Are Social and Ethical Problems Important to You

Do you ever wonder if the current way some governmental institutions, political parties and corporations conduct themselves in society is socially responsible or as ethical as they could be? Maybe these governmental institutions, political parties and corporations are trying in some instances to be socially responsible, but need help leveraging their resources in a way to produce positive results?

Do all corporations develop technology that benefits humanity and allows everyone to participate fully and equally so they are able to contribute to help solve our world’s critical problems; like I describe in Collective Intelligence: Include The Disabled for Success?

Do governmental institutions, political parties, corporations, organizations and individuals collaborate together to effectively serve all the people, or just a targeted few?

I think some corporations, governments, and individuals do collaborate effectively together to benefit humanity when they make it a priority and put the appropriate amount of resources into their goals. Just one example is Habitat Jam; in which I had the privilege to talk virtually to many people from all over the world. I was able to help make a positive contribution in the lives I was grateful to touch. Along with the many others who participated we truly made a positive difference.

There are many groups of people and numerous opportunities to collaborate together to truly make a difference. Just a short list of examples are below.

List of 8 items
• Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
• Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
• Reduce child mortality
• Ensure environmental sustainability
• Achieve universal primary education
•Promote usability and accessibility in technology design so everyone has access; including the disabled and elderly.
• Promote gender equality and empower women
• Develop a global partnership for development.

I hope that as our world’s population grows, becomes elderly, disabled, goes through turbulent times, endures natural and man made disasters and faces other complicated challenges and hardships we can leverage technological innovations and social responsibilities to help combat and defeat our most critical social and environmental issues we will face.

Just think if we funneled the many billions of US dollars, or equivalent we spend on wars and killing each other towards projects and programs focused on the critical social and environmental issues I listed above. What a world we could create together!

Some of this work will be truly hard and difficult. The work will require the world’s governmental institutions, political parties, corporations and organizations to allocate adequate funding and resources to make positive progress in these critical issues we all face. I relate the difficulties of some of our challenges to something like my experience below.

I almost died multiple times when I got critically sick instantly one day after work, coded multiple times, went into a coma for 3 months, stayed in hospital for 7 months, went completely blind and endured other very undesirable and uncomfortable circumstances. I lost the ability to walk for one year because of that medical emergency. I fell to the ground in pain many times as I tore my clothes and bloodied parts of my body while I learned to walk again with my full leg braces, walker, Canadian crutches and now with 2 white canes. After leaving the hospital I retrained myself very quickly on many new skills I needed to be a successful blind person; with help from many others. I was able to successfully retain a job because of my efforts and desires. I was driven to succeed and failure was not an option.

Some of our challenges that we face as a society are far less traumatic than I endured. Some will be even more difficult and challenging. All involved such as governmental institutions, political parties, corporations, organizations and individuals working together to solve our most complex and pressing social and environmental problems will require the passion and dedication I had during my recovery. It will require leaders who are willing and prepared to walk alone and take well thought out and calculated risks.

One small example of the complexities, barriers and obstacles we will need to fully understand and overcome in a much larger scale can be described below.

In some global corporations teams work globally together across many different business units, time zones, different cultures, working styles, contrasting and conflicting personalities, different rewards and recognition systems, and different policies and procedures. It is essential to overcome some of the same challenges this working group has in a much larger scale to successfully leverage the knowledge of the world’s population to solve our most critical and complex problems. We need to take the lessons learned from working in such a global team and the skills mastered and expand the knowledge and mannerisms of working together successfully in global teams across many governmental institutions, political parties and corporations.

Two local Universities where I leverage knowledge where you can learn more about social Innovation are Santa Clara University - Center for Science, Technology & Society and
Center for Social Innovation (CSI): Stanford University Graduate School of Business

Let’s all work together and start positive change where ever we can! You can start in your community, your work place, educational institute or any organization you may be affiliated with. Do not be afraid to take that first step and walk alone if you need to. When you succeed others will follow your leadership. Who will step up and be our next world leader to help us? Maybe it could be you?

Just remember when I took my first steps after I was able to get out of my wheel chair. I fell many times before I could stand and walk again in my darkness. I hope you are not afraid to stand and walk in darkness and possibly fail along the path to successfully help us find new technology and other social remedies to solve our most critical problems we are faced with today.

Do you have any reference materials that will help us accomplish our lofty goals of solving some of the problems I described above? Any ideas or suggestions to enable groups of people across many governmental institutions, political parties, corporations, organizations and individuals to work together effectively? Do you have ideas of how to create and to allocate the funding needed to accomplish such goals? Do you have any suggestions and solutions to allow everyone to contribute equally and not have external barriers put on them by inaccessible technology? Any success stories you want to share?

We all look forward to hearing from you to help make this world better for everyone!

Bill Tipton
Contributing Author
Global Dialogue Center
http://www.globaldialoguecenter.com/

Comments

[Eric Carlson]

Right on Bill - there also are good examples of what you are talking about among the 2007 Tech Laureates in Health and Equality (www.thetech.org)

[Lacey]

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