An advertising agency sparked controversy at the South by Southwest technology conference when it hired homeless people in Austin to act as "Homeless Hotspots." Critics charge that it exploits the homeless. But Megan Garber, a staff writer for The Atlantic, sees some good in the project.
http://www.npr.org/2012/03/13/148528071/homeless-hotspots-exploitation-or-innovation
Tagged with homeless sxsw technology wifi poverty inequality npr
China’s economy depends on a system regulating workers from around China and beyond. In Guangzhou, the migrant metropolis, Mukul Devichand hears stories of anger and reform.
Witnesses to the riots in Salford, Greater Manchester, and Hackney, east London, tell Shiv Malik what happened this week and speak of their anger at a lack of job prospects.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/audio/2011/aug/12/salford-hackney-riots-audio
The Dominican-American writer Junot Diaz got everybody’s attention, and a Pulitzer Prize, with his fierce, funny, tragic first novel “The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.” Now, in a big new essay, Diaz has moved on to bigger themes — like apocalypse and the fate of the human race.
Junot Diaz looks at our recent headlines of earthquakes, tsunamis, meltdown fears, and floods and sees revelation. Not of the hand of God, exactly. But of human realities running amok.
We avert our eyes, he says. But these disasters must be read.
This hour, On Point: Junot Diaz, on revelation and apocalypse.
Brazil’s musical group AfroReggae was born of the streets of Rio de Janiero’s hard-life shanytowns, or favelas.
Now, AfroReggae is trying to give back — to give inspiration, hope, pride and a path to youth surrounded by too much violence, drugs, and poverty.
It’s culture versus violence in the tough streets of Rio. We hear AfroReggae and explore Rio’s favelas.
http://www.onpointradio.org/2010/12/favelas-afroreggae-brazil
Tagged with book:author=damian platt music favelas brazil poverty crime culture money afroreggae
There’s a consensus that Earth doesn’t have enough resources to support the world’s growing population — but there’s disagreement about the root of the problem. Some think the problem lies with the growing third world, others that it is the consumption habits of the developed nations that cause the problem.
Sometimes the way you conduct science has profound impacts on society as a whole. Malcolm Gladwell says the way we look at who is and who isn’t successful is crucial. He says it’s dangerous to think East Africans are good runners because they have an innate gene that makes them fast. Instead, you have to look at cultural attitudes. More people run in Kenya and Ethiopia than in the U.S. Therefore, those countries produce more successful runners. If you were to think if it in terms of genes, well, that’s the same philosophy that gets people thinking African–Americans aren’t as smart as whites. The real reasons behind success rates in professions like medicine and law have to do with class, not genius. Malcolm Gladwell’s latest book is "Outliers: The Story of Success." He also writes for The New Yorker magazine. Gladwell spoke at Town Hall Seattle on January 17, 2009.
Jared Diamond, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Guns, Germs & Steel (and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed), offers some timely thoughts on why Haiti, once a fairly prosperous country, has sunk into enduring poverty — a condition not comparatively shared by its neighbor on the same island, the Dominican Republic. According to Diamond, Haiti’s environmental conditions offer a partial explanation. But you will also find clues in the country’s language, and in the legacy of slavery that has shaped Haiti’s economic relationship with Europe and the US. This interview — quite a good one — aired this morning in San Francisco.
World (Inter)View with Nicholas Negroponte: "Computing is no longer about computers. It’s about life."
With that opening slide, Nicholas Negroponte, creator of the MIT Media Lab and One Laptop Per Child Project (OLPC), began an authoritative and compelling review of OLPC in tandem with his philosophy for bringing technology to the world. Date: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700 Location: Amsterdam, PICNIC 2009, PICNIC Program and discussion: http://fora.tv/2009/09/25/World_InterView_with_Nicholas_Negroponte
With a current world population of 6.8 billion, projected to be 9 billion by 2050, what will our lives be like in another fifty years? Our consumption is causing scarcity of resources, food production is struggling to meet demand, almost everything we do destroys delicate ecosystems and our greenhouse gas emissions keep growing.
Meanwhile, we all believe in a basic human right to reproduce. This UTSpeaks presents a diverse panel of UTS experts to speculate on a future where overpopulation may be the key force impacting every aspect of human life.
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