Getting To Better Together

Community Enterprise

 
In this podcast series, we have drawn on the words of the American anthropologist, the late Margaret Mead, as a recurring inspiration for our theme of getting to better together. “Never doubt” she wrote “that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has”.  Indeed, it is this belief that provides the foundation for virtually all that we do in the Centre for International Development, Social Entrepreneurship and Leadership, at the University of the Sunshine Coast.
While one of the leading objectives of CIDSEL is international development, our mode of operation, in the quest for betterment, is through helping in the development of communities as groups of people who share something in common. It might be geographical location, or mutual interests and aspirations, or common values, or typically, combinations of all of these. From our own experience as well as from the experiences of others, we have come to recognise the significance of collective efforts to develop shared visions of desirable futures, to collectively establish clearly defined aims and objectives, and to identify opportunities for achieving these outcomes.  Vitally, we have come to appreciate the need for communities to mobilise their own social, natural, and financial capital resources to support practical initiatives in these development contexts where a communal spirit of enterprise can be translated into actual community business enterprises.
In this episode, Richard talks with his guest Bill Mcdonnell who, in conversation, draws particularly on his own life experiences in community enterprises starting with his memories of life as a child living on a sugar cane farm in Queensland. From these foundations, he has developed a lifelong interest and very considerable involvement in capacity building through enterprise. He has been an adjunct with CIDSEL for the past 8 years. For nearly four decades prior to that, Bill followed a career in banking, with a particular focus on corporate commercial small businesses often in an international institutional context. 

The Right Thing to Do

There is much talk these days about the ethical challenges that generative artificial intelligence technologies pose. While most of us might be hazy about what these are, they themselves are in little doubt. A question to ChatGPT on these lines will result in a list of areas of concern that include job displacement, intellectual property, transparency, bias, and fairness. Upon reflection, there is nothing terribly unexpected here. Any one of us would recognise these matters as raising issues to do with what we consider to be morally right or wrong, or good or bad, or just or unjust. In fact, we pride ourselves in our uniqueness as a species, in this way. We believe that we are alone in our capacities to anticipate the future consequences of our actions, as well as being able to make ethical judgements about these potential outcomes. 
But included in the list of ethical concerns recognised by ChatGPT about itself, as it were, is an indication of a technological self-awareness with the comment that the development and use of generative AI technologies “raises questions about the moral status and consciousness of AI systems themselves”.  Suddenly we are faced with the possibility that we have created machines that might be able to exhibit consciousness, have a conscience, and have capacities for making their own moral judgements. If this is a possibility, should we just let them do that, or should we ensure that such development is nipped in the bud? 
In this episode, our host Richard Bawden discusses this and other questions about ethics and morality related to AI with his guest, Declan Humphreys.  Declan is the newly appointed Lecturer in Cybersecurity at the University of the Sunshine Coast, where he is developing research into the ethical design and use of AI. He received his PhD in philosophy from the University of New England, with a focus on the ethical impacts of new and emerging technologies. 

No Mean Achievement

It has recently been announced that the University of the Sunshine Coast has been assessed by the Times Higher Education (THE) Impact Rankings, as being within the top 2% of more than 1500 universities across the globe for its performance with respect to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It was ranked first in Queensland and sixth among all Australian institutions. Carefully calibrated indicators are used in assessment process to provide comprehensive and balanced comparison across four domains of university functions: research, stewardship, outreach, and teaching. Of the seventeen goals of sustainable development identified by the UN and published as Agenda 2030, the quality of education, climate action, zero hunger, responsible consumption and production, and life on land are among those that are specifically evaluated. 
Richard’s guest in this episode, Carmine Buss, is helping to lead sustainability initiatives at the University of the Sunshine Coast. Carmine is a psychology PhD student and humanitarian affairs green ambassador.  She comes to her doctoral research into environmental psychology following a truly outstanding undergraduate career, which was capped in 2021 by her receiving the Chancellor’s Medal, The Student Leadership Award, and the University Medal for Academic Excellence.

Does this Change Everything?

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence and easily accessible large language models like ChatGPT, have the capability of challenging our self-perceptions and what we mean by intelligence, sentience, and consciousness. These new technologies have triggered major concerns that AI has or will soon have the capacity to genuinely “change everything”. And as many see it, this is extremely concerning - nothing less than an existential threat to all of humanity. 
Richard’s guest today, Dr Erica Mealy, is among those who are very well qualified to help us understand what is at stake here. Erica is an award winning academic at the university of the Sunshine Coast where she is a lecturer in Computer Science with a special interest in, and concern for the vital interface between AI technology and ethics. She has been writing code for more than 20 years and has become, in her own words, a ‘Technology and Design Evangelist’.
 

