Session 2: Technology, Society and Global Dominance AND Technology and Human Development

This week's lesson was the start of a new chapter in TWC classes i.e. the beginning of the individual oral presentations under the main topics for that week. I chose to do my presentation on the 2nd topic for the week, Technology and Human Development.

In the first half of the session, it was all about how technology can be galvanised to make revolutionary changes in society. E.g. the industrial revolution drastically changed how goods were being produced in the West, which resulted society moving forward at a much faster pace than before. I thought the second presentation on Henry Ford's assembly line pretty much showed that. The first presentation dealt with many military and political matters which did not interest me that much. But both presenters did quite well for their first presentations in SMU :) Good Job to them! :) Another interesting point made was on Prof's view of rising star/dominant player/falling star societies and it links to their receptiveness to new ideas and perspectives. I found that really interesting.

The second half of class was about Technology and Human Development. Looking at the Millenium Development Goals really seemed to affect a few members of the class. Cherrin's presentation also impressed many people with her slides and her style. Doing my individual presentation on this topic, I chose to present on an article I read in the New York Times, "What Broke My Father's Heart" to show how advancements in technology (in this case Medical Technology) does not necessarily lead to positive human development if those who implement it do not "do their homework" to harness it for their benefit. I thought my presentation was ok, but could have been better without the time constraints.

For this session, I thought that interesting ideas were put forth by most of the speakers, but we did not have time to delve into them due to time constraints. As there will be many presentations every week, it would be good if speakers could condense what they wanted to say into the 5 minutes so that we would have time to do the discussion.

Overall, I would rate my presentation a 7 (same as most of the class) and the overall class a 7 as well.