Santa Rosa City Laguna Philippines -
attracting investors from all over Asia and the world.
Epson Precision (Philippines) Inc. president Osamu Koshiishi shares a story of the legendary Japanese dog Hachiko
to Grade 4 pupils during the turnover ceremony for a learning resource corner at Lodlod Elementary School in Lipa City.
LAGUNA-BASED Epson Precision (Philippines) Inc. is one of more than 240 member companies of the Philippine Business for
Social Progress working together to fight poverty in the country. Through the Balik Baterya recycling program of Motolite and
PBSP, Epson donated textbooks, chairs, and tables to beneficiary schools in Lipa, with the generated funds from Epson’s
used lead-acid batteries (ULABs) and additional financial assistance used to sponsor learning resource packages to 12
schools in the city. The Motolite-PBSP Balik Baterya Program, launched in 2006, involves the collection of ULABs for the
recycling and production of new automotive and industrial batteries. Premium value of ULABs are given to donors who opt to
support Project LEAP, an initiative to improve the quality of basic education through provision of textbooks, workbooks,
teacher training, remedial reading camps, and supplemental feeding. - by Amy Melissa Malaluan (Photo courtesy of PBSP.)
Watch the above thought-provoking animated talk by Sir Ken Robinson from RSA Animate, which has achieved more than 5 million downloads from YouTube and is influencing teachers, schools, and education authorities all over the world. He argues that students with restless minds and bodies should be cultivated for their energy and curiosity instead of being ignored or even stigmatized as they are at the moment. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says. He challenges the rigidly narrow way that we educate our children at the present time, and he urges a radical rethink of our school systems to cultivate creativity and acknowledge the multiple types of intelligence that are now known to exist but for centuries have been suppressed.
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And below is the mindblowing TED talk given by Salman Khan, founder of the Khan Academy) -- a not-for-profit organization with the mission of providing free world-class education to anyone, anywhere in the world. It now consists of self-paced software and, with over a million unique students per month, the most-used educational video repository on the internet (over 30 million lessons delivered to-date). Khan has posted more than 2,000 free video tutorials, which are viewed nearly 100,000 times around the world each day. Currently they cover math and science from basic addition to advanced calculus, physics, chemistry and biology. Now, with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Khan is increasing this range to include many more academic and life-experience subjects.
Welcome to Santa
Rosa Magazine - the accessible
open e-magazine of Santa Rosa City, Laguna, Philippines. No payment, no registration, no
login required.
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Forget the negative attitudes of stick-in-the-mud critics and do a Google search to see the creativity of Filipinos who have posted on the internet their own versions of DOT's inspiring
new tourism slogan. Who cares what the Swiss did in 1951? They didn't invent the English
language and they didn't coin the "it's more fun" phrase. Positive-thinking Filipinos like the
new slogan and are having lots of fun proving the truth in it. DOT deserves congratulations!
(See Angel Tugado's comments on our Opinion page.
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CONGRATULATIONS TO GWENDOLINE RUAIS FROM MUNTINLUPA!
Her second place at the Miss World beauty pageant in London has only ever been achieved
once before by a Filipina. Read the story
and see more photos on our Opinion
page.
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Congratulations to Miss Universe 2011 above, Leila Lopes from Angola,
and to our own Shamcey Supsup, who was placed 3rd Runner Up,
one position higher than Venus Raj last year. Editorial photo courtesy of Miss Universe Organization. (More...)
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Education
INSPIRATIONAL
QUOTES: (Editor's
note: To be inspired by someone does not mean we agree with every word
they say but we are inspired by their overall vision, their passion and
their personal integrity. For example, like Jim Paredes I am a fan of
Winnie Monsod, although I strongly disagree with her specific views on
OFWs. This does not detract from my admiration of her undoubted
qualities of patriotism and social responsibility in seeking to improve
our nation for all.)
"The
people we really need to be hearing from, the unique and exceptional
talents, crystalline thinkers, creators of astounding beauty, and
people with deep but practical perceptions are exceptions in every
society, whether democratic or not, and are hardly ever heard. They are
the precious grains taken from tons of chaff. They are society’s crown
jewels. In short, they are the true elites, rare and valuable human
assets whose gift of brilliance should be shared with everyone. Do you
see many of them in the media? Of course not.
