transcultural Reception

14.35 – 14.45 Questions & Answers

14.45 – 15.20 Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Dieter Borchmeyer, Professor Emeritus, University
Heidelberg, Present position : Präsident der Bayerischen Akademie
der Schönen Künste (President of the Bavaria Academy of the Beautiful Art)
Thomas Manns “Die vertauschten Köpfe“

15.20 – 16.00 Discussion

Saturday 7 February 2008

9.30 – 10.00 Moderator: Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Dieter Borchmeyer
Key Note Speech by Prof. Preecha Changkhwanyuen
Professor Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn
University and Chair of Centre for Buddhist Studies, Chulalongkorn University
East-West Divan on Buddhism: An Intercultural Dialogue

10.00 – 10.10 Questions & Answers

10.10 – 10.25 Tea and Coffee

10.25 – 11.00 Prof. Dr. Somparn Promta,
Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University
Literature in Buddhist Perspective

11.00 – 11.35 Assoc. Prof. Dr. Soraj Hongladarom
Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University
Schopenhauer’s Metaphysics of the Will and the Buddhist View on Emptiness

11.35 – 12.10 Dr. Theptawee Chokvasin, Suranaree University of Technology
Heideggian and Theravada Buddhist View on the Mortality of Life

12.10 – 12.30 Discussion

12.30 – 14.00 Lunch

14.00 – 15.00 Round Table Discussion
Moderator: Dr. Ulrike Lewark
Deputy Director of Goethe-Institut Bangkok
All speakers

15.00 Final Remarks
Dr. Ulrike Lewark
Deputy Director, Goethe-Institut Bangkok
Asst. Prof. Dr. Charit Tingsabadh
Director, Centre for European Studies at Chulalongkorn University

Craig Warren Smith, PhD
Founder,
Digital Divide Institute

Just as 2008 was the big year of the big push in cell phone penetration, 2009 will be the year in which mobile phone users upgrade to broadband. Well, that’s what the “mobile supply chains” hope for, at least. It is the one bright light in Southeast Asia’s economy. But the industry’s marketers and financiers are nervous. So far, they have not yet generated the “killer applications” (killer apps) that will cause billions of low-income cell phone users to upgrade to fast internet. Less then a decade ago, in Europe, a “telecoms bust” occurred sending telecom markets into the doldrums for years when cell phone users found no need to access internet through their cell phones. It will happen again unless the marketers join forces with government and academia to generate killer apps that are meaningful to mass of low-income citizens.

This time stakes are must higher – both for the commercial sector and for society itself – that this new Big Push in broadband will succeed.

According to Goldman Sachs, $2.4 trillion has been spent within emerging markets in preparation for this year’s effort to achieve a massive leapfrogging into high speed internet via cell phones. While the handset sales are declining among the affluent parts of the economy, mobile penetration in the low-income sector of emerging markets remains recession proof.

Recognizing this, some of the world’s most successful companies – Google, Facebook, Microsoft, HP, Intel – have reshaped their products and services to piggyback on handset makers and telco operators. They hope to meet the needs of the “next billion” consumers including those who earn just US$1,000 per month. In Thailand, most of the wireless carriers are blitzing the media with promotions for embrace smart phones, embedded with Third Generation of “3G” fast internet. A bevy of industries from advertising, consumers products, and banking are waiting to turn mobile broadband into new revenue streams. It is perhaps the only bright light in the new global economy.

For the public at large, the stakes are even higher. Facing an inevitable recession, the new Thai government can help its citizens inexpensively by entering into public-private partnerships with these commercial supply chains and rethinking telecommunications regulations to enhance the public benefit that emerges from mobile broadband. They can activate a trend that the world bank calls “m-development” in which mobile technologies are used to bring interactive education to the uneducated, achieve massive small business growth among the poor, strengthen democracy, fight global warming. (See WorldBank.org/m-development.) The list goes on and on. In fact, the government, academia, civil society and the business sector itself should make sure that the killer aps that drive mobile broadband actually help Thai citizens, not harm them with addictions and frivolous entertainment. Achieving these beneficial applications is one of the aims of the Institute for Meaningful Technologies, a joint venture between Chulalongkorn’s Center for Ethics of Science and Technology and Digital Divide Institute, which will be launched this year, with the prime sponsorship of Nokia Siemens Network in Thailand.

