Big-Data is the buzzword of the decade – everyone is claiming that they are in the Big Data game. To be honest, Big Data has always been with us; it has always been a part of real life – population migration, stock market movements, motor traffic patterns, television viewings and ratings, pathogen transmission & mutation…
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Like tiny red candies with a sweet white centre, they glint at me in the corner of my screen. The temptation is irresistible “Oh! Another one for me?” I exclaim delightedly in my mind. “Why thank you very much!” I’m trying to cut back, but my self control is proving lacking when it comes to…
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The last five years or so have seen such a whirlwind of exciting developments in the educational technology sector that it’s a daunting task to step back and take stock of it all, never mind distill it down to one or two key elements. But having thought long and hard about this, I realised the…
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When I was in 5th grade, my teacher gave us an assignment: design a quiz board. I’m sure you know the kind I’m talking about – a simple switchboard with a list of questions one side, answers on the other, and when you connect a question with the correct answer a little bulb lights up….
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It’s a familiar problem. You’ve been eyeing up that cute blouse online for a while now, but you can’t decide whether or not to click ‘buy’. You’ve reached the checkout page a couple of times, but you just can’t seem to commit. What if that shade of green makes you look like a humanoid iguana?…
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“I didn’t want to just wait. I wanted to do something.” These are the words of 18-year-old Bernie Zak. In April, the high school senior discovered that he will be attending his dream university – University of California, Los Angeles – this coming fall. Bernie set his sights on attending UCLA after taking a campus…
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India, 2004. Two World Bank economists conduct a social experiment. They observe a group of boys from opposite ends of the socioeconomic spectrum: one half of the group are members of a low rank of India’s hierarchical caste system, the other half born into a high caste.The economists ask the boys to complete a set…
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I failed my first year of college. There, I said it. It didn’t even twinge too much to get the words out this time. For several years, however, that fact was shrouded in dark feelings of shame and guilt. I realized early on in my first freshman semester that, partly due to the idiosyncrasies of…
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“We have learned to be citizens of the world, members of the human community.” I love this quote because it encapsulates the interconnectedness of humankind. Even if the pockets of war and civil unrest that exist today attest that perhaps we’re still getting the hang of this human community thing, we are nonetheless all connected…
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The biggest compliment I’ve ever received was from my fourth grade teacher. In a serious, conspiratorial tone, signalling that I should keep this information on the down-low, he told me that when he collected creative writing assignments from the class, he would always put my paper at the bottom of the pile. Why? So that…
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