My father's carrer invokved writing 2000+ articles for The economist.
His 2 favorute subjects spred optimism
- how people could be locally and communally kinder to each other so ther children could grow up thruving and confiednt in co-creating hauman advancement
how tech would chage worldwide relationships; celebrating 1964 worldwide connections of satellite tele father was one if te first to regeras telecommuting lives; you could live in a place that you naturally loved and work vurtally with people who inspred you most across all hemisphers
Dad focusded on optimistic meiation whilst being aware that dismal stuff can spin round peoples lives and times. His dad had seen his education interrupred by world war 1. dad;s ws iterrutedf by world war 2- he spent his last dasys as atenager navigating olanes in allied bomber comand burma.
Forunatelt dad survuved, complete his degree at cabridge where keynes las calses discussed hw incresingly a few economst would lock in edpeniatila sof wjat was possible. Dad was hired by The Economist's editt who hs just comletes teh cenetenary autobiography oif The Economsit purpsoe - trying to chnage roya famuly dromruling slavemeajing emire to designing in common ealth> but what made father's searches ynuque was being socended ti new yorl and princetion for the year of 1951 ti understand john von neuman. neumann warned that if the communiactiosns techbogies started in centrl europe 1865 had resulted in 2 world warsm what would their multiplcation by 100 tiems more compouringa dnartifivial intel tech er decade result in. Neumann told Noram to start with 3 concerns
-the future of stalin's ussr - stalin was the one elader who comletely diagreed with acions the united natioons was born to map
neumann saud tyhe enregy projects he and his peers were working on would make scientists noth teh most hated and the mst wanted peaople
and he siad his computing and artificial intel projects would one day compund even mor threats and oportunity than the energy projects
You could say that father's stiries were inspired by 3 leading entrepreneurs- techs who von neuman mould have admired; end poverty designers so that where ever next child is born she has a good chnace at life
practice leaders open sourcing basis knowhow we need so nobody starves or dies through lack of last mile heath services, or is deprived of uniting how tdays 8 billion peopel advance humanity becasue their skin or sex is un a minoruty.
Dad's work can be read as questuoning next decades of what will those wit first acess to 00 tiems more tech unite as goods. For father kennedy was a star leader as he chalenged yoth of te 1960s around 2 futures - moon raccing and celebrtaing interdepence of peopels acriss hemisphres. Within 10 years of meeting vn neuman father had started mapping 5 corridors where people were first to be experimenting wit 100 tiems more tech
Whilst fathers main co-worlers were at the economist, i joined father in 1984 half way through neuman's 80 yeras to co-author teh 2025 report. I added in media and digital sxenaris which are sumarise in this revew by the economust's former science editir viscount nat rudley
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2025 report - final coperation edition provides updates thans to many peop,e who hsited remebrace parties to dad and intrcuces a game he had satrted with students during his last 2 year - world record jobs. If the way you look at the world is most influend by 2 people plus searches for new thirds - who's alumni re you linking in at any one time and whts the hauman advancemet coopertion they can helo you map.
Ky father's 2 main luminaries were fazle abe and the most pivotal pesson linking in the economic miracle of 1 billion asian women empowerment. 6 years after father death a year one review of the un's 17 goals sgopping list for sustainabilit development mapped a framework that fitted bot von neouman and women ending poverty of being dsiconnescetd from erst of teh worl
change media
to change eevryone' time a slife long tecaherm learer and action-maker
apply next leaps in artificia intel
celebrate training matemmaticains and tehror cideing if deepent daya
chnage r=the role of oyblic servannts (un2 g=gv2 egov)
audit how humans rights and inclusion are rising the world over
Between 2000 and 1970 a billion village mothers developed the foundations of ending asian village poverty - caused by geohistory's unique curveballs - eg tropical diseases and continental locations that empires had left out of electricity and other infrastructure grids, and illiteracy
action: go to abedmooc.com and after that yunusmooc.com
what can be learnt from 1 billion village mothers now applies wherever tech is making big bigger rather than local community more diverse and empowered to enjoy real life - note the paradox your skills may be improved by networking with people on the other side of the world but if you have family they need real spaces - green or happy or full of active participation - human beings are not designed to spend 24 hours a day squinting at screens-
DEEP COMMUNITY WHEN LOCAL IS EVERY EXP
people like the clintons spent 15 years celebrating muhammad yunus in annual summuts called microcreditsummut - while there is a lot to learn from Yunus too it cant be learnt until you understood what abed did first- yunus admitted as much in his obit to abed
1 abed always designed business solutions that women could use wherever possible= he saw charity distorting sustainable development and indeed he had experienced how western relief agencies are often funded to do something and go not to train local people to be self-sufficient
2 abed's rural advancement committee was not primarily about banking it was about livelihoods, last mile heath services, education and ending starvation; this matters because abed's village public servants which totalled 100000 at their peak were practice trainers not bankers nor administrators; when they did the book-keeping this was aside from their passion ; so unlike eg western financial service systems when technology started replacing manual records the staff were only too glad to get back to coaching full time - unlike western bankers who turned those who sued to book-keep for savings into people aiming to maximise credit card debt
3 because abed had previously been regional ceo shell oil , he had the connections to know where best practices had already been used in development-he imported these ; he wanted the best replicable solutions; cooperation was a 2-way street- where his networks developed a best solution they joyfully shared this
4 abed started within one year of the nation's birth unlike yunus whose gramren ordinance didnt start to 11 years afrer brac; at time of birth, 90% of bangladesh wss rural needing bottom up solutions; the government barely had the taxes to look after citizens and national security; abed's networks builr the basics which all other development work depended on
5 even becoming a banker was not abed's intent; once he had thousands of village mothers making profits from growing rice and other veggies he went to the government but was told they did not have the ability to bank for these people; later abed evolved the philosophy; he'd design solutions but where it later became obvious that they were better funded by taxes he would transfer them to governmemt provided the transparent franchise replication resulted;
6 abed was always building solutions relevant to 100000 person community building not one person at a time; the result was partnership platforms where even the world most sophisticated aid agencies could come and learn - for example : oral rehydration a cure to save a third of infants from dying made up of mixing boiling water sugar and salts in correct proportions that may sound easy to make a nationwide lesson for every village mother; it nearly didn't happen twice; abed tested learning concepts before massive replication; problems he had to overcome turned out to be 3-fold illiteracy; the trainers didnt believe in the solution; the males in the village needed to be informed why this intervention would save their kids lives
bangladesh had twice been colonised ,it had been partitioned out of access to the the bay's superport calcutta; a land of river deltas it has almost no mineral resources- its 3 main world trades could only be developed as agricultural ; garments; remittances with perhaps the fourth of being a learning lab which the world designs the solution millennials graduates most need to replicate to be the first sustainbility generation; there was a game of two halves ; through to the late 1990s all of abed's work was with villagers with no access to electricity grids; when partners brought mobile and solar bangladesh could become the world's number 1 leapfrog lab- how to design solutions when you missed out the whole rea of fixed line phones and elecrticity grids;
brac communities was maximise cooperation ; indeed abed's reason for leaving his job with shell was a cyclone that killed half a million people around him ; he wanted to design communities that had their own resiliency in facing natures challenges
all 3 of the main empires to have historically trapped asian people - ie britain netherlands and in 50 years leading to the 2 world wars the japanese have had the most to learn and support 1 billion women empowerment ;it seems americans neither understood the coastline maps nor the cultures nor the massive intergenerational cooperations that women empowerrnent has involved .its a pity but needs to be understood very clearly - in the era of deeply diverse data we cant expect artificial intelligences to design human values support systems with the sort or myopia american mba professors had been prone to spin