While a circus may be
entertaining, it would be good to balance this with exposure to other
kinds of shows, books, ideas, events that stimulate the spirit, mind
and senses and give audiences a higher sense of awe and thus be
inspired.
I say give the elites more
exposure. We should be hearing and watching more of them. We need
people who are distinguished because of their depth of intelligence and
talent. They have something to share that can change and elevate us.
They are the salt of the earth. They spice up our lives.
We need more people like
Cheche Lazaro and Winnie Monsod. More National Artists exposed on TV.
More museums, libraries, and less malls. More servant leaders like
Jesse Robredo and Leila de Lima instead of the trapos
that inhabit many government posts. We need elites from the academe,
showbiz, arts, politics, media, sports, and religious sectors to expand
our sense of what is possible for us as a society and as a nation."
- Jim Paredes,
writing in The Philippine Star
"The entire history of mankind is problem solving, or science fiction swallowing ideas, digesting them and excreting formulas for survival. You can't have one without the other. No fantasy, no reality. No studies concerning loss, no gain. No imagination, no will. No impossible dreams: no possible solutions."
- Ray Bradbury, acclaimed author of bestselling SF novels including 'Fahrenheit 451' and 'Dandelion Wine', several of which were produced as Hollywood box office hit movies.
"Our greatest natural resource is the minds of our children. .... All our dreams can come true - if we have the courage to pursue them. .... The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. .... It's kind of fun to do the impossible."
- Walt Disney
EDITORIAL:
HOW SCIENCE IS TRANSFORMING NATIONS AND PEOPLE FASTER THAN SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS COULD EVER HAVE PREDICTED
New ideas and discoveries are now communicated so widely and rapidly in what is dubbed the Information Age that scientific developments are overtaking fiction in the race to create a utopian society.
AN
EXCITING NEW WAVE OF INSPIRATIONAL IDEAS IS SWEEPING THE GLOBE and it does not originate, as you might guess, in
the developed First World.
Proving the truth of the old
adage that "necessity is the mother of invention", these amazing educational
ideas have originated in developing countries of the Third World, where
need is greatest and financial resources are lowest. Even more
remarkably, it is creative individuals who are leading the way and are
inspiring enlightened governments to follow up their work with
enthusiastic official support. In Africa, Asia and South America these
ideas have been spreading like wildfire, and last of all they are now
being taken up by the First World which sees itself lagging far behind.
Basically the new ideas seek
to transform education from the bottom up instead of from the top down
as in traditional education systems. In other words they make a fresh
start from ground zero by asking what children want and need most right
now in their own lives however poor their circumstances and however
lacking are the public resources available.
Through the sheer genius of
passionate educators, millions of children in the Third World are
already experiencing the mind expanding joys and opportunities of
elementary education for the very first time. It's giving a whole new
dimension to the phrase "against all odds".
Also, this same approach is
already being extended to adults with little or no education, and even
traditional mainstream government education systems in the First World
are now piloting alternative methods derived from innovative ideas fom
the Third World.
Simultaneously the developed countries are being inspired by a new generation of accomplished and articulate women from both Third World and First World who have built on their own culture, education and experience to reach out and improve the lives of people around the globe in ways that men have never achieved.
To learn more and to see where else and in what other fields innovative individuals are bringing radical improvements and advances, we highly recommend that you take a look at the TED website www.ted.com TED offers a fascinating collection of inspirational online videos covering a great variety of subjects from music and dance to education and social enterprise to architecture and painting to astronomy and quantum physics. All are
performances or talks by leaders from around the world, and all are free for anyone to view on the internet.
Some talks from TED by eminent people involved in scientific research or the creation of new high-tech products to improve society and benefit people's lives can be viewed below together with videos from YouTube, and from universities such as Harvard, Stanford, Yale and Denver.
HOW SCIENCE IS TRANSFORMING NATIONS AND PEOPLE FASTER THAN SCIENCE FICTION WRITERS
COULD EVER HAVE PREDICTED
We all know that airplanes, submarines, space travel, cell phones, holograms, transplants, cloning, foods in tablet form and many other things were described in science fiction long before they became reality. Even present day security cameras and television's Big Brother show were spawned by the SF novel "1984" written by George Orwell and first published in 1949. New ideas and discoveries are now communicated so widely and rapidly in what is dubbed the Information Age that scientific developments are overtaking fiction in the race to create a utopian society.
