The use of the word ‘disruption’ to describe the changes brought about by the ubiquity of computational devices and connectivity to the internet has become cliché. The term is useful in that it provides a rhetorical safety net by simultaneously describing everything and nothing, but its lack of precision inhibits technologists from achieving the goal […]
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When the U.N. Clashes with the Internet: The Crisis of Legitimacy of Representation
December 17, 2012 
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My latest blogpost comes via the World Economic Forum’s Blog. In it I discuss the crisis inherent in the recent conflict between the International Telecomunications Union and the members of the internet. I also discuss how this crisis manifests itself in both the news media as well as the private sector. Check it out here: […]
Continue readingDisrupting the Hospitality and Food Industry Through Crowd-Sourcing Economic Activities
August 30, 2012 2 Comments
Growing up in the province of New Brunswick, Canada I was keenly aware that one family, the Irving family, owned and operated most industry. Whether it be oil/gasoline/ forestry/paper products/transportation of people and goods/media, whatever industry the Irving’s chose they generally weren’t satisfied until vertical integration was complete. In the case of transportation, for example, the Irving’s owned […]
Continue readingPodcast Interview With Jorge Soto, Co-Founder of CitiVox
July 6, 2012 0 Comments
Here it is: my first ever self-produced podcast! I feel very fortunate that I regularly get to meet fascinating people doing amazing things to improve the state of the world. Jorge Soto is one of them and thus a fitting subject fora podcast. Jorge is the 27 year old co-founder of CitiVox, a Mexican Start-Up that uses technology to help citizens engage with government. Some of their projects include election monitoring, tracking of violence against journalists in Northern Mexico, making governments accountable to citizens, etc.
Continue readingWhy Revolutions Fail
June 30, 2012 2 Comments
An abridged version of this post exists for those less interested in reading about my personal connection to the topic. You can find it here. As a young man growing up on the far eastern edge of the North American continent, I hadn’t much experience of the outside world beyond the borders of the Canadian […]
Continue readingWhy Revolutions Fail (Abridged)
June 30, 2012 0 Comments
This is an abridged version of a longer essay. You can find the original here. After dedicating a good chunk of the time and energy of my adult life to the idea of revolution I have come to an uncomfortable conclusion. I say “uncomfortable” because my current beliefs undermine a lot of my past beliefs […]
Continue readingThe Role of Government in the Era of Crowdsourcing
June 12, 2012 0 Comments
My post this week comes via the World Economic Forum’s blog. Today I am discussing the changing role of government in the era of crowdsourcing. You can find the original post here: When the SpaceX Dragon Capsule touched down last week in the Pacific Ocean after its successful unmanned mission to the International Space Station, it brought […]
Continue readingDigital Democracy Series: Can ubiquitous connectivity make political parties obsolete?
May 25, 2012 2 Comments
If I think ahead into what I want the world to look like in 30 years, one of my hopes is that connectivity will be so ubiquitous that we no longer need political parties to act as the primary means through which we practice democracy. I say ‘practice’ democracy because democracy is, like the act of […]
Continue readingTaking Steps Towards Digital Democracy
May 6, 2012 1 Comment
The single most difficult concept for many people to grasp when discussing the possibilities of the future is the idea that as our innovations evolve so too does the context that enables those innovations. For example, when Google made public its self-driving car a lot of people scoffed at the idea that such a machine-driven […]
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Matthew Carpenter-Arevalo 