The Alliance for Suicide Prevention

The concept of universities engaging with communities and organisations beyond their walls, is a recurring theme throughout this podcast series. Indeed, it was the submission by the distinguished American scholar, Ernest Boyer a quarter of a century ago, that universities should become much more vigorous partners in the search for answers to the most pressing social problems of the day, that was one of the central motivations for us launching this endeavour in the first place.  To date in the series, our primary focus has been on the nature and significance of some of these most critical social, economic, and ecological issues that include climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic. To date we have placed less emphasis on the actual practicalities of the engagement process.
How do individual and groups of academics actively engage with members of the public in mutually beneficial ways? How do universities as formal institutions go about developing partnerships with the communities of their region as well as with other public organisations in both the public and private sectors?
In this episode we turn our attention to exploring an actual example of how this university, of the Sunshine Coast, is engaging with a wide range of community groups, commercial businesses, and other organisations and institutions. In this instance, the initiative is a specific and vital quest to contribute to the reduction in the number of suicide attempts and completions up here on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland.
Richard’s guest today is Mervat Quirke who is the Manager of Strategic Partnerships/Community Engagement and Development at the Thompson Institute at the University of the Sunshine Coast which is a world-class hub for research, teaching, and clinical services for Australia’s most pressing mental health issues. 

A Perspective on the Voice

At some date between August and December of this year, we Australians are going to be asked to vote in a referendum on whether we do or do not approve of altering the nation’s Constitution “to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice”.  The issue is particularly complicated by the long history in this country of fractured relationships between the indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. It is a sobering realisation that it is only 50 years or so since a referendum was passed to recognise Aboriginal people as citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia. An extraordinary state of affairs given that the Aboriginal peoples had been living on this land for around 65 millennia whilst those issuing the edict had not even been here for one quarter of one millennium.  The situation leading to the current referendum proposal, demands reasoned discussions and debates, and clarification of points of difference. Tragically, the arguments between the supporters and the non-supporters of the current proposition, are becoming increasingly fierce. Circumstances demand the need for the clarification of misunderstandings of intentions along with the exposure of deliberate attempts to spread misinformation, disinformation, alternative facts, and fake news!Richard’s guest in this episode is Tony Gleeson who is attempting to respond to these challenges. Tony certainly fits the category of a “thoughtful and committed citizen” as the farmer that he has long been. He has also had an illustrious career as a scientist with the NSW Department of Agriculture, CSIRO, and the NSW Oversees Trade Authority. He was a senior policy advisor and Chief of Staff for the Australian Minister for Primary Industries and Energy in the Hawke government. 

Social Entrepreneurship

While the international development and leadership aspects of the title of our Centre here at the University of the Sunshine Coast are generally well-understood, the meaning of ‘the phrase in the middle’ – social entrepreneurship – is less familiar to many. The word entrepreneurship itself tends to confuse the issue. Images of market-driven, profit seeking commercial enterprises in pursuit of private gain and economic growth readily spring to mind. However, the goals and purposes of social entrepreneurship are almost the opposite of these. Here the focus is on the creation of social value for the public good. Social entrepreneurs hold social concerns, often combined with environmental responsibilities, as central to their business strategies, or at least empathic sidelines.  Following the principles of a circular economy, which reflect the basic ecological processes of nature, they seek to reuse, recycle, and reduce waste to a minimum and to use some private gain to support a public good.
Richard’s guest in this episode is a wonderful example of one such. Robert Sinnerton works is what he refers to as the ‘business relocations business’, which conventionally often involves the landfill dumping of ‘redundant’ office furniture.  Reacting against such waste and recognising that such furniture was still a very valuable resource that could be reused by those in need, he saw the opportunity to provide a public good through donating the furniture to schools and other educational institutions rather than dumping it. This is his inspiring tale as he relates it in conversation with Richard.