Ghanaian Economist George Ayittey sees Africa's future as a fight between Hippos -- complacent, greedy bureaucrats wallowing in the muck -- and Cheetahs, the fast-moving, entrepreneurial leaders and citizens who will rebuild Africa. Ayittey was a voice in the wilderness for many years, crying out against the corruption and complacency that -- more than any other factor, he believes -- are the bedrock problems of many troubled Africa states. "We call our governments vampire states, which suck the economic vitality out of the people," he says. His influential book Africa Unchained has helped unleash a new wave of activism and optimism -- especially in the African blogosphere, where his notion of cheetahs-versus-hippos has become a standard shorthand. The "Cheetah Generation," he says, is a "new breed of Africans," taking their futures into their own hands, instead of waiting for politicians to empower them. (He compares them to the previous "Hippo Generation," who are lazily stuck complaining about colonialism, yet doing nothing to change the status quo.) Ayittey is a Distinguished Economist in Residence at American University in Washington, DC.
Wadah Khanfar is Director General of Al Jazeera, the only international TV network based in the developing world, where he works to bring rare liberties like information, transparency and dissenting voices to repressive states and political hot-zones. From war correspondent to Baghdad bureau chief to Director General at its global helm, Khanfar has worked through the closure and bombing of Al Jazeera's bureaus, the torture and murder of its journalists and state propaganda smears. Al Jazeera's approach to journalism emphasizes "re-thinking authority, giving a voice to the voiceless," Khanfar said in an interview with TIME. No news network has attracted as much controversy as Al Jazeera. Khanfar, in turn, has become the lightning rod for dispute on the organization's place in politics, both in its home region and abroad. (In the West, editorials have accused him of sympathizing with terrorists; in his own region, of fanning instability.) Yet especially in light of pro-democracy protests in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, no news executive is poised to make as great, or as positive an impact as Khafar. "Ten years ago, Arabia was controlled by governments, and therefore the media -- mainly TV stations -- were pushing only one line, which was the government's vision about reality and politics. When Al Jazeera came, it changed all of that, and suddenly you find people from different political parties and opposition leaders appearing on the screen, speaking to the audiences with their opinions ..." In an interview with PBS/Frontline, Khanfar said: "As a democratic revolution led by tech-empowered young people sweeps the Arab world, Wadah Khanfar, the head of Al Jazeera, shares a profoundly optimistic view of what's happening in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and beyond -- at this powerful moment when people realized they could step out of their houses and ask for change."
Professor Anders Ynnerman received a Ph.D. in Physics from Gothenburg University. During the early 90s he was doing research at Oxford University and Vanderbilt University. In 1996 he started the Swedish National Graduate School in Scientific Computing, which he directed until 1999. From 1997 to 2002 he directed the Swedish National Supercomputer Centre and from 2002 to 2006 he directed the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC). Since 1999 he is holding a chair in scientific visualization at Linköping University and in 2000 he founded the Norrköping Visualization and Interaction Studio (NVIS). NVIS currently constitutes one of the main focal points for research and education in computer graphics and visualization in the Nordic region. "This is my daughter. She's playing a computer game. She's only two years old, and she's having a blast. So she's really the driving force behind the development of graphics processing units. As long as kids are playing computer games, graphics is getting better and better and better. So please go back home, tell your kids to play more games, because that's what I need." Ynnerman is currently heading the build-up of a large scale center for Visualization in Norrköping. "And this is a bit of science fiction now ... So in this particular situation, it's a scan of a living person. I have this pen, and I look at the data, and I move the pen towards the head ... And then I can feel the brain inside ... Now we're going even further into science fiction ... He's seeing his own brain."
Mark Roth's research has reawakened an unusual notion from the annals of science: reversible metabolic hibernation, putting living organisms into suspended animation and bringing them back safely. As a cell biologist in cancer research, he studies genes, chromosomes and autoimmune disease. Already he has managed a world first: putting a vertebrate -- a zebrafish embryo -- into an oxygen-deprived state for several hours, then restoring it to completely normal development. He's been able to reduce the core temperature of mice to 10 degrees Celsius, and then revive them, harmlessly. This MacArthur "genius" grant winner may spur the next big leap for lifesaving medical systems with techniques that buy time for critically ill trauma patients -- people in desperate need of organ transplants, for example -- whether in emergency rooms or on battlefields. Roth has had papers published in scientific and medical journals around the world, and DARPA is a major supporter of his work.
