Institute for Business in the Global Context

October 17, 2018

Impact investors can gain real feedback from their portfolio companies’ customers. Do they want it?

Prof. Alnoor Ebrahim

“The single most important feature of Lean Data is its focus on listening to customers in order to serve them better,” writes Alnoor Ebrahim, a professor Tufts’ Fletcher School. Acumen’s Lean Data methodology is no silver bullet, he says, and “is better seen as a complement to evaluation approaches such as randomized control trials rather than a substitute.”

IBGC Speaker Series: Prof. Rusty Tunnard Interviews Oliver Wyman Partner Dylan Walsh (F’06)

October 16, 2018 / IBGC / 0 Comments

July 26, 2018

As Emerging Economies Bring Their Citizens Online, Global Trust in Internet Media is Changing

Digital technology was dreamed of as the ultimate connector and leveler, the ideal destroyer of borders and boundaries. The digital community that assembled itself around this summer’s FIFA World Cup shows one example of a true global village, in which people share the same obsessions on the digital planet. That’s a significant contrast to the online communities leaning toward nativism and anti-globalization.

Read the full piece from Dean Chakravorti in The Conversation

July 17, 2018

A Lynching in the Digital South

The fervour of the lynch mobs was largely facilitated by social media, which efficiently delivered rumours to solidify a “common cause”. Among these, WhatsApp is the prime carrier, with over 200 million Indian users in a given month. WhatsApp, of course, is an important part of the largest digital media enterprise on earth: Facebook. It has captured the attention of Indian users like no other app, has become an addictive and efficient spreader of forwarded “good morning” cheer, Santa-Banta jokes, pictures of newborn grandchildren — and, without question, venomous rumours that can whip up a digitally orchestrated frenzy.

Read the full piece from Dean Chakravorti in The Indian Express

July 13, 2018

Technology May Seek To Flatten The World, But The “Digital South” Will Chart Its Own Course

With trade wars, anti-globalization rhetoric and nationalist politicians hogging headlines around the world, mercifully, there are two things that can still bring the world together: viral messages on digital media and the FIFA World Cup. In fact, the real magic happens when the two global obsessions intersect. A quarter of the world’s active Internet users had planned to watch the games online; with over 4 billion online, that counts for a lot of people who are then poised to instantaneously pour their emotions onto social media. Once the World Cup final gets done on Sunday, July 15th, however, we might be back to digital virality carrying the flag solo to battle the forces of de-globalization.

Read the full piece from Dean Chakravorti in Forbes

June 24, 2018

In many parts of the world where technology is an integral part of daily life, enthusiasm for its benefits is rapidly giving way to concerns about its risks. Bhaskar Chakravorti, Dean of Global Business at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, explores this complicated relationship.

Learn more at sites.tufts.edu/digitalplanet/

June 21, 2018

Growth in the Machine

Without question, the race for AI dominance is between the US and China. However, despite its junior status — and this might come as a shock to some — there are, indeed, AI-relevant advantages unique to India. Three are particularly worth noting and give me reason for hope.

Read the full piece from Dean Chakravorti in The Indian Express

MIB Alumni Nathan Cohen-Fournier (MIB’ 17): The Place I Call Home

June 8, 2018 / IBGC / 0 Comments

Not every MIB journey is the same. Alumni wind up at major consulting firms, multinational corporations, international organizations, foundations, governments, and everything beyond and in between. One of the more unique journeys belongs to Nathan Cohen-Fournier (MIB ’17). Building on his work as part of the Global Research Fellowship, Nathan took a job in the remote region of Nunavik, in the northern reaches of Quebec. There he works as the Socio-Economic Development Officer for Makivik Corporation. Part of his charge there? The design and implementation of a youth entrepreneurial strategy in Nunavik — exactly what his research through IBGC looked at in the first place.

Not everyone comes to Fletcher looking to promote entrepreneurship deep in the tundra, but with the skills you’ll learn on campus, a healthy dose of passion, and a lot of hard work, the MIB can take you to places you never even knew you wanted to go.

Learn more about Nathan, his journey to Nunavik, and the exciting work he is doing.

On May 30, 2016, I discovered Nunavik for the very first time.

Two years later, as I write from Kuujjuaq [the Great River], my gaze is drawn to the outdoors. My mind wanders through the stillness and along the gentle curves of the tundra. Truth be told, I did not expect to live in the North, where delicate snowflakes and wandering ice sheets fill the landscape with a silent beauty. Even as June approaches and cherry blossoms have long faded in other parts of the world, Nunavik awakes slowly from the long winter.

What brought me back here?

When the opportunity presented itself to take up a position in Kuujjuaq, I naively thought that getting away from the concrete jungle could help me find peace. I thought that, in a remote community, the pace would slow down and that I’d be able to touch the essence of life in a more authentic, simple way. Don’t get me wrong, I love cities. The unique amalgam of colours, scents and noises. The chaotic embrace of a bustling street market. The sweet taste of anonymity. I was looking for something different, a place where I would be more vulnerable.

Read the full post from Nathan on his blog

June 6, 2018

The Future Of Work Isn’t All Bleak For Women. Here’s Why.

Many workers who have been displaced are experiencing the early signals of how technological change will transform the way we work, what work we do and who gets to work. With AI and automation creeping into our daily existence in that Macbethian “petty pace from day to day”, if all the tech chatter is right, humans will be handing tasks over to machines at a scale that boggles the mind. The degree to which the mind is boggled depends on which pundit you believe. While the OECD projects that only 14 percent of current jobs will be affected, the European think tank, Bruegel places the displacement factor at 54 percent. The McKinsey Global Institute offers a more nuanced view: 60 percent of occupations have at least 30 percent of constituent work activities that could be automated with variations across geography and occupation; about 15 percent of activities on average would be displaced by 2030, with some occupations at risk of a third of all constituent work activities being automated.

Read the full piece from Dean Chakravorti in Forbes

EdTech, Curiosity, and Adaptability: Fletcher Alum Grant Hosford Helping Code the Future of the Digital Planet

June 4, 2018 / IBGC / 0 Comments

“Learning to code … gives kids a powerful boost in other core subjects” – Grant Hosford, CEO, Codespark

Fletcher alumnus Grant Hosford is up to some amazing things as CEO of Codespark. Leaning on a basis of coding, Grant hopes to bring both real world computer science skills and a growth mindset to childhood education. “Coding requires students to learn transferable skills like pattern recognition and sequencing that are foundational for reading and math. So, learning to code with a visual app like ours gives kids a powerful boost in other core subjects,” he told Forbes. Through his work with Codespark, Grant is helping to build a foundation for the next generation in this increasingly digital planet.

Read the full article about Grant in Forbes

What brought Grant to Fletcher? Learn more in his 2017 Why Fletcher video below.