The Baines Report
Photo: Rachel Strohm (CC) This past summer, I had the good fortune to attend the LeoAfrica Economic Forum, a one-day conference dedicated to chronicling disruptive growth and development innovations in Africa. The event featured panelists and organizations from all segments of the innovation space in Africa and played host to a series of talks about […]
Late in July, an off-the-record gathering of experts and academics converged on the Grand Summit Hotel in Newry, Maine to talk climate change. The handpicked coterie of conference-goers did not discuss carbon emissions or unveil next-generation renewable energy tech. Instead, the topic at hand was climate engineering: a sci-fi-sounding, catch-all term that refers to deliberate […]
Photo: Yuri Samoilov At 11:48pm on April 7, 2017, every tornado siren in Dallas went off at the same time. The sky was clear, but the shrieks from 156 sirens wrenched residents from their slumber. As the sirens blared on for 95 minutes, terrified callers flooded 911 phone lines, leaving people experiencing real emergencies waiting […]
Imagine Hilary Clinton receiving her hypothetical “3am phone call” and entering the situation room as a horrific hurricane batters the Gulf Coast. While USAID assesses the damage in the Caribbean, FEMA needs immediate, reliable, and detailed information to identify domestic needs. Luckily, it’s 2016. Computer scientists have developed reliable tools to rapidly collect, interpret and transmit hyperlocal data. […]
Cartography is pretty hot these days. Maps tap into our brains’ spatial reasoning abilities to make any public issue more immediate and understandable to wider audiences—and with the advent of open data and free tools, anyone with a computer can produce maps. Clearly, the trend has particular consequences for policymaking, although the burden of proof […]
Twenty-six years ago, as the average LBJ student was just getting started in life, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was formed to organize the international scientific community of climate change research. Later that same year, in July 1988, NASA’s Jim Hansen provided a now famous Senate testimony to a sweltering hot chamber. Legend […]
The McCombs School of Business Net Impact Chapter is hosting its 6th annual summit on business and social impact. Formerly called the Sustainable Business Summit, The Business for Good Summit has broadened its scope to address some of the more meaningful questions about how business can be used as a platform to affect social and […]
“Video games matter.” I have lost track how many times I’ve said that. It is not that I am trying to justify my interests; anyone who pays attention to social trends will notice that digital games are more prolific every year… as are debates about their influences. I make that statement, because they matter in […]
Some interesting recent polling, including work done by the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication, suggests a narrowing gap between California and Texas over climate change concerns. This may be surprising to many since Texas’s political leaders take a hard line on restricting greenhouse gas emissions compared to public leaders in the Golden State. Governor […]
Much like the music, film and interactive iterations of the conference, SXSW Eco attempts to bring together like-minded thinkers from just about every corner of a specific realm – this one being the environmental. Now in its third year, the Eco conference seems to be making the transition from a platform for innovators to get […]
Social Widgets powered by AB-WebLog.com.