You'll never sing again, said her doctor. But in a story from the very edge of medical possibility, operatic soprano Charity Tillemann-Dick tells a double story of survival -- of her body, from a double lung transplant, and of her spirit, fueled by an unwavering will to sing. A powerful story from TEDMED 2010. Tillemann-Dick has performed across the United States, Europe, and Asia in venues as diverse as The Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; Severance Hall in Cleveland, Ohio; Il Giardino Di Boboli in Florence, Italy; The National Symphony Hall in Budapest, Hungary; The Tel Aviv Opera House in Israel; and the American Embassy in Beijing, China. She studied music at the Peabody Conservatory at Johns Hopkins University and the Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest. She has collaborated and performed with noted conductors and musicians Bruno Rigacci, Joella Jones, Marvin Hamlisch, Bono, Zoltán Kocsis, Joan Dornemann, Eva Marton, and former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice. Some of her operatic roles have included Titania in A Midsummer's Night Dream, Gilda in Rigoletto and Violetta in La Traviata. She has performed for presidents, prime ministers, members of Congress, and world dignitaries. Her performances have been broadcast around the world on the BBC, IRA, Bartok Radio, MTV, PBS and NPR. Tillemann-Dick has served as the national spokesperson for the Pulmonary Hypertension Association, working to raise awareness, increase federal research funding, expand stem cell research, and promote preventative and alternative medicine.
Blaise Agüera y Arcas is the architect of Bing Maps at Microsoft, building augmented reality into searchable maps. He's also the co-creator of Photosynth, software that assembles static photos into a synergy of zoomable, navigatable spaces. His background is as multidimensional as the visions he helps create. In the 1990s, he authored patents on both video compression and 3D visualization techniques, and in 2001 he made an influential computational discovery that cast doubt on Gutenberg's role as the father of movable type. He also created Seadragon (acquired by Microsoft in 2006), the visualization technology that gives Photosynth its amazingly smooth digital rendering and zoom capabilities. Photosynth itself is a vastly powerful piece of software capable of taking a wide variety of images, analyzing them for similarities, and grafting them together into an interactive three-dimensional space. This seamless patchwork of images can be viewed via multiple angles and magnifications, allowing us to look around corners or "fly" in for a much closer look. Simply put, it could utterly transform the way we experience digital images. He joined Microsoft when Seadragon was acquired and now leads a team of researchers and engineers with strengths in social media, computer vision and graphics.
In Sweden David Bismark has co-developed an electronic voting system that prevents corrupt tampering with election results. It contains a simple and reliable method of verification. One of the main objections to electronic voting is that it's difficult for each voter to know that his or her vote was recorded accurately and counted correctly, and that he or she remains anonymous. In the system designed by Bismark and his colleagues, each voter gets an automated receipt that serves as a record of the vote, and allows elections to be independently verified. Apart from his work on voting systems, Bismark runs Recito Förlag, a publishing company in Sweden.
David Cameron is the leader of the UK's Conservative Party. He was elected leader of the Conservative Party in December 2005, and has been a Member of Parliament for the Witney constituency since 2001. Before he became an MP, he was a Special Adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and then to the Home Secretary. He took a break to work in media for seven years, then stood for election in 2001 on an agenda of tax-cutting. (During the election, he also wrote a column for the Guardian newspaper.) As a new MP, he took several controversial positions, such as coming out in favor of the "harm reduction" drug policy. He became a member of the shadow cabinet (an alternative cabinet to the party in power) in 2003, and two years later became head of the party. He became the prime minster of the United Kingdom in May 2010, leading a coalition government (the UK's first since World War II). In the aftermath of the world financial crisis, Cameron outlines his government agenda based on a very simple recognition. That there's one question in politics at the moment above all other: "How do we make things better without spending more money?" Inspired by examples from the USA and other countries, he gives a very succinct analysis of the internet's belated but beneficial impact on world politics.
