Session 2

The themes for session 2 were ‘Technology, society and global dominance’ and ‘Technology and Human Development’. Firstly, we discussed the dimensions of global dominance. Here we looked at examples of dominant or leading players in different fields and industries such as social, cultural, military, industrial and economical.  A key take away from this discussion was that leaders or dominant leaders in respective areas share the characteristics of being open minded and optimistic. To be successful, a company, society or an individual will have to be like ‘Rising Stars’- meaning they have to keep investing in new ideas or ways of doing things. I believe this is highly relevant to all of us.

Later, we looked at how colonialism has played a role in shaping world economies today. We saw how Europeans imposed not only economical but also cultural and political dominance over their colonies. The impact of colonialism in terms of exploitation and wealth was discussed and shown through a graph. I found the graph interesting as it visually explains how the world dominance has been changing. An almost cyclical pattern of change in transfer of dominance may be noticed with the changing times.

Furthermore, I also found the article about pop culture interesting as it highlights issues that are relevant to us today. Pop culture may be seen as one of the disadvantages of globalization as it is resulting in decline of traditional means of entertainment.  For example, the Hollywood movies are dominating over the other cultural movie industries such as French. Similarly, the rise in number of reality TV shows exemplifies the decline of television (creativity).

Then, I enjoyed the presentation on China gaining dominance in area of clean energy. From the presentation I learnt that China is the leading producer of low cost solar panels and wind turbines. I was intrigued by the fact that when China has been successful in producing clean energy at low cost, the other countries such as USA are criticizing China. This shows that perhaps, other nations are more worried about their economies as China becomes more competitive than the issues like global warming.

In the other half of the lecture, we looked at the link between technology and development. The different factors that may affect development of a country such as type of government, access to technology were discussed. It was realised how the Millennium Development Goals may be achieved using technology.

Something that I liked most about today’s lecture was the video by BBC. I loved the manner in which Hans Rosling allowed us to visualise the 200 years history of about 200 countries within 4 minutes as he linked the lifespan and income of people I respective times. A direct relation between income and lifespan of world population could be seen and the ways in which drastic events such as the two World wars affected the development of people.

I would rate this session 9/10. I wish we could have explored more the different factors that create differences in the extents to which a region is able to develop.