Employment, Skills and Human Capital
It’s official: Singapore is the world’s smartest city. That’s according to a new survey Published by Swiss business school IMD and the Singapore University of Technology and Design – the IMD Smart Cities Index – which looked at how well cities are adopting digital technologies and improving the lives of the people who live there. In a country as big as the United States, you might expect food to travel hundreds of miles before it reaches the dinner table. But the first-ever map of America’s food supply chain shows some commodities never leave the county in which they were produced. New extensively drug-resistant variants of an ancient and deadly disease – typhoid fever – are spreading across international borders. Cases have been reported in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Iraq, Guatemala, UK, US, and Germany, as well as more recently in Australia and Canada. In recent years, drug resistant and travel-associated typhoid variants have also been spreading through the African continent. Under-reporting and international surveillance gaps mean that drug-resistant typhoid is probably even more extensive than we think. With the rise of popular work chat apps like Slack and easy access to corporate email 24/7 through our smartphones, breaking away from work can feel more difficult than ever. Are you able to change the culture of your organization? It’s possible, perhaps, if you can articulate what your culture is or if you are a CEO or C-suite executive. But let me ask a different question: Are you able to set a new tone and mindset for how your team, your project members, or your function work together and with others, both inside and outside your organization? The answer, in this case, is most likely to be a resounding yes. Eating alone, once considered an oddity, has become commonplace for many across the Western world. Fast food chains are promoting eating on the go or “al desko”. Why waste time in your busy day sitting down at a table with others? Ageing is inevitable and is influenced by many things – but keeping active can slow ageing and increase life expectancy. Evidence shows that ageing alone is not a cause of major problems until you are in your mid-90s. And strength, power and muscle mass can be increased, even at this advanced age. You can have any colour you like – as long as it’s black. That’s how Henry Ford is said to have explained the way his mass-manufacturing processes brought affordable, standardized motoring to the American masses. Walking or cycling in Manhattan should soon be a lot safer following a vote by New York City councillors to build about 400 km of protected bike lanes and redesign 2,000 road junctions to make them safer for pedestrians. On the window of a bike shop in Copenhagen, a sign reads: Your next car is a bike. Kolkata is pioneering greener commutes citywide – and thanks to an innovative project to deploy more electric buses and ferries, the city now ranks fifth on a list of places that are reducing their annual emissions. Information and communication technology has no doubt had a positive economic impact globally, but its political bearing is less clear. This column shows that the proliferation of mobile technology reduces citizens’ confidence in their current governments, especially in places where news broadcasting is censored but the internet is not. Furthermore, by reducing the cost of reaching voters, the internet has also led to increased support for both left-wing and right-wing populist movements. Venice’s mayor prepared to declare the city a disaster zone on Wednesday after the second highest tide ever recorded flooded its historic basilica and left many of its squares and alleyways deep under water. MIT’s Mini Cheetah robots are small quadrupedal robots capable of running, jumping, walking, and flipping. There’s little that the left and the right agree on these days. But surely one thing is beyond question: that national governments must protect citizens from the gravest threats and risks they face. Although our government, wherever we are in the world, may not be able to save everyone from a pandemic or protect people and infrastructure from a devastating cyberattack, surely they have thought through these risks in advance and have well-funded, adequately practiced plans? A watchmaker in Indonesia’s Bandung city thinks the next step in sustainability is a wristwatch with a strap made out of the complex root structure of a mushroom. Jaap Korteweg was brought up on meat. That’s what happens when you grow up surrounded by cows on a farm in Holland. How are you feeling? Your answer to this deceptively simple question will likely determine how productive you will be at work today, according to new research. New Zealand has joined an elite group of countries that has enacted emissions-target legislation, aiming to eliminate carbon emissions by 2050. This article is part of the World Economic Forum’s Geostrategy platform Human activity is drying out the air above the Amazon, according to a new study, raising fears the planet’s biggest and most biodiverse rainforest will soon be unable to sustain itself.Researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California analyzed atmospheric moisture levels over the Amazon going back two decades. They found a significant drop over time, with forest trees requiring more water to cool down – water that can’t be provided by the atmosphere or the forest soil. The digital revolution is changing the way law enforcement protects communities and the way businesses manage risk. Changing demographics are creating a workplace that is more age diverse than ever before. Just look around: from post-millennials to baby boomers, more and more generations are working side by side. The latest innovation to tackle plastic pollution? A bubble barrier. In Estonia, the bigger the family, the better.Show Agenda posts
