Measuring the Circle: Emerging Trends in Philanthropy for First Nations

The Circle had the opportunity to undertake a multi-part research project to gain a more robust understanding of non-governmental funding to Aboriginal beneficiaries and causes in Canada over the past few years. The year-long knowledge gathering process included three inter-related activities: (a) mining Canada Revenue Agency data to map the Aboriginal funding economy in Canada from 2005 to 2011; (b) a set of Key Informant interviews with representatives from a sample of grantmakers surfaced through the mapping activity; and (c) a series of case studies to showcase some leading funders in the Aboriginal funding sphere or initiatives dedicated to building community capacity as well as supporting Aboriginal beneficiaries and causes. This report contains the key findings from the three-part research initiative

From Social Data Mining to Forecasting Socio-Economic Crisis

Socio-economic data mining has a great potential in terms of gaining a better understanding of problems that our economy and society are facing, such as financial instability, shortages of resources, or conflicts. Without large-scale data mining, progress in these areas seems hard or impossible. Therefore, a suitable, distributed data mining infrastructure and research centers should be built in Europe. It also appears appropriate to build a network of Crisis Observatories. They can be imagined as laboratories devoted to the gathering and processing of enormous volumes of data on both natural systems such as the Earth and its ecosystem, as well as on human techno-socio-economic systems, so as to gain early warnings of impending events. Reality mining provides the chance to adapt more quickly and more accurately to changing situations. Further opportunities arise by individually customized services, which however should be provided in a privacy-respecting way. This requires the development of novel ICT (such as a self- organizing Web), but most likely new legal regulations and suitable institutions as well. As long as such regulations are lacking on a world-wide scale, it is in the public interest that scientists explore what can be done with the huge data available. Big data do have the potential to change or even threaten democratic societies. The same applies to sudden and large-scale failures of ICT systems. Therefore, dealing with data must be done with a large degree of responsibility and care. Self-interests of individuals, companies or institutions have limits, where the public interest is affected, and public interest is not a sufficient justification to violate human rights of individuals. Privacy is a high good, as confidentiality is, and damaging it would have serious side effects for society.Comment: 65 pages, 1 figure, Visioneer White Paper, see http://www.visioneer.ethz.c

The Emergence of New Successful Export Activities in Argentina: Self-Discovery, Knowledge Niches, or Barriers to Riches?

This paper examines the emergence of three new successful export activities in Argentina: biotechnology applied to human health, blueberries and chocolate confections. The main interest lies in ascertaining why these sectors/products were targeted, on which previously accumulated capabilities they were built upon, and what type of hurdles they faced and how they were overcome. In the absence of government support for discovery, these new exports emerged because the pioneers could introduce permanent or dynamic barriers to entry to compensate for the knowledge externalities they generated. When they could only introduce temporary barriers to entry, laissez faire investment in experimentation was suboptimally small. These new exports emerged in sectors where there were entrepreneurs with superior planning and networking skills and/or there were larger firms that could self-provide the required public goods and solve coordination failures by themselves.