Tech in Rwanda

For those of you interested in economic development AND technology, TechCrunch just published an interesting piece on technology in Rwanda. The article covers cell phones, fiber optic cable, OLPC, and other bits of trivia. As someone who has worked in sub-Saharan Africa, the costs of doing business there are high and volatile. I’m not sure that automation will be running Rwanda’s economy any time soon, but the government’s policy of sending students to India to attend IIT is an interesting twist on capacity building. Who knows what an army of IIT grads can accomplish? As a country that isn’t burdened with the “curse of natural resources,” perhaps Rwanda can redeem it’s troubled history by dreaming big about IT.

Mirror at NotesToSelf

Economic Manhattan Project

via the Enthought folks, I ran across videos of a recent economic/scientific shindig organized by the Perimeter Institute (sounds like a home for physics brainiacs!) in reaction to the financial crisis. Many recognizable names spoke there (e.g., Derman, Taleb, Roubini, Lo), as the scientific community attempts to get more involved with economic theory. I’m sure the economists are thrilled. Nevertheless, it’s fun too see people talking inter-disciplinary dialogue. I’m not holding my breath though…

Here’s the abstract of Eric Weinstein’s talk:

Abstract: An unexpected economic crisis provides an excellent opportunity to better understand the state of Economic theory as a science. While there appears to have been a broad systemic failure within the community of professional economists to predict the current collapse, it must be noted that there have been scattered successes which appear striking and demand our attention. The goal of this conference is to bring together economists, biologists, mathematicians, physicists, programmers, and financial professionals to explore the opportunities for bringing economic theory into closer contact with the more traditional sciences as the basis for ongoing work, partnership, and collaboration.