Wireless Valley, Silicon Wadi and Digital Island - Helsinki, Tel Aviv and Dublin in the ICT Boom

In the context of the global production network (GPN) paradigm, this paper considers the combination of local and global factors which have contributed to the development of the ICT clusters in three small countries. Developments in each country reflect the combination of local advantages in human, knowledge and institutional capital and each nation?s global economic and socio-political linkages. A key focus of the paper is the role of each nation?s capital city ? or more accurately the capital city region ? in the development of the ICT cluster. The consequences for the regional distribution of ICT activity within the three countries are discussed, along with the potential technological and competitive implications of this distribution. Initial sections of the paper focus on the factors which underpinned the massive growth of the ICT sector in each country in the latter half of the 1990s. This leads to an assessment of the global market position of each industry and its prospects in any future upturn. The paper considers different aspects of the role of Tel Aviv, Dublin and Helsinki in attracting and supporting ICT development are considered. Symbolic and image factors are considered in terms of the cities? ability to attract internationally mobile human and financial capital. Institutional (e.g. higher education, thickness of financial institutions) and infrastructural factors are also considered in terms of the cities? ability to support and facilitate ICT companies. The role of entrepreneurship is also considered alongside the availability of venture capital etc.

Towards an understanding of sub-Saharan African fertility transition with particular reference to Kenya

9TH Annual ethics conference. Theme : Bioethics medical, legal, environmental and cultural aspects in healthcare ethics at STRATHMORE UNIVERSITY, 25-26 OCTOBER 2012.9TH Annual ethics conference. Theme : Bioethics medical, legal, environmental and cultural aspects in healthcare ethics at STRATHMORE UNIVERSITY, 25-26 OCTOBER 2012

Reconsidering the Exclusion of Metaphysics in Human Geography

From the time of Descartes a strong tendency emerged to exclude the consideration of metaphysical questions as a necessary step towards developing truly scientific disciplines. Within human geography, positivism had a significant influence in moulding the discipline as "spatial science", resulting in a reductionist vision of humanity. Since the 1970s, in reaction to the limitations of this narrow vision and also to the deterministic perspective of marxism, humanistic approaches became important, but have failed to adequately deal with the exclusion of metaphysical issues. The more recent emergence of postmodern influences within human geography, while being critical of the rigidities associated with Enlightenment thinking, and suggesting a greater tolerance of "difference", appears reluctant to reconsider the exclusion of metaphysics. This paper suggest that such a reconsideration could contribute significantly towards increasing human geography's capacity to help policy makers deal more adequately with some of the major issues facing humanity

Interview with Séamus Grimes, Emeritus Professor, NUI Galway, Ireland

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Wireless Valley, Silicon Wadi and Digital Island - Helsinki, Tel Aviv and Dublin and the new economy GPN

Hyper-capitalism in global information and communication technology (ICT) markets during the late 1990s created a new global production network, shaped by multinational corporations, international capital flows, and a flourishing of high-tech entrepreneurship. Each of the cities considered here benefited substantially from this growth, but their positions as nodes in the ICT global production network differed markedly, as did their ability to appropriate the Value they generated. In Dublin, value creation was based largely on inward technology and capital flows, although indigenous Dublin-based software companies did demonstrate their ability to compete internationally. ICT development in Helsinki and Tel Aviv drew more strongly on the local knowledge base, and benefited from changes in national regulatory and political conditions. In Helsinki, public and private R&D investments supported the highly effective globalisation strategy of Nokia to create a strongly localised, vertically-integrated and strongly specialised sector. Value creation in the more diverse Israeli ICT sector was also based primarily on locally developed technology, university R&D and the commercialisation of technology developed initially for military applications. By the end of the 1990s, the resulting ICT node in Tel Aviv was grounded in the local knowledge-base, technologically diverse, strongly entrepreneurial and globally oriented. © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.peer-reviewe