Here are two mobile broadband killer apps that could be shaped through public/private partnerships to benefit low-income citizens:

Mobile Banking: Mobile banking is already take off rapidly in low-income sectors where it meets pent-up demand; it could accelerate more quickly and more meaningfully with broadband. Most citizens in developing countries (and an estimated 65% of Thais) are unbanked. Those of us with bank accounts take them for granted. But the unbanked are stuck in an informal economy that often keeps them trapped in poverty. They are unable to get credit at reasonable rates; they must pay more for transferring remittances from family members who want to send money home; they are unlikely to be savers, and they lack any access to good financial planning and advice. Though the virtues of microcredit are much appreciated, only 100 million microcredit borrowers exist worldwide and most of them are run at a deficit. But a billion low-income cell phone users could easily get the benefits of banking in just five years, according to the World Resources Institute’s Allen Hammond. For banks that coax users to mobile banking, transaction costs drop from 33 baht per customer (when a bank branch is used) to less then one baht per customer when the transaction occurs over the mobile phone. Already companies like Wizzit, in South Africa, and GCash, in the Philippines, have started programs that allow customers to use their phones to store cash credits transferred from another phone or purchased through a post office, phone-kiosk operator or other licensed operator.

There are a lot of hurdles that stand in the way of mobile banking, such as the creation of secure, non-fraudulent payment systems which could be achieved through close coordination between telecom operators, banks, and governmental central banks. But the more significant need is that villages need a “point of presence” to help the unbanked become comfortable with mobile banking and to adopt new attitudes and skills that lead them towards accumulating savings, responsible use of credit, and small business skills. Government should rethink their total economic development strategies in light of mobile banking and the introduction of broadband into mobile banking systems.

Spiritual Computing: The second killer ap may surprise you: It is spiritual computing. It refers to mobile applications support the spiritual and religious values and rituals of users. Last year, Deputy Prime Minister Paiboon, one of the most respected Thai elders and proponents of local governance in Thailand, advocated the use of mobile technologies to further Buddhist observances and mindfulness. (See spiritualcomputing.com). which refers to the use of new technology to deliberately strengthen spiritual and religious values that are very much tied to economic survival and well-being among low-income citizens. In Indonesia, one of Asia’s hottest technology markets for low-income citizens, Bakrie Telco quickly added four million users in the crowded Indonesian market by incorporating Arabic chanting and five times a day prayer alerts into the company’s cell phones for low income users. Users get messages and slogans sent to them every day to support 24/7 observance of ethical principles. In Europe, Ramadan web sites are flourishing in which users share the experience of the fasting month through social networking.

There are lots of other potential killer aps too. They online gaming and multimedia applications that bridge the gap between education and entertainment. Since the next billion users have less formal education, they don’t have the cognitive skills that allow them to benefit fully from text-based communications. Through multimedia applications being developed in laboratories at Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute for Technology, adults can easily and enjoyably learn literacy, or rapidly enhance their English language skills. As Thailand and other Southeast Asian economies build their hospitality industries, lack of English skills it a major detriment to wealth and employment. All this could change if mobile broadband would be meaningfully embraced by the countries’ leaders. It is time for leaders of business, government and academia to roll up their sleeves and find ways to share the risks and rewards of bringing low income users step by step into broadband.

In Thailand, the government’s ICT Ministry and most of the telecommunications operators are finally aligned on this top playing catch-up by finally embracing 3G, or “third generation” fast internet.

