Santa Clara University

The Center for Science, Technology, and Society researches and promotes the use of science and technology for the common good.

Through research, education, and public events, the Center brings together scholars, industry leaders, and public advocates to collaboratively serve humanity by leveraging its unique strengths.

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Sustainability Science in the Public Interest

Keith Douglass Warner OFM of the Environmental Studies Institute will present a seminar on the role of agroecology, biological control and conservation biology in the transition to global sustainability. A Northern California case on aerial spraying for insect control will be examined including divergent assumptions about sustainability, the public's interest, and strategies for reconciliation.

Admission is free, registration is recommended. *

Click to read more
Click to register

May 15 6.30-8.00 p.m., de Saisset Museum
Santa Clara University   

A Panel Discussion Featuring 

Mike Godwin, general counsel, Wikimedia Foundation
Carl Hewitt, emeritus, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT
Pedro Hernández-Ramos, associate director, Center for Science, Technology, and Society.

Wikipedia is ubiquitous on the Web. A search for any obscure information is likely to wind up in a link to one of its entries (try 'sardines' or 'Transylvania' on Google for example). It is an incredible boon: a huge information repository, which has been generated in a few short years. But Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia in the traditional sense; administrators are not always experts in the fields they edit, and the project’s consensus editing model has its detractors. Entries on contested issues, such as the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, have been the site of protracted editing wars between opponents.

This panel will explore what works and what doesn't in the Wikipedia editing model from the angles of ethics, education, and the law. Come with questions and opinions: the discussion will be lively. The program is free and open to the public

“The World that Wikipedia Made” is co-sponsored by the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, the Center for Science, Technology, and Society, and the High Tech Law Institute. It is the ninth event in an ongoing series about technology, ethics, and the law.

Read about Speakers

Doug Engelbart to become Emeritus
member of Center’s Advisory Board

A member of the Center for Science, Technology, and Society’s Advisory Board since January 1999, Doug Engelbart will step down from active service this month. Engelbart, most well known as the inventor of the computer mouse, will become an Advisory Board Member Emeritus, having agreed to stay connected in a consultative capacity in the areas of personal, interpersonal, and organizational computing. His pioneering work in building knowledge infrastructures will be invaluable as the Center programs in this area.

During his term of service, Doug’s "big-picture" vision guided our thinking and programming on how technological change impacts individuals and organizations, and the potential for technology to create sustainable legacies for society. Perhaps one of his most significant contributions to the Center was when he captured the board’s attention around the U.N. Millennium Project’s Fifteen Global Challenges in 2000. This discussion inspired the creation of The Tech Awards, the international awards program that honors global innovators applying technology to benefit humanity.  

During his board membership the Center was privileged to have Doug’s participation in several major conferences, namely in a series of keynote dialogues at the Center's highly successful 2001 conference “Technology and Us—A Vision for the Future” and as a panelist at the SHOT (Society for the History of Technology) conference that same year with Gordon Moore and Regis McKenna. This was seen as a highlight of that conference.  His contributions to the Center and the University are deeply appreciated. His nine-year association with the Center and the Advisory Board will be long remembered as integral to our growth and success—as a resource, ambassador and friend.   

About Doug Engelbart,
Advisory Board Member Emeritus;
Founder and Director, Bootstrap Institute

Doug Engelbart, Bootstrap Institute founder and director, has an unparalleled 30-year track record in predicting, designing, and implementing the future of organizational computing. From his early vision of turning organizations into augmented knowledge workshops, he went on to pioneer what is now known as collaborative hypermedia, knowledge management, community networking, and organizational transformation.

Well-known technological firsts include the mouse, display editing, windows, cross-file editing, outline processing, hypermedia, and groupware. Integrated prototypes were in full operation under the NLS system as early as 1968. In the last decade of its continued evolution, thousands of users have benefited from its unique team support capabilities.

After 20 years directing his own lab at SRI and 11 years as senior scientist, first at Tymshare and then at McDonnell Douglas Corporation, Engelbart founded the Bootstrap Institute, where he worked closely with industry and government stakeholders to launch a collaborative implementation of his work.

Engelbart has received numerous awards for outstanding lifetime achievement and ingenuity including the IEEE Computer Pioneer Award, the Turing Award, and the National Medal of Technology, the nation's highest award in this category.

PHOTOS

Doug enjoyed a celebratory lunch with Center staff in March-- Geoffrey Bowker, Executive Director, and Cathy Valerga, Assistant Director for Administration 

2008 Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI)

The selection process for the GSBI Class of 2008 is now complete. With an overwhelming number of excellent applicants, the decision was particularly challenging. Selected participants were notified the first week of April.  

This year’s workshop, presented by the Center for Science, Technology, and Society and the Leavey School of Business, will be held for the sixth time on Santa Clara University’s campus from Sunday, August 17 through Friday, August 29. 

The ’08 class is comprised of 20 social benefit entrepreneurs (SBEs), representing 10 countries and 4 continents. As in each of the preceding 5 years, the GSBI leadership group has selected a diverse group of participants representing organizations focused in development areas such as health, sanitation, water purification, irrigation, information access, education, energy, and finance.  