Martin Jacques is the author of "When China Rules the World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World". He is a visiting senior fellow at the London School of Economics, IDEAS, a centre for the study of international affairs, diplomacy and grand strategy, and a visiting research fellow at the LSE’s Asia Research Centre. He is a columnist for the Guardian and the New Statesman. His interest in East Asia began in 1993 with a holiday in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Malaysia. After that, he found every reason or excuse he could find to spend time in the region, be it personal, for newspaper articles or television programs. In 1977, he became editor of Marxism Today, a post he held for fourteen years, transforming what was an obscure and dull journal into the most influential political publication in Britain, read and respected on the right and left alike. In 1991, he closed Marxism Today and in 1994 became the deputy editor of the Independent newspaper, a post he held until 1996. In 1993 he co-founded the think-tank Demos. Speaking at a TED Salon in London, Jacques asks: "How do we in the West make sense of China and its phenomenal rise?" He examines why the West often puzzles over the growing power of the Chinese economy, and offers three building blocks for understanding what China is and will become.
Omar Ahmad is the co-founder and CEO of SynCH Energy Corporation, a renewable energy startup. Prior to founding SynCH Energy, he founded TrustedID and Logictier and served in key leadership positions for such companies as Grand Central Communications, Napster, Netscape, @Home Network and Discovery Channel Online. Ahmad is also the vice-mayor of the City of San Carlos, where his primary policy focus is centered on budget reform and fiscal sustainability. He is active on several boards and commissions, and in 2009 was elected by the Council of Cities to serve as a director for SamTrans and the Joint Powers Board (CalTrain). He is frequently called upon to speak on topics including leadership, innovation in relation to startups, copyright/IP issues, and internet infrastructure and security.
Jay Walker is fascinated by intellectual property in all its forms. His firm, Walker Digital, created Priceline and many other businesses that reframe old problems with new IT. In his private life, he's a bibliophile and collector on an epic scale. It's befitting that an entrepreneur and inventor so prolific and acclaimed would curate a library devoted, as he says, to the astonishing capabilities of the human imagination. TIME twice named him one of the "50 most influential business leaders in the digital age," and he holds more than 200 patents. Jay Walker's companies -- under Walker Digital -- have alone served tens of millions of people and amassed billions in value. A chunk of his net worth went into building this enchanting library space, whose exhibits go back to the point our species learned to write with a slight post-moveable type bias. Brimming with exquisitely illustrated books and artifacts (Enigma machine; velociraptor skeleton), the library itself is a marvel. Is it the glowing etched glass panels, or the Vivaldi piped from hidden speakers that gives it that je ne sais quoi? Maybe it's Walker himself, whose passion for the stuff just glows. It's apparent to those lucky enough to snag a tour. At the 2008 TED Conference, Walker lent many of his priceless and geeky artifacts to decorate the stage -- including a real Sputnik artificial satellite, a Star Wars stormtrooper helmet and a Gutenberg bible. After you've watched his talk, the WIRED article is a must-read. Steven Levy says: "Walker shuns the sort of bibliomania that covets first editions for their own sake ... What gets him excited are things that changed the way people think."
Called "the queen of canopy research," Nalini Nadkarni explores the rich, vital world found in the tops of trees. She communicates what she finds to non-scientists -- with the help of poets, preachers and prisoners. Nadkarni has spent two decades climbing the trees of Costa Rica, Papua New Guinea, the Amazon and the Pacific Northwest, exploring the world of animals and plants that live in the canopy and never come down; and how this upper layer of the forest interacts with the world on the ground. A pioneering researcher in this area, Nadkarni created the Big Canopy Database to help researchers store and understand the rich trove of data that she and others are uncovering. Nadkarni teaches at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, but her work outside the academy is equally fascinating -- using nontraditional vectors to teach the general public about trees and the ecosystem. For instance, she recently collaborated with the dance troupe Capacitor to explore the process of growth through the medium of the human body. In another project, she worked with prison inmates to grow moss for the horticulture trade, to relieve the collecting pressure on wild mosses. The project inspired in her students a new reverence for nature -- and some larger ecochanges at the prison. She's the author of "Between Earth and Sky: Our Intimate Connections to Trees". As Jade Leone Blackwater of Brainripples has said: "Nalini Nadkarni explores the many subtle and extraordinary ways that people rely on trees for the products they yield, the imagery they invoke, and the ecosystems they support."
