Calestous Juma - Böcker

It is a curious situation that technologies we now take for granted have, when first introduced, so often stoked public controversy and concern for public welfare. At the root of this tension is the perception that the benefits of new technologies will accrue only to small sections of society, while the risks will be more widely distributed. Drawing from nearly 600 years of technology history, Calestous Juma identifies the tension between the need for innovation and the pressure to maintain continuity, social order, and stability as one of today's biggest policy challenges. He reveals the extent to which modern technological controversies grow out of distrust in public and private institutions and shows how new technologies emerge, take root, and create new institutional ecologies that favor their establishment in the marketplace. Innovation and Its Enemies calls upon public leaders to work with scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs to manage technological change and expand public engagement on scientific and technological matters.

African agriculture is currently at a crossroads, at which persistent food shortages are compounded by threats from climate change. But, as this book argues, Africa can feed itself in a generation and help contribute to global food security. To achieve this Africa has to define agriculture as a force in economic growth by: advancing scientific and technological research; investing in infrastructure; fostering higher technical training; and creating regional markets. To govern the transformation Africa must foster the emergence of a new crop of entrepreneurial leaders dedicated to the continent's economic improvement.This new edition of The New Harvest provides ideas on how to implement a series of high-level decisions adopted by African leaders to place agriculture at the center of the continent's long-term economic transformation. It puts agriculture in the context of the Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy (STISA-24) adopted by African presidents in 2014. More importantly, this edition provides a policy framework that could be adopted for other sectors such as health, industry and green innovation.Incorporating research from academia, government, civil society, and private industry, the book suggests multiple ways that individual African countries can work together at the regional level to develop local knowledge and resources, harness technological innovation, encourage entrepreneurship, increase agricultural output, create markets, and improve overall economic performance.

The rise of artificial intelligence has rekindled a long-standing debate regarding the impact of technology on employment. This is just one of many areas where exponential advances in technology signal both hope and fear, leading to public controversy. This book shows that many debates over new technologies are framed in the context of risks to moral values, human health, and environmental safety. But it argues that behind these legitimate concerns often lie deeper, but unacknowledged, socioeconomic considerations. Technological tensions are often heightened by perceptions that the benefits of new technologies will accrue only to small sections of society while the risks will be more widely distributed. Similarly, innovations that threaten to alter cultural identities tend to generate intense social concern. As such, societies that exhibit great economic and political inequities are likely to experience heightened technological controversies.Drawing from nearly 600 years of technology history, Innovation and Its Enemies identifies the tension between the need for innovation and the pressure to maintain continuity, social order, and stability as one of today's biggest policy challenges. It reveals the extent to which modern technological controversies grow out of distrust in public and private institutions. Using detailed case studies of coffee, the printing press, margarine, farm mechanization, electricity, mechanical refrigeration, recorded music, transgenic crops, and transgenic animals, it shows how new technologies emerge, take root, and create new institutional ecologies that favor their establishment in the marketplace. The book uses these lessons from history to contextualize contemporary debates surrounding technologies such as artificial intelligence, online learning, 3D printing, gene editing, robotics, and drones. It ultimately makes the case for shifting greater responsibility to public leaders to work with scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs to manage technological change, make associated institutional adjustments, and expand public engagement on scientific and technological matters.