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Innovation Everywhere—Why the World Isn’t Flat Enough

Moderator: Alex (Sandy) Pentland PhD '82
Jimmy Wales Nancy J. Hafkin Damien Balsan SM '02 John M. Stelling: September 29, 2005; Running Time: 1:02:15

About the Lecture

About the Lecture

The rising tide of digital communication has not lifted all boats equally, and threatens to leave others stranded altogether, worry some of these panelists.

Nancy Hafkin notes a continued gender gap in internet use around the world. In Italy, where there’s high web penetration, “women user rates are the same as Krygizstan.” What’s worse, according to Hafkin, in virtually every country of the world women are underrepresented in information technology education and careers, with the worst cases found in both Africa and Europe. She warns that the percentage of women enrolling in the U.S. as computer science majors in college has dropped 80% since its peak in 1985.

John Stelling perceives an “unequal dissemination of technologies that exist.” While medical advances can eliminate many diseases, life expectancy is dropping in places like Russia due to alcoholism and HIV. Women’s mortality in West Africa is about 35 times higher than in the U.S., and Stelling believes that deployment of information technology could “create new opportunities” to deliver health care more efficiently, accurately and conveniently to such developing regions. The issue involves broadening the reach of such technology so that more than wealthy pockets of these nations can benefit.

Damien Balsan finds reason to hope for a massive transformation of developing societies through relatively simple means like his ultra low cost mobile phones, which perform as “credit card acceptance devices for merchants.” In places like China, a vast number of retailers don’t accept credit cards, holding back the economy, says Balsan. Electronic payments, says Balsan, generate hundreds of millions of dollars of additional consumer spending, which ultimately drives growth in a nation’s GDP. A government-sponsored program in Mexico promotes such payments in remote areas, allowing women “to buy milk or things for their babies.”

Jimmy Wales has less faith in government action. He boldly claims, “Technology will give rise to prosperity in the world through highly distributed activity…. Realistically people figure out themselves what they need and how to achieve it.” Government functions best by “protecting individual rights…so people can use technology to better their own lives.”

Lecture Details

Location: Kresge Auditorium

About the Speakers

Moderator: Alex (Sandy) Pentland PhD '82

Toshiba Professor of Media Arts and Sciences, and Director of Human Dynamics Research, MIT Media Lab Co-founder and Faculty Director, Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship

Alex (Sandy) Pentland is a pioneer in wearable computers, health systems, smart environments, and technology for developing countries.

He is a co-founder of the Wearable Computing research community, the Autonomous Mental Development research community, the Center for Future Health, and was the founding director of the Media Lab Asia. He was formerly the Academic Head of the MIT Media Laboratory. Pentland was chosen by Newsweek as one of the 100 Americans most likely to shape the next century.

Jimmy Wales

Founder, Wikipedia and Founder and President, Wikipedia Foundation

Wales received his undergraduate degree from Auburn University and his masters from the University of Alabama. Wales went on to become a futures and options trader in Chicago, and within a few years had earned enough to "support himself and his wife for the rest of their lives." In 1996, Wales founded a search portal called Bomis and in 2000, he started a peer-reviewed, open-content encyclopedia, Nupedia.com ("the free encyclopedia"). Wikipedia emerged in 2001.

Nancy J. Hafkin

Founder, African Information Society Initiative of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa

Nancy J. Hafkin has been a pioneer and innovator in the area of networking, development information, and electronic communications in Africa, over the course of a 23-year career, mostly working with the Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Addis Ababa.

Hafkin has a Ph.D. in history and African Studies from Boston University and a B.A. from Brandeis University.

Damien Balsan SM '02

Vice President, Marketing and Business Development, Way Systems

Damien Balsan has more than 15 years of experience in the telecommunications, mobile, bank card, and payment industry. He started his career in Mexico at France Telecom, then held several positions at Gemplus, the No1 smart card manufacturer.

Balsan graduated with a Master's degree in Management from MIT Sloan. He was a semi-finalist in the MIT 50K Business Plan.

John M. Stelling

Investigator, Brigham & Women's Hospital Microbiology Laboratory Harvard Medical School Instructor

John Stelling received his M.P.H. from Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health in 1987, and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1991. He served as a medical officer for the World Health Organization's Department of Communicable Diseases Surveillance and Response from 1996-1999. He is a consultant for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System.

He is developer of the WHONET software, currently used to manage microbiological data on bacterial populations from over 1,100 hospital, public health, food, and veterinary laboratories in approximately 90 countries.