Culture, Attitude, and Development: The Story of The Arpanet Communication System.

TECH STORIES.

Aboubakar YARI & Venus YARI

Abstract:

The culture and attitudes of peoples of a country are significant factors that determine the country; s ability to develop and prosper. Traditional development assistance programs neglected the cultural aspect of development and emphasizes monetary and material donations.  New global development concepts adopted at the dawn of the new millennium in the 2000s emphasizes knowledge and attitude and create conditions that link development assistance to knowledge and attitude of recipients. Where older models failed after more than half a century of implementation, the new models prove their effectiveness in producing development impact after only a decade of implementation.

The Biotech tropicana Systems are an innovative private Biotech Company that specialized in biotechnology innovations adapted to the needs of the developing world. Where, we did not exclude corruption as a negative factor of development, here, we discuss an example of technological advancement strategy that highlights the linkage between culture and development, using the arpanet communication system as model.

Keywords: Culture; Attitude; Country Development; Development Assistance; Corruption;

Text

The ARPANET was a research network sponsored by the DoD (U.S. Department of Defense). It eventually connected hundreds of universities and government installations, using leased telephone lines.

In Computer Network; Tanenbaum and Whetherall.

Discussion:

Comments:

The text provides an example of culture that promotes overall country development. The Department of defense used its fund to finance external institutions to conduct research in an area of science, because it will indirectly benefit from the outcome of these research activities. The military is a big consumer of communication systems.

Such attitudes are lacking in many developing countries that are having difficulties to move toward an emergence. Aid won’t help such countries, because of their anti development attitudes. Monetary aid assistance may even further undermine the development of the country by reinforcing the counter development attitudes. Assistance must be linked to knowledge infusion to favor change of attitude toward development. This linkage approach is central to the new way global development concepts in the United Nations Millennium Development Goals and the United States Millennium Challenge Corporation.

See ‘In these situations more aid money can actually be counterproductive, because it subsidizes bad policies, delay reforms and crowd out private investments’. George W. BUSH. US MCA.

Traditional form of aid as delivered is one of the biggest barrier to the emergence of these countries. It reinforces laziness and penalizes hard work. Finally, no one work in the country. It is obvious that such a country can never emerge. The country must remain aid recipient forever; A colonization strategy.

In the worst scenarios, traditional form of ad may be used as a tool of competition by the donor to hinder local firms, for some benefits to a small group of privileged. A practice that delays technological advancement of these countries, thereby penalizing the majority of the population with respect to benefits for local consumers.  Local production will reduce cost for the consumer.

Corruption is another factor that penalizes the consumer in the general population.  A communication system consumer institution may accept communication products as a bribe to hinder research and development of communication systems in its own country on behalf a foreign corruptor. The foreign corruptor being a competitor of a local producer of communication systems. The mathematics of the scenario looks like the corruptor putting 5% of an expensive service into one institution to block 100% of the service at lower cost for local consumers. The net result is that the beneficiary local communities are loosing 95% of the service. Only a small minority of the population of the country benefits from the technology. The large majority of the population is excluded from the benefits of the technology. This scenario indicates a failure of the developing world country control system that should protect the development interest and technological advancement interest of the country and thereby the consumer of the country.

The Biotech Systems approach is to make profit by contributing to the development of the host country and not by destroying its the development. Our cultural philosophy is to make numerous amounts of small gains in a long term and not accepting a big bribe in one time to compromise our image and future market gains.

The major challenge our programs encounter in the developing world is the tendency of competitors to use corruption to force us into dependency on foreign aid by blocking our assets and access to financial services, while we struggle to free our programs from dependency on aid and keep them on track toward a dynamics of sustainable development. The complexity of design and the size of the global activities of the system were proven very successful in overcoming these challenges.

The Biotech tropicana systems shall adhere strictly to its new way approach of generating new wealth by applying its internal technological capacity and to use the resources generated for further technological advancement. The Biotech tropicana systems new way development approaches shall not be negotiated, under no circumstance. The Biotech tropicana systems SHALL be strictly closed to counterproductive aid.

In parallel with capacity building activities and wealth generating activities through the private sector, the Biotech tropicana,IncCOMMUNICATOR scientific journalism program shall continue to promote awareness on the importance of science, technology, and innovation in development of the private sector and overall country development, as recommended under the united nations millennium development project.

As stressed in the task force reports under the united nations millennium development project, developing countries must develop local capacity in science, technology, and innovation; promote the local private sector, and develop  local, regional, and global partnerships for development.

We agree with the task forces that development of local private sector will generate tax revenues for the public sector and reduce the public sector dependency on foreign aid.   Reaching out to the global market will increase revenues for local private sector and increase tax revenues for the public sector. Increased revenues in both sectors will increase overall savings that can be invested in long term development programs such as research for further development of the country, creating the dynamics of development that is characteristic of many countries developed today.

If the developing country develops a development programs on the basis of funds provided by foreign tax payers, the foreign donor will put conditions that push its interests on that fund. Something we will do ourselves. There is no free aid. The so called ‘aid’ is an investment of the citizens of the country collecting the taxes into the economy of the recipient country. It is natural that the tax investors expect something back from their investments. Then how does the poor country pay back? By providing valuable natural resources as raw materials without any further value adding transformation, or by releasing a piece of its sovereignty as ‘proxy’ of a richer donor; a path to colonialism. (Sachs et al; in ending africa’s poverty trap).  The Biotech tropicana Systems strategy is to make profit by contributing to life gains and development gains of the host country, applying its technological innovations.  Our technological capacity permits us to negotiate as partners in development and not as ‘proxies’.   

In our view, the developing country should overcome its status of passive consumer of aid to contribute in partnerships that protect the interests of all parties. This will require an investment in efforts toward an attitude and cultural ‘changes’, many developing countries failed to achieve. (see Barack Obama, in ‘change’ we can believe in).

We conclude that without this additional effort toward a ‘change’, emergence toward a sustained development will hardly come, no matter the amount of available monetary resources.  In a development process, our value grading system places monetary resources at a third C value, well behind the time B value and the first A value of intellect. Many developing countries place themselves at a third C position at best by running after donors ‘aid’ that come with conditions that get them stuck in ‘poverty traps’. The Biotech tropicana,IncCOMMUNICATOR science journalism program is trying with its own resources to bring its modest contribution in raising awareness on the importance of placing science, technology and innovation at the centre of development strategies.

References:

See

1. Hodary; George W. Bush and the US Millennium Challenge Account
2. Sachs et al; In Investing In Development
3. Juma et al; In Innovation: Applying Knowledge In Development
4. Sachs et; Ending Africa’s Poverty Trap.