Analyses
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Crowdfunding / Hollywood / Kickstarter / Knowledge@Wharton / Startups / United States / Veronica Mars / Veronica Mars Kickstarter Campaign / WB / Focus Article / Business & EntrepreneurshipThe success of the "Veronica Mars" Kickstarter campaign has illustrated that crowdfunding is a reliable source of capital for both start-up businesses and established firms. The campaign to front a movie based on the cult television show "Veronica Mars" through crowdfunding broke records for the fastest project ever to raise $1 million on Kickstarter. It was the website's biggest film project so far, and it has the most backers of any project to date. What it probably didn't do, Wharton experts say, is throw open the doors of crowdfunding to major motion pictures. But that's OK: Crowdfunding is successfully helping entrepreneurs raise capital without the need...
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Adobe / Cloud Computing / Computing / Creative Suite / Knowledge@Wharton / Online Cloud Services / Photoshop / United States / Focus Article / Business & EntrepreneurshipAdobe is favoring subscription-based software and online "cloud" services. If support for the company's cloud transition sticks, other vendors may quickly adapt. Adobe, the leading software company targeting creative professionals, is exiting the shrink-wrap software business in favor of subscription-based software and online "cloud" services. While perhaps painful at first, the business model change will be ultimately beneficial for consumers and Adobe alike, and other software companies are likely to follow, say experts at Wharton. On May 6, Adobe said it would stop developing its flagship Creative Suite, which includes applications such as Photoshop, in...
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Argentina / Bogota / Catholic / Colombia / Dylan Herrera / Gay Marriage / Gay Rights / Heterosexuality / Homosexuality / Latin America / Peru / Politics / Roman Catholic Church / Spain / Venezuela / Focus Article / Arts & Culture / AmericasA campaign against discrimination has been launched by gay activists in Colombia. Denying civil rights to a specific group in society, resembles the struggle against anti-Semitism and the African-American civil rights movement. In 2005, the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in Spain approved gay marriage. The big question was whether the approval was going to be the small landslide that would cause the avalanche in Latin America, the stronghold of the Catholic Church. December 2009 saw Mexico City become the first city in Latin America to approve gay marriage; although, this approval does not apply for all states in the country. The leading step taken by Mexico City...
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Assam / Drones / Forest / India / Mumbai / Nava J. Thakuria / Rhinos / Wildlife / Focus Article / Asia / Environment & SustainabilityIn India, elite forces on the ground and drones in the sky aim to safeguard Assam's wildlife. Assam, which has been in the national and international media for incidents related to insurgency turned terrorism, is on the verge of witnessing a new battle. Unmanned remote-controlled aircraft popularly referred to as drones which are being used by NATO forces in Afghanistan, are to become operative in the state. But unlike Afghanistan, the drones in Assam would be conservatory in nature. The Indian Union environment and forest ministry has cleared the proposal from the Assam government for flying the conservation drone for aerial surveillance on poachers targeting the precious...
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Antony Evans / crowd-funding / Deeba Fahami / Fundraising / Glowing Plants Project / Kickstarter / Stanford / synthetic biology / United States / Vibrio Fischeri / Focus Article / Science & Technology / Environment & SustainabilityBy Deeba FahamiIn a world of austerity and shrinking research budgets, the crowd-funding method at the core of the Glowing Plant Project offers a radically different approach to scientific research funding. The first synthetic biology project that has launched on Kickstarter, the Glowing Plant Project, brings a whole new approach to scientific research. This project, which has raised over $365k in under four weeks, aims to create a real glowing plant using synthetic biology. The project is testing the new frontier of science in which science is conducted outside the walls of a big institution. About the Project Antony Evans, the project manager says: "The goal of the project is to educate the public...
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African / African Progress Panel / African Progress Report 2013 / Extractive Industries / Kofi Annan / Solomon Appiah / United Nations / Universal Declaration of Human Rights / Focus Article / Global Change / AfricaThe recently launched African Progress Report 2013 addresses the important topic of equality in extractives, and recieved a lot of media attention. A Little History There are critical junctures in human history where a clarion call is issued against an injustice so great but tolerated in one or more parts of the world. The succeeding decades following this call are greatly shaped by how the global family responded to such cries. One such call was the demand to end slavery in the USA. Some headed the call, while others chose not to thus triggering a war between those on either side of the call. What would the world look like today if the south had won the...
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Forced Labour / immigration / Migration / Mirko van Pampus / Moldova / Prostitution / Sex Industry / Trafficking / Turkey / Europe / Focus Article / Global ChangeThe dominant terminology on forced labour relations is too rigid in assuming the existence of two homogeneous but separated groups of workers. "For three hundred years, the most powerful nations on earth grew richer and stronger on the profits of slave trade. Over twelve million men, women and children were forcefully transported from Africa...to the colonies and plantations of North and South America. Today, slavery is illegal in every country on the planet, but the truth is slavery did not die in the 19th Century. It is alive, it is thriving and it is bigger than ever." With this sweeping statement, researcher and journalist Rageh Omaar introduces every episode of the eight-part...
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Anthony Orlando / Ethanol / Manhattan Project / Renewable Energy / United States / Focus Article / Global Change / Environment & SustainabilityAmericans still want investment in renewable energy in a bid to distance themselves from Middle Eastern oil producers. James Gaddy knows manure. Chicken manure, to be exact. He’s spent years working with it. That may not sound like much fun to you and me, but Gaddy is on a mission to power the earth — and, in the process, save it. Specifically, Gaddy has figured out a way to produce ethanol from the bacteria in chicken manure. And it’s cellulosic ethanol, not the corn-based kind that siphons land in Iowa, jacks up the price of food, and results in almost as much greenhouse gas emissions as gasoline. No, this stuff is the real deal. It dramatically reduces greenhouse...
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Ahmed R.Teleb / Edouard Lambert / Eugen Ehrlich / google / google.ps / Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr / Larry Page / Palestine / Politics / Roscoe Pound / sociological jurisprudence / United States / Focus Article / Global Change / Middle EastBy Ahmed TelebMaking the decision for Google to change google.ps' website to mention "Palestine," CEO Larry Page didn't look at international law. Instead, he looked at what social institutions had done regarding Palestine. In turn, Google too followed suit. Google's decision on May 3 to change google.ps' tagline to “Palestine,” implicitly recognized it as a state. It also encapsulated a jurisprudence (philosophy of law) that harkens back to a world-wide quasi-revolution in law from 100 years ago, called by many at the time, the solution to “a crisis of democracy.” Today, that approach may herald a new period of legal transition as recent technology and new economic realities collide with old laws...