Student Union
- By Max Cotton
Will the US Get Left in the Digital Dust?
A recent report provides some surprises about which countries are gaining traction in the digital space and which are stalling.
Researchers at the Fletcher School of International Affairs at Tufts University in Massachusetts looked at where digital is replacing "physical interactions," in communications, society and politics, commerce, media and entertainment.
For example, instead of handing over paper currency to a human who locks it in a safe, we now make bank transfers with the swipe of a phone screen, regardless of location.
"We identified many hot spots around the world where these changes are happening rapidly and other spots where momentum has slowed," the authors of the Digital Evolution Index said. "Two years on, depending on where we live, we continue to move at different speeds toward the digital planet."
Countries were organized into the categories of Stand Out, Stall Out, Break Out and Watch Out. The highest rating, Stand Out, was given to countries that are digitally advanced and show significant momentum for innovation.
Winners in bringing people online were Singapore, New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates. Malaysia was perched on the edge of Stand Out.
"Not only are they digitally highly evolved, they are moving very, very fast," said Bhaskar Chakravorti, one of the report's authors and senior associate dean at the Fletcher School.
Governments in this category act as "stewards and connector" to ferry public and private sectors into the digital space, he said.
Likely to stall
While digitally advanced, the nations of Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Finland and Denmark were the top five most likely to Stall Out, the report said. While they might be ahead of the curve, their momentum has slowed.
"European governments are not making the investments needed to advance the development of new technologies," Chakravorti said. The EU "is not a digital market union."
Mexico, India, Morocco and Russia were poised to Break Out. While not very digitally advanced, they are evolving rapidly by making infrastructure stronger.
The report said it was important for countries to understand basic aspects of digital competition:
— Digital technology is widespread and spreading fast. "There are more mobile connections than people on the planet, and more people have access to a mobile phone than to a toilet," the report said.
— Digital players wield outsize market power, it added. "Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook were the five most valuable companies in the world. ... Seventh overall was China's e-commerce giant, Alibaba Group. These players enjoy economies of scale and dominant market share."
— Digital technologies are poised to change the future of work, affecting as much as 50 percent of the world economy, the report said. "There is both anticipation and apprehension about what lies on the other side of the threshold of the 'second machine age.' "
— Digital markets are uneven, the report said. Politics, regulations and levels of economic development play a major role in shaping the digital industry. The world's largest internet user population, at 721 million, is China, where many of the major global players don't have entry.
India has the greatest market potential, the Fletcher School researchers said, with 462 million internet users. But it struggles with multiple languages and infrastructure challenges, although the government has tried to enable a digital market.
Fragmented EU market
The European Union has 412 million internet users, but the market is fragmented and still forming a "digital single market," the report said. In many countries, several websites or digital companies are blocked.
Around the world, digital access itself is far from uniform: Barely 50 percent of the world's population has access to the internet today, the report said.
Cash is another condition plaguing digital commerce, it said. Digital alternatives have not replaced cash in many places, despite online options. In 2013, the report said, 85 percent of the world's transactions were in cash. Even in the Eurozone, 75 percent of point-of-sale payments were in cash.
"In Malaysia, Peru, and Egypt, only 1 percent of transactions are cashless," the authors wrote. In India, where the government adjusted 86 percent of its currency, cash withdrawals were 0.6 percent higher than a year earlier.
At the bottom of the pack were Egypt, Pakistan and Peru, rated Watch Out. These countries are not digitally advanced, and they lack momentum to get there. Some actually are declining digitally, the report said.
The study authors recommended that countries improve by closing the "mobile gap," or the difference between the number of mobile phones and the number of mobile phones with internet access.
As for global titans Germany and the U.S., the report said they are in danger of losing momentum, having moved so far, so fast. The U.S. is not investing in "foundational technology" for "10 years, 20 years, 30 years from now," Chakravorti said.
Global citizens, especially young people and international students, will look away from the U.S. if it does not invest more in technology, and toward Asia, he said.
Asia is the most digitally exciting region in the world, led by China and Malaysia, the report said. Entrepreneurship and venture capital is being aimed at that region, and it can expect to see a lot of investor and entrepreneurial interest in coming years.
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- By VOA News
US is now the most desirable country for international students
That’s according to this year’s Emerging Futures research survey, from education consultant IDP Connect. Other Western countries have slipped due to new visa restrictions and caps on international students. Read a summary of the research from ICEF Monitor. (April 30, 2024)
Pro-Palestinian protesters break through barricades to retake MIT encampment
Pro-Palestinian protesters who had been blocked by police from accessing an encampment at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Monday broke through fencing, linked arms and encircled tents that remained there, as Columbia University canceled its university-wide commencement ceremony following weeks of pro-Palestinian protests.
Sam Ihns, a graduate student at MIT studying mechanical engineering and a member of MIT Jews for a Ceasefire, said the group has been at the encampment for the past two weeks and that they were calling for an end to the killing of thousands of people in Gaza.
"Specifically, our encampment is protesting MIT's direct research ties to the Israeli Ministry of Defense," he said.
Protesters also sat in the middle of Massachusetts Avenue, blocking the street during rush hour in the Boston area.
The demonstrations at Columbia have roiled its campus and officials said Monday that while it won't hold it's main ceremony, students will be able to celebrate at a series of smaller, school-based ceremonies this week and next.