Killer Applications and Wireless Networks

Portable devices are incorporated with more and more functionalities, such as photo/video camera, video phone, SMS, PDA, music player, video player, Bluetooth and Wireless LAN. Communication Networks for cell phones evolve around the need for increased bandwidth and better support for internet connections. The Killer Application for these platforms has to be compelling enough that users crave ownership of the latest devices and subscribe to these services, thus driving the future development of mobile networks and Internet.

Examples of current for-profit services provided by network operators:

* Google Maps on iPhone 3G with GPS
* News and Weather SMS Subscription services
* Email, Skype, Live! Messenger (SMS forwarding).
* Electronic Banking and Money Management
* Movie Showtimes and Ticketing
* In Japan, cellular subscribers can “call” vending machines to purchase something and have the item billed to their accounts.

I forgot to report that the server of the CEST is up and running as usual, even though I am not there to look after it. Many thanks to Khun Janya, the department secretary, who is taking very good care of it 🙂

I will be away to Trondheim, Norway and Linköping, Sweden for three months starting tomorrow. I’ll be back on December 23. Meanwhile the activities of the CEST will consist mainly online :-). During this time I may have to shut down the http://www.stc.arts.chula.ac.th server because there is right now no one to maintain it.

The Thousand Stars Foundation has set up a new site for its podcasts. Audio files of Dharma teachings and talks and related topics, mostly on Tibet and the Himalayas, will be posted here.

MEANINGFUL USER EXPERIENCE: Bringing mindfulness principles into the design of next generation technologies for emerging markets.

By Craig Warren Smith, Senior Advisor, Human Interactive Technology Laboratory, University of Washington

Since the end of the dot.com bust, “user experience,” sometimes known as UX, became the driving factor in technology design and the basis for what is called Web 2.0. The trend became so powerful that communities of tens of millions of users appeared suddenly.

Now the user revolution is being extended to Asia’s emerging markets. As it does so, the speaker predicts a paradigm shift in the user revolution, which he dubs MUX, or meaningful user experience. He will present a theoretic framework, measurement concepts, and criteria that designers can use to incorporate meaningfulness into technology designs.

According to Prof. Smith, in the MUX framework, technology designers must:

• satisfy the ethical concerns of telecommunications regulators

• draw insight from neuroscience and other cognitive sciences to counter the addictive impacts of technology on users.

• generate applications that are pragmatic and appropriate for low-income users whose primary interest is not social networking but economic security

• draw from the spiritual and mindfulness traditions imbedded in Asian cultures,

• restrict the “carbon footprint” of technologies, so that they are environmentally appropriate.

The speaker will give examples of meaningful technologies that may emerge in next-generation technologies for health care, education, home design, search engines and in religion.

Following the presentation, Thai theorists, computer scientists, and technology designers will respond, offering commentary on the MUX notion and offering further examples of developments that fit into criteria for MUX.

represents the most sudden and dramatic formation of engaged communities, some numbering tens of millions of users in just a few months. As the user revolution intensifies and shifts its locus away from USA to Asia, the trend

As competition intensifies for to win loyalty among users, the concept of Meaningful User Experience (MUX) has emerged.

Now the focus of Web 2.0 is moving to Asia’s emerging markets where designers must satisfy the ethical concerns of governments, parents and other stakeholders.

Craig Warren Smith, PhD, is Senior Advisor to the University of Washington’s Human Interactive Technology Laboratory, the founder of the concept of “spiritual computing” and a Senior Fellow at Chulalongkorn University’s Center for Ethics in Science and Technology.

will explain how Meaningful User Experience (MUX) could be the next stage of the user revolution in technology as competition for users intensifies and as designers seek to incorporate the ethical concerns of government regulators in emerging markets.

From: Craig Warren Smith

January 14, 2008

Regarding: Proposal for a Center for Meaningful Technologies

This memo suggests a partnership between Chulalongkorn University, King Monkut University and the web site, DigitalDivide.org, to establish a Bangkok based Center of Meaningful Technologies (CMT) to commence on January 1, 2009. Its purpose would be the design, prototyping, and deployment of technologies that transmit “meaningful user experience” (MUX) to citizens in emerging markets. I propose an MOU signing Feb 7 between these partners , stating their intension to open discussions regarding the feasibility, and the organizational and financial model for the Center.