The intensive two-week residential program enables successful innovators to become financially sustainable in fulfilling their social missions and to scale their endeavors by applying technology to address urgent human needs around the world. It combines classroom instruction in finance, marketing, organizational development, and business planning with case studies, best practices, and carefully matched mentoring support from seasoned Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. 

New to the program in ’08 is Dr. Allen Hammond, WRI’s Vice President for Innovation and Special Projects, World Resources Institute who will offer mentoring assistance to water-sector based organizations attending GSBI.

Returning to the program again this year are a number of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and business executives including Regis McKenna, Jeffrey A. Miller, Geoffrey Moore, and Jerry Weissman. A high-powered mentoring team, led by Brad and Vicky Mattson, will consult and advise the SBEs on their business plans throughout the program. Comprised of 23 volunteers with exemplary track records in organizational ventures, mentors “coach” the individual program participants before, during, and after the two-week program. 

The program culminates on Thursday, August 28, when all social benefit entrepreneurs will present their business plans to a review panel of industry leaders and venture capitalists. The plan must include a compelling value proposition and earned income strategies for achieving sustainability. This all day event is free and open to the public, but registration is required because space is limited.

Register to attend the business plan presentations

Read more about GSBI

We are pleased to announce a formal partnership with the World Resources Institute, under which Dr. Allen Hammond will spend some of his time this year as a senior research fellow at Santa  Clara University’s Center for Science, Technology, and Society.

Dr. Hammond, a world leader in “Base of the Pyramid” (BOP)  business strategies and market structure, will work with Center leadership and the GSBI team in particular to recruit a cluster of enterprises in the community-based water treatment  sector to participate in the 2008 GSBI class.  

Through mentoring, information sharing, and analytical activities Dr. Hammond will lead the development of analytical models for these enterprises, applicable in several countries. These findings, along with detailed sector analyses underway at WRI, will help to clarify both the market opportunities these enterprises represent and what business and technology models can best address these opportunities.

Research Fellow to Assist in Science,
Religion, and Public Policy Programming

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Mark Graves as a Research Fellow, serving as a member of the planning team for the Center’s programming in the area of Science, Religion, and Public Policy. His extensive education, research, and leadership roles in both technical and scientific sectors, coupled with his scholarly theological work will bring a unique perspective to the development of this new area of activity for the Center.  

Graves earned his PhD in computer science/artificial intelligence at University of Michigan, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in genomics at Baylor College of Medicine where he was one of the first computer scientists to work on the Human Genome Project. He worked ten years in the fields of bioinformatics, systems biology, and web-based databases and has published forty technical works in computer science and biology, including the book Designing XML Databases. He studied theology at Graduate Theological Union (GTU) and at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley, where he is currently a Scholar in Residence and organizes a working group on cognitive science and religion with faculty, researchers, and graduate students from GTU and University of California, Berkeley. His book Mind, Brain, and the Elusive Soul: Human Systems of Cognitive Science and Religion is available from Ashgate.

2008 Tech Museum Awards
Global Call for Nominations

Nominations were accepted through April 7th.

Nominations were accepted for the 2008 Tech Museum Awards, an international Awards Program that honors innovators from around the world who are applying technology to benefit humanity.  25 Laureates will be honored at a Gala event on November 12, 2008 and five Laureates will share a cash prize of $250,000.  Self-nominations are accepted and encouraged. Individuals, nonprofit organizations, and for-profit companies are all eligible. Reward those making a difference and nominate today at http://www.techawards.org.


Learn more about the center partnership with the Tech

Technology Benefiting Humanity:
Taking Innovation to the Next Stage

Santa Clara University’s California Mission Room,
Benson Center
November 8, 2007

Sponsored by Applied Materials, Inc.
Presented by Santa Clara University’s
Center for Science, Technology and Society
In Cooperation with the Tech Museum of Innovation

A conference that explored how the work of social benefit
entrepreneurs, including those recognized by the Tech
Museum Awards–Technology Benefiting Humanity,
is breaking down barriers and remaking the rules of
innovation, and how Silicon Valley can make a difference
by identifying and mobilizing ways technology can
address the world’s urgent unmet needs.

Read more about the Innovation event

View Innovation event videos 

The Center for Science, Technology, and Society is pleased to make the following announcements:

Recipients of the 2007-08 STS Faculty Research Grants

• Bill Sundstrom, Professor of Economics, and Stephen Smith, Professor of Operations & Management Information Systems--“Global Warming: The Scientific Foundations, Economic Decisions, and Social Consequences”

• Alexander Field, Orradre Professor of Economics--“Biology, Evolutionary Theory, and the Human Sciences”

• Sarah Kate Wilson, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering, and JoAnne Holliday, Associate Professor of Computer Engineering--“Design of Agile Base Stations”

Faculty Affiliations with STS

In Winter Quarter, Shannon Vallor, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, contributed to the development of an STS course for the core curriculum and to the structure of the STS Minor.

In Spring Quarter, Angel Islas, Associate Professor of Biology, will contribute to the development of the Center’s biotechnology and society program.

In Spring Quarter, Keith Warner, OFM, working in both environmental studies and with the Ignatius Center, will contribute to Center programming on clean and green initiatives.