Wisdom in fragments

Roughly 100 countries in the world have already eliminated malaria (most of them since the Second World War). Of the 100 countries in the world that still have endemic malaria, 39 are in the process of eliminating while the remaining 61 are making steady progress.

Unknown.

The discovery of an effective HIV vaccine is the nirvana for all our efforts to prevent AIDS.

Unknown.

We are scientifically naked in front of this threat. We do not have the diagnostics to quickly detect an MDR or XDR case. Once detected, we do not have the drugs to effectively treat the patient at reasonable cost, and we do not have a TB vaccine.

Unknown.

HIV/AIDS is the greatest pandemic in human history. It is chronic pandemic, in the sense that its rise and fall is measured in decades. The known part of this pandemic is now three decades old, and it has several decades still to run.

Unknown.

In times of crisis, whether through conflict or nature, it is not an option for us to assist people but an obligation.

We are no longer sovereign-islands protected by fortified walls and arbitrary map-lines- we are an interconnected global family who depend on each other in incredibly profound ways.

Even the most untrained eye can sense the degrees of discrimination seen in foreign policy responses to natural disasters and conflict. Discrimination which can only rationally be explained by morally abhorrent flaws in foreign-policy.

The twenty million people who currently need assistance in Pakistan are not terrorists, nor of strategic importance for our governments. They are much more important than that, they are people like you and me- men, women, families, children- who only want the best for their lives, and who were already struggling with immense poverty, even before nature yielded a blow.

And a country that stops its citizens having access to Facebook, say, or Google or Skype, faces real disadvantages – from inward investment to domestic discontent…

Cambridge computer scientist specializing in security engineering and cryptography

And the overall picture that's emerging is that the controls which still work operate more along corporate boundaries than along national boundaries. In order to censor YouTube, for example, countries like Turkey and Pakistan had to block access to the whole site; it's not practical just to block selected content.

Cambridge computer scientist specializing in security engineering and cryptography

[the impact of the internet on liberty and free speech has been] very positive indeed – not so much two steps forward and one step back, as ten steps forward for every step back. By breaking the oligopoly of the established press and letting everyone be a publisher, it has made information much harder for the powerful to control.

Cambridge computer scientist specializing in security engineering and cryptography

we are moving towards a global theatre where even though each actor (country) may be at different levels of economic growth, the technologies which exist to enable the globalisation stimulate high levels of transparency, meaning that each agent (companies, customers, suppliers, politicians, etc) will be accountable for their practices, and so must act with greater consideration (and less arrogance!)

organisations will often behave in international economic theatres (such as China) with the same operational processes and assumptions as their 'home' environments (such as Australia) with the assumed protection of the legal, political and other systems of their 'home' environments.

In all institutions from which the cold wind of open criticism is excluded, an innocent corruption begins to grow like a mushroom – for example, in senates and learned societies.

Philosopher Known for "Beyond Good and Evil" & Critique of Morality

There are really only three types of people: Those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who say, 'What happened?' Which group would you rather be in?

Asia region countries are able to shave not just 10% off process-costs versus their western counterparts, but often 60-80%, often bringing great improvements and advantages in the process. This ensures they are more agile and able to sustain competitive advantage through continual innovation.