Posted by
Anne Altman in
Perhaps the most exciting aspect of innovation is its potential to enable positive societal change. Citizens around the world will reap the benefits of this change as the cost of computing power decreases while the performance we get from these systems increases. Couple this with the fact that we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data everyday, and governments have an optimal opportunity to develop “data for the public good.”
The path forward for using data to improve citizens’ lives and the public good requires new ways of managing and accessing that data. Governments need to start thinking about their data as a natural resource that can have a profound impact on how they address societal challenges such as energy conservation, health care, and transportation. The most open and cost-effective way of doing this is by managing data with cloud computing systems.
Posted by
Adamo Ruggiero in
About a month ago, a friend of mine asked me if I knew what an Internet Troll was. I thought he was referring to the adorable little dolls with spiky neon pink and green hair I used to collect as a kid. He told me that an Internet Troll is someone who anonymously attacks and harasses people or groups of people online for pleasure. When did Trolls get such a bad rep? My Trolls always had such nice things to say to me, even after I gave them the world’s most ridiculous hairdos. These Internet Trolls must be stopped!
So when IBM Canada’s Teaching Respect and Preventing Bullying Program asked me to write a blog for Bullying Awareness Week, I decided to take our discussion into the virtual realm and focus on cyber-bullying. With that in mind, I am re-christening Bullying Awareness Week as Trolling Awareness Week.
Fact: We young people have become the great rulers of the online world. In short, we are fluent in Internet. With Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, LiveJournals, and the list goes on, we spend less time on the actual playground, and more time on the virtual playground. And with no teachers or parents telling us what to do, the virtual playground is a land where anything goes. No rules. No curfews. No punishment. In this lawless society, no one is safe. Not even celebrity pop singer Cody Simpson!
Cyber-bullying is something that I experience online everyday. People feel so much more comfortable bullying behind a screen than in person. It gives them a mystique and makes them say things that they would never be strong enough to say in person. But it still hurts the same way. – Cody Simpson, Free the Children’s “We Day” – Vancouver, October 2012.
Posted by
Lisa Lanspery in
Today is Safer Internet Day, and IBM is rallying around the globe to help inform students and teachers about how to safely manage their presence online. As an IBM employee, I frequently get requests from friends asking me how to put controls on their computers for their kids. Although I am not personally an expert on security, I wanted to share the tools that IBM has released in conjunction with Safer Internet Day. These tools for Internet safety and controlling one’s identity online can help anyone understand what it means to be digitally responsible.
I am a parent of two children, and their easy access to the Internet scares me. To pass the time in long lines at the supermarket, I will hand my daughter my iPhone so she can play on it or surf the Internet. My two-year-old already knows how to use her pointer finger to “turn pages” online to read an ebook. While I want my children to be digitally savvy, I also know that it is essential for them to learn to be digitally responsible. Teaching digital responsibility to my young children is a key part of my responsibility as a parent.
By the time kids reach middle school, they’re likely to know as much or more about the Internet as their parents. Children use the Internet for schoolwork, to play games, to send email and instant messages, for downloading music, for shopping, and for entering contests. Although they know their way around the web, they may lack the judgment and emotional maturity to steer clear of trouble.
It is everyone’s role to understand the ramifications of their actions online. Parents should make use of IBM’s guides on Cyberbullying, Internet Safety Coaching, and Controlling Your Online Identity as a starting point to learn more about protecting their children (and themselves) online.
Please check out this post from IBM’s Security Counsel and Chief Privacy Officer discussing how your “individual actions can make the difference to protect your reputation, your physical safety, your financial information, and the integrity and safety of the digital devices and networks that you may use and that our society relies upon.”
Lisa Lanspery is Manager of Corporate Communications at IBM, and the mother of two young children.
