Muhammad Yunus at 2008 Tech Laureate Awards, Santa Clara University

Check out the Tech Laureate Awards: Innovators from all over the World using technology to make the World safer and healthier, more prosperous and just. Check these out. Imagine how different things could be if these innovations were replicated wherever they could have a positive impact.

The keynote speaker at the event last November 13th was Muhammad Yunus , winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, developer of the Grameen Bank, and all around amazing human being. Check out the webcast of Muhammad Yunus's powerful keynote talk "Social Business, Science, and Technology as Forces for Justice and Prosperity", and the interview with Geoffrey C. Bowker, Executive Director, Regis and Dianne McKenna Professor, Center for Science, Technology and Society, Santa Clara University.

Zann Gill on Evolution & Sustainability — "What Daedalus told Darwin"

Zann Gill's new book, "What Daedalus told Darwin, Darwin's dilemma & designing intelligence" is expected to hit the bookstands in 2009. She lucidly explains the essential balance between competition and collaboration, which is not only theoretically fascinating but has huge practical implications. This important work addresses our very survival on the planet. Zann Gill's thesis, which shows the link between how evolution plays out and future sustainability, supports the mission of Chemists Without Borders to network local anti-pollution initiatives toward global sustainability. Here she gives a great video preview of the book:

Happy Birthday, Robert Burns!

Twelve score years and ten today, January 25, 2009, the great Scottish bard and social commentator Robert Burns was born. I once asked the late David Faison what would the poet be if he lived today? "A rock star!" he replied. Few realize how much Burns's sayings and quotations are part of daily use in the English language. Steinbeck's book Of Mice And Men takes its title from Burns's great poem, To a Mouse (where the emphasis is on the "and", by the way). Burns's Auld Lang Syne is sung throughout the world the moment each new year is rung in, but few have any idea what it means; it's what it does mean that has kept it in this unique position of highest honor for over 200 years (more of which, on another occasion). People around the world on this night celebrate Burns's birth with a Burns Supper, a great festive occasion where poems are read, whisky is drunk (and often so are the drinkers), and haggis is eaten. There may well be a celebration near you - perhaps next year . . .