Tag: Asia

Categories
Public Talk

Talk on Ethics of Broadband

Public Lecture

The Ethics of Broadband:  Optimizing the Impact of the Internet in Asia

Deepak Jain Hall, Sasa International House, Chulalongkorn University
October 17, 2019, 2pm to 4pm. Refreshments will be served afterward.

Speakers and Their Topics

Craig Warren Smith: “Operationalizing Broadband Ethics in the Era of 5G”

Shenglong HAN, “Envisioning Meaningful Broadband-China:  A Framework for Activating an Ethical Broadband Ecosystem for the World’s Largest Nation” 

Craig Warren Smith is Chairman of the Digital Divide Institute.  In 1999 he founded the international movement to close the digital divide.  After graduating with honors from Stanford University and the University of California-Berkeley, he became a professor of technology policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and also at the National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.   In  2007, he created an ethics-based paradigm called Meaningful Broadband. It was accepted that year by Thailand’s NBTC and it’s five telecommunications operators.  It has since been activated as a model for closing the Digital Divide by the Republic of  Indonesia. In 2019, this model was slated for deployment to 30 million low-income citizens located in remote parts of the archipelago.

Shenglong HAN, Ph.D. in management science, Associate Professor of the Department of Information Management at Peking University. Funded by Freeman Foundation of the USA, he visited University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a visiting scholar from July 2008 to June 2009. From May 2012 to August 2015, he was sent by Confucius Institute Headquarters and Peking University to Thailand to act as the Chinese Director of the Confucius Institute at Chulalongkorn University. His current research interests focus on digital divide and community informatics.

Program

2.00-2.15 pm: Introducing the Program and the Speakers, setting the stage
Soraj Hongladarom, Director, Center for Ethics of Science and Technology

2.15 – 2.45 pm: “Operationalizing Broadband Ethics in the Era of 5G”
Craig Warren Smith

2.45 – 3.15 pm: “Envisioning Meaningful-Broadband China”
Han Shenglong

3.15 -4.00 pm: General Discussion

4.00 – 5.00 pm: Coffee and Refreshments Break, Networking

The public is cordially invited. Please register by sending an email to parkpume@gmail.com before October 15, 2019. Seating limited to 25 only.

Organized by the Center for Ethics of Science and Technology, Chulalongkorn University and the Digital Divide Institute, supported by the Mahachakri Foundation.

Categories
philosophy

Call for Chapters

Book Project on

Love and Friendship across Cultures

The Philosophy and Religion Society of Thailand and the Philosophical Association of the Philippines are collaborating to publish a book volume entitled “Love and Friendship Across Cultures” to be published by Springer. The book volume contains some of the papers that were presented during the First Joint Meeting of the two associations in July 2019. However, we plan to include more papers through this general call for chapters too.

Papers can be submitted for consideration of inclusion in the book provided that they deal with love and friendship in a cross-cultural dimension in one way or another. Chapters that deal with love and friendship (or only one of the two) from an Asian or from a religious perspective (Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, and so on), or those that focus on comparative aspects (for example, between Buddhist and Greek traditions, and so on) are particularly welcome. Papers need to be philosophically rigorous and meet the standard of internationally accepted scholarship.

Papers should be between 5,000 to 8,000 words and please follow the APA citation format. Please also submit an abstract of 200 words together with the paper. Deadline for submitting the paper is December 31, 2019. Please send the paper to me at soraj.h@mso.chula.edu and in the email please put the phrase “[Book Project – Love]” in the subject heading so that I can easily distinguish your submission from all other mails. Only papers in .doc, .docx, or .odt format are allowed.

Categories
meaningful broadband

Article on Meaningful Broadband

‘Meaningful’ broadband policy sought
By Asina Pornwasin
The Nation

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) and the Digital Divide Institute of Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Arts have jointly proposed guidelines for the creation of a broadband policy which they say should have a meaningful impact on Thai society.

The proposal is a result of two years’ work by the university’s Meaningful Broadband Working Group to develop a framework, or research agenda, from which a broadband roadmap can be developed. It has proposed the creation of innovations in five domains and integrating them into a coherent model.

NTC chairman Prasit Prapinmongkolkarn said broadband policy was an outcome of integrating governmental policy with industry policy, a regulatory framework and public-private partnerships in rolling out meaningful applications and services for broadband.

“After years of postponement, Thai policy-makers are now rapidly formulating plans for bringing broadband to all Thais. Mobile broadband is a strategically important solution, in addition to implementing broadband access in the form of fixed optical fibre to the home. Now, 3G is finally on its way [with a licence auction later this month]. The challenge is to leverage the licensing of broadband to make sure all Thais benefit from it,” Prasit said.

To make national broadband policy effective, innovative elements are required from five “domains”, labelled governmental, technology, management, ethics and financial, Prasit said. Then, these innovative elements must be integrated into a coherent model.

He said the governmental innovation should find the right link between the regulatory policies of the NTC and the public policies of the Cabinet. The government must also consider how to use instruments such as tax abatement, public-private partnerships, public-private actions and state-owned enterprises to lessen risks and increase rewards for companies that introduce useful broadband services.

In the technology domain, the government should find technologies, including software, devices and last-mile solutions, to activate broadband demands in Thailand.

“The government should encourage academic talent to develop software and solutions to make broadband services usable and affordable for all Thai people,” he said.

However, collaboration between the government and academics is not enough. The government should invite private-sector organisations to bring broadband access to the masses, especially upcountry. To effectively execute these things, a management model is required, and private-sector companies are expert in these matters, he said.

The Meaningful Broadband Working Group has also suggested that the government should be concerned about the downside of broadband.

Prasit said Chulalongkorn University’s Centre of Ethics in Science and Technology was currently formulating a research tool called a “meaningful technologies index”. It is an attempt to measure the difference between “good” and “bad” impacts of broadband.

“The government should not only focus on the social and economic benefits of broadband, but also the harm that broadband technologies bring, such as the risk of online-game addiction. This is one problem that could result if broadband deployment is not meaningful,” he said.

Finally, the government should initiate studies to determine the best financial model for making broadband access meaningful for all stakeholders.

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/2010/09/07/technology/-Meaningful-broadband-policy-sought-30137441.html