Based on Disruptive Technology, Disruptive Methodology, and a Disruptive
Business Model
leading to a “Triple Bottom Line" (i.e., financial ROI, environmental
ROI, and societal ROI ), The Archimedes Access Research & Technology
International (AARTI) founded by Neil Scott, is an excellent example to
share for bootstrapping the global development and distribution of accessible
technology relative to Dr. Engelbart's call for action:
1) "[G]etting to harness technology, because the increase
in capabilities possible by what he was talking about was a 2-5 fold
increase, and would make a real difference to humanity."
2) "[It's] not just an abstact concept, Dr. Engelbart describes a
rich human-centric evolutionary framework, which harnesses innovative use
of new technology to augmnet human capability."
E.G., Universal access is like "Electronic Spectacles for Information"
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Personal prescription
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Simple to use
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Always works properly
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Independent of the type of information or vendor
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You choose when to upgrade
Specifically, Neil says Intelligent Cameras can be easily developed by
harnessing innovative Micropower Impulse Radar technology for integrating
various input and output strategies as "Intelligent Accessors" for
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recognizing objects
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monitoring the state of occupants and things
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accurate direction and distance to objects
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motion direction
Below is a link for downloading a very interesting slide presentation by
Neil Scott about AARTI and profound insights for understanding the needs,
abilities, preferences, and cultural differences of disabled and aging
people:
< http://www.smartnet.co.nz/neilscott/dec2001.ppt
>
Mei Lin Fung wrote:
Hello,
Bill
= Bill Zoellick, see www.fastwater.com
- he is working with Doug and I on case studies involving Singapore.
I
sent an earlier update to the Unrev list. Henry van Eyken has kindly been
posting the updates at Fleabyte. See there for day 1 and 2.
Here's
a day by day from Singapore. Day 1 was April 22.
Day
3 The
opening day of the World Library Summit. Doug delivered the opening keynote
in the morning on the topic of Knowledge Augmentation for the 21st Century
to an audience of almost 1000 delegates, speakers and dignitaries. Following
the speech, during the break the Minister of Information,
Technology and the Arts David Lim said to Doug that it was a heroic effort
to cover an enormous amount of deep material greatly relevant to the audience
in 45 minutes. Bill and Mei Lin in subsequent conversations with attendees,
observed that it appeared to be very well received by the audience of library
representatives, primarily from SE Asian libraries, with a sprinkling of
North American and European attendees. It was a funny thing, but because
Doug was talking as a technology visionary to a primarily librarian audience,
his talk seemed to be taken as a message from the mainstream of technology
and they, the audience were hugely appreciative of what they perceived
as the movement back to human-centric computing. I think we've gained a
lot: In the best case, many of the librarians are going to go back to their
libraries and be much more purposeful about their defining their role in
relation to technology and will undoubtedly cite Doug as giving them their
awakening call. Great stuff.Abstract
of Doug's talk: The rate
of technology innovation threatens to tear our social fabric. Dr. Douglas
Engelbart esxamines the new developments that strain the ability of goverments,
libraries and other social institutions to bridge the digital divide. The
key Dr. Engelbart offers to re-establish the balnce is facilitated evolution
of complex organisations' ability to share and use knowledge. Not just
an abstact concept, DDr. Engelbart describes a rich human-centreic evolutionary
framework, which harnesses innovative use of new technology to augmnet
human capability. Dr. Engelbart outlines the "Bootstrapping" methodology
and proposes a role for world library organizations as leaders in knolwedge
augmentaiton for the 21st century.
We
had lunch hosted by Dr. Tan Chin Nam, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry
for Information, Technology and the Arts at the best Indian restaurant
in Singapore. Mei Lin had to dash off before dessert to chair Plenary II
National Knowledge Agenda's. In opening the Plenary, she observed " It
is a measure of the civilization of a society the things they being to
hold sacred. ..... I have lived in the US for over twenty years, but I
am from Singapore. It gives me enormous pride to see Singapore host a World
Library Summit and develop a Plenary on the topic of National Knowledge
Agenda." Speakers representing Australia, Germany and the UK spoke about
the state of the art in their countries.That
evening, the WLS gala dinner was held. The evening opened with an impressive
volley of intense drumming by about a dozen gentleman in traaditional
Malay costume. It sounded very much like the Japanese Taiko drumming but
at a constantly faster paste. We were served an 8 course Chinese Banquet
style dinner of food from the Malay Muslim cuisine. Many librarians wore
their national dress from Thailand, the Phillipines, Malaysia, Vietnam,
Brunei, Indonesia, Burma, Cambodia and Laos. It was a colorful evening
in which we were entertained by a string quintet over dinner, which struck
me as very "library-like" in nature. The
attending Minister was Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan, who sat next to Charles
Goldfarb, also here as a keynote speaker, who was next to Bill. Doug excused
himself to prepare for the long day he was to have on Day 4. Bill was struck
by the multi-faceted nature of Dr. Balakrishnan who is in charge of public
works and buildings in Singapore. He is also an eye surgeon who practices
one day a week. He still does his job as Dean of the Medical School at
the National University of Singapore, and not content with this, he had
a conversation with Charles Goldbarb on ebXML and XML, which Charles felt
reflected an extraordinarily high level of understanding. Bill and Charles
were humbled by the experience. It didn't help that he was also extraordinarily
handsome noted Mei Lin with a grin!Day
4Off
we went to Nanyang Technology University, at the western end of the island,
where Doug delivered the lecture at the Information Management Research
Center to a very interested audience of faculty members. It struck a chord
with any of them and they observed that Doug's framework provided a great
integration of their many point areas of research. They are interested
in further collaboration with Bootstrap. We will be meeting up again on
Saturday before Doug and Bill leave for the US, to see what we might do
specifically together. Then
it was back to the city center for Doug to deliver the inaugural IDA Distinguished
Speaker Lecture to an audience of IT and telecom senior management. The
topic was a Framework for Innovation. They kept asking Doug, what does
it take to be innovative. The answer which finally struck home was "A willingness
to be embarrassed". He told them about the series of rejections and
setbacks he'd had, and how he continued on despite. Eventually when years
after his intuition was validated, he continued to be rideculed for the
next series of ideas. It is hard to be ahead of your time.The picture he
left was one of great personal courage and conviction. People were awed
and moved by his humility. That
evening, he was interviewed by two television channels, CNBC Asia and Channel
News Asia. They asked about the mouse. One asked how he rated the odds
of convincing people about the path he was advocating. He said that he
felt so strongly that this is something he had to do, that it was worth
advocating, even if it only saved human kind 1 month or 1 year in getting
to harness technology, because the increase in capabilities possible by
what he was talking about was a 2-5 fold increase, and would make
a real difference to humanity. So he doesn't think about the odds. He must
do what he must do.After
such a day, how else could we end it than by walking over to the Raffles
Hotel and drinking Singapore Slings and having a perfect dinner under the
moon in the Raffles courtyard with live Brazilian music playing?
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