CMT’s Purpose

The Center would serve as a magnet for technology laboratories around the world in the field of Human Computer Interface (HCI), in which the purpose is to generate beneficial human impacts via technology. Responding to the humanistic critique of technology of philosopher since Heidegger, HCI researchers have grown in numbers and influence. But their research agendas are biased towards the circumstances of advanced markets. They lack an entity such as CMT that would adapt HCI perspectives to the social, educational and ethical needs of emerging markets.

CMT would also bring Web 2.0¹ perspectives into emerging markets and foster ethical ICT regulatory reforms, possibly via a partnership with the International Telecommunications Union.

In addition to interacting with academic labs (Stanford, MIT, Carnegie Mellon, et al), CMT would also collaborate with corporate laboratories, corporate educational marketing divisions, and CSR-programs that focus on generating beneficial social and educational impacts in emerging markets.

Though developed in Thailand, CMT would look beyond the Thai market to Indonesia (where a complementary initiative is in place, also linked to DigitalDivide.org) and other Asian markets. Currently, there is no internationally recognized technology design and policy center for emerging markets that specifically addresses humanistic and ethical impacts of technology.

Combining Separate Strengths

The project would combine the broad interdisciplinary perspectives of Chulalongkorn University (organized by its Center for Ethics in Science and Technology) together with the technologically mediated learning perspectives of King Monkut University of Technology (organized by its Innovative Learning Institute and the constructionist Darunsikkhalai School for Innovative Learning.) The partnership would engage DigitalDivide.org as its communications vehicle focused on the formulations and deployment of new technologies that address social needs of emerging markets, as well as encouraging innovations that adapt ICT ecosystems to the bottom. DigitalDivide.org is being converted into a Web 2.0 interactive web site with a Thai portal.

Evolving from the Chulalongkorn Colloquia

This initiative’s framework would emerge from the colloquium series organized by the Center for Ethics in Science and Technology at Chulalongkorn, called “Happiness, Technology and Public Policy.” Further events in this series focus on education, multimedia and rural development. The series is eliciting a series of recommendations that may be implemented by the Center. These recommendations incorporate public and private sectors and may lead to the formulation of public/private partnerships, supported by ICT regulatory reforms that may be propagated in emerging markets with the help of the International Technology Union. For example, the initial seminar elicited a series of recommendation for technologies that incorporate mindfulness into health care practices. They also yielded a broader recommendations by DPM Paiboon for technologies that support citizen participation and mindfulness practices in Thailand.

What is MUX?

Increasingly, digital technologies have gained the capacity to transmit “experiences,” not just information – and this trend is destined to accelerate dramatically in light of developments now in the world’s technology leading laboratories. As microchip technology evolves, these experiences will be increasingly immersive. They will shape behavior of users – addicting them and/or empowering them. It is a concern for public policy makers as well as ethicists and technology researchers themselves that new technologies minimize harm and optimize benefits to users. Yet currently, technology designers and public policy makers lack methods, measures and economic models for the successful design and deployment of beneficial technologies.

Possible Program activities of CMT

The following programmatic activities could be initiated in CMT:

1. Development of a methodology for integrating MUX into the design of new software, eg for One Laptop Per Child.

2. Development of an innovative design prototyping process that integrates mindfulness experiences into the design process.

3. Development of meaningful technologies in four user domains: health care, education, multimedia and rural development.

4. Development of operational definitions and measures for meaningfulness.

5. Developing the philosophical, spiritual, scientific, anthropological, and educational theoretic foundations for meaningful technologies.

6. Developing a scenario for the development of “ecosystems” of technology applications for Thailand.

7. A project for scaling up child-centered education in Thailand with the help of technologies.

8. Development of public/private partnerships and new strategic alliances fostering meaningful technologies.

9. Development of public policy and regulatory innovations fostering meaningful technologies.

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