Exploring the overlap of virtual and physical
A recent meeting with a friend who is interested in technology in education, a NYTimes article More schools embracing iPad as a learning tool and recent flood of attention on the growing tablet PC market got me thinking about the potential of tablet PC’s (Apple iPad, Samsung Galaxy Tab etc) as a disruptive innovation for…
Up close with Bill Drayton On June 3-4, I had a rare opportunity to be up close with Bill Drayton, founder and CEO of Ashoka. He was invited as the keynote speaker at “International Conference on Social Entrepreneurship 2010”, an event hosted by Korea Development Institute (KDI) and Korea University in Seoul. I was asked…
Republished from UXforGood.org. Recently I’ve participated in brainstorming session for a premier university in Korea on how to make its lectures available online. Ever since MIT started offering its lectures through its OpenCourseWare (website) initiative in late 2002, many higher education institutions have been offering lectures online through various channels: YouTube and iTunes just to…
In a followup to a previous post, Breaking the Cycle of Poverty in Korea through Education: A Social Business Proposal I saw some very exciting news that the Korean government will move to provide long-term full tuition coverage student loans for poor students starting 2010. It even stipulates that the students are only required to…
Just launched a new blog UXforGood.org which tries to bring together my often intersecting interest in user experience (UX) and social change. In quite a visionary statement with far before the birth of the internet, Charles Eames said: Beyond the age of information is the age of choices. It is an understatement to say that…
Touch screen NYC ticket vending machine (photo credit: yuen_long / flickr) Here’s a comment I posted on Changemakers AshokaTech discussion board in response to question How would you use touch-screen technology for good? Following our blog post on touch-screen technology, I’d love to hear about your ideas on how we can make such technology work…
Preamble1 A couple of years ago I asked a friend in Korea with a single child if he considered having more kids. He told me that he wanted to give the best for his son, and he couldn’t really afford the education cost of a second child. He told me a his son was taking…
Click image to view slideshow of the Hong Kong trip, May 22-23, 2009 The last time I visited Hong Kong was in 1989. Some things have indeed changed. For one thing, it’s part of China now. Also the skyline has many new additions, including the 88-floor (415m) 2 International Finance Centre tower, which is apparently…
Recently I decided to take a systematically look at online social action sites in Korea, and whenever possible trying to arrange an informal interview with the sites’ manager(s) to gain a little more insight into their operations and also get a better general sense of the landscape for online social action in Korea. How is…
The Point is a simple website with a clear purpose: making things happen. The way they do it is helping users formulate a campaign statement for action with a clear goal. Users can then choose to participate in the campaign. When the goal is met (or “the point” is tipped), an email is sent to…