The decision comes as universities around the country wrangle with how to handle commencements for students whose high school graduations were derailed by COVID-19 in 2020. Another campus shaken by protests, Emory University, announced Monday that it would move its commencement from its Atlanta campus to a suburban arena. Others, including the University of Michigan, Indiana University and Northeastern, have pulled off ceremonies with few disruptions.
Columbia's decision to cancel its main ceremonies scheduled for May 15 saves its president, Minouche Shafik, from having to deliver a commencement address in the same part of campus where police dismantled a protest encampment last week. The Ivy League school in upper Manhattan said it made the decision after discussions with students.
"Our students emphasized that these smaller-scale, school-based celebrations are most meaningful to them and their families," officials said.
Most of the ceremonies that had been scheduled for the south lawn of the main campus, where encampments were taken down last week, will take place about 8 kilometers (5 miles) north at Columbia's sports complex, officials said.
Speakers at some of Columbia's still-scheduled graduation ceremonies include Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright James Ijames and Dr. Monica Bertagnolli, director of the National Institutes of Health.
Columbia had already canceled in-person classes. More than 200 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had camped out on Columbia's green or occupied an academic building were arrested in recent weeks.
Similar encampments sprouted up elsewhere as universities struggled with where to draw the line between allowing free expression while maintaining safe and inclusive campuses.
The University of Southern California earlier canceled its main graduation ceremony. Students abandoned their camp at USC on Sunday after being surrounded by police and threatened with arrest.
Other universities have held graduation ceremonies with beefed-up security. The University of Michigan's ceremony was interrupted by chanting a few times Saturday. In Boston on Sunday, some students waved small Palestinian or Israeli flags at Northeastern University's commencement in Fenway Park.
Emory's ceremonies scheduled for May 13 will be held at the GasSouth Arena and Convocation Center in Duluth, almost 20 miles (30 kilometers) northeast of the university's Atlanta campus, President Gregory Fenves said in an open letter.
"Please know that this decision was not taken lightly," Fenves wrote. "It was made in close consultation with the Emory Police Department, security advisors and other agencies — each of which advised against holding commencement events on our campuses."
The 16,000-student university is one of many that has seen repeated protests stemming from the conflict that started Oct. 7 when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 hostages. Student protesters are calling on their schools to divest from companies that do business with Israel or otherwise contribute to the war effort.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. Israeli strikes have devastated the enclave and displaced most of its inhabitants.
Hamas on Monday announced its acceptance of an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal, but Israel said the deal did not meet its "core demands" and that it was pushing ahead with an assault on the southern Gaza town of Rafah.
"Cease-fires are temporary," said Selina Al-Shihabi, a Georgetown University sophomore who was taking part in a protest at George Washington. "There can be a cease-fire, but the U.S. government will continue to arm the Israeli military. We plan to be here until the university divests or until they drag us out of here."
At the University of California, San Diego, police cleared an encampment and arrested more than 64 people, including 40 students.
The University of California, Los Angeles, moved all classes online for the entire week due to ongoing disruptions following the dismantling of an encampment last week. The university police force reported 44 arrests but there were no specific details, UCLA spokesperson Eddie North-Hager said in an email to The Associated Press.
Schools are trying various tactics from appeasement to threats of disciplinary action to get protestors to take down encampments or move to campus areas where demonstrations would be less intrusive.
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago said in a Facebook post Sunday that it offered protesters "amnesty from academic sanction and trespassing charges" if they moved.
"Many protesters left the premises of their own accord after being notified by the police that they were trespassing and subject to arrest," the school said. "Those that remained were arrested after multiple warnings to leave, including some of whom we recognized as SAIC students."
A group of faculty and staff members at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill asked the administration for amnesty for any students who were arrested and suspended during recent protests. UNC Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine said in a media advisory that it would deliver a letter on behalf of more than 500 faculty who support the student activists.
Other universities took a different approach.
Harvard University's interim president, Alan Garber, warned students that those participating in a pro-Palestinian encampment in Harvard Yard could face "involuntary leave." That means they would not be allowed on campus, could lose their student housing and may not be able to take exams, Garber said.
Columbia University cancels main commencement after protests that roiled campus for weeks
Columbia University is canceling its large university-wide commencement ceremony amid ongoing pro-Palestinian protests but will hold smaller school-based ceremonies this week and next, the university announced Monday.
"Based on feedback from our students, we have decided to focus attention on our Class Days and school-level graduation ceremonies, where students are honored individually alongside their peers, and to forego the university-wide ceremony that is scheduled for May 15," Columbia officials said in a statement.
The protests stem from the conflict that started Oct. 7 when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking roughly 250 hostages. Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel launched an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 34,500 Palestinians, about two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. Israeli strikes have devastated the enclave and displaced most of its inhabitants.
The University of Southern California earlier canceled its main graduation ceremony while allowing other commencement activities to continue.
- By VOA News
Where Are Pro-Palestinian Campus Protests Happening?
Colleges in the U.S. have been rocked by a wave of campus protests calling for an end to the war in Gaza, and for U.S. colleges to divest from Israel.
The Wall Street Journal’s Steven Russolillo rounds up some of the most important ones. (April 2024)
Pro-Palestinian protests in US could impact 2024 election
Despite the fact that many of their encampments at university campuses have been dismantled, pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the United States are standing their ground. If the protests continue, some analysts say they could have an impact on the 2024 presidential election. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias explains.