Birke Baehr wants us to know how our food is made, where it comes from, and what's in it. At age 11, he's planning a career as an organic farmer. At age 9, while traveling with his family and being "roadschooled," Baehr began studying sustainable and organic farming practices such as composting, vermiculture, canning and food preservation. Soon he discovered his other passion: educating others -- especially his peers -- about the destructiveness of the industrialized food system, and the alternatives. He spoke at TEDxNextGenerationAsheville in 2010. Baehr volunteers at the Humane Society and loves working with animals.
Carter Emmart uses astronomy and computational modeling to create scientifically
accurate, three-dimensional tours of our universe. As the Director of Astrovisualization
at the American Museum of Natural History, he directs their groundbreaking space
shows and heads up development of an interactive 3D atlas called The Digital Universe.
Charles Limb is a doctor and a musician who researches the way musical creativity works in the brain. He has two titles on his official website: Associate Professor, Otolaryngology, Head & Neck Surgery, and Faculty, Peabody Conservatory of Music. Limb combines his two passions to study the way the brain creates and perceives music. He's a hearing specialist and surgeon at Johns Hopkins who performs cochlear implantations on patients who have lost their hearing. And he plays sax, piano and bass. In search of a better understanding of how the mind perceives complex auditory stimuli such as music, he's been working with Allen Braun to look at the brains of improvising musicians and study what parts of the brain are involved in the kind of deep creativity that happens when a musician is really in the groove. "If you think about it from a kind of abstract philosophical level, it’s unusual that acoustic vibrations in the air can make you feel deep emotion, something that can affect your life."
Barry Schwartz studies the link between economics and psychology, offering startling insights into modern life. Lately, working with Ken Sharpe, he's studying wisdom. In his book 'The Paradox of Choice', Schwartz tackles one of the great mysteries of modern life: Why is it that societies of great abundance - where individuals are offered more freedom and choice (personal, professional, material) than ever before - are now witnessing a near-epidemic of depression? Conventional wisdom tells us that greater choice is for the greater good, but Schwartz argues the opposite: He makes a compelling case that the abundance of choice in today's western world is actually making us miserable. Infinite choice is paralyzing, Schwartz argues, and exhausting to the human psyche. It leads us to set unreasonably high expectations, question our choices before we even make them and blame our failures entirely on ourselves. His relatable examples, from consumer products (jeans, TVs, salad dressings) to lifestyle choices (where to live, what job to take, who and when to marry), underscore this central point: Too much choice undermines happiness. Schwartz's previous research has addressed morality, decision-making and the varied inter-relationships between science and society. His previous book 'The Costs of Living' traces the impact of free-market thinking on the explosion of consumerism -- and the effect of the new capitalism on social and cultural institutions that once operated above the market, such as medicine, sports, and the law. Both books level serious criticism of modern western society, illuminating the under-reported psychological plagues of our time. But they also offer concrete ideas on addressing the problems, from a personal and societal level.
Neil Pasricha uses the power of blogging to spread a little optimism each day about the awesome things that make life worth living. Pasricha never imagined that writing about the smell of gasoline, thinking it’s Thursday when it’s really Friday, or wearing underwear just out of the dryer would amount to anything. A self-described “average guy” with a typical 9-to-5 job in the suburbs, Neil started his blog '1000 Awesome Things', as a small reminder - in a world of rising sea levels, global conflict, and a troubled economy - of the free, easy little joys that make life sweet. He certainly didn’t anticipate that his site would gain a readership of millions of people, win two Webby Awards (“the Internet’s highest honor” according to The New York Times), be named one of PC Magazine’s Top 100 Sites On the Internet, or become a place where people from around the world would come to celebrate the simple pleasures of daily life. His just released first book 'The Book of Awesome' has become a #1 International Bestseller and 'The Book of Awesome 2' comes out in Spring, 2011. As The Vancouver Sun says: "1000 Awesome Things might be described as optimism for the rest of us. Sunny without being saccharine, it’s a countdown of life’s little joys that reads like a snappy Jerry Seinfeld monologue by way of Maria Von Trapp."
