Yes, I’m back, with tons of stories to tell and pictures to show. I was there to conduct research mainly about the impact of the 2014 Soccer World Cup and 2016 Olympics and what these events mean for the country, which is in the midst of a major econoic and society shift.
Photo credits: Flavie Halais. Use with permission.
Hi everyone, just a quick message to explain my silence in the past few weeks. I’m currently in Brazil to conduct research about a few issues (Wolrd Cup, Olympics, favela culture, society shift, etc.) Hopefully this will turn into some nice reporting pieces, and some nice material for this blog.
I’ll be back in Montreal at the end of next week.
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Three ways to stay in touch with Africa’s brightest talent:
Business
The Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship celebrate the work of business owners. The competition is open until August 24th, and the winner will be declared during a Gala in Nairobi on December 8th.
Arts
African Digital Art is an amazing online platform showcasing the work of visual artists, designers, filmmakers and more throughout Africa. Its weekly inspiration post is a delight!
What’s Up Africa, a video blog about “what’s hip, hot, eye-catching.”
I usually don’t pay too much attention to articles and books that deal with creativity. Most of them are just shallow and irrelevant. I usually prefer to look at the manifestations of creativity, the innovative ideas that we come up with. But I ran across this Newsweek article, published in July. (Oh, I’m so late on this.)
Creativity in the U.S. is declining. It’s a fact. The causes for this are unclear, so are its consequences.
I just realized Defiant Imagination reached its 100th post with the last one. Which makes this one the 101st, so I feel I’ve already missed the mark. Damn.
Photo credits: Flickr user tifotter.
I apologize for yet another long absence on this blog, caused by another cross-country move and lots of other stories that prevented me from sitting down and write. I’m now settled again, and ready to post! I have a bunch of articles in preparation that I will be releasing in the next days. Thanks to all of you who’ve been checking the website in my absence.
I don’t think that we have ever experienced, at least in American history, a transformation of political opinion like the one we’ve seen in the past several years on the environment and climate. Young people understand that the world we’re talking about is the world they’re going to raise their kids in, that this isn’t a distant reality, that the ice caps are melting now. While that gives me hope, the gap of understanding between those people and the 70-year-olds who are in the U.S. Senate is staggering. It’s a generation gap that makes everything the boomers talked about in the 1960s look like a disagreement at a tea party.
This is an excerpt from an essay written by Alex Steffen, executive editor of Worldchanging.com and editor of the book Worldchanging: A User’s Guide for the 21st Century, that was published in the January/February edition of Good magazine.
As a twentysomething student, I’ve often felt frustrated by some of my teachers’ inability to use new technology, by my parents’ lack of optimism, by the fact that politicians take decisions in matters in which they have no experience. The world is moving and changing really fast, and instead of taking decisions based on what happened in the past decades, maybe we should start thinking about what will happen tomorrow. I was amazed to learn that the White House restrict the number of emails sent by the President for security reasons. Many judges, who sometimes have to rule on matters that will set a precedence, have never used the Internet. How does this reflect our society? What does it say about the generation gap? Politicians and decisionmakers have to remember to listen to citizens and we have the responsibility to remind them to do so.
Read the whole article here.
In its July/August issue (already on the newsstands since June, go figure,) the Atlantic proposes a list of “The 11½ Biggest Ideas of the Year” that dominated American news and national affairs. Not surprisingly, they deal mostly with recurring themes: the war, the presidential elections, the war, global warming, the economic crisis and… the war. On a lighter tone, some less significant ideas were scattered on the side. For example, in the “Newly conventional ideas we used to think unimaginable” list, you’ll find “Viable nonwhite or nonmale presidential candidates” next to “Your dad on Facebook.” My favourite one: “Talking to our enemies” in the “Seemingly horrifying ideas that could have potential…”
