Tag Archives: government

Is the internet a truly democratizing technology?

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Boring title I know. However, I believe this is an extremely important discussion to have. Are technologies political things? Many people claim that the internet has radically changed things. That through the internet now all sorts of political activities can happen. Things are freer and more open. Is this true? Is this a result of technology? Does this technology have to be democratizing? I’m going to argue that while there are political implications of many technologies, there are other factors to considered when talking like this.

Can a road have political implications? Most people would argue that, no it’s a road, you use it to get from point A to point B, or just for fun. Well, what if you have to use public transportation and some one designed a bridge so that the bus couldn’t go over it? Would it be political then, or would the person who designed it be instilling political capabilities into a technologies? I would say in this case, the technology was used to prevent the lower class from reaching a nicer area in New York. A designer named Robert Moses designed many bridges for NYC from 1920-1970 that prevented exactly this type of traffic from occurring (Winner, 1986).

Other cases include using assembly lines to control how workers work and the steam engine to force people to work at a steady pace, or a takt time. Other technologies such as an automated tomato picker forced a lot of other changes in California. For instance it laid off workers, forced small farms to combine into larger farms to use the technology, which drove down the cost of tomatoes which big farms were taking advantage of, and also changed the tomato itself. It actually forced the development of a harder tomato so it could survive the automated picking. Which really pissed people off.

Ok, but we’re in the age of the internet. Big deal, what’s your point with all these old technologies? Arab Spring. Protesters were able to rally using the internet. The US government created these things called suitcase internet This allows users to create a mesh network and connect to websites so users are able to get around the walls that governments put into place. Wikileaks is another source of political technology. Sure, it’s just a site where you can upload files, but you could say that anything is just a site. The point is that there are norms and expectations around Wikileaks that allows some one to feel secure if they leak something to.

Additionally, governments are starting to and continuing to control the internet and how it is used. Eric Schmidt, of Google, is worried that this sort of governmental control is only going to increase. Hacktivists such as Lulz Sec and Anonymous are only going to increase the likelihood of this. The US government itself has a conflicting approach to hackers. In the cases where these hackers are going after groups that are not within the US or not the US government, the State Department has been extremely supportive. However, as soon as these groups change focus to the US, they are declared terrorists groups, or something close, which much be destroyed. NATO recently declared much the same thing.

We are in the beginning of a struggle over the future of the internet. Hacking groups are standing up for regular users and attempting to change the direction of governments. There have been a few successes coming from unexpected locations. This op-ed has some of them. The TL;DR of the article is that the UN lambasted some of the UK’s laws, and that an Australian ISP backed out of a filtering agreement with the Government.

Clearly there are many different uses for the internet. These uses can be good and bad. However, these uses have political ramifications. The choice to hack, the choice to be social on the internet, and the choice to educate yourself all impact how the future of the internet goes. I don’t support hacking. However, it is forcing transparency and increasing awareness of people both in and out of cyber space, what is actually going on in the Interwebs.

Also, the UN declared the three-strike laws for copyright, where if you get caught three times you lose internet for life, to be a violation of human rights.

References:
Winner, L. (1980) “Do Artifacts have Politics?” Daedalus, Vol. 109, No. 1: https://wiki.brown.edu/confluence/download/attachments/75695134/Langdon+Winner+Artifacts+and+Politics.pdf

Soft War: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504943_162-20073030-10391715.html

Technology Incubators and You

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So, I had a discussion on faccebook that went from discussing the cost of labor for a dutch bike mechanic (€40 for about 15 minutes for work to install wheel (i did it myself in 30 minutes instead of paying that)) to a discussion about technology incubators. It got me thinking about incubators and how people think of them. Technology Incubators come in a variety of forms and while many are attached to universities there have recently been a few where they are unaffiliated and some 18 year old kid makes one. But what is an incubator? Well, at the most basic level an incubator is a place that allows a firm to grow from an idea into an actual business. When it graduates it’s at the stage where it’s making enough money to support itself, or it has gotten Venture Capital (VC) backing so it has enough money to expand to a larger facility.

My first experience with an incubator was the Machine Assistance Center (MAC) at the University of Pittsburgh where I did my undergraduate. I thought it was the coolest idea. It was this old warehouse that was converted into separate mini-factories with a few different companies in it. The rent was free or dirt cheap, and there was equipment, like lathes, drill presses and a 6 axis CNC machine. The firms were able to rent time on these tools to create their product, make new prototypes and train new employees. The university also used these tools to train community members on how to use them to gain new skills for employment. Eventually these firms were making enough money that they were able to move out of the MAC get their own place and set up shop there.

I know that in Pittsburgh there are at least two other incubators. I’m sure there are more. Carnegie Mellon started the other two I’m aware of. However, these ones are software based start ups. So these firms have very different needs than physical product based firms. The Innovation Lab at Eindhoven University of Technology, in Eindhoven The Netherlands, where I’m pursuing my master’s degree, has a different model than either. It has spaces large enough for firms that need to manufacture products, but it also has a lot of offices for consultation firms as well. So, there are many different models for an incubator and non are exactly the same.

Ok, that’s great, why should I care about these things? Well, it matters because some of these are tax payer subsidized or were created through your tax dollars (Tax Euros? Just doesn’t sound right). Earlier this year Obama started the win the future campaign, which put a couple hundred million into both VC, public groups and incubators to help reduce the barriers to entry for new companies. Many policy makers believe that these incubators or hubs of heavy start up activity could spawn another Silicon Valley, or greatly boost the economy through job creating companies. Sadly, most of these companies actually only employ a few people and don’t become huge firms like we’d like them to be (Clarysse et al, 2005). However, this activity still can help the economy of the region to some extent.

So what do we do about it? Well, I plan on studying these and their impact for my master’s thesis, so we’ll see what I find. I probably won’t post to much about it as I might try to publish a paper about it. However, when I do that I’ll write about my findings on here. Until then, I say we should be supporting these incubators. Lowering barriers to competition will eventually lead to new products, services and lower pricing. That’s what we, as consumers, want right? Besides, I want to start a company some day and I’d like some help in getting me to the point where I can get VC funding 😉

Moar?
Here’s an article about the “Win the future” campaign from when it was first announced: http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/31/startup-america-a-campaign-to-celebrate-inspire-and-accelerate-entrepreneurship/

References:
Clarysse, B., Wright, M., Lockett, A., Veld, E. Van de, Vohora, A. (2005) “Spinning out new ventures: A typology of incubation strategies from European research Institutions”, Journal of Business Venturing. Vol. 20 pp 183-216 http://www.feb.ugent.be/nl/Ondz/wp/Papers/wp_04_228.pdf