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3 reasons why Singapore is the smartest city in the world
Thursday 14th of November 2019
This fascinating map shows how food moves around the US
Thursday 14th of November 2019
Cases of drug-resistant typhoid fever are on the rise. This is why we should worry
Thursday 14th of November 2019
These companies all experimented with a 4-day week. Here’s what happened
Thursday 14th of November 2019
These four leadership mindsets are driving the new economy
Thursday 14th of November 2019
We’ve stopped eating together. This is why that’s a bad thing
Thursday 14th of November 2019
How to stay fit in your 60s and beyond
Thursday 14th of November 2019
From Model T to EV: a short history of motor vehicle manufacturing
Thursday 14th of November 2019
This is how New York plans to end its car culture
Thursday 14th of November 2019
Why your next car is a bike
Thursday 14th of November 2019
How Kolkata is tackling its air pollution with public transportation
Wednesday 13th of November 2019
The link between government confidence, populism and the internet
Wednesday 13th of November 2019
Venice mayor declares disaster as city hit by second-worst high tide
Wednesday 13th of November 2019
MIT made an army of tiny, ‘virtually indestructible’ cheetah robots
Wednesday 13th of November 2019
Here’s why no country is prepared for the wide range of global threats facing us today
Wednesday 13th of November 2019
This watchmaker turns mushrooms into ‘leather’ watches
Wednesday 13th of November 2019
This Dutch butcher makes plants taste just like meat
Wednesday 13th of November 2019
Happy workers are more productive, research shows
Wednesday 13th of November 2019
These are the countries that have made their climate commitments law
Wednesday 13th of November 2019
Has Russia forged a new international security role?
Tuesday 12th of November 2019
This is what’s happening to the Amazon, according to NASA
Tuesday 12th of November 2019
Why law enforcement and businesses need to join forces to fight global cybercrime
Tuesday 12th of November 2019
Here’s what you need to know about the future of multi-generational working
Tuesday 12th of November 2019
Amsterdam has a bubble barrier to catch canal plastic
Tuesday 12th of November 2019
This is how Estonia is growing its population
Tuesday 12th of November 2019
Gender Parity
In Estonia, the bigger the family, the better. Jens Spahn proposed punishing those carrying out so-called conversion therapy on under-18s with up to a year in prison. The complaints are ubiquitous — “my doctor retired;” “my doctor is on maternity leave;” “the clinic isn’t accepting new patients.” Women still aren’t fully represented in higher education in Kenya and South Africa, despite changes in law and policy over the years. This failure of the education sector to harness and develop women’s talents curtails their ability to contribute meaningfully to society. Imagine that your boss Ethan calls you into his office. He expresses disappointment in your recent performance and lack of commitment. How would you react? Accept the feedback and put in more effort? Would you pout in your office and start looking for a new job? It’s early morning and Moses Njiru 43, has an array of household chores lined up before heading to his job as a cattle broker. Voters in Colombia’s capital Bogota elected a woman as mayor for the first time on Sunday in local and regional contests marked in some places by violence against candidates and the power of political clans. The markets watchdog said that despite high-profile initiatives to boost the number of women in leading roles, there have been only pockets of progress. Europe is going to have to wait a long time before there are as many women as men in the corridors of power. This year about 12 million of the world’s children will be married before they turn 18. UNICEF figures suggest about 18% of them will be boys and about 82% girls. Entrepreneurship can empower women economically, transform their lives socially and boost their contribution to their households. This is particularly important in sub-Saharan Africa, where unemployment rates are high and women are often excluded from the formal economy. Yet research shows that the proportion of women entrepreneurs who are successful is lower than the comparable figure for men. This is because of barriers to women reaching their potential. Short-termism is destroying the world. Better scorekeeping can help save it.