In 2000, Martin Seligman founded positive psychology, a field of study that examines healthy states, such as happiness, strength of character and optimism. Seligman has devoted his career since then to furthering the study of positive emotion, positive character traits, and positive institutions. It's a fascinating field of study that had few empirical, scientific measures -- traditional clinical psychology focusing more on the repair of unhappy states than the propagation and nurturing of happy ones. In his pioneering work, Seligman directs the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania, developing clinical tools and training the next generation of positive psychologists. His earlier work focused on perhaps the opposite state: learned helplessness, in which a person feels he or she is powerless to change a situation that is, in fact, changeable. Seligman is an often-cited authority in this field as well -- in fact, his is the 13th most likely name to pop up in a general psychology textbook. He was the leading consultant on a Consumer Reports study on long-term psychotherapy, and has developed several common pre-employment tests, including the Seligman Attributional Style Questionnaire (SASQ).
William Ury is a mediator, writer and speaker, working with conflicts ranging from family feuds to boardroom battles to ethnic wars. Ury co-founded Harvard's Program on Negotiation and is currently a Senior Fellow of the Harvard Negotiation Project. He is the author of 'The Power of a Positive No: How to Say No & Still Get to Yes', and co-author (with Roger Fisher) of 'Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In', translated into 30+ languages. He is also author of the award-winning 'Getting Past No: Negotiating with Difficult People and Getting To Peace' (released in paperback under the title 'The Third Side'). Over the last 30 years, Ury has served as a negotiation adviser and mediator in conflicts ranging from corporate mergers to wildcat strikes in a Kentucky coal mine to ethnic wars in the Middle East, the Balkans, and the former Soviet Union. With former president Jimmy Carter, he co- founded the International Negotiation Network, a non-governmental body seeking to end civil wars around the world. During the 1980s, he helped the US and Soviet governments create nuclear crisis centers designed to avert an accidental nuclear war. In that capacity, he served as a consultant to the Crisis Management Center at the White House. More recently, Ury has served as a third party in helping to end a civil war in Aceh, Indonesia, and helping to prevent one in Venezuela. Ury has taught negotiation to tens of thousands of corporate executives, labor leaders, diplomats and military officers around the world. He helps organizations try to reach mutually profitable agreements with customers, suppliers, unions, and joint-venture partners.
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Globe continues to lead the way in Sta. Rosa with its innovative customizable broadband plans.
Arnel
Pineda, the popular Filipino lead vocalist of legendary American rock band Journey,
has formed a non-stock, non-profit, independent foundation providing
quality education, health services and medical attention to
underprivileged Philippine children. The stated reason is that "For
millions of youth in developing countries like the Philippines,
education
is seemingly beyond reach. Poverty and inadequate government support
stifle the future aspirations of Filipino children. Hence, Arnel Pineda
Foundation, Inc. (APFI) was formed, principally to address their sad
plight by preparing them for a brighter future through education." Find
out more and give your support at arnelpineda.org.
Those
geeks at Google have done it again. What Google TV will do
in every household by combining, advancing and enhancing the
technologies of television, cell phone and personal computer will truly
take your breath away!
(Click here to take
the tour of what Google TV is all about.)
WOMEN WHO ARE INSPIRING
THE WORLD IN 2011
Oprah Winfrey "the most influential woman in the world"
Women from around the globe are making a big difference to the whole world
and taking lead roles in finding ways to make it a better place for everyone. Click here to read more and see the videos
Do
you and/or your kids need to know the nutritional values of different
foods and the
necessity of a healthy balanced diet? Michelle Obama has launched...(Read more:)
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VIDEO GAMES ARE GOOD FOR YOU (AND FOR THE WHOLE WORLD)
"This is my daughter. She's playing a computer game. She's only two years old, and
she's having a blast. So she's really the driving force behind the development of graphics
processing units. As long as kids are playing computer games, graphics is getting better
and better and better. So please go back home, tell your kids to play more games, because
that's what I need." - Professor Anders Ynnerman, Ph.D., Linköping University, Sweden
Far from their earlier image of fantasies that wasted kids' time and parents' money,
video games are now acknowledged as a powerful force for improving the
real world we live in. Here's a selection of innovative thinkers and
doers who will open your minds to amazing new possibilities. Click here to read more and see the videos
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Watch
this YouTube animated video by Ericsson Multimedia about life in 2015
and the networked society.(Read more:)