Infrastructure at the Roof of the World

The merest mention of Nepal evokes immediate images of the majestic grandeur of the Himalayan mountains, of precipitous gorges and mountain passes, and of course, of Mount Everest herself, the highest mountain on the planet, standing some 8.8 thousand metres above sea level. Yet tragically, this country is no paradise on Earth. Literally sandwiched between the two most highly populated and rapidly developing mega-nations, of India to the south and China to the north and east, Nepal, with some 30 million people, is one of the least economically developed nations on the planet.  It is estimated that one in four Nepalis live below the poverty line while the nation’s economic growth continues to be adversely affected by political uncertainty, multi-factorial social conflict and, most significantly, by a host of natural disasters. It certainly experiences much more than its fair share of such natural disasters as earthquakes, floods, fire, drought, and landslides leading to its status as one of the most disaster-prone nations on earth. 
One can only begin to imagine the scope of the challenges that these circumstances present to those in Nepal who assume responsibilities for the design, development, investment in, and maintenance of infrastructures that facilitate crucial economic development such as roads, power, information technologies, water and sanitation.
Where does one even start?
This was the question with which our host Richard Bawden, opened his conversation in this episode with someone who is intimately involved with precisely these matters in Nepal and who was a recent participant in a CIDSEL international short course on infrastructure development. Saumitra Neupane is a political economist specialising in policies, institutions, and markets of water and energy resources. For the past decade, he has been engaged in several research and reform initiatives in Nepal’s water, energy, agriculture, and infrastructure sectors. At present, he serves as the Executive Director at Policy Entrepreneurs Inc. and is leading PEI’s strategic initiative on infrastructure diplomacy.

The Sacrificial Valley

All too often it seems, the pressing issues of the day that demand the attention of us all, are just too vast, too remote, too mind-bogglingly complex, that that attention is left wanting.  We leave it to ‘them’ – to governments, corporations, our formal institutions, and so on - to fix the changing climate, the threats to world peace, the instabilities of financial systems, the loss of biodiversity and the quality of the environment. We feel overwhelmed not just by the immensity of the challenges but also by the sheer volume of the noise of information, knowledge, attitudes, opinions, mindsets and biases that fills the air of the ecosystems of the media upon which we increasingly rely for the basis of our decisions about how we should be better living our lives. 
But then, on the rarest of occasions, come individuals and community groups that challenge that status quo: Inspired and inspiring people who shift the focus from the global to the local in taking informed actions that illustrate what can and should be done to right systemic wrongs.
Richard’s guest in this episode provides just such an inspiration. For many years, Dr John Drinan, scientist, writer, environmentalist, farmer, and genuinely concerned citizen, has, with others, been actively highlighting the many environmental, social and economic impacts of coal mining on the Hunter Valley region of New South Wales. John is the author of a recently published outstanding book, The Sacrificial Valley, in which he eloquently and passionately describes the complexities of the changes that the open mining of coal has brought to his ‘homeland’ and the role that corporations and governments have played in contributing to the circumstances where: “Once-grand landscapes are gone, replaced by featureless ridges and mountainous piles of spoil, interrupted by man-made drainage lines and huge empty hole in the ground. Streams above and below ground are broken and contaminated. The air is filthy”.

Some Further Sole Reflections

In this episode, as a solo presentation, the host of our podcasts, Emeritus Professor Richard Bawden, reflects on the Mission of the mini-series and discusses some of the key challenges that have been highlighted over the past two years and 40 plus episodes of the initiative. The basic purpose of the endeavour, he argues, has been to contribute to critical public discussions about how the most pressing and complex issues of our times might be more responsibly, effectively and collectively addressed from the perspective of the continuing quest for the development of states of sustainable and inclusive well-being in an ever-changing, volatile, uncertain and complex world. 
A key issue that arises in this context relates to where we can seek the trustworthy evidence that we need to support what we need to know.  How do we inform ourselves at a time in human history when in addition to the extraordinary amount of information available to us through so many different channels of media, we are also prey to so much confusing jargon, to disinformation, misinformation, fake news and alternative facts, to denialism, and plain lies and deceit?   
Richard is an adjunct professor at the University of the Sunshine Coast with a long and varied history of life as an academic, mostly elsewhere, starting ‘way-back-when’ as an agricultural scientist in England. Subsequently he has followed an often tortuous and turbulent path, literally across five continents, pursuing questions about how we come to know what we know, and why that is important to the way that we live our lives – or better put, how we ought to live our lives as responsible citizens of what is clearly emerging to be an all-too-vulnerable planet.