⇒ Explore: Future of Economic Progress Norway and Switzerland are the best countries to be a woman and Yemen and Afghanistan the worst, said research on Tuesday which found the state of women’s rights is not “all doom and gloom” around the world. There was a quietly heartwarming moment in this year’s Ashes series, amid all the passion and rivalry that always characterises the England cricket team’s biannual tussle with their bitter rivals from Australia. Batter Joe Denly, a recent recruit to the England ranks, left the field at the end of the first of the five days of the final Test match at the Oval in London and drove 60 miles to be with his wife for the birth of their daughter. The five mothers sat in a bright blue room in Kenya’s largest maternity hospital waiting to pump breast milk – but not for their own newborns. “There is no way for any society to prosper without tapping into the talent of all its people – men and women” Enthusiasm for bringing more women into corporate boardrooms is dimming, but the biggest obstacle to women moving up in the corporate world is the very first step to manager, according to newly released research. When Africa’s women farmers thrive, everyone benefits: the women themselves, the children in whom they invest, the communities that they feed, and the economies to which they contribute. With the right investments and policies, Africa’s woman-run farms could produce a bumper crop of development. At last month’s United Nations summit on the Sustainable Development Goals, child marriage did not get top billing. Yet ending this cruel practice – which steals girls’ childhoods, bodily autonomy, and chance to build their own futures – is essential to achieve a range of SDGs, including securing gender equality, improving health, and delivering a quality education and economic opportunities to all. Automation and AI are coming for jobs — and African American workers are particularly at risk. Technology could help Myanmar fight a rise in rape cases, said an award-winning entrepreneur who is using augmented reality to bring sex education to the socially conservative country. A quarter of young women in England and Wales would be reluctant to report workplace sexual harassment due to fears they might be fired as a result, according to a survey on Tuesday. One of Britain’s best-known celebrity chefs, Nadiya Hussain, on Sunday spoke of the mental health issues she had struggled with since being sexually abused as a young girl and urged others girls facing the same ordeal to speak out. An ambitious plan to build five million affordable homes within five years in Pakistan will tap student architects and use local materials and new technologies to keep costs low, a senior government official said on Thursday. All girls and boys – and all women and men, for that matter – can benefit from comprehensive knowledge about safe sexual behavior. Yet opposition to sexuality education is loud, persistent, and widespread, often because critics lack an accurate understanding of what it entails.Show Agenda posts
View more Gender posts
This is how Estonia is growing its population
Tuesday 12th of November 2019
German health minister submits law banning conversion therapy
Wednesday 6th of November 2019
Female doctors are good for your health, but they experience a gender pay gap, discrimination, burnout and depression
Wednesday 6th of November 2019
Kenya and South Africa still lag behind on gender equality in education
Tuesday 5th of November 2019
This is why women in management positions are facing discrimination
Tuesday 5th of November 2019
Kenya’s loosening of gender roles is helping to fight climate change – this is how
Monday 4th of November 2019
Bogota elects first woman mayor in Colombia regional vote
Tuesday 29th of October 2019
When it comes to gender equality, banks need to walk their talk
Tuesday 29th of October 2019
Here’s how the EU is doing on gender equality
Monday 28th of October 2019
Child marriage in North Africa: still a lot to be done
Monday 28th of October 2019
These African women are driving the continent’s tourism industry – but they need support
Monday 28th of October 2019
What will happen in Davos, better scorekeeping can save us and other top stories of the week
Friday 25th of October 2019
These are the countries where it’s best to be a woman
Friday 25th of October 2019
We need to ensure that male sports figures have access to fair parental leave
Friday 25th of October 2019
Kenya launches first breast milk bank to help newborns
Wednesday 23rd of October 2019
‘Buckle up:’ New IMF chief vows ‘relentless’ focus on gender equality
Monday 21st of October 2019
Women are stopped from climbing the corporate ladder because of this worrying trend
Monday 21st of October 2019
Investing in Africa’s female farmers helps their kids, communities and economies
Friday 18th of October 2019
Child marriage is stalling sustainable development
Friday 18th of October 2019
African American workers could be badly hit by automation – is there a solution?
Friday 18th of October 2019
Augmented reality is helping this Asian country to fight gender violence
Thursday 17th of October 2019
Over 50% of British women have suffered sexual harassment while at work or place of study – so why is it still going unreported?
Wednesday 16th of October 2019
This celebrity chef was sexually abused as a child, now she wants others to find strength in her story
Wednesday 16th of October 2019
5 million homes in 5 years – Pakistan’s poverty pledge
Wednesday 16th of October 2019
Sex education can prevent rapes, unsafe abortions and save lives
Wednesday 